The Lion Roared At The UN

Much of what I am, my character and even my basic composition as a human being is derived and shaped by the teachings of my Grandfather. It was unfortunate for me to lose him when I was in my second year of engineering but by then I had much to learn from him on various aspects of humanity and character building. For instance, when I was a kid I had the misfortune of having a bunch of classmates who were bullies to the very definition of the word. For every utterance of mine, I had this huge roar of laughter coming from that group. I was annoyed and intimidated every day of my life by the bunch of trouble makers. One fine day I confided to my grandpa and narrate him my daily ordeal in school. I would be barely 6 or 7 year old by then. He looked at me with little suspicion and patted my back. To my horror, rather being critical of that bunch of bullies he started blaming me for my tribulation. After good five minutes he asked me a simple question – why would anyone take you seriously when you yourself are not serious about your own. Your classmates are not taking you seriously because you are not serious about yourself. Rather complaining against them, try resurrecting yourself and start respecting your own, he advised. I was annoyed initially seeing my own grandpa booing me away. But over a period of time, I realized the jewels hidden in his words. And even today, I keep reminding me his question every day of my life.

Now, you may wonder, why I started with this small interaction of mine with my grandpa. Because, this is what we were as a nation until yesterday at the world forum. We were always mocked, bullied and intimidated, not only by Pakistan but almost everyone else, in everyday of our existence as a nation. You may ask why. The answer to which largely lies in the question that my grandpa asked me three decades back. Were we ever serious about ourselves? Did our leadership till date conveyed that seriousness to the world diaspora by any convincing way? Honestly speaking, till today, I never cared to listen to what Dr. Manmohan Singh had to say on anything, much less what he says about us in world forums. I never cared, not because I was disrespectful of my PM’s words but because I always found Dr. Singh a grossly uninspiring individual. The more I listened to him on world forums, the more it got cleared to me on why no one is taking us seriously any more. He has this mundane way of speaking from a bunch of scripts thrown at him, adding no substance or value to it, which we as a nation expect from our leader to do. It was no different from what his Pakistan counterpart used to do, except he reads from the literature supplied to him by their army and ISI wherein Dr. Singh blabbered what his big boss wanted him to. Also throw a little bit of vote bank politics to it. Nation, national interest and most important, seriousness was never visible in whatever he ever said. Our policies, replies and addresses always revolved around what Pakistan said earlier. As if, we as a nation were so intellectually bankrupt that we always had to draw outlines from Pakistan on what we want to do. And this is precisely what I mean when I say, we never took ourselves seriously.

How many of you can guess what Dr. Singh would have said, had he been there in place of NaMo at the UN? I am sure it would be entirely on the lines of what Pakistan had to say. He would have consumed three-fourth of his time in replying Nawaz Sarrif’s jibes as if we are defensive about defining what we are. He would have behaved like a clueless entity by design because his concern would have been to protect the vote bank of his party, not to uphold the national interest. I am sorry to say, this is precisely what defines charlatanism, not national leaders. Come what may, true leaders not only wear nationalism up their sleeves but also make sure that the world takes a note of the same. This is why I always found Dr. Singh uninspiring because he never talked about the nation, but his, his party’s and his high command’s interest. For ages, I eagerly waited for the moment to see our PM giving a royal snub to the PM of Pakistan on the issue of Kashmir. And I always returned disappointed because every time the vote bank took the precedence over nationalism. Our PM would be mocked as ‘Dehati Aurat’ but none in our leadership would rise to the occasion to rebuff the ‘Jehadi Aurat’ for once. Nobody retaliated in nationalistic manner because that would mean a lot of annoyed people back home who unfortunately constitute a major chunk of the much preserved vote bank. National pride can go to hell was the inherent policy. I always thought, are we a failed state like Pakistan that we need to play the same gramophone again-and-again like them and that too in every world forum? Don’t we have much larger things to achieve and ponder about than just Kashmir? And every time my so called leaders insulted my feelings quite blatantly. All because their seat of power was dearer to them than the national sentiments. After a long time my alter ego was nursed the way I expected my leader to do. More than answering back, time was for to show some “We Care Hell” attitude towards a beggar state like Pakistan. And that is exactly what NaMo did in his speech. In just about 20 minutes he displayed his nonchalant attitude towards the official Rudalis of the Pakistan side and made it clear that he is a leader of the world with bigger and important vision than running around a bush called Kashmir.

After a long time, I could sleep peacefully yesterday knowing that finally we stood as a true and responsible nation and took ourselves seriously. For the first time we kept our vote bank way below in the scheme of things and upheld the nationalism to its true meaning. Not only that, we also compelled the rest of the world to take us seriously henceforth as well. Swami Vivekananda did it a century back at the UN so did Atal Viari Vajpayee a couple of decades ago and now NaMo yesterday when he forced the world to stand up and take a note. And this is what my grandpa advised me – take yourself seriously first, the world will follow suite automatically.             

  

Even the worst of critics of NaMo didn’t find anything worth criticizing. Proof of it is their Twitter timelines which went silent without any fabricated lie peddling. All the usual suspects went to their respective bunkers and stopped twitting at once. Such powerful and vision oriented the speech was. For once I thought the seculars would cry foul on Modi’s Yoga sentiments as Yoga is somewhat Hindu centric phenomenon. I was expecting odd seculars to pop up their ugly heads to bash Modi being communal with his Yoga lines. But to surprise me, none of the seculars even dared to vomit the filth as they usually somehow do after ever Narendra Modi speech. But that said there still were Modi haters who found an avenue or two to downplay the standing ovation that NaMo got on the floor of the UN. After all Modi haters are Modi haters. And what better than to scavenge the front pages of few international dally? And who better to do it than the one and only Rajdeep ‘Moral Compass’ Sardesai? And how he does it? Yes, the Satywanesi does some so called reality check. After his tiresome research he found not much substance in Modi’s speech because New York Times never had anything about NaMo on their front page. Dear Rajdeep, running around foreign media for sound bites reflects your servile mentality towards the west more than if NaMo is a world leader or not. Have you cared to see the front page of Indian dallies? I pity this human being since he still didn’t realize that his pathological hate for NaMo without any logic made him lose his job and yet still he is marching on the same path of hate. Time, we call this man sick and pray for his speedy revival than being critical of his hate filled brain cells.

By the way, the subject line of this post is kept after some thought. To my pleasing sight and eardrums, after a long time I heard a lion from India roared at the UN, unlike the earlier pussy rumbling of our morally weak and corrupt leadership. What a relief man…What a relief.