Two Indians feature in the Top 10 Most extravagant Weddings ever article on Yahoo. Lakshmi Mittal's $60 million wedding extravaganza when his daughter got married, and Vikram Chatwal - Priya Sachdev's $20 million wedding carnival.I always scroll down to read the comments at the reader's section. If you have not tried that ever, then sure do. You will find some amazing insights, funny thoughts and remarkably intelligent retorts down there. So today, after this reading this article, it was no different. I did what I always do. Scroll down.
This is what I found. One of the responses, just.
"These Indians spent millions of dollars for their wedding and the rest of their country have no potable water? Do they still have caste system in India? Luxurious weddings at the expense of people's lives. No wonder they stink."
I am thinking of two things after reading this.
You blindfolded cobwebs-all-over-your-sad-brains, who thinks India does not have potable water to drink. Look at your own backyard. That will tell you how many of you are swimming in the same shit.There is murk lying everywhere you will see. Oh, but you'd need to remove that blindfold first.
Is this what our portrait really is? No wonder movies like 'Slumdog Millionaire' always win Oscars. Hordes of idiots come visit our Dharavis and snap our ghats and go back home after a cheap stay and a cheaper ride feeling less of the salt they have slicing their mouths.
Just to humor yourself, have you ever typed India in any search engine toolbar and seen the images. Just the images. You will find inadverdently the Taj Mahal, Rajasthan's elephants and the palaces, Kashmir's shikaras, Kerala's backwaters, Bangalore's clubs, Mumbai's Taj Hotel, a Hindi movie poster, Lutyen's area - Delhi, Goa's beaches, a sanyasi by one of our ghats, a dirty runny-nose ragamuffin, rangoli. Its such a variant picture.
Perhaps you have forgotten(threatened by?) the fact, that we simply are fast going back to where we were.
Off the tangent read this comment :
"so many poor and suffering people and so much money that could help them just thrown away on something totally unnecessary... ): "
I appreciate this person so much more than the dimwit who could not stand the fact that Indians have more than just slum-dogs under their bellies. Pity you.
P.S : Don't you just love the picture of the adorable lil girl with all her colorful gear? Some people will only see the sand on her hands and the dust on her face. Sad.
Posts
29 conjurers in all:
Its the Slumdog India they want to see...very meaningful post.
super duper slap in the face Cin to those who deserve it and much more.
i would agree with the stupendous waste done on weddings and disagree like you with the view many people living abroad have of our country, including many Indians.
it's quite frustrating.
and loved the cute little girl...her cheeks remind me of seeya's:-)
don't I have the right to spend my money the way I want it:-) who said only the rich have to donate money or give to poor?if we all donated same *percentage* of our salary, I am sure lot of problems would be solved. Not sure if people in the higher income brackets should be held to a higher moral code:-)
The first comment was truly given by a dimwit and so so loved ur remark on that. Well said dear....and yes the 2nd one sounded more sensible.
P.S Lovely choice of pic.
@ Alka : I wonder why that need. I mean I thought, why cant people acknowledge when somebody else is prospering too. Ofcourse there are flaws, they're everywhere, but only a certain section seems hell bent on splashing the grime more.
@ Su : It may or may not be a matter of waste, I believe when one has duly earned it you are entitled to spend it whichever way you want.
Plus what we always tend to ignore, amidst all our proclamations to promote austerity, is these events are job generators, income sources for the hundreds of people.
I wouldnt talk about whether or not it brings equal profits for all - like the slum dweller who stitches Louis Phillipe shirts from a canal in Dharavi - how much money he makes?
We're all victims of consumerism here, in this consumer driven world. What would make a difference would be where and how we lay our best interests, from the social and economical point of view. And keep doing our bit.
@ Sonali : Exactly my point and just what I said to Suruchi in my above comment.
If each and every individual just took up as a cause to contribute a lil that would make so much of difference.
@ Ria : Thanks.
I guess people don't see what they see, they see what they want to see.
a really nice post..
i totally agree with you,every country has two sides- a prospering side and an equally potent dark side..
i wonder why this murky side of India has come into such a big spotlight that even the search engines show potholes etc on typing india.
i truly think we Indians only degrade our selves by applauding movies which show the darker side of India.
Ive got nothing against good cinema and im a big fan of good art..but this is my question y doesn't a movie which shows the prosperity and growth of India given an Oscar..
Perfect example of we see what we want to! I may crib about our country and some traditions too, but deep down I love it even with with all it's flaws! :)
And some people comment just for the heck of it, just one read on top. Trust me she must have just read the title, ONLY!
@ Agnes : I know A. I know.
@ Tarunima : I wouldnt say we degrade ourselves by appreciating things that portray our dark side,bcz I think uncovering the hidden truth is always an eye-opener, no matter how gory it is, or even if the motive behind it has been compromised from goodness.
What I have a problem with, is outsiders coming in here and passing unwarranted judgements, forgetting how much of the same crap thrives under the very soil where they come from.
I aint even gonna waste my time trying to talk about the pathetic beings who sully their own home, without a will to clean it up.
And as to why the murky side of India has come to limelight? I think my post already has replied to that question.
Thanks for dropping by. :)
@ Sourav : I second your thoughts mate. Thanks for dropping by. :)
As for people who comment without reading? Tell me about it. They think I dont know, but I do.I would so appreciate if they saved themselves all the ado. :)
Oh but its so easy to throw stones at the neighbours isn't it. Turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the suffering voices in our own house, but still talk of how the neighbors fight for their hard earned money.
So much money that could be spent on the poor? I wish it was to generate more jobs and education rather than just distributed for free.
The girl is cute, and innocent.
Cheers,
Blasphemous Aesthete
Absolutely. I am resonating your thoughts on this one.
Generating income is far more enterprising and a better utilization of any guys money than spe3nding it on charity, free distribution. Philanthropists should think of that.
i started reading this post becoz the picture reminded me of my daughter after a day at the park stuffing her face with chocolate.
u r rite, sometimes we see only what we look for.
very well writen my firned...we often tend to focus only on the negativity..and we really need to change the image of india after slumdog the movie..evereyone thinks all these gruesome things r all that happen in india..shit happens everywhere in the world..it does not difine the whole country..see the good stuff too..we r slowly taking over the world... what about that...
Poverty begets pity, that somehow summons hypocrisy for many; for the other few the pity steps up a notch to transform into sympathy, then sympathy travels on bare feet to reach the thin line between sympathy and empathy and stops because the nerves that are responsible for the movement of the lower limbs have been damaged, so sympathy can see empathy but cannot turn into the same. Sympathy sits there on the moist Earth and watches the other side through the binoculars of charity while weeping copiously; his vision getting hazy, sometimes. Now, what sympathy forgets in its misery of losing the lower limbs is that he could used his energy in scattering the seeds of definite prosperous plants which he carries in his pockets.
I used to stay near Dhobi Ghaat in Mahalakshmi - Mumbai and during my daily commute to the Local station, almost always saw foreign tourists coming in to have a view from atop the bridge of the hordes of washermen washing clothes. Once i was curious and frustrated enough to ask one of them, busy clicking the poor Dhobis' snaps on his SLR as to what did they find amusing in this sight ? "We dont get to see this in our country" he blurted. I smiled, and randomly clicked him on my cell-cam. "We dont get to see such fools in our country." I told him. Maybe he was confused with my pure accent. But then i might have walked past a little faster cough splutter..or run cough. I dont remember. Conveniently :)
@ Tys : No points for guessing you have a beautiful daughter then! :)
Thanks for dropping by.
@ Prutha : We dont need to do anything "to change the image of India". If a person's perspective is all screwed, he's the one to blame not the vista he is looking at.
@ Sayak : Food for thought. That.
@ Mandrake : Oh you needn't had! Loud and clear would have been real good. Good to see you. :)
Seriously.. I just hate that Slumdog kinda mentality. It totally sucks big time.
superb post! Living away from the country I have seen one thing.. there are SO many people who do not know what India is. And yes to thousands, it is more a slumdog country. We may not be the best, but trust me we still *need* to prove that we are much much better than the rest. And sometimes, Indians do stuff that make you feel sad. Personal experience :)
Anyways, appreciate every word in post.. good job!
thoughtful
Ignorance will always be there. There were colleagues on the other side of the world who thought we go to office on elephants or something like that about 10 years ago (until we started taking their jobs LOL).
This person commenting on that website was just one opinion. I know more people who came to India and fell in love with it than those who think it's just a garbage dump.
I wonder how true the statistics are, but around the time Slumdog was released and people hated the way it was brutally frank, a newspaper reported that about 70% of Indians still earn less than Rs.20 per day. I feel that maybe we are in a certain state of denial or we are just plain embarrased about something that is actually TRUE. Of course, all kinds of extremes exist in our country and most ppl will never even begin to understand that.
I guess just the way we go crazy about (ok, going by facebook pics that Indian friends in other countries post) all the clean well built roads and buildings in developed countries, they who come here go crazy about every cow on the road. Now, these tourists go back to their respective countries and propagate their distorted ideas.
I do believe though, that to some extent we are to blame. For example, I was shocked to know Japan introduced bullet trains in the 1960s while having been in as bad a state as we were in the 1940s when both Japan and India started off. We still mostly use train technology that hasn't changed since the 60s and 70s (OK, being a mech engineer I feel embarrassed that there was nothing I could do about this). How embarrassingly dirty are our trains too (I see this is improving a lot lately and I feel very good about it), forget technology, we just need some civic sense for that! Just an example.
If we decided to do something about this, we could be on par with anyone in the world. But first we have to accept that a lot of things have gone horribly wrong (town planning, corruption,education, population) and we need to set those right.
But I know this is changing. I see a larger generation who is more aware and wants our country to be a better one than it was when we came into it! That is the best part! :)
Just my humble opinions.
And oh, did I forget to mention that this was a lovely, thought provoking post? :)
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