This morning I read the NZ Herald, as I always do over coffee, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that coverage given to news and feature about India has increased in number - and more importantly in quality too.
Normally, on any given day, the maximum amount of news you would find in a NZ paper would be one at the most (provided there is no major happening there, like the CWG). Well, pretty much the same way NZ will feature at the most one time on any given day in a national paper in India. I think that India and NZ are more or less two countries that exist on opposite poles. There is nothing (that comes to my mind now) common between us.
Well, thanks to the games and the hype, every nation, yes, even NZ, is watching. It is the right time for India to put on a good show.
True, again and again, we insist, it's not about the show we put up. It is not about the fake celebration we perform under the watchful eye of the world. It is upto India, therefore, to put up a more quality image of itself. Not a mock festivity that Indians are terribly good at. Not in media hullabaloo that Indians are also terribly good at. Not by fighting back the allegations with sharp arguments that Indians are (why, God!?) blessed with.
What India lacks, and in my opinion needs most, is quiet confidence.
Yes, people are right in saying that politics is hell in the country. Poverty reeks like a gaping wound. Population is beyond bursting level, it has skyrocketed already. If cleanliness brings salvation, most Indian cities are heading to damnation. There is no hiding these facts. They are absolute.
What I am saying is, you are terribly wrong if you stop there. That is why I say the media is one sided. They don't look past the obvious.
Even citizens of the country themselves don't look past the obvious. India is a nation of people first before it becomes a republic of politics and democracy. India is a crazy montage of landscape and diversity before it becomes a messy clog of 'metro' cities. When God made nations he did not make countries to be ruled by a candidate who would win votes by being outspoken and proactive. He made nations of peoples. Diverse languages and lifestyles and habits, people who would live their lives every single minute, every single second, not knowing they are walking talking miracles.
The miracle is not in the 'booming' economy or the space programmes or the film industry though I pointed them out in great fervour in my past blog entry.
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Ah, I don't know. I find it shameful that I have to be writing this.
Somebody's just got to stand up for the things that you love, when its reputation is at stake.
Ben Ning, Creative Practitioner