Mr Raghavendra Puthraya fwded us a thought-provoking e-mail, the content of which is purported to have been authored by no less a person than the President, Dr A P J Abdul Kalam. Accompanying note asks the e-mail recipient to forward the mail to friends, instead of feeding them with jokes and junk mail. I dont suppose the President would have put it quite that way. Anyway, the substance of the longish e-mail is worth sharing, in five takes.
When it comes to burning social issues like those related to women, dowry, girl child! and others, we make loud drawing room protestations and continue to do the reverse at home. Our excuse?
'It's the whole system which has to change, how will it matter if I alone forego my sons' rights to a dowry.' So who's going to change the system? What does a system consist of ?
Very conveniently for us it consists of our neighbours, other households, other cities, other communities and the government. But definitely not me and you. When it comes to us actually making a positive contribution to the system we lock ourselves along with our families into a safe cocoon and look into the distance at countries far away and wait for a Mr.Clean to come along & work miracles for us with a majestic sweep of his hand or we leave the country and run away. Like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to bask in their glory and praise their system. When New York becomes insecure we run to England. When England experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out to the Gulf. When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought home by the Indian government. Everybody is out to abuse and rape the country. Nobody thinks of feeding the system. Our conscience is mortgaged to money.
