Wanted

“Everything can be manipulated” thundered my friend as we were sitting leisurely under the sky discussing about the plight of the nation. These words came as a bolt from the blue from this usually clownish friend of mine. But uncharacteristic to him, he was serious to the core and deeply aggrieved by the recent happenings around him, around me and in fact around every one of us.

As we grazed past the various ills plaguing the country, trying our bit to zero in on what needs to be done to cure the same; he chillingly narrated incidents how politician try and manipulate the public for their own betterment. And it wasn’t just plain baseless allegations against the Gandhi topi and khadi kurta clad individuals; for me I believed his talk made sense. From the Amar Singhs, Raj Thakareys, and Narendra Modis who divide people to rule over them, to the local MLAs luring voters with money and thereof, he seemed to have un-puzzled everything. But, had he? How I wish I affirmatively responded to it.

Like any other rational citizen we had unraveled the never-ending list of what’s wrong with us, but alas we haven’t had laid our hands on the answer key to all these problems. And as I questioned him on what got to be done, I saw nothing but question mark on his face. As thoughts wandered, satisfying monetary need of the humankind popped up as a probable solution. But it was shot down with equal blitzkrieg by Maslow and his theory of hierarchy of needs. For if Maslow had his way, satisfaction of some level of needs would induce craving for achievement of the next level.
Educating the masses was option B. But would education eradicate the cynicism that has sipped into the Indian psyche. One can see from the current times, the ones who avoid the polling booths on election days are the ones whom I choose to call the educated illiterates.

Although nothing concrete emerged from our tete-e-tete, what we certainly concluded that there is a need of a movement, a revolution. There was a need of a mobiliser of the masses; and what better example to give other than the father of our nation. Though we agreed that Gandhism per se is passé and few of his actions might arguably be the root cause of the mess we see us in; we nevertheless acknowledged his skill of uniting people for a single cause. Probably, there is a need of a persona who is the culmination of mobilization skill of Gandhi and the organizing/ planning skill of Netaji. We both had consensus that this person definitely got to be from a non-political background but still having a tremendous following amongst the Indians. He might be a filmstar, a cricketer, a businessman or anyone else but surely someone should rise above petty politics towards this goal. We are on a lookout for one, hoping that our search will end soon. It might be even you. Do you have it in you?