Walking The Talk!

  After much ado, here we are at long last. Not Just The Talks has seen as many roadblocks as any great venture must, until it becomes great. And this is just the beginning. I hope and believe that the process of change that we henceforth strive to make true, sees the right end. But as they say, the only thing constant is change; I am presented with a never ending, but indispensable task.

  The idea behind Not Just The Talks occurred to me in the middle of one of those ‘Cribbing-about-the-country’ moments, a time when everybody is automatically licensed to point fingers, curse, complain, shovel oneself safely away from responsibility, and end it with a sweet dessert- Playing the ‘Blame Game’. Oh yes, how immensely satisfying it is, to mount the load of all your misery on the shoulders of a politician, who is almost always is tagged corrupt because of his job; or the ‘slow’ judiciary, which has cases pending for more than a decade; or even your local corporator, because he failed to fill in the potholes on the road, having made you step in a puddle of mud. A natural favourite among people of all age groups, this set of conversation almost always becomes a part of our daily talks, at some point of the day. And yet, the next day, there is more to crib about.

  It took me 17 years and a few more months of cribbing, to realise the futility of complaining about stuff, unless…
                                                                (The big unless! )

…unless there was something I could do to change it. Yes, that makes sense. How long do I keep talking about the slums and shanties, pavement dwellers and the nuisance that they are, about the fact that our city creates more garbage everyday than it can handle, and that most of that garbage is in public places, making living conditions less than ‘liveable’? What sense does it make if we all talk about it all, but do absolutely nothing to change it? There comes the crossroad, the decision that will make you either an eternal cribber (“India hai boss, idhar kuch nahin hone wala!”) , or a person who can join hands with the millions of our working population to be the change  you always wanted (“Ekdum foreign ka ishtyle!”).

I chose the latter. I can’t bear to see my sidewalk strewn with waste, or the trains I travel in, stained with Paan. I can’t read my newspaper with headlines of scams and grafts, and still not care. Every time a student gains admission to a college without any merit or talent, except that of filling the Principal’s pockets with cash, my nerves are tested. It pains my heart to see the poor homeless families on the pavements (our city has plenty of them), without the BMC or any competent authority coming to their aid. It frustrates me to see how new projects undertaken to improve our city, seldom see the rightful end they deserve, not making up for months of painstaking labour and the traffic snarls they produce. It is sad indeed, to watch it all happening, and sit mum about it with a feeling of helplessness. All the more, it fills me with great anger to see youngsters of my age say that there’s nothing we can do to change this. We all somehow, have learned to live with it. Something we need to give up, ASAP. How can you live in the digital age and say there’s nothing to do?? Where there is a will, there is ALWAYS a way. And that’s exactly what I plan to do here. Pave the way for change to happen.

  And that’s where Not Just The Talks enters, folks. Inspired somewhat, by the great Egyptian Revolution that began with a simple call for change via a youtube video and ended with the annulment of the dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak, Not Just The Talks aims to work in a similar manner. It is a call for change. The change, that will help us see our dream of an ideal city, ideal country turn into reality. The change, which will no longer have us wish for roads like in USA, Freedom like in England, Industrialisation like in Australia; you get the drift. The aim is to transform ourselves into a new nation, which has it’s core values firmly in place. However, be forewarned. The process of change is never possible unless it begins from changing our ownselves. Otherwise, any thoughts about bringing about a sweeping change, are nothing better than plain wishful thinking.

  Having said this, I call upon you, reader, to join hands with me in discussing and finding solutions to issues lingering around us, social, economic, hygiene related…Anything that needs to be changed.  United we shall stand, working together, because that’s what we’re here for. Not just the talking folks!

Until later!