To the naysayers

More than enough people are quick to sneer at India after Vikram's successful soft landing at the Southern Pole of the Moon. On one end, people were quick to say that the whole exercise was a hoax. It is an illusion. Then, others blurted that a country that cannot provide toilets to its citizens and whose population mostly live below the poverty line should not be sending rockets to the Moon (and playing with nuclear bombs). One even threatened to stop monetary 'aid' to India, conveniently forgetting any discussion on repatriation monies after years of looting from India. 

Firstly, everyone knows there is no way for everybody to prosper in sync before society moves up one notch higher. Things happen in tandem. There will be people who will have to do catching up, and there will be those who will lose out in the race for prosperity anyway. The only people who believe that the world needs equity are communists. Again and again, it has been proven that human greed surpasses any attempt at equity and even equality. Four-legged creatures elected to replace their two-legged oppressors will eventually begin standing erect on their hind legs. 

To be fair, India has improved by leaps and bounds since Independence. It has even overtaken its former colonial master as the 5th biggest economy by GDP after being left as the 13th poorest country on the planet when the British left their land. With regards to foreign aid, many quarters deny the usual foreign aid that first-world countries offer to a despotic basket-case government. Monies that trickle into India are investments from which investors hope to draw returns. Some are charity contributions by well-wishers with personal intent, e.g. evangelism and political donations.

With the 'Clean India' campaign in full steam, open defecation is a thing of the past. With many states having 100% access to toilets, open defecation is a thing of the past. 

Paradoxically, the country with the biggest economy must face the same problem. With its chiselled pavements and famous postcode 90120 that it sells to the world, even Los Angeles also has to deal with homelessness, drug addiction and cleaning up the sidewalks littered with human excrement. 

Karma often plays its game most cruelly. The colonisers who robbed their colonies blind now have to be content seeing their descendants being fed by the descendants of their subjects. The innumerable hungry, homeless and impoverished British regularly frequent Sikh soup kitchens for a square meal. 

Our experience from the 1960s space explorations has shown us there are many trickle-down benefits. Besides the numerous improvements in medicine and engineering, it also improves the life of the man on the street. Teflon was discovered. The knowledge to produce heat-resistant garments with adequate cooling technology becomes a game-changer in the day-to-day duties of firemen. Luggage bags with roller wheels have their origin in the space programme. At a time when the younger generation shows scant interest in STEM subjects, these types of ventures will surely rekindle their dwindling keenness. The Industrial Revolution and the subsequent leaps in civilisation did not happen because of economists and linguists but by scientists. Remember the economic opportunities that these ventures that offshoot from space travels. Money spent is not wasted but merely changes hands. Charity and social work can still go on. 

The West cannot handle the paradigm shift in the world order. For more than two centuries, people of the Judeo-Christian traditions held the chalice of power. This century is when the power transfer happens from the West to the East.

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Going places?

Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa

To see Praggnanandhaa, an 18-year-old chess whiz from Tamil Nadu, proudly posing in front of the international press with a big white ash stripe spread across his forehead as a symbol of his faith for a photo shoot reminded me of the numerous times I felt ashamed of wearing vibuthi in public during my childhood. 

Coming from a country where my ancestors were bought in as bonded labourers, I did not have many role models to follow, I was ashamed to be an Indian. The fact that many fellow Indians in my neighbourhood were loud and boisterous and had many rows with the laws did not help my perception of the race of my parents. The sing-song undulating tone of my mother tongue was a point of mocking and sneering by many. The behaviour of the few who make it a point to be noticed with their loud colour, unmistakable scents, and high-decibel speeches in buses made me want to disappear. 

Mother's eyes say it all!

The elaborate display of my religiosity was also a sore point. The near histrionic display of faith via visual and auditory exaggerations did not augur well with my mother's intention to inculcate dharmic values in me. She was fearful that all the Western education that was sweeping the world would make me a brown-assed white man who frowned at anything Indian. I knew I was. 

The opening of inner realisation, the opening of the mythical third eye, happened in my late teenage years and the years after that. One by one, I was exposed to more and more people who looked like me and spoke like me. Hey, my people were doing ok, I thought. Still, there was demarcation between outwardly displaying Indianness and accepting all as one, that we are the same. 

The world changed. Identity politics became the norm. My country, where I had grown up, had slowly become fundamentalistic in mindset. People had no qualms saying they, us, we and our people. People were one-tracked into dividing and subdividing amongst themselves. At about that time, being a Hindu became hip. Slowly people tried to publicise the hidden pearls of wisdom behind Hindu acts and rituals. 

An artist's conception of the Chandrayaan 3 lander
and rover on the Moon. ISRO

If the 1990s and the early 2000s, people of Chinese descent in my country were flying high with the phenomenal achievements of their ancestral country, China, from the yolk of hopelessness during the Great Famine and Cultural Revolution to becoming the factory capital of the world. Similarly, the second decade of the 21st century is a time for India to shine. Standing at the cusp of a successful landing of an AI-guided unmanned lunar mission and the precipice of a possible international chess champion, most Indians wear their identity on their sleeves. Nobody is ashamed to spread his vibuthi, sandanam or kumkum liberally on his forehead anymore. 

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