DO YOU LOVE YOUR COUNTRY?

 

Do you love your country? Do you love India? I know you will unhesitatingly say yes, or may even feel offended by the question, but do you really mean it? Leave aside the men and women in uniform who are responsible for our internal security and external threats, but what about the rest of us? If you do love India then why do you bribe your way out of a traffic ticket instead of paying up the legitimate fine? Why do you keep your car engine running in a traffic signal instead of switching off? Why do you and your pet litter the roads and footpaths? Why do you search for flimsiest excuses to avoid paying taxes? Why do you carelessly destroy India's natural resources and pollute her air, land and seas? Is this how we should be treating the country we love?

 

At least about the taxes I know once again how you will respond. You will say that the government should have taken the responsibility of giving the best education to my children, but instead I have to pay for their private schools and tuition. The government should have provided my home and my business with 24x7 electricity but I have to supplement with a diesel guzzling alternative power. The government should have provided me with clean tap water that is drinkable but I have to attach a Reverse Osmosis (RO) purifier. For all these reasons I hold back a bit of my taxes.

 

But, do you really think that this is how your tax money can be best used or are you being a bit selfish. Your tax money is being used to maintain one of the largest and most professional Army in the world. It is being used to revamp the largest railway network and create the third largest civil aviation network in the world. Your tax money is being used to fuel the biggest fintech revolution and the largest COVID immunization programme in the world. It is being used to create road network connecting every village and laying water pipeline to every home in these villages. It is being utilized to electrify every home and bringing cooking gas connection to every kitchen, When the rich countries were hoarding COVID vaccines, your tax money helped India to not only vaccinate 1.36 billion people but also send vaccine to 104 other countries, mostly as gifts. Your tax money is helping India to make her own fighter jets, battle tanks, radars and ammunition. It is helping space research, medical research and agricultural research and has made India the fastest growing economy in the world. Your tax money helps us to become the first responders when natural calamity strikes Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Turkye. So why are we still not proud of our country?

 

Some may have experienced personal injustice or discrimination; some may disagree with certain policies of the government. Some may not have a strong sense of national identity and identify more strongly with other countries or culture or religion. Our country does not have a history of inflicting injustice to the society as Germany and Japan have that can make you feel a bit uncomfortable. Our country is not a tin pot dictatorship like Somalia, Sudan and Yemen that makes you feel ashamed. We are not out with a begging bowl like a few failed states in our neighbourhood that may cause you to cringe with embarrassment. We export the best manpower to the world - doctors, engineers, software wizards and CEO of Fortune 500 companies; we don’t export terrorists. So what prevents us from loving our country unconditionally?

 

Christine M. Glastonbury, M.D. a radiologist in the U.S laments that she is not able to get an appointment with an ophthalmologist or an optometrist in her own hospital till January 2024! Patients routinely come from the U.S and U.K as medical tourists and get their cataract Surgery, knee replacement and open heart surgery done in India. The U.S spends 20 trillion dollars and 20% of its GDP on such a white elephant health care system which is un-affordable, which remains unapproachable and is eventually unsustainable. Yet, for an Indian, staying in India, the grass is invariably greener across seven seas. We fail to appreciate how lucky we are that we can walk into the office of an equally skilled and far more experienced specialist and get treated at one tenth the cost! The system appreciates and responds to our health emergency and does not put us on an unending waiting list. 

 

Where is the real problem?

Despite all this why is this apathy? Have you ever given it a thought? I have and let me enumerate a few reasons why we are not proud of our country:

1. We first learn about our country from our parents and grandparents. Their stories about our great victories, our heroes and heroines of history, our culture, and our civilization tell us for the first time what a wonderful country we have. My parents would tell stories of Ramayana, Mahabharata and of our freedom fighters like Netaji Subhash Bose, Lala Lajpat Rai, and scholars and sages like Gautam Buddha, Thakur Ramkrishna Paramhansa Dev, Rabindranath Thakur, and Swami Vivekananda. However, our generation outsourced this responsibility to Amar Chitra Katha and TV serials. The present generation of gadget savvy parents has even less time to introduce their children to the greatness of their country. So if these children spend all their time playing with their parents' mobile phones how will they know the greatness of Ma Bharati?

  
2. Next, the child goes to school. Here, the child learns history documented by the English and their Indian prodigy, intellectuals with leftist ideologies. How can you expect them to glorify our heroes? They learn about the wars we have lost, and how India that we know today, was created by the British and never existed before 1947. Our heroes like Shivaji and Chandrashekhar Azad are described as terrorists. Children are told that Ram and Krishna never existed. They are fictitious characters who were created by storytellers. A well planned effort is made to dismiss our glorious civilization of thousands of years!  Thomas Babington Macaulay's well hatched plan to demoralize Indians by negating their shining history is still working and Indian education remains trapped in the colonial English trap!

3. Again, in school, the children do not celebrate the birthdays or the balidaan divas of Sikh Gurus, Subhash Bose, Bhagat Singh, Khudiram, Bismil, Ashfaqulla, and Azad because they were violent. They celebrate Gandhi and Nehru, the two apostles of peace! Our text books are so designed that the child starts to feel that Azadi or freedom was given to us like you give alms. The kind English were so compassionate that they served us our Azadi on a platter. So naturally, if this is the narrative being taught how can children be proud of their country and their forefathers?

  
4. After school, they all want to graduate, why, because they all want to be bara saheb! That is their aim in life, to be a member of the ruling class, even if it means lifelong subjugation. How many want to skill themselves up and become entrepreneurs? They don't have the courage and the confidence because their education did not train them to become masters; they were trained to be slaves just like the English had been doing before independence. That is the reason why with this education and background, we cannot be proud of our country. We are ignorant. We don’t know what we have. Successive governments of independent India have failed to infuse the pride of nationalism in our children because this was never considered as an important aim of our education. 

So what can we do?

Now that we have enumerated the reason why we do not appreciate our nation, let us see how can we rectify this situation? This is what I think we must do, and some of this we have started doing:

1. Do a compulsory psychology workshop of all parents and make them aware of their duties towards the unborn child and the nation. Becoming parents is a serious job, and one must prepare and qualify. Antenatal clinics in all Primary Health Centres must have both personnel and literature to meet this objective. The grandparents would be most receptive if they are made to understand how their stories are going to influence the upbringing of the children of their family and their village. Like the Quit India Movement and the Swacha Bharat Mission, this Gaurav Bharat Jan Jagaran  Mission too has to be a people's programme, a Jan Andolan.

2. Flood the market with books, audios and videos of patriotism or deshbhakti, unsung heroes and heroines and make them all dirt cheap. They should be advertised and freely available. Stories, audios and videos of tribal freedom fighters like Birsa Munda, Alluri Seetha Ram Raju, Naga chieftain Rani Gaidhinliu, Sidhu and Kanhu Murmu of Santhal revolt fame, Tilak Manjhi, Govind Guru and Narayan Singh of Sepoy Mutiny should be on radio and television in programmes aimed at children.

3. Arm twist Cartoon and Kid channels to make animated films from our Jatak kathas, and films celebrating the valor of our freedom fighters. Let them glorify the sacrifice of our icons so that the children can be inspired to be like them. A child’s mind is like clay and a child of today can easily be moulded into a proud citizen of tomorrow.

4. Get the misconception out of the Indian psyche that the aazadi was obtained by non-violence, bina khadag bina dhaal. Get the history correct. From Mangal Pandey's Sepoy Mutiny to Neta ji's Azad Hind Fauz the real story of Indian independence needs to taught to our children, so that they can feel proud of their ancestors and of our country. Our countrymen did not stay as passive slaves for two centuries; pockets of resistance appeared in every corner of our country and each of them has a proud story of bravery and valor that remains untold till date. Let us dig them out and tell our children bow brave our ancestors were. For how many more years are we going to teach them about Mir Jaffer and Jaichand?

5. Rewrite history books and tell our children about Chanakya, Aryabhatta, Shankaracharya, Dadhichi, Charaka, Sushruta, Guru Nanak, Guru Gobind Singh, Shivaji, Ahalyabai Holkar, Rani Laxmibai, and APJ Abdul Kalam and make them aware about our proud heritage. I have no problems with Moguls, but why omit the Cholas, the Rajputs, the Marathas and the Sikh Gurus?

6. After Class XII send the children for 2 years of compulsory military services. This will transform their personality and metamorphose them into loyal, law-abiding, skillful, healthy, and proud Indian. A compulsory military duty is there in many countries like Singapore, Israel, South Korea, Brazil, Thailand, U.A.E and Taiwan and it has done immense good to their society. The citizens inculcate the noble qualities of service, sacrifice, devotion and dedication and learn to put their country first – ahead of sectarian divisions, religion and language.

 

Lastly, if you are a proud Indian then help your fellow Indians who are less fortunate. Extend a helping hand by not giving them a fish but by teaching them how to fish. If you have retired from service and God has blessed you with good health then plan a glorious second innings aimed solely at giving back to the society. Do not dismiss politics as 'not for me'. If good people like you refuse to enter politics and reform it then it will become a refuge for the scumbags and scoundrels. If you love our country then you cannot allow that to happen so always exercise your franchise as the polling booth and vote responsibly, not for lucrative freebies but for good policies and proven track records. I know you love your country, now show it by acting responsibly.

 

THE HISTORY BEHIND SOME ENGLISH IDIOMS AND PHRASES

 

An idiom is a phrase that has a figurative meaning, whereas a phrase is a group of words that have a literal meaning. There are many phrases and idioms that we use in the English language that we never give a second thought to. With that being said, however, you'll be surprised to know that many of the most common phrases we use in speech actually have the most sinister of origins. Here are a few common phrases with rather sinister origins which you might not have even guessed in your wildest imagination:

 

1. "Riding shotgun" - Although it might be the ideal place to ride during a road trip, riding shotgun in the Old West was a much more serious matter. Stagecoach passengers literally rode with a shotgun in their hands in order to scare off robbers to ward off would-be attackers.

 

2. "Highway robbery" - These days, most people would refer to being charged Rs.100 for a cup of coffee as a highway robbery. With that being said, its original definition meant literally robbing travelers on or near a highway. It's thought that the phrase was first used way back in 1611. Highways were unsafe with far less traffic to deter robbers.

 

3. "Paint the town red" - Painting the town red is often associated with getting glammed up before heading out for a night of drinking and dancing, but that's not what it meant back in 1837. As the story goes, the Marquis of Waterford went out for a night of drinking with some friends. They all proceeded to become quite severely intoxicated, and set about destroying property in the small English town. Things got really crazy when they stumbled upon some red paint, and literally began painting the town red. Doors, a tollgate, and a swan statue were among the victims...

 

4. "Pulling your leg" - You'd probably think that pulling someone's leg is just a bit of light-hearted fun, but it meant something much more sinister back in 18th and 19th-century London. Thieves would drag their victims to the ground by their legs so that they were easier to steal from.

 

5. "Paying through the nose" - Paying through the nose for something is never a pleasant experience, but at least your face remains intact throughout. The Vikings took paying through the nose quite literally - they used to slit someone's nose from tip to eyebrow if they refused to pay tax.

 

6. "Read me the riot act" - If you were ever read the riot act as a child or teenager, it might have meant being confined to your room for a few weeks without being able to watch television. In 18th-century England, however, it meant that you could face time behind bars. The Riot Act of 1715 stated that groups of 12 or more people gathered on the streets could be deemed a threat to public safety, and therefore ordered to be broken up. Refusal to disperse could also have led to arrests and forcible removals.

 

7. "Letting the cat out of the bag" - Nowadays, letting the cat out of the bag means spilling someone's secret, however, the phrase used to mean something completely different back in Medieval times. Back then, farmers would purchase piglets from markets, which would usually be handed over in bags. The thing is that unscrupulous dealers would swap out the pigs they were supposed to be selling for much less expensive cats. This theory is quite hotly disputed.

 

8. "A baker's dozen" - Back in 13th-century Britain, there was a law called the Assize of Bread and Ale. It stated that if bakers were caught selling low-quality bread or undersized portions, they could have their hands chopped off. That's why a group or set of 13 is referred to as a baker's dozen - it was a sure-fire way of them keeping their hands!

 

9. "Meeting a deadline" - Meeting a deadline had a very different meaning during the American Civil War than it does today. A deadline was a line inside the area where Federal prisoners were kept. If any of them attempted to cross the line, they would be shot and killed.

 

10. “Time to face the music” – In Great Britain and the Early American colonial era, disgraced military officers were drummed out of their regiments when discharged.

 

11. “Dressed to the nine” – Dressed to the nine meant the one was rich enough to literally purchase entire nine yards it took to make a tailor-fit outfit including a vest, jacket, etc.

 

12. “Get off your high horse”- Before the advent of cars owning a horse was a sign of prominence, since nobility and high ranking military officials were primarily the ones who owned them. Getting off the high horse meant to humble oneself.

 

13. “Jump on the bandwagon” – In the mid-1800s, circuses would parade around town before setting up their tents, with bandwagons leading the parade. They drew large crowds, and politicians started renting space on the bandwagons to get face time with the audience.

 

14. “Burning the midnight oil” – In a time before electricity was invented, candles and oil lamps were used for lighting up the dark nights. When one stayed up late to work, one would literally burn the lamp oil at midnight.

 

15. ‘In the nick of time” – Through the 18^th. Century, businessmen often kept track of their debts owed and interest built on loans by carving nicks on a ‘tally stick’. When someone arrived to pay off their debt before the next nick was carved, they’d save that day’s worth of interest – hence, nick of time.

 

16. “Pull out all stops” – This originated from the time when organists would literally pull the stops from every pipe on an organ to play at maximum volume.

 

17. “At the drop of a hat” – To start a race instead of a gunshot it was customary to drop a hat to signal the start.

 

18. “Blackballed” – In 18^th century social clubs, membership was voted upon by a committee. Typically an anonymous vote was cast using different coloured balls. A positive vote for membership was cast by a red ball and a negative one by a black ball. Some clubs required only one black ball vote to reject an applicant’s membership.

 

 

Often the common phrases we say actually have bizarre origins we never even think about. Some go way back, while some may surprise you with their bizarre origin stories. I have in 3 previous blogs discussed about similar English idioms and how they originated. You can re-visit them by clicking on these hyperlinks:

https://surajitbrainwaves.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-story-behind-english-idioms.html

https://surajitbrainwaves.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-origin-of-common-english-idioms.html

https://surajitbrainwaves.blogspot.com/2021/06/the-origin-of-common-english-idioms-2.html

 

I hope to keep gathering more of them for you to enjoy.