SPEAKING FROM THE HEART ... 14

SPEAKING FROM THE HEART ... 14

We can do much more for the country than we are doing right now. In this it is best to be self-inspired. That will avert the possibility of future disillusionment about our so-called heroes, iconic figures who we are otherwise inspired by. Our inspiration coming from within ourselves, it will be more stable, more durable, and we shall not degenerate into becoming cynics with a 'wise' sneer at everything that happens to come within the ambit of our experience.

It is necessary to feel enthusiastic about our nation despite the myriad failings that beset it at the moment, and we must continue to feel so if we are to be of any service to it. An affirmative attitude is a prime necessity without which we cannot as a nation move ahead. But the critical faculties must not be dispensed with in the process. Sycophancy, self-seeking, suppression of dissent, complacency of the ignoramus, loud lambasting of opposition en masse, bartering the best interests of the nation by pursuing myopic policies -- all these must not be wilfully or blindly supported if this nation is to rise. We must resist wherever necessary, raise our voices against injustice and do what is the democratic duty of a conscientious citizen but there our obligation to the motherland does not end. We have to do much more. 

To take the cue from Einstein, we must hone our skills, work on our talents and acquire excellence in whatever we do. Then we must lay such developed skills at the service of society. This precisely is the way. There is none other for it is eternally the individual who is the executor of actions that make the difference to himself and to others. In our national context as well this can be the way ahead. Individuals rising to excellence despite the constraints they have to work with, the hindrances in their path and the barren opposition they have to so often overcome before their voices are heard to any positive effect are yet the only fertile seeds whose fruition will afforest arid lands and create the environment for future civilised habitation.

But the feeling for one's fellow men must be there. It is out of this feeling that the impulse to do something for others comes. Without feeling man is a dead organic mass just mechanically breathing and working his way through life. But with feeling he is transformed. He is now a vibrating mass of consciousness ready to improve upon life and its limitations, to extend the frontiers of living, to explore beyond the beckoning horizons, to rise and reach the moon, to light up the skies when the sun has set, to be kindred spirit to all those luminous bulbs donning the vault of the heavens.

Written by Sugata Bose