Sunday, February 26, 2006

Bharat Uday - A Mission Possible ?

As mentioned in my profile, I am like any average Indian, I have an opinion on anything and everything, I crib all the time (As evident from my previous Posts J) about the state of affairs of our great nation, about the system, about our politicians, about rampant corruption, about the state of Bangalore Infrastructure J ….. I want all this to change, I want my Country to be the greatest. And I’m sure it’s not only me there are millions of us who think the same ….. but also like any average Indian when posed with questions like “why don’t you do something abut it” , the standard answer is what can I do ? I am just an ordinary citizen of this country, how can I go about bringing change on my own. To an extent I guess this logic is justified.

Now being the person I am and a net savvy one at that, on Friday night (24th Feb) while aimlessly surfing the net, I came across an orkut community, Bharatudaymission (http://www.orkut.com/Community.aspx?cmm=8349957 ) and somewhere there I found out that the Bangalore Chapter which is just kicking off is having a meeting on Saturday the 25th, Ok I thought lets check out what this Bharat Uday Mission is all about and visited its homepage as mentioned in there (http://bharatudaymission.org/ ) , I was kind of impressed with whatever little I could browse then, but still going for a meeting of an organization I have heard just now didn’t seem to click, also I had better plans ….. to freak out with friends on the weekend. Saturday morning the plans for the day got cancelled as a couple of guys were a bit preoccupied, so was free for the day … and just thought that maybe I can catch up with the meeting ….. I called up one of the contact nos checked out the details. And there I was at around quarter to 5, accompanied with the person I had talked to whom I picked up on the way, at the venue of the meeting … a simple residence of a s/w professional.

The first thing that struck me was the person who volunteered to host the meeting was part of Bharat Uday Mission for just a week and hadn’t met anyone till that time, that was just a prelude to the enthusiasm I was about to witness over the next 3 hrs, One by one people started dropping in and not a single person accompanied, no sense of the herd effect …. “chal tu chal raha hai toh mein bhi dekh leta hoo” and most of them not knowing anyone else till that time. By the time everyone one was in we were 8 gentlemen and 1 lady of which one of them had traveled 45 kms to attend the meet immediately after a class and had a class next morning 9 am. And you coudnt have expected a better representative gathering of just nine people, there were Engg students(2), a management student, s/w professionals(4), a lady doctor and a self employed free lance consultant. If we look into the regional diversity of the representative gathering we had representation from Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, UP, and Delhi …. The only thing common among such a diverse group that had brought all of us there was a mission, a vision for our great nation.

Here I would come back to a statement I made earlier “How can I go about bringing change on my own” …. And this was the answer to that question, we need to come together on a single platform merge our strengths, and work together for our common vision. And Bharat Uday Mission had provided a platform for us that day.

I wont say that we did some great path breaking stuff in that meet, Also none of us had much of an idea how to start and where to start, but still each one of us had fire in them to do something, we discussed a lot of things, and believe me by sitting together and brainstorming for about 3 hrs we did get to the stage where we had an action plan regarding what we should be doing in the next few days …. The level of enthusiasm can be judged from the fact that when we were talking about spreading the message, we decided that we will distribute a few pamphlets to people coming out from an RDB show …. maybe tomorrow … one of them instantaneously said why not today ??? and guess what three of us were at Forum (PVR multiplex in Bangalore) at 10 in the night the same day distributing those pamphlets …… I still can’t believe it that I was there ….

I don’t know how far this will go ….how long will the spark last … maybe disillusionment sets in ………I don’t know whether will be able to make any kind of impact ….. but at least there is the satisfaction that we are at least trying today …… at least next time someone says that why don’t you do something …. I can say I tried … and why not ??? why cant the mission be successful …. Yesterday we were 9 people …. Maybe tomorrow we will be a 100 and someday maybe the entire country will rise ….. that is the day hopefully we will be freed from most of our problems ….

Before signing off --------

“One individual may die for an Idea; but that idea will after his death, Incarnate itself in a thousand lives. That is how the wheel of evolution moves on and the ideas and dreams of one nation are bequeathed to the next”

Subhash Chandra Bose

“To revolt is a natural tendency of life. Even a worm turns the foot that crushes it. In general the vitality and relative dignity of an animal can be measured by the intensity of its instinct to revolt”

- Mikhail Bakunin

“Since you have come into this world, leave some mark behind...otherwise what is the difference between you and the trees and the stones?”

- Swami Vivekanand

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