India, among all the developments it boasts about needs to spruce up its image it presents in other universities and centers of learning abroad. The stereotypical image it showcases to the developed world is that of ITians, doctors and engineers. Ask an American who an Indian is, he will be quick to answer ‘Oh! Gee! I have a friend, Indian as you asked. A computer wiz.. obviously.”
Now, what is it that makes India project such a face to the outside communities? To answer this, we need not look further away from home, but instead should delve back into the homeland and the intricacies of its education system. We Indians spend an entire lifetime mugging information and coughing them up at the exams. In our endeavor for a job/ a government job/ a job abroad we fail to stop, and ponder whether all that we read really makes sense to us. To top it, we also get easily selected into international companies and firms who but need a continual output of man power no matter how lame the performance is. That is though fortunately changing. Only the elite who can survive the churning machines of corporate management, the stress and the strain, finally make it out alive.
And amidst all this we forget the wide influence we have on shaping the society. This is a period we focus all our energies (if not stressed out at work) into sarcasm and criticizing the new face of politics and society that we encounter in our now more often and outwardly social lives. Some of us end up making it a matter of everyday concern; some learn to make it a fact of life, a routine. Very few put down their foot, and say ‘enough is enough’. ‘I am the change they never were.’
There is so much the youth of today can achieve if they put their heart and soul into it. But, then, they hardly do. Not that they do not want to. But because they are guided by tradition, parents, and generations of succumbing to ‘that’s how it is. There is nothing one can do about it.’ It is so hard and fast written into their veins, their blood that they fail to even recognize this alien factor that is eking out a living in them, almost parasitically.
The change we want in society is right here, right now. With the power of free media available to almost every other youth in India, there is so much change waiting to be brought into this world. Instead of being 24/7 online on Facebook, if only people opened more groups, forums, free educational blogs, etc. especially those having WIFI privileges out of work places, all this can be achieved. An uneducated working kid has access to an Apple Smartphone, but not to free education. And that is the irony of India, the so called ‘Home of the ITians and doctors of the world’. People are willing to spend a fortune on the latest mobile gadget, but not on prosthesis for one’s kid, because ‘that’s way too expensive’. Then why doesn't one walk out that door, use the available resources and make some that will be cheaper?
If one were to go on about the potential of the youth of today keeping in mind the resources they have at their disposal one could write a never ending article. For now it will suffice to say that this potential must be realized and conventionalized. A few select individuals have come up with interesting groups (like this one here: Online Sample Exams) , websites (like this one here: Online Sample Exams) and blogs especially those like 'Youth ki Awaaz' which even give the volunteer opportunities to change the world hands on! They are those in the fore front trying to bring that change from conventionality just mentioned. They could do with a lot more man power. Imagine what would happen if all pool their efforts, little by little! We could make big changes, a better world, if not in a day over a couple of years.
But, heh! We do not have the time to spare for that, do we? There are always ‘the others’, isn't it? Who are ‘the others’? People like you and me, who say the same refrain? Well, it’s time to think.
And Act.
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