Please mind the Gap !!

This post is not an advertisement about the products of GAP; and nor am I going to narrate my numerous rides in the London tube (or Singapore MRT), where this sentence is announced a million over times a day!! This is something serious.

As a seafarer I traveled far and wide, always putting my best foot when it came to going out on shore leave at different countries, strange ports, among great and sometimes not so great people. After all I was representing a country which was coming lately into the global picture because of its large IT talent pool, because of it economic reforms,a country which suddenly became a production house of miss worlds and miss Universes.

I was an ambassador to a country which was slowly undergoing an image changeover, from the land of snake charmers and elephants, to a country which was frequented by the likes of Bill Gates' and the Clintons.
Representing a great country which was in turn representing the 3rd world, representing the growing economies was no mean thing, and had put great responsibility on my shoulders. I had to be well informed about anything and everything that was Indian, or was even remotely connected to India, and more than that I had to possess the same information that media had already propagated in those lands. And it was tough.
During my visit to Dominican Republic I was at loss of words when a loading master knew more about the history of India than me, he was well informed about the reasons that led to the partition of India and Pakistan. Another time in a bar at Santos, Brazil, I was cross questioned about the cutting edge technology that was being used in India in producing various drugs and vaccines. I was humbled during my conversation with an MIT professor on a trans-Atlantic flight when after a long debate about the perennially slow moving government system I couldn't defend India. The professor then himself rescued me when he retorted "it is all about DEMOCRACY". "Things move slow, but at least they move in the right direction, in the direction that people of India want to see it moving".
Thats it! I had found the mantra, the magic words "World's biggest Democracy". I was comfortably poised then on in my demeanour when it came to talk about India.

Fast Forward... post my MBA now I am in India for good, and suddenly see my conceit about India, melting, because I'm getting to see the real India. This is more than what I've ever been talking aloud.. a lot more !
There is a Big gap between the India known to the western world, and the India, that an Indian farmer lives in, travailing day in day out, just to make those two ends meet
Thanks to Pareto's 20/80 rule now I understand that 80% of the good things that we hear, 80% of the country's progress is showcased because of the hard work of 20% of population roughly.
Rest 80% of the population has lost its empathy (or probably never had), and has become calloused with daily work they do to keep themselves alive.

From now on this blog is committed to bridge the GAP between where the real India is TO where it should be. Gandhiji said "You must be the change you want to see".
This blog is my earnest attempt to shout out loud about everything that is going wrong in this great country, and more importantly how it should be.

My dear reader, I would request you to sincerely contribute to this blog (which would now be a forum)about how you feel about these various issues (be it TIGERS on the brink of extinction, or the plight of our national sport Hockey, or the ever increasing number of suicides by farmers, just any thing), and by suggesting the ways how these issues should be mended or tackled. Remember - Your Way, and not the politically correct, system generated diktat.

To start with ....."TIGERS - Only 1411 left"
start pouring, and lets get the ball rolling.. This could be our chance to do our bit to save the big cat..