I Want To Be A Proud Indian: Do You?

By Anu Manhotra:

Yes, indeed this is the question “Will I ever get a chance to be a proud Indian?” which I’ve been asking myself, after a 20 days trip to US. I had been to US for my business visit and I really appreciate Americans for their friendliness, which they consider, as politeness. It’s indeed something I feel we all must really improve on, why don’t we consider friendliness as politeness.

I distinctly remember everybody in America, who took me for outings or business trip, proudly showed the beautiful and rather clean surroundings, where I kept wondering, will I ever be able to do the same when they visit us back home? Will I really have my India as clean as their nation?

I guess small little things can be changed if we all really want to change them. But I don’t know why some things are not changing at all.

If we travel in the buses or trams in America, people give us the way to get down and even if they are getting down and they are ahead of us, they politely ask you to go ahead and get down first and here in India, I still see people getting so restless to get down first. Why do we fail to understand that anyways, we all have to get down so why do people push each other with more than the force available in their masterpiece? And I am sure nobody will be awarded for getting down first so we should stop this restlessness.

I am also unsuccessful to understand why buses are overloaded with people hanging out of it, which also involves risk of death! This should not be allowed at all. We should have a penalty for those who overload such expensive resources on their vehicles and take them from one place to the other like a non living object; are we not humans? And why just the people who carry them, even the people who board these buses should be fined if they are found hanging out of doors and windows, just to reach on time; or maybe it is the way Indians woo the other sex, is it the way to show their strength and smartness, that “hey I can hang on just the tip of my toes”?

Just Imagine how embarrassed, we all feel, when you have a foreign nation citizen visiting India and they are shocked to see people using corner of lanes or sometime not even corner, but the lanes and the roads as their personal washrooms or toilets! I really feel very embarrassed; this should be stopped immediately. Why do we behave in an uncivilized manner? Why do we have no shame? And why is it people are still not fined for spitting wherever they feel like?

I guess too much of liberty is granted to us. Let’s stop doing all this. We talk about globalization and use many big terms to show how much we know, but still, I truly feel, we Indians cannot show our city, town or nation to a visitor, without feeling embarrassed. We really need to change in order to be a proud Indian.