24th October 2009 - The Scindia School

Qila Quotes | Literary | 15George Bernard Shawfamously said, “The onlyman I know who behavessensibly is my tailor; he takesmy measurements anew,each time he sees me. Therest go on with their oldmeasurements and expectme to fit them.”That set me thinking thatour world too has undergoneimmense change but havewe changed with it? After acareful thought I feel thatyes, we have.There was a time in Americawhen the blacks were forcedto give up their seats forthe whites signifying thesupremacy of whites overblacks, but today we seethe winds of change haveswept over America: thefirst ever black Americanpresident Barrack Obama inhis inaugural speech spokethe words ‘The world haschanged’.The worldhas changed,have we?Let us move the wheel of time backwards and reach the age when a super conservative society prevailedin India. A society consumed by feudal restrictions, caste hierarchy, religious atrocities and other evils.A society struggling against the Britishers searching for a new meaning of freedom in an era wheredemocracy was the much sought after future desire. Now come back to the present and think of themassive strides we have taken in the various fields. We can rejoice in the fact that all that we have achievedin the past 60 years can be considered equivalent to what many countries have not achieved in more than200 years of independence.A few months ago Barrack Obama said “Buckle up Americans, the Indians and the Chinese are coming”,directly referring to the future scenario and the threat posed to American supremacy by a nation all setto be a super power by 2020. We have transformed ourselves into a liberal society making a way forward.Today India has the highest contribution to the world IT sector, its economy is growing; we have grownfrom a rigid caste system to a fluid one and have successfully eradicated social evils such as ‘sati’ anduntouchability. Women too enjoy a position of equality and are not discriminated against. From an imageof the land of yoga, tiger, snake charmers and Maharajas, India has acquired the enviable image of a place‘where things are happening’In short we have changedHowever there are still some areas where we have not changed and are still the same Indians caught ina superstitious belief system. We still have the same tardy implementation of policies. Have a look at theIndian villages; it seems that one has travelled 100 years in the past. Dharavi still exists. Some peoplewith a set of concrete values and thought processes are still stuck in the 19th century India and arecontinuously rejecting individualism, scientific temperament, rationality and progressive ideas. Ask thesepeople the very same question. Their answer will be that we have not changed though the reality is thatwe cannot change because of obdurate people like them.However not everything about the past had to be done away with. Ellen Glasgow said “All change is notgrowth, as all movement is not forward.” Realising this we have steadfastly held on to the traditional andcultural values of our glorious past. We have held onto the spiritual side of life. These are areas where wehave not changed and I prefer it to remain so. We need to understand that change is inevitable and onewho rejects it is the architect of decay but at the same time we need to give a careful thought as to whatare the things we want to remain unaffected by change.If we look at the broader picture we realise that time has gone by, new definitions of different beliefsystems have come up, the world has changed and along with it we too have changed. Change has beeninevitable. Our road has been really rocky but we have striven to success.To conclude I would like to quote from Gurcharan Das’, India Unbound, Article-20, Modern vs. Western:“From dhoti to boxer, from sari’s to mini and micro mini’s, from beedi’s to cigarettes, we have changed”Anirudh SoodXI A