Awareness

A mark of a good civilisation is awareness. Macro awareness is a sense of place, geography and time. In constructing monuments to stand the test of time, in records of books and art and other such remnants of pride.

At the individual level, civilisation has 'civilised' people. And that brings me back to India and Indians.

I wonder constantly at the constant chest puffing breast beating pride - chain emails that point to videos showing India's future in 2020 (Click the link at your own risk and get bored to death http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4734602537631882606&hl=en#), or listing the great things Indians have brought to the world (Aryabhatta invented zero et al), or the great Indians (25% of NASA engineers, 10% of Microsoft employees), the endless news channels running repeats of the smallest achievement (Nobel Prize winner Venkataramanan Ramakrishnan feeling hounded and lashing out).

A nation that needs to beat its own drum. A people that need to reaffirm our greatness by stating it loudly.

Look around at us. We lack awareness. The necessity to be called civilised. And we must not criticise the uneducated or the rustic. This is across the educational, social, economic spectrum. We lack social awareness - how we must behave in the company of others. We lack contextual awareness - how we must act differently even in the same company in a different context. We lack physical awareness - the necessity to respect space, even in the crowded country that live in.

Add to this the disinterest, resentment even, to be told, to be educated by others who are aware. Arrogance and a disinclination to learn.

I despair. Tagore would (should) roll in his grave and rewrite Gitanjali.