India: Our time will come

When we were in school, Geography classes were fun. Except for the monsoon part (I am still confused about the South West Monsoon and North East Monsoon), I loved the subject. The best part was the Map drawing part, where you had to mark the various rivers, cities with iron deposits, mountain ranges etc etc. India had everything that any country would want to have, except for good deposits of Petroleum. So when petrol is cheap in countries like Malaysia (where there are some deposits of oil and gas) and USA (who buy from Canada, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria etc etc), Indians pay a lot for it. It drives the prices of a lot of service goods and commodities in the process and ultimately, our country becomes a costlier place to live in, but with very low standard of living.

The exterme north of India had a different shape of Kashmir. As I left school, I realised that what we drew in geography class and what we see on TV or a globe or atlas was different. There was a particular part called POK, Siachen and people are fighting for their freedom in North east. Well India was a hell lot different place to live in than what you see on the map.

As we left school, I realised that there were lot of problems with the country. Their was rampant poverty, burden of unemployment, exploding population, increasing rift between the haves and the have-nots and many such unheard of phenomenons. The map disappeared from memory. IT was a boon for India. If it was not IT, I wonder which industry would have got so many jobs for Engineers, Science Graduates and now all graduates. It came as a blessing for this country. Suddenly, when technology evened things out, India was a global player. More than that, Indians were being seen as a class apart when it came to putting mind to work.

Slowly India exploded and then the issues that faced the nation were crowded public transport, inadequate infrastructure and tarffic jams. Well these were what affected me. I am sure the poverty, unemployment and illiteracy remained in a corner somewhere. Today we are looking at competing against the Chinese economy and it is one hell of a game. It is a 100m race where the Chinese are starting 20 m ahead of us. India has to get the infrastructure in place before even starting the race. Just to give an example, Beijing airport is being revamped for the Olympics in 2008 and that airport alone would be able to cater to the entire air-traffic of all the airports in India today!!!

Our country has been given a lot of prominence by the recent visits of the French president, the American President and the future visit of the Australian PM etc. So the world has started to take notice. Should we bend over backwards in welcoming them to our country? I am sure Manmohan Singh realises that he is miles ahead of Bush when it comes to intellectual capacity and so will our country when compared to the US, sometime soon. In Mallu there is a proverb, "Kaaryam kanaan chelepol kazhuthe kaal pidikenam", which means, sometimes to get your way through, you have to touch the feet of even donkeys. Thats all.

All I can say is our time will come.

Saw the movie Munich. A good watch. Well made movie. I somehow love the way the Israelis do things. Also liked this particular dialogue by Manmohan Singh "Terrorism anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere".