One of the burning issues of today in our country and all over the world is urbanisation and the problems caused due to migration of population from rural to urban areas. Our cities are not designed to accomodate the population explosion that happens due to this migration. Facts, figures, charts, all can be presented to you to make a very convincing case, enough to make sure that you begin cursing every villager that you see in the street and thinking to yourself that it is because of them that there is traffic, congestion, pollution, lack of hygiene etc. etc. in your city.
Before you do that, think twice.
A very simple thing that happened today convinced me that no matter what facts or figures point to, India is in it's villages. Most of us Indians pride ourselves on our heritage, our culture, our traditions, our moral values and the ever-helpful nature of our countrymen. Go to any city in India and you will not find more than a handful of people who according to our standards, represent our India. Culture, heritage, moral values, all of these have been sacrificed for the glittering Western influences. Unfortunately, cliched, but true-all that glitters is not gold. We do not even realise how far we have come from our country. Flying kites and singing patriotic songs on National holidays does not show that we are true Indians.
I was returning from my office today and on the way in the middle of a village, one of the rear tyres of the vehicle that I was travelling by got punctured. My colleague and I got a little worried because we had no idea if there were any shops close by that could help us change the tyre of the car. It was only a matter of minutes after we had gotten out of the car to examine the puncture, that there was a young man in his twenties from that very village who stopped by and asked us what was wrong. We told him about the puncture and his immediate reply was, "Do you have a jack?". We replied in the affirmative and the next thing we see is that he is down on the floor checking out the puncture and asking for the necessary tools and our spare tyre. We obediently and gratefully handed them to him. We stood there waiting on him and assisting him in any way possible when we figured that he actually had never changed a tyre before. Since we knew a little bit about it and had seen it being done before, we thought we should help him. Just as we were about to do that, along came a lean, tall man. Without a word he stopped, kneeled down on the ground and told the other man what he was doing wrong and started helping him out. Unfortunately for us, the spare tyre did not contain enough air pressure. We hadn't even thought about what we should do about it when the first man was seen rolling the tyre away merrily. Within minutes he was back with the tyre all filled up with a brilliant gleam in his eye. It was his first time after all. Soon, the tyre was changed and just as we breathed a sigh of relief after replacing the punctured tyre in the cars trunk, we turned around to see the man waiting with a mug of clean water to make us wash our hands. We gratefully did so and offered him some money and a sack full of thanks. He took the sack.
We were strangers to those men, strangers to their village and yet we did not even have to ask for help. They were ready, willing and so very kind. If the same thing happens to us in a city, people stare and drive slowly by. Some even speed up to rub it in!
So really, isn't the village a much better place to be in?
I live in a city but nothing that happens here or nobody that I meet leaves any impression on me but an incident as small and trivial as this has been engraved on my mind forever. Our villages are the places where you can see the stars in the night sky, where the sky is never empty of coloured kites, where kids are seen running around with a thread in their hands rolling a small wagon behind them without any fear, where people sleep with their doors open. If only, we could see that India is not in it's Westernized cities but in it's villages. If instead of villagers moving to cities, the city dwellers moved to the villages. Going back to our roots would solve every single problem that exists in this world today and global warming, carbon credits, pollution, climate change, traffic congestion, overpopulation, unemployment can all be blown away.
So there it is. The perfect solution. Now, can I please have my nobel prize? Somebody? Anybody?
2 comments:
Village life is simple and without the complications of an urban lifestyle, however do you think you could function in a village after being spoilt by the various comforts that we have at our disposal in big cities? The solution you presented, although sweet, is definitely not simple :)
A humbling experience, nothing quite like it. Although the solution is oversimplified. We are just not programmed that way you see. But what good is life without hope anyway? :)
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