Munger Diaries II-Bharat Uday!

You know how this "India Rising" thing is right?...How the economy growingat 8% ,a booming middle class, rising incomes, so on & so forth.....Yet, all this is so unbelievable.....What is the whole concept of India rising if you still don't have enough food to feed the poor, if more than half your villages don't get water, if even 60 years after independance people are killed in the name of caste, creed, religion?.....

I always thought that "India Rising" is more of a feel good factor, something that brings a political party into power....More of a western concept....coz' in actual terms India probably isn't shining...may be these are good times....but not good enough!....

Anyways, my internship involves talking (a lot!) to contractors and their labourers....something that is not always enjoyable....More often than not, I am forced to say" kya? fir bataiye!" because its difficult to get their dialect...

Yesterday, I was chatting with this contractor, must be around 50-55, he's been in the factory for almost 2 decades now....he's basically a "Kaarigar" as in a repair-man...so he oiles/greases machines etc. generally, you'd expect all members of his family to be involved in the same trade, coz' thats how things happen... the son carries on the business of his father....Anyways...he asks me " Aap bhi MBA kar rahein hai kya?"...I said yes, from Pune....& he tells me that even his son is doing an MBA from some college in Delhi....& that he knows how summer interns are treated and stuff...his son is in his final year...and that he has gotten placed in some big "Prachaar" company.....

May be I am exaggerating a bit here, but for me the whole concept of India shinig made more sense than it had ever before.....This gentleman who has spent all his life shuttling between phases of abject poverty and just enough, will probably have a relaxed & wonderful old age....

Thats how India shines.....For every person whose life is transformed...who is rescued from the clutches of an impoverished exsitence....whose future will be brighter than his past ever was!....

Cheers to a resurgent India
Jai Hind!