INDIAN DREAMS BREAKING

There used to be a time when the epic war movies of Hollywood used to seduce the hungry mind of the 6 year old boy that I used to be, asking my pride for sacrifice & martyrdom with stories of bravado. At night, as the South Calcutta neighbourhood slept in peace to wake up to yet another new day of coward compromise(or so it seemed) with the demands of middle-class reality, nocturnal wars raged on in my dreams..I used to be the hero of my own set of battles in my own war, fighting enemy soldiers in bleak trenches, walking with the same gutsy pride with which Alec Guinesse walked bravely, as he inspected the railroad being laid down on that historic bridge over Kwai, or with the steely courage that made Gregory Peck & Anthony Quinn bring down the demonishly massive gun crashing into the rough sea coasting Navarone.

My heart pumped in frenzied speed as I defended bridges with my co-paratrooper in war-torn French towns in the Atlantic coast till  fighter-planes appeared like flying angels on the eastern horizon at the break of dawn to bombard the faceless devils carrying ominous-looking flags flashing the cruel emblem of the Swastika, and kept Richard Attenborough and James Coburn imprisoned in the Nazi camps with audacious cruelty.
I did not understand the history and geogaphy of real war then..All I wanted to be was a brave soldier who would fight for the sake of glory, to defend the sacred tricolour which I had learnt to rever as a member of the brave assembly (assembled for no apparent reason) that constituted of like-minded friends in school and in the neighborhood.. We wanted to be in the uniforms in which our heroes saluted past the tricolour in thumping steps of perfect precision on a very special day in August,..We fantasised about driving those tanks that marched past a saluting president and flying those aeroplanes that glimmed in the silver haze of the morning sun of a chilly January winter day.

Those dreams did not die with us growing up.Years later I shivered with same passion when Charlie Sheen & William Dafoe fought in the tropical monsoon forests in Vietnam.  cried even as a precocious teenager when I saw Tom Hanks and Tom Sizemore going down, Saving Private Ryan who lived to tell the story of Captain John Miller who fought so that Matt Damon could go home.

But those dreams haved ceased to be. One has been continuously bombarded with drastic media exposes of Scams of all colours, shapes & sizes over the last years. Amongst other things,the phenomenon,of an unprecedented low depth continues to leave a very bad taste,of a novel obnoxity,in the mouth.The common Indian wonders with a hesitant insecurity about the "meaning" of, and the qualitative dimensions of the yardsticks of Propriety that guides the contemporary Indian society is proceeding to evolve.

It all started with the Commomwealth Games-an misadventure worth Rs.74,000 crores of which approximately 45% has been allegedly looted by the bigwigs of the Organising Committee.Though two big bureaucratic heads have rolled recently,the actual kingpin remains untouched to this very moment,and continues to represent India's hopes for a successful bid for the summer Olympics in eight years' time,bringing the country to Shame & forcing us Indians to kneel down,our heads hanging in helpless embarrassment.

The 2G scam followed : Rs.1,700 lac crores..

The next big shocker hit us even more strongly in the form of the "Kargil for Profit" scam as the media labelled it to refer to.The shock was a strong one as it involves the Indian Armed Forces, one of the very few institutions that has managed to keep itself untouched & unaffected since Independance, by Corruption-a chronic malady that has eaten its way into the collective consciousness of the country to its bare bones,and that has continued to grow in parallel proportions with the nation's growing mature over the last 63years.(Though none of us, from all generations, past or present can and should want to absolve our own self from the sin of letting the process develop to the extent of no-return, thus going into a vicious cycle, by repeatedly taking part in self-confessed farcical acts of mockery called "Elections"-there were corrupt people in the high offices of governance because they were elected by us in the first place,and repeatedly so.)

And now newly exposed villains have conspired to make Rape stand out as an ugly head of the Indian psyche. Much has been written, talked about, debated over the gruesome crime..And from this point my mind gets bitter and turn my words bitter fragments around an Ugly Truth. Generalized mindsets around Woman keep coming in ceaselessly, more so after the recent Delhi-Nirbhaya case. 
The President's son, Madhya Pradesh minister, Sharad Yadav, Education minister of Pondicherry - they are elected politicians, they are the legislators/lawmakers of India - their oracles have been heard. Skirts, overcoats, painted & dented women protestors, Laxman-Rekhas : this is the holiest of grail they can offer us.
And "godman" Asaram suggests a woman should "beg" and use diplomacy, chant some holier-than-shit-Saraswati-Mantras to be empowered with 'Suraksha Kavach's. He claims a fan following of 5 crore Indians.

WHERE ARE WE HEADING FOR? Do we even want to know?

Today I have grown up into a man who lives each day securing a selfish happiness through Compromise that seems to have become a part of my set of "virtues", the same coward compromise I silently loathed as a child once upon a time. I have successfully learnt to accommodate Corruption within my conscience. I don't seem to react to these media exposes anymore.

It is because I haved ceased to dream. I have ceased to provide room for the dreamy child I once used to be.I have learnt to barter and buy fragile peace & security for my family.People around me are happy with things as they are.

After all dreams lead one to nowhere.

I have learnt to say,"ALL  IS  WELL "..