My heart and soul is here, in India...Always

First let me tell you that my parents have been on a two month long vacation to the US and that might have been a real good thing for them, but their unrelenting comparisons to what we have in India to what they got in the US can be quite funny sometimes and annoying some other times to all those listening.

Last year my parents and I went on a pilgrimage and we were accompanied by two of our family friends who just then returned from the US and we were constantly made to hear their constant parallels drawn and how unparalled the US is!!! My father was visibly annoyed, but now I guess he understands them better and they might be quite keen on forming the US Fan Club.

On a more serious note however I must say I am concerned about the magnetic pull that US has over people. We have long spoken about the 'brain drain' from India and its shift towards the West. Think about it, if my parents, who have lived 60 years of their lives in India amidst the drudgery, politics, pollution, corruption and what not, can be so pulled towards every aspect of that country then why wont our younger generation be motivated by the prospect of living in better conditions.

Let me also tell you that I'm too much of an Indian and I think that there is no place like home and so when people praise US to the sky I find it rather difficult to digest. I wish everyday that I can somehow make a difference in a small way towards India being enviable by the Western world as they are to us now. Can I, the true Indian, make India that way.

Atleast we should make a concerted effort in developing small pockets rather than the whole. I always think of how I can make India better. I have ideas, plans to make my ideas work, but is there someone with more power than just the willpower to make this happen. I intend to search for such people because where else but India can we find people who will come forward to help fully knowing you are neither family nor friend? Where else but India will relatives open their doors wide even when we havent made an appointment to visit them and still more have the heart to cook a wonderful meal for uninvited guests? Where else but India will you find resilience even from the most uneducated and oppressed people? Where else but in India can a foreign director come and make a movie on our poverty and yet show how successful poverty can make us and win the black statutte!!!!

I will forever honour India and stand by her through all her ups and downs. I know I might be one but I have the heart of a million. God Bless India!!!