<p>[Essay]
** Describe the world you come from, for example your family, clubs, school, community, city, or town. How has that world shaped your dreams and aspirations?**</p>
<p>My grandmother’s house was full of religion; sometimes there were ceremonies that went on for days. Yet no one explained us, children, what was going on; I doubt if even my grandmother knew what their significance was: they were carried on, unquestioned, because they were ancient.</p>
<p>I come from a family of Civil Servants and professors. My paternal grandfather’s father was a officer in the British Raj, so is the rest of my father’s family (including my father). My maternal grandfather was a Professor, so is rest of my mother’s family (including her). ‘Modern Caste system’ my grandfather used to comment, jokingly. Caste is the central to Indian psyche. Class is a system of rewards; caste on the other hand, imprisons a man into his proclaimed function, rest becomes subsidiary. It was only when my father objected on working besides school that I realized how deep the concept of Caste was rooted in Indian mind. A driver will drive only and not wash; a secretary will only take down notes and not type; a businessman will make money, even if that means selling colored water in place of medicines and as a student, I would study only, nothing else. </p>
<p>It’s said, by Naipaul and other post-colonial writers, that Indians can’t look directly at their country or else the distress they would see will drive them mad. Much is also said about their ability to ignore the obvious, ability to retreat in fantasy, ability to successfully negate the truth.</p>
<p>It’s only through self-inquiry that I am able to realize how much of this philosophy has been mine. The Smugness; the refusal to see what’s unpleasant; double talk and double think; my reverence for the ancient, however awkward it may be.</p>
<p>I am for that matter, a true Indian. If I was asked to portray India I would, typically like an Indian, point at its pacifism; it’s ability to absorb everyone- be it Arab merchants or Turk conquerors; it’s National religion, Hinduism, which is perhaps the only religion in this world which doesn’t claims to be the true religion; it’s pluralism, about my house, where the tinkling of bells from a Hindu temple mixes with the muzzling from a mosque situated on the opposite site of the road, in between stands a plaque proclaiming Marxist atheism. I would gloss over its superstitions, its inequalities, and its obscurantism.</p>
<p>Like any other Indian I don’t had (and perhaps still don’t have) any sense of History. In a democracy like India historical facts can’t be surpassed, in fact they are acknowledged and ignored. For my ancestral house was a Hindu temple till an invader form Afghanistan defiled it; yet during my stay there I am woken up innumerable times by people who want to pray in the small remain, that miraculously survived. A Thousand year old temple still lives! This is India, eternal. Or perhaps, is this sentimental conviction that India will go on the cause of our neglect towards our country? </p>
<p>Mahabharata and Ramayana, the two Sanskrit epics, are the focal point of Indian life. Both are the stories of great wars fought on the principle of Dharma (Dharma, Righteousness underlying law). I could still remember my grandmother telling me the story of Ram, the hero of Ramayana, who set against the crusade against the abductors of his wife, Sita.
Looking back at these epics I realize how far we have come from a utopian land, where truth and Dharma were worshipped to a land of rampant corruption and endemic faithlessness. But for that we ourselves are to be blamed. Like the ceremonies in my grandmother’s house we don’t question our world- we accept it as it comes. Passivity.</p>
<p>The courageous struggle of my father against corruption has inspired me the most. All my life, I have seen him struggling: he’s often transferred to remote districts, It’s often months till we see him; often he is often pressurized by corrupt officers and politicians; yet I have never seen him complaining.
If I were him, then probably I would have yielded to all this. It’s through him that I realize that there’s a need to be good. It was perhaps a feeling of anger which prompted me to work for Right to Information act. </p>
<p>Perhaps what could be said about India- every truth about India has an opposite, which is also true- is also true about me. I am atheist, yet a devout Hindu; Schizophrenic may be the right word to describe me when I pray in the Shiva temple, along with million of Indians, before each and every launch by our Space agency; I am interested in Science, yet arts attracts me.</p>
<p>As a child we know nothing, apart from what we see. As I child we aren’t supposed to know anything. A new born learns what he sees; I have spent 18 years of my life here; India has made me what I am, be it good or bad.
[/Essay]</p>
<p>Now i am getting worried, any thoughts?</p>