The Everyday Patriotism

A great human revolution in just a single individual will help achieve a change in the destiny of a nation and, further, will enable a change in the destiny of all humankind. These words of encouragement by a great person (Dr. Daisaku Ikeda)- who has transformed numerous personal sufferings into brilliant creative energy- are profound and fortifying

Isn’t this a powerful declaration? Indeed it is, at least for me.

There are countless instances, when we assume that how can an individual, transform the fate of a nation. We think that we are excessively powerless and unaided to do anything that would facilitate us to see a dazzling and vibrant nation. As a matter of actuality we have radically underrated our potential.

I have thought about few things that might facilitate us in moving up one rung higher to a great nation.

Clean Country, Vibrant Country: In our every day lives we come crossways with people who treat the roads as a garbage bin. They stray around throwing wastes on the street. Regrettably, majority of us boorishly spew out on the lane. Why do we have to do that? If we keep our home neat and hygienic, why do we mess up our Big Home, Our Nation? If we have a crap plastic bag with us, all we can do is, bowl it in a bin. I am confident that, by doing this we would get enormous satisfaction. There would unquestionably be a sentiment that we have contributed in our own slight approach.

Let the Tranquility triumph: Let’s not be short tempered. Most of us have a tendency to squeal at a person driving frantically. Quite often we misplace our temper on trivial things. We are driven by intense jealousy towards our colleagues, friends and various other people. Without giving a ensuing consideration, we screech at them in a fit of rage. We undoubtedly can’t afford to breathe in an environment of copious hatred and abhorrence. In order to see the country in a serene status, we have to thrust aside the hatred feeling from our hearts.

Stand by the Country: In every relation, nothing is worse than ingratitude. Same holds true for our bond with the country. Whenever, India wins a cricket match or an Olympic Gold Medal, we take pride and brag around. But whenever something grisly happens, when position ourselves as someone who has nothing to do with the prevailing state of affairs. Let us vow to stand with the country in time of crisis. Let’s not just go about complaining on a variety of gaps. Let’s set an illustration of Unity, for the humanity.

Education devoted to the Motherland: Many of us are obsessed with fame and personal profits. In this fixation, we fail to think about our very own country. There are many people who, after carrying out their education, opted to settle overseas and serve other nation. They consider that living in their country would not assist them in any way. They earn for themselves but somehow forget to re pay their gratitude to country. There was one person, who preferred to serve his country after finishing his studies from a premier institute. This real life hero was Shanmugam Manjunath (1978-2005), a marketing manager for the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) who was murdered for sealing a corrupt petrol station in UP. We can’t let his sacrifice go in drain. Let our profession contribute to the well being of our country.

It is my firm belief that if we bring about these little changes in our everyday lives, there would be a time when everyone would see India as a prosperous, flourishing and a thriving country. That would be the day of our eternal pride, our eternal victory, and our eternal glory.

Lastly, I would not fail to re pay my heartfelt gratitude to my mentor, Sensei Daisaku Ikeda, by sharing with you all, his thought ;

“No matter how harsh the realities or the adversities a society may face, if the people who make up that society are strong, they can become a driving force for a brilliant turnaround, recovery and growth, and succeed in leading society to prosperity”.

The Sensei Within

The Sensei is within us. Sensei is a Japanese Title used to refer or address a “Teacher”. I strongly believe that each one of us has Sensei within us, an educator who trains us to distinguish between the right and wrong. In other terms, Sensei symbolizes our inner consciousness. It is inherent in each human. Quite frequently we turn down the voice of our inner consciousness which results in something ghastly happening to us.

I have been practicing Buddhism, and it teaches that we as human have the potential and competence of achieving the unattainable. The power resides within us. It’s exclusively up to us how and when we plan to unleash the human potential. Nichiren, a 13th century Buddhist reformer, based his teachings on the Lotus Sutra and its core message of the dignity and self respect of all life. According to this sutra, all people possess and can manifest the Buddha nature--an unconstrained, intrinsic life state of freedom which enables them to create value out of any situation. But the big question is, if we have the potential to manifest the Buddha nature, why do we undermine such immense power and leave it unexplored. I leave this query for you to answer.

Quite habitually we leave our cheerfulness and pleasure on the external sources. Our bliss completely depends on the mercy of someone else. Also, we base our frame of mind on the occurrence or non occurrence of something in the environment and this justly makes us very feeble and fragile. This happens because the human race doesn’t scamper on our sugary and sweetened will; neither do people act in response as we would want them to. Sooner or later we would have to recognize the actuality, that only we can decide our level of contentment. That implies that our mind has to be focused, it has to be so stable and unwavering, that the external commentary cannot jeopardize our well being.

The focal point of our mind comes with meditation. Before sleeping we can take out at least 15 minutes and pay attention to what our Sensei (Inner Consciousness) has to teach. Plainly in that little time we would be able to classify, dos and don’ts of the day. We would be able to identify that what things could have been done in an improved way, so that we could organize ourselves for the approaching day. Next day, at the crack of dawn we can spare 5 minutes to sketch the plan for the entire day. I am sure that our teacher would channel us to do the apposite thing, because before each action we take, we get coded by our conscious of what is right or wrong.

Why do we have to penalize or punish ourselves, when we know that hurting oneself is affirmed a sin by the almighty? If we do so, we are challenging the will of God. Keeping oneself blissful and cheerful is the principal virtue. Only the person, who is happy, would be able to keep others happy. So the struggle starts right from our spirit and spreads out to our environment. A spiritual workout should be of chief importance. Working out on a daily basis through meditation makes a person high in spirits and keeps him in accord with the universe.

Let’s commence the day, with high spirits. Lets have a merry smile on our face when we leave our dwelling, before taking any action, lets just take note to what our Sensei has to say, and it would be then, we would be able to see a launch in the “Human Revolution” , our own Human Revolution.

The Mother, The Sister, The Daughter, The Maker

We read many articles, statistics, and research about “how women should be more aware,” or “how a woman’s self-esteem is low,” or “how women turn to men for acceptance and love.”

Instead of talking about “how we should be” why not address “who we are, what we should have, and what we should know”?

In my previous piece of writing, I highlighted something about the security of women in our country. If a woman is being harassed by some roadside raucous individuals, there would not be a single person who would take a step ahead to safeguard her. Rather, we would just position ourselves there and crib about the poor arrangement of our security system. Well, I think its high time. High time we start thinking.

Women are powerhouses. They work full hours while being pregnant, they work 7-8 hours and still manage to have dinner with the family, never fail to wake up early in the morning to make breakfast for her child and send him to school at 7 am in the morning.

Its an epoch of “Women Empowerment”. Taking this forward I would like to site some examples on the power of a Woman.

Neelam Katara, a woman of high integrity and rarely possessed ideology. She fought for her rights. She initiated a tone against the injustice being done to her, her son. She has set an illustration for the whole country. Rather than sitting and crying about her lost son, she determined to wrestle all odds, a war against the judicial organism, fight against the affluent and prominent bit of society. Undeniably, a woman whom I respect from the bottom of my heart. I certainly would not falter to entitle her a “freedom fighter” of my time.

Barkha Dutta, a woman of enormous courage, a woman who never hesitated to cover the truth. Afghanistan? Earthquake? Floods? Riots? Hostage Situation? YES, she was there in her never ending Endeavour to endow the public with the truth.

Indra Nooyi has been named the #1 Most Powerful Business Women in the world in 2006 and 2007 by Fortune magazine. Who knew, a girl from Siddartha Vanasthali High School, Madras would one day become the chairperson and chief executive officer of PepsiCo.

Thought Provoking? Sure it is. As matter of fact, there are many other women who have indisputably whitewashed the male civilization. But sometime, I give a deep consideration on the status of a woman in India. I think that women in diminutive rural community are being ill treated. After all the things they have done, they are considered to be the wearker part of the society. and some questions trouble me a lot. Questions like:

If a woman has scaled indescribable stature in her career, why she is the # 1 nominee to forfeit her professional dream

If an equivalent sum of funds have been invested on the edification of a son and a daughter, why only the daughter is supposed to forgo her aspirations and get married at an early age.

The woman is the maker, the producer, the architect of a new existence, then why is she given a backseat in the social order.

Why can’t a woman walk freely on the street fearless?

Why is it such a big deal if we see a woman smoking on the street?


Aren’t we hypocrites? Are we not discriminating?

In what way are we calling this country, a liberated country? A country where a woman can’t feel safe and sound. We take pride when we talk about the great revolutionaries who brought about a transform, and abolished concepts like Sati. But we still have a constricted outlook. Yes the state of affairs is healthier now, but a lot needs to be done.

Lately our “praiseworthy” Chief Minister affronted the woman society by calling them adventurous. If a woman has to work at extended hours, she is not being adventurous; rather she is contributing to raise her family. She is working for his son to get admission in a premier school; she is helping her husband in running the family. Women are indeed self sacrificing. They constantly put their needs second particularly for their children, spouse, and family members. A mother will put aside a pair of shoes she has been dying to have so that way her child could have what he/she wants. A woman will put aside her career to start a family.

Let the woman of your life have an expensive wineglass and a box of chocolates displayed on her end table, Her own private cave to escape from her everyday hectic life, A luxury bathroom filled with candles, soaps, music, wine, and chocolate.

Its time we give up our two-facedness mentality. The moment is accurate to go back home and tell our mothers and sisters that how much we admire and respect them, how much we appreciate their sacrifices. Tell them that its time for us to repay the gratitude. Let us take a pledge, that come what may, we would not stand numb when we see a girl/woman in trouble. We have to eliminate all reservations which restrict their progress.

Let there be a time, when a woman walks down from a friend’s place to her home at 11 pm and she feels as protected as she would feel in her cozy room.

Amen !

The Unsafe Citizen

Unsafe Citizen
It was just another day for Param, a petite merchant in Gaffar market. After carrying out his household chores, he was on the way to his one room shop. He did his pensive prayers for protection of his family. Param just started a venture into the retail of export apparels. Took up a mortgage couple of months back, had major expansion plans. The first half of the day got good business for him, so he decided to commemorate the same at a nearby café. Just when he entered the premises, thinking to relish a good meal, he was thumped hard by something. His head got hit by the wall, blood started to pour out of his skull. For a minute of his consciousness, he saw people running here and there, he saw a mother holding on to her toddler in arms, the other, grabbing her 4 year old daughter. A 85 year old aged man was struggling to march out of the mammoth smoke which galloped the slender boulevard. There was a colossal commotion all over the place. And there laid a person in shatters, with almost all of his body parts sprinkled at the corners of a Video game parlor. He had with him a note which was detectable but could not be understood by all. It was in URDU. An ID card was discovered mentioning name of a “Pakistani Jihadist”

Param lost his consciousness. His right arm positioned 10 meters away from his body. A huge stampede left the place into a burial ground. The place where children played was twisted into a cemetery. Hundreds of bodies were lying in an unsymmetrical fashion.

It was a terrorist assault. Yet Another Terrorist attack, which claimed life of 130 innocent lives, 500 left injured combating to gain counsiousness. Thousands of people directly affected by the gutless and spineless act of few so called “non state actors”.

While we are wedged in our day to day trivial problems, there still are families trying to recuperate, recover from the trauma. The post trauma era never seems to perish for them. They are given compensation for the soul they cherished so much. They are compensated for the existence which was declared precious by the almighty.

The Impotent politicians manufacture a government based on a pledge of keeping each and every citizen safe. But is the Indian citizen in safe hands or is he blinded by the fake promises of an incapable and ineffective government.

Do we have to wait for someone else to do something about the protection of our family? Do we really expect a NSG commando in each house to protect us. Do we really think that such an unfortunate event can take place at a far-flung place? Its time to wake up. Its time to break the safe and cozy dream of living on a bed of roses. Its time to take a pledge of serving the country. Big words? Eh? NO, they aren’t. As a matter of fact, Even a single person can bring about a transformation in his own approach. Quite often we think that we cannot bring about a alteration in the system. I say, try to sleep 1 night with a mosquito in the room, that 1 mosquito would surely make your night sleepless. Correspondingly, a lone individual is much more competent of changing his immediate surroundings. Regrettably, We have drastically underestimated our potential. Everyone is thinking of the Macro Environment. Never in our cribbing mode, have we thought about our own very small environment, the Micro Environment.

How often has a youth helped a victim of an accident? How often have we turned our backs on the girl being harassed by a group of raucous road side individuals? We are so much in love with our own security, that we forget the well being of a fellow human.

All the time we are praising the martyrs and the freedom fighters. This was only because they sacrificed their life for us to sleep peacefully. They left their families to protect us from the injustice done by the “terrorists of their time”. If we respect them so much, why don’t we try and inculcate their values, their principles.

Its time to stand up united as Indians and not as racist, religious figures. Its time to eradicate all the disparities of cast and religion. Its time to take one step further to bring about a change. Its time to revolutionize the current scenario rather than trivializing the irrelevant things.

Let us all stand, united, to abolish the injustice being done in our Micro Environment. Lets help a woman to get her seat in the bus, let us help an old man cross a road, let us help a lost child on the road, let us stand up for what is right, unafraid, undeterred.

These small things would be observed by the onlookers, which in turn would make them think about our bravery. Let us all hold hands and raise a voice against terror, against injustice. Let us bring about a leader from within ourselves to change the society for good.

Pranav Sachdeva