Clarification

I know people only hear me say how frustrated I get seeing everything in India, how much things bother me.

I have to mention here for everyones sake, that I am not an 'India hater'. I am actually truly in love with my India. I love how unique it is, I love that until I was in 9th grade I was oblivious to what division of race, caste, religion is, and how only going to the US early in my life made me more aware of my skin color (tanned white, not brown that is).  Over the years though, I have realized that my India was a very guarded, middle-upper middle class India. My friends weren't Shudra or Bihari or Mallu to me. We used to call them these things, but never really knowing the significance of our labels. My father had a Manipuri, oriental looking, muslim brother. That was not weird. But, thats just my India.

The real India is what you experience when you go out there trying to be a mode of change. I have been to Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharastra in the recent few years on works for our NGO. I have seen how our system works and how terribly impractical it is to think that we will ever be anywhere near to any developed economy today. We might make enough money, we might continue a stable economic growth of 10 percent per annum, but we never will be selfless like we ought to be. Forget selfless, most of us will never look beyond our personal needs and wants. You could argue scarecity makes people be selfish, but that not true at all. At a point when the TV was not as significant and there were no item numbers or six packs abs in Bollywood, people stepped up and took responsibility of their community. They wanted to clean their towns, districts, their villages and gram panchayat. They were real leaders, people like Anaa Hazare. Unfortunately, there are a few Hazare's today.

In the last 5-6 years people in smaller areas, possibly with more exposures through TV and cell phones have given up on their communities, their notion of Mera India. They're more pessimistic and want to be only a part of their country and its governance if they see their part in tainted money generated for the corrupt. For most people, the question is only limited to  "Whats in it for me or Mujhe Kyaa Milega".

I am all for being proud of where you come from, I am proud of being my parents son, my teachers student, being an alumni of my Schools and Universities. I am though, not at all proud being from India, not of all of it, its corrupt systems and chalta hai attitude. I not naive to the extent to expect things to be perfect or near. I just don't anymore think things in our country will ever move for the better. I don't think we will ever start caring for each other again enough to not just call and treat everyone our family but mean it too.

I miss the India I left, I feel like an alien in this new place.