The oblivion of the small and the beautiful

Hasn't it been a while since a Postman knocked at your door? Or you went down and met your tailor to get your clothing stitched? Or that you've seen that bright entrepreneurial glee in the eyes of a small scale industrialist?

What has happened to the roadside Provision stores, to the Vegetable vendor who used to be a character to be pranked with, or the push cart kulfi waalas ?

Have you ever wondered how their lives have changed in a mere span of a decade here in India?

These are little people and their aspirations that the Monopolistic system has trampled and tread upon to give us this supposedly glorious world of today. A world, which values nothing but vicious personal gain; A system which approves you of the sanctity to tread on others to greedily move ahead; Move ahead as in: In this race, a rat-race; Each one is being raced down to the deepest levels of their values, and reducing every evolved emotion and relationship into a commodity.

Where are all the small, simple and beautiful things!
Small goes unnoticed: Everything ought to be grand and spectacular, beyond the saturation of our senses.
Simple is silly: Things have gotten super sophisticated beyond our realms of comprehension.
Beautiful is everything that carries a heavy price tag: Today's beauty has got our aesthetic sense go numb.

One such occupation....

When this is the framework you let people to thrive in, there is nothing but the sad, unattended funeral of heritage of occupations like weaving, carving, pottery, even farming, and various other small occupations, which form important segments of our evolution have demised, or are at least at the verge of oblivion from the known section of humanity.

A debate whether these have been displaced at the cost of modernization and development for the sake of the rest of us can be taken up, and we would eventually stand guilty.
Each of us can do a lot to avert this oblivion of our own small and the beautiful.


PS: As I am composing this post, I am contemplating of a contemporary Swadesi Movement for self sufficiency and most importantly self conservation of our society!
If you believe we can do it better together, then let's get together!

The debate on the Gandhian Debate

My observations pertaining to the Gandhian debate, for all the time I have been absorbing it turn out to be 'pretty disappointing', at all strata.

Either the pro-Gandhians are not passionate enough, and the ones who oppose are ill informed. Another wide diaspora of the community tries to engage in this debate just for the sake of having to make or oppose a stand, without they themselves having a stand about the issue of contention, like in numerous other scenarios.

I admit that my know-hows about this debate are very minimal, and I do not think I am equipped enough to even take a stand with the little of the cognizance about this issue.

In this post I shall not be expressing my own views for/against Gandhi, but only meticulously try putting forth my observations of the people who get themselves drawn into one such debate.

By the way, this entire discussion is about Mohandas Gandhi and not his pseudo descendants.

Coming to the point, there is a lot of obscurity about the genre of people who call themselves Gandhians.
Who is a Gandhian?
Any person who adheres to "the main principles of non-violence, austerity and sacrifice as means to bring change in oneself and hence in the world", as preached by Gandhi is whom I interpret to be a Gandhian. With the increased scant of the very sense of non-violence, austerity and sacrifice exhibited as a whole by the society, it would be a rarity to come across genuine Gandhians. Although, we could very well stumble upon hypocrite Gandhians who would suddenly appear on the eve of Gandhi Jayanti, make statements to the media and disappear soon after. Also, the Indian society as it is today has outgrown the Gandhian principles which it is supposedly based on. As a consequence,the little pragmatics of the arguments made by this category of people is irrelevant in relation to the realistic conditions of the contemporary world. Much attributable to the intermittence and inconsistency exhibited by the Gandhians.

Well, coming to the opposites, the non-pro Gandhians (in attempt to avoid anti!), base their disgruntle as mere reactions to the impulsiveness of the moment, without most of the times considering the circumstances in retrospection within the frame of time of its occurrence.

I am not questioning the righteousness of the means pursued by us to gain freedom, but the ones who oppose it now have what traits in them to take such a stand without really being able to do anything in the current scenarios? People with such a temperament should have the real mettle in them to be part of the transformations in today's world, which is as bad, or worse when compared to the state of affairs in pre-independent India.

The point being made here is: A mere debate ( a futile war of words) from both sections have no value, whatsoever, if the concerned are restricting themselves to words alone!

Gandhi was a great man; maybe, not that a great statesman, or maybe he was. The point is, we should grow and improvise on the legacy handed over to us, by imparting our traits into them, tailoring it to fit the world as it is today rather than trying to mimic the past.

"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence" Mahatma Gandhi