Who should be the role model for Indian people? Recently I was faced with this question. My reply was that only such a person can be the role model who is in a state of consistency of Manasa, vacha, karmana . The word manasa refers to the mind, vacha refers to speech and karmana refers to actions. He who has synchronized these three aspects of human behaviour in his life. He who speaks exactly what he thinks and does only those things that he believes in. He must not speak something that he does not believe in. He should promise exactly what he can deliver. He must think before doing anything or saying something. He who loves all. He who does not hate anybody. He who does not discriminate. He who does not exploit. I was still speaking my mind when I was interrupted. Is it not expecting too much of an individual? Yes, I said but here we are not talking of normal people. We are talking of an individual who should be an ideal for others. Where we will find him and do we have such a person? No we do not have such a person. Perhaps God has stopped making such human beings. So I said, let us forget the basics and come to talk of real life. These days every body is his or her own role model. We, Indians really do not need any role model.
These days, people say one thing but do quite another. People advise others to be truthful but get upset when someone calls a spade a spade. In my childhood I read few sayings. One was - par updesh kushal bahutere. We take pride in advising any one at any time and while advising we act as though we know every thing about what we are advising. But in our own life we fail to act as per our own advice. Another saying was - doosro ko naseehat khud miyan phazeehat. This saying also has more or less the same meaning. I read one story by Krishan Chander. He compared people to onion. Keep on removing layers after layers but won't see the real face. Two faced Indians, somebody said. Yes, ek aadmi do chehere. Almost every Indian has two faces. Some even have more than two faces. Kya kahna chahiye - ek aadmi do chehere OR aadmi ek chehre anek. Kuch bhi kaho sab chalega.
Then there was a song - parde ke peechey kya hai? Koi nahin jaanta aur sab jaante hain, par koi maanta nahin. Somebody said, you seem to be talking about hypocrisyy. Yes, in English that is the right word. We Indians are very comfortable with this word. In fact we live it every moment of our life. The height of hypocrisy is that many Indians even do not know that they are being hypocritical. You tell them but they will not agree with you and tell you that you are being hypocritical. Both are right, you and they, both are practicing hypcrisy. In short, hypocrisy has become a way of life for us Indians.
Sometime back Rahul Gandhi spoke about the Congressmen's hypocrisy on khadi and alcohol. It angered those who wear kahdi and can not live without drinking. But in open they showered their love on Rahul Baba but inside ... (your guess is right). They respect Bapu and hang his photo in their office with slogan - 'high thinking simple living. But under the table they take bribe. Yesterday I typed 'passport office' in Google search box, the resultant list contained address of a blog - 'Delhi Bribe Rates'. Passport and bribe, do you see the relation? But it is not hypocrisy. It is a fact of life.
Indian politicians make laws but only for others to follow. When a law becomes inconvenient they change it. Prime Minister looses his sleep over the arrest of an Indian in Australia but sleeps soundly after many people are killed in Nandigram. CPM claims to be working for aam aadmi but sent its cadre to kill aam aadmi in Nandigram.
Somebody said yaar we asked a simple question about the role model and you started a lecture. I replied, bhai don't get angry. I am an Indian and you all are Indians. We all are hypocritical creatures. Only a more hypocritical individual can be our role model.
