Sparking a change- from misery to fortune

There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

- Shakespeare (Julius Caesar)

These poignant lines summarize the dilemma we, as Indians find ourselves in at the turn of the 21st Century. We have found solace in the achievements of the past, in Aryabhata's invention of the zero, in the fact that most words of English come from Sanskrit words, that we have the highest number of newspaper subscriptions in the world and so on.

But do we even, beyond merely reading the headlines of these newspapers, uttering a sigh and a 'What's happening in the world today', actually care? Do we strive to be better as a nation, beyond resting on our past laurels and the thought that India can become a super power.

How, I pray to know, are we to become a superpower when we laud the looters and the gangsters, placing them on pedestals and handing them the reins of Governance. We are still stuck on our tagline of "Garibi Hatao', and yet at the ground level launch policies which only perpetuate poverty and hunger. Reservations in name of 'mobilizing the deprived sections of society', has only become a means of amassing votes in elections.

Can such a nation ever hope to live up to its potential. We as a nation have been blessed with plenty; bountiful resources- both natural and human which have only been exploited for the benefit of a few. The streets of Delhi presents to us this disparity- Dozens of Audis, BMWs and Range Rovers zoom past beggars and slums, reeking of hunger and poverty.

There's not a more desperate time as now to spark a change- in attitude and practice, to try and live up to this Super power tag.
Look East, folks. See the shining buildings, the opulence, the welfare. These have come about because of a change. Till the 1960s, these countries were like us- plagued with a million problems. Look how fortunes have turned, because they took on the flood, they strived and worked for change.

And look within, see how the longer we ignore our issues, we will sink in our miseries and want.
The tag of a Super Power will remain a What could have been, rather a What can be.

Change, it is time to realize, is the only way we can stay afloat, or we will lose all of our ventures.