Twenty years back I had no idea what a country means . Fifteen years back though I knew I lived in India , I had no clue of how many countries exists and why do we need all of them . Ten years back I had never dreamt I would be stepping out of my country ever . It was a big achievement when we went to Vaishnavdevi - Jammu was the farthest point I thought I would go in my life . As my engineering friends prepared for GRE and eyed to get into the US , it became an achievable task to me - an exciting world of different people and places . When I joined the workforce and saw everyone demanding an on-site experience and heard about the life in US - I was dying to get the visa stamped and take my first international flight . Even then I had no knowledge of the country I was born in other than the simple things like Independence , Mughal era , Shivaji etc .Gradually as I observe life here , I often compare it to the values and culture back home . And the more I know , the more impressed I am with the rich heritage of the land I come from .
As I read about the Iraq war or the Afghan war - be it a need for supremacy or the fight for oil , as far as I know , India has never invaded any country . It has always defended itself during the wars with Pakistan and China but never gone all out to bomb and raid other countries . I would commend India's act of offering shelter to Dalai Lama and the poor Tibetans who were thrown out of their own homes . And this attitude of being peaceful and self satisfied comes from the teachings of our past - powerful thinkers and spiritual gurus who have shaped the land and the way our minds work . I feel proud to do yoga in a class full of Americans - people from this so called developed nation are learning a practice which originated in India thousands of years ago .The caste system is definitely a black sheep of the past but am sure , the basic intent was efficient division of work - the way society developed it was wrong .
Proud as I feel about India's past , the present is in a state of dismay . The past seems to be buried in historical sites that are in a bad shape - with no maintenance performed and left to decay with time . Corruption runs high , people blindly follow their religion and its rituals , the race to grab the scarce resources never ends .
Till now I was only familiar with the India of today not knowing what a wealth to the world the India of yesterday was . It is only now that out of curiosity and an urge to understand our own birth place - we get documentaries and books to uncover more of the hidden mysteries .
For both the good and bad , with globalization rapidly re-programming our lives - we seem to be losing touch of our Indianness . We stand at cross roads in life - where we need to decide what to take ahead with us and what to leave behind .
