By Anirudh Rao:
Indians have always been proud people; especially of their religion, culture and traditions. I agree with that –India is the economic and spiritual centre of the globe, in the past, present and it will remain so in the future. But, Indians have always been proud and corrupt. The negatives of our country have always been overlooked by us. We are too proud to accept a shame. Only acceptance can initiate change. In this article, I am focusing on some of those negatives.
Indians are known to be the most superstitious people in the world. In life when you prepare to face some challenge you think about a similar situation in the past out of which you have come home victoriously, and more often than not about the irrelevant things (like the T-shirt you wore on that lucky day) on your way to success. It is but natural to come to that conclusion that the T-shirt is lucky if your success gets repeated while wearing it again. However, accepting a TV show’s announcement of your lucky number of the day is extremely foolish. In which other country does every News channels do an hour’s program each day pertaining to astrology and superstitions?
Activities like seeing horoscope everyday is a ritual by those who are in the throes of joblessness. A day will only get worse for you when you have already believed it to be a bad day as said in your daily horoscope! We should face life bravely and live it as it comes. If something is destined to happen, it will!
Millions of people in India donate thousands or lakhs of Rupees to temples like Sri Venkateswara temple, Tirupati, in hope that their prayers will be heard by the almighty. They come home satisfied with a ladoo, banana or a half broken coconut. When things don’t go their way, they do blame the God; some even curse them for not granting their requests! Idol worship is for kids. Scriptures say God acts through humans and human minds. In DDLJ, Kajol convinces SRK that prayers do come true when the intentions and the heart of the person praying are pure. Her statement is completely true and is relevant to our issue. How many of you pray with pure intentions? Prayer as we know is just a synonym for selfishness. Life is not that tough when you just do your duty in each situation. And your duty should have been thinking about the various other ways in which you could have used the thousands you donated in the temple, right?
God is divine. Hence, the world he created can only be divine! Don’t you agree that it’s just a perception which differs for each individual? If you think that it’s a bad world, then sadly for sure it will be a bad world for you. We have to stop blaming the God and take control of our ideas to bring about a change in our attitude. For India to become a great country, its people need to live with a clear mindset. It is possible only when false ideas and rituals are avoided.