Thread from my College Yahoo group

a few excerpts from a thread in my college group:

Forward From: Aarthi Jerome
President's Office, The President of India

DR. A. P. J. ABDUL KALAM's Speech in Hyderabad

"I HAVE THREE VISIONS FOR INDIA"

the rest of the body in this mail is the same sterotypical mail which every Indian would have got...hence i am not pasting the same.


Shravan Writes...
Sometimes I dont really understand the big deal..

First of all, whats with the message "APJ Abdul Kalam's Indians"? Im an Indian. Just an Indian!

Second, why does this man keep giving the same speech in every forum that he is invited to! This text is directly lifted from one of his books, I dont remember which one, but I have heard of him delivering this exact same speech in so many places! His "First bliss, second bliss" stories are quite repeated.

Is this man really a patriot? I dont really know. Yes, he worked for the country as a scientist, but what has he done being president for so many years! Contrary to beliefs, the president of India does really have a few powers, I dont understand why he or anyone else wont exercise them. The president is a rubber stamp because he wants to be a rubber stamp. The last five months of his rule in Bihar have been worse than Laloo raj. The number of kidnappings has gone up from 900 odd to 1000 odd. Why wont he do anything? Cant he start a social service movement/political party and make a real difference instead of giving the same speeches everywhere! I mean, the president of India has got to do more than just give speeches! On one hand, we see young 20 year old men going into politics to make a difference. Btw, the students of IIT Kanpur have started a movement called the Bharat Uday Mission ( http://www.bharatudaymission.cjb.net/ ) where they plan to start a political party after they finish their education. Thats vision for you! Thats patriotism. The country wont change with speeches. I have received this mail from about 4 groups and 3-4 other individual people, and I cant see anything implementable in it. Does he have a real vision? Does he have a real roadmap for India's future? Of course, I dont really consider freedom and development as an imlpementable vision unless he can tell us how he plans to achieve it.

Am sorry to all the Abdul Kalam fans in the audience, but think about it. So many of us have left the country to make money, some might come back, have families and kids and dogs and an independent house in Besant Nagar. Why do we wait for some great person to come and give us speeches, instead of staying back and making a difference. Or even coming back, chucking everything, and getting into politics. You can make a difference. In my opinion, this man has been showing us dreams all along, and he will continue to do that. A person like Manmohan Singh is better than our APJ. Atleast he talks in terms of 1 year or 2 year roadmaps.

Any thoughts?

Shravan

Madhusudan Wites :
sometimes it is impossible to acheive certain things or expect so many things in a highly populated country like india. dont always look at countries much more developed than india--there are many more countries worse than india by all means(power,economy, poverty etc)(be proud) eg pakistan . india would have developed better if had used its wealth on developnment rather than fighing with pakistan .

and abt abdul kalam---i dont have much knowledge abt civics n politics --but i dont think a president has much rights(power) when a prime minister is working properly(or when there is no problem in the government.a president 70 years old n going to retire in 3 more yrs n maybe live for the next ten yrs cannot do much more than this---motivate us. our constitution is different(prime minister has more powers)---u shd have blamed the prime minister.what more can he do when he is like a rubber stamp.

some of his lines are not good enough---but some lines makes sense --like

"Do you have 10 minutes? Allow me to come back with a
vengeance. Got 10 minutes for your country? If yes,
then read; otherwise, choice is yours. You say that
our government inefficient. You say that our laws are
too old. You say that the municipality does not pick
up the garbage. You say that the phones don't work,
the railways are a joke, The airlines is the worst in
the world, mails never reach their destination. You
say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is
in absolute pits. You say, say and say. What do You do
about it? Take a person on his way to Singapore. Give
him a name - YOURS. Give him a face - YOURS. You walk
out of the airport and you are at your International
best. In Singapore you don't throw cigarette butts on
the roads or eat in the stores. You are as proud of
their Underground links as they are. You pay $5
(approx. Rs. 60) to drive through Orchard Road
(equivalent of Mahim Causeway or Redder Road) between
5 PM and 8 PM. You come back to the parking lot to
punch your parking ticket if you have over stayed in a
restaurant or a shopping mall irrespective of your
status identity. In Singapore you don't say anything,
DO YOU? You wouldn't dare to eat in public during
Ramadan, in Dubai. You would not dare to go out
without your head covered in Jeddah. You would not
dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in
London at 10 pounds (Rs. 650) a month to, "see to it
that my STD and ISD calls are billed to someone else".
You would not dare to speed beyond 55 mph (88 km/h) in
Washington and then tell the traffic cop, "Jaanta hai
main kaun hoon (Do you know who I am?). I am so and
so's son. Take your two bucks and get lost".You
wouldn't chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other
than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and
New Zealand. Why dont' You spit Pan on the streets of
Tokyo? Why don't You use examination jockeys or but
fake certificates in Boston??? We are still talking of
the same You.

You who can respect and conform to a foreign system in
other countries but cannot in your own. You who will
throw papers and cigarettes on the road the moment you
touch Indian ground. If you can be an involved and
appreciative citizen in an alien country, why cannot
you be the same here in India?"

india has got much more respect in foreign land---atleast among some people---some people respect the indian culture, love the indian food, keep telling sachin n harbhajan r legends n stuff

u know what india is going to develop automatically if u n me r going to do our work properly like the rest of the indians and when we forget about the patriotism we need some motivation like this.

i am not a apj fan or something -- i am not going to swear that i am going to make a difference to india or something--i will do what i can when i feel i can. i can atleast try to teach some person some lesson who is less patriotic to the country than me or keep country clean by keeping myself clean n not littering .when i came to india this july i had the freedom to drive my car faster than ever bfore--play loud music--which i couldnt do in australia for a while. india is total freedom.

if 1 lakh people had read this message of abdul kalam n 1000 people had thought they could make a difference---best of luck ---why discourage them by sending such a mail shravan

so thats abt it
my sembreak has started so totally jobless for the whole of next week


AND FINALLY I WRITE :

interesting thought provocing thread...

answers to some of the Qs raised by fella Shravan:
(1) First of all, whats with the message "APJ Abdul Kalam's Indians"? Im an Indian. Just an Indian!
-->>must be a typo dude...

(2) why does this man keep giving the same speech in every forum that he is invited to! ...., .......
--> this speech has been in the cyber space for a quite a long time ....due credits to the 'great forwarders' who have kept the spirits truly alive by sending the message again and again.

(3) Is this man really a patriot? I dont really know.....blah...blah..
-->what kinda Q is this dude....nwayz i will try to answer it..read on

lemme not bore you with the mundane thoughts in this thread, rather lemme bore you with my perceptions of
it ;)

On sep 5th , i saw the address to Nation by Mr.Kalam...saw the great man citing examples from the Einstein-moluchowski equation for molecular diffractions/diffusion..etc etc...it was an awsum speech which i presume every student must 'observe'.....we need people like Mr.Kalam...the problem is that we need to rationalize the people who work-on-par with Kalam.I was greatly impressed by his address.However, I do accept that the present constitution demands that our Prez be mere rubber-stamp.

No argument is complete without a refernce to our Neighbour China....whenever i cite examples from China , it doesnt mean that i am a supporter of the Red Nation...i am rather a supporter of radical philosophy. There was this show " the Big Fight" last week in NDTV in which Mr.ChoRamasamy and a couple of other buerocrats were arguing about the failure of Democracy in India--it was awsum..Its not that the we have lost faith in democracy....in fact we have lost faith in the Politicians who happen to 'represent' us.What india needs is not an emergency or a dictator. India needs a 'Social Revolution' which can upturn the future of this mighty nation.China was a Communist nation ,with the nation going berserk....the Social revolution brought it back on track.....things changed and are continuing to change ...now China is one of the strongest economies....so are many of the South-Eastern Countries...

Indians want and cherish Mediocrity...in fact we are so passionate being mediocre that we dont want anything else....we dont think 'out of the box'-- this is an issue raised by many outsourcing companies, since we dont try to think outside of what has been assigned to us.Lemme make a clarification here -- i am in no way referring to the Mgmt Consultants or research fraternity in India -- as I strongly feel that we are much better than the rest of the world in terms of 'fundamentals'.

what we indians lack is Discipline...we along feel that <<"when i came to india this july i had the freedom to drive my car faster than ever bfore--play loud music--which i couldnt do in australia for a while. india is total freedom.">>> is freedom. It is this conception,rather 'misconception', of the term that has led us to raise ballyhoos whenever we are
denied the permission to do something. We start shouting that "India is a free nation and we are free to do anything that we feel like". Following the ethics , i have to site an example from China -- as most of you might be knowing that china has a compulsory Military training for all its Citizens...children have to attend it before they graduate from schools. There was this beautiful program in Discovery a few years back showing the kind of rigorous exercises that kids had to undergo. Some of them even fainted. But this does not dither the Govts' policies. I strongly support this kind of a regimen.

last but not the least...we need to cherish our CULTURE...i know many of you might be raising your eyebrows now....I am greatly offended by the columns in some papers like Deccan Chronicle etc...which dedicate a full page for pics from Bars/pubs.I dont think this is absolutely necessary.Further worse ...Blore Times is nothing more than mere soft-porn.I am sure many of you will be differing with my idealogy, but nwayz ...By culture i dont mean that you deny your right to booze etc etc...Simply i mean --"Think Global , Act Local".

am sure this particular thread can go on indefinitely and i presume i have made an honest attempt to convey some of the thoughts which i strongly believe in and and hope many of you would also concur with it.....am terminating my post abruptly out here for ur grey cells to ponder...

--vEnkAt