Materialism

They say, “Most people seek after what they do not possess and are thus enslaved by the very things they want to acquire”. It’s true. The years spent in college were truly idealistic with no thought lent to the murky path to be taken in future. The muck on this path is too much to describe in a single write up but the aspect that I am about to discuss is one that slowly catches up and refuses to let go - Materialism.
Materialism goes beyond definitions because it, in most cases, defines various parameters of lifestyle. Very few people can resist the radiating charms of materialism. It has the characteristic property of ruining a life while making the person in question squeal in delight at the thought of his/her latest acquisition. The birth of materialism in a person takes place when ‘wants’ become ‘needs’. For example, cell phones were a want in the era when the land phones were going strong. Today, probably a cell phone with PDA features has turned into an acquired ‘need’. People cite a lot of reasons for this metamorphosis. Some say that economic stability triggers it. Some others indict malefic social rat races. Agreed. However, these are environmental reasons and are easy to pinpoint (but not change). What I am after is the thought process that goes behind such a phenomenon and the potential solutions for it.
I always believed that eternal material comfort was a fallacy and that I would not fall prey to it even through my corporate lifestyle. I am yet to find out the shape my job is going to give me but the materialism factor can already be sensed as a side effect. Everything that exists is material-centric. Even a baby cries because he needs something material. Any fool understands the pinch of material lust but the mind presents the problem in at least two ways. The first is conscious thought, as felt in the aftermath of any enlightening experience. The second is the purpose of any thought and that is about something being beyond itself.
As I see it, there are three ways of tackling this raging quicksand of a problem. We can follow 'ease' as a dictating parameter in their gradation. The hardest method is eliminating feelings, emotions and every other mental state - in short be a machine. Everything that has to do with human feelings and wants need to be eliminated and be treated as redundant junk. A certain number of ‘acceptable’ finite states should govern our actions. In my case that would be declaring to myself that I was created to work and any other event would lead to a malfunction of my intended purpose. There has to belief that the purpose of existence is much bigger than the modus vivendi.
The next method is a little less harsh - We need to reduce these thought processes leading to materialism and boil them down to certain thoughts that start a train of other materialistic demands. We must however consider that these are not ‘demands’ per se but needs to avoid professional failure. Taking my case again, I could bring it down to the basics of feeding, clothing and housing myself. This method, though more humane, is far more difficult to put into practice than the previous method. The difficulty here lies in identifying the base needs and the derived wants/needs.
For the least resolute, the only way out is to accept science and the anabolic nature of the mind nevertheless claiming that it depends on the material in such an intimate way...way more intimate than a mere incidental connection and having a great natural dependence. This part means that you can fag your force away, soak your soul in ale, redefine the intensity of an orgy and generally have a blast 'cause whadda ya know - you're the new material man.

National Pride or What You Will

Recently there has been a lot of talk over NRIs, national pride and Swades…not necessarily in that order. In the same context I came across an NRI lad. He was cribbing over the shame he has to undergo because of his nationality. Although he wrote about how ashamed we (not he) must be and also how smart English education has made him, there was one point that the lad got right - We must be ashamed of ourselves. We have enough reason to sit in our homes, turn off the lights and never speak a word about prestige in front of other people. In fact, we go all the way in actually propagating racism by behaving like racially inferior people.
Don't believe me? How else can you describe a person who constantly banters about his neighbour's religion? How else can you describe a person who is scared of becoming unclean by touching a 'harijan'? How else can you describe a person who runs a scam in cattle fodder? If we take toll of the tendency to 'crawl' as against that to stand up, Indians will definitely feature on top.
I say, look at Germany and Japan...you may say - look at our population. My question is - Whose fault is it? If we don't realize that we cannot feed and educate 4 children, how can we produce them? The truth is that as a society, we are laid back and not proactive in the direction of progress. This however does not have anything to do with our cultural quotient - There are still places in rural India where the guest is fed first even if the rest of the family is starving!
Coming back to being an immigrant, that in itself is a slur - something to be ashamed of. It just means that our country was not 'big' enough to hold our dreams or that our dreams excluded our country. Both situations are nothing to be proud of. No Indian-American can say that he is being treated the same way as a 'white' American. As always, media and Hollywood movies propagate that load of bull. Chaitanya a.k.a. Chet (the NRI) probably never noticed that even in their movies, the black dude dies first - is 'wasted'. Equality in death I presume!
There is nothing to be proud as long as we have naked children die of the cold on the streets and as long as people die of hunger. Pride of our forefathers, albeit in poverty can be restored by character. Only when one Indian treats another as an Indian instead of as a Muslim, Hindu, Bengali, Malayalee or transvestite can India truly be restored to global greatness. Currently we are not helping by our bickering. However, no Indian living outside India has the moral right to crib about the pride of being an Indian. For him/her the greatest shame was that of deserting his/her motherland. No amount of slime balling can correct that.
To my mind there come two pertinent points that should be understood (in terms of Indians and their pride). These primarily pertain to the role of these people in the awakening of a New India.

1. Indians who left India and are living outside - everyone has heard about it criticized - we trained our citizens with public money, invested in them, and they left us to benefit foreign lands. All true. However, these are the very same people who, on receipt of the right signals from us, are the biggest promoters of Indian industries abroad. Result - the growth in FDIs and forex reserve activity. Just like the Chinese diaspora was the biggest investor in China when the Chinese govt. became proactive and open about Foreign Investment. These people are the ones who affect the perception of your country abroad.

2. People who choose to stay in India - these people have and will always have a far larger role to play in the cleaning act and nation building. You and me belong to this category. Stand up and be counted when it matters.

Neither of us can deny the problems that came back like the Hydra, driving away our best minds in search of ‘opportunity’. We need to accept the facts as they stand and try and build a fabulous future for our country. We can never change history, let us at least not turn our backs to creating it.