Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Of terror strikes, falling i-banks and India

A number of epitaphs of leading i-banks have been doing the rounds in the press over the last couple of weeks. The US economy and the debacle on Wall Street in particular, are front page headlines for the wrong reasons. Job losses, impending recession, depleting business confidence, lower spend, changes in sales forecasts of various companies/industries, pall of gloom and what have you is all that one gets to see in these times. As if this wasn't enough, the endless terror strikes all over India are yet another area for the media to feast upon.

In all this, I am wondering if there is any room for hope at all for anyone. The more I try to think about it and see if there is anything left to look forward to, the harder I find it to narrow down to. Maybe, I am getting influenced by all this a wee bit too much- after all, I am human! But, no. The fact that I am human means that I am different. It means that the single biggest differentiating factor as a homo sapien is my ability to rationalise, hope and look forward to a better tomorrow.

So what if the financial crisis is eroding my net worth? So what if the terrorists have decided to kill ever discernible Indian in every corner of the country? So what if the government of the day is busy negotiating nuclear deals, and not doing too much to safeguard its people?So what if the stock markets hit new lows at the end of every trading session? So what if every other thing happening around me is negative. I think, there has never been a more opportune time to be positive than now.

If courage of conviction is ever needed in life, I think it is now. The famous Indian resilience of getting out of the house and going to the same spot where a bomb exploded the next day after such an event made headlines is enough cause to celebrate. The fact that Indian banking insitutions and financial systems have not been hit as severely as that of the their global counterparts is yet another reason to be happy about. More than anything else, the vision of our public policy planners of the 1950s need to be commended for coming up with the concept of the public sector in the country- had it not been for that system, we might have yet had a collapse like none other. So, that's another reason to celebrate. And beyond all these tangibles, we are still the biggest hope on this planet - of being the future superpower of this world. Why let up on that dream because of such events, that are bound to happen again and again in our journey to success? Somebody out there (read, terrorist), does not like our growth. I am also quite confident that he does not like the good things happening to us. But, I think the best way to answer him is to be resilient and happy in our minds and look at how we can build a greater nation than what we already have.

Hell, its the spirit of being a human being that is more important than succumbing to these extremely powerful forces that beckon us. I am going to be positive and happy; let me see if there is anybody there who can stop me from being so. Its ONE life, and nobody - be it i-banks or terrorists or anyone else - has a right to damage it.

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