The girl who silenced the world for 5 minutes
“…. Or a beggar in India ” ( @4:58 mins), The very words that struck me like a bolt and the words that really suck. Well the weird words came from a “child” who addressed a UN meeting on world environment issues. It was coincidence that made me see this video but now that I have seen this video, as a true Indian , I felt I would never sleep until I express my opinions about this “bullshit” and that is exactly what made me write this blog at 0030Hrs in the morning.
I truly agree that India has beggars. In fact I too hate beggars roaming around doing nothing and India might be having more beggars than many other countries put together but what I have started disliking is the general perception of India as a land of beggars and snake charmers. I also believe this syndrome is even worse with the “always-TV-watching-potato-couches” who can’t even identify their own country in a world map and will believe whatever is told in BBC, CNN or Teleshopping. But actually many of the Indian beggars get an average income of close to $250 a month which is actually much more than what many call center guys and software engineers could make in India. Not that I am propagating a mass “save-the-beggars” movement but I feel its not improper from my part to atleast expect people to address India as the land of Budha or the land of Krishna. (And ofcourse as the land of Techies)
For once, please clean up your mind and see what ever little information I have gathered below with a clear head.
To start with, India happens to be the second fastest growing economy in the world, only behind China. Not to forget that India is the 4th ranked country sorted by their gross domestic product (GDP), way above countries like Germany, UK and France. ( ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29 )
And for the 7th largest country whose wealth was plundered for almost 200years, these statistics are actually too good.
(Also there are some very cool data about India but I am not sure about the authenticity of the claims. 
http://www.wonderfulinfo.com/winfo/indiafacts.htm)
Anyways I personally feel that India has the capacity and will to “Exceed Expectations”, even with a totally impassive, corrupt & unstable government, always chaotic neighbors and rising inflation. I still believe that India will definitely come up as a world leader in another 20 years, and people like me will make sure that it does.
And for the video, I personally do care for the ozone, the forest and the climate. But even though the speech was very good it was too artificial and totally baseless. In fact most of the kids her age will not give a damn about the hole in the ozone or the forests and many might be even happy that the ugly looking Dido bird was done away with. My advice for the kids would be to enjoy whatever they have. Enjoy your food, water and ipod and hope for the best. Do not to waste precious time blabbering to a seriously slumbering crowd called “United Nonsense”. The girl didn’t silence the world for 5 minutes. The world was/is already sleeping.
May 23, 2008 at 11:32 am
well, what do i say….india, unfortunately or fortunately is like that elephant that was subject to touchy feelie experiments by six visually challenged persons some long days ago. the broadest vision is never able to take in in its entirety this multifaceted, multidimesnional entity called india. so the beggar chasers have as much to cry about as the techies and gandhians have to celebrate about.
neways…i havent watched the video as my office comp has no speakers.but this much i know…whenever the teachers in the dept of english in any high school in india find a kid with writing and elocutionary potential, they coach the kid into speeches and essays filled with empty rhetoric about comunal harmony, ozone holes, corruption, development etc. (guess now they must have moved to IPL, carbon footprints, tata nano and child labor). the kid is taught to ask the pseudo intellectual questions like “why cant we ever live in peace and harmony?”"when will the glorious days of india come back?” etc and vaugely and highly optimistic statements like “i hope evey indian realises his potential and takes the country forward”. the audience or readership of such endeavours is usually limited to headmistresses and principals who applaud, and give away prizes. the poor kid lives on with the false idea that he or she is the next shashi tharoor.
probably, this girl too is such a teacher’s pet, whose parents, teachers and other assorted contacts had enough clout to get her to the UN. the delegates too must have welcomed the idea of background droning not involving oil and the gaza strip.
and so she gets her five minutes of fame, her parents and teachers bask in the reflected glory, and in the meanwhile, oil prices keep soaring, ice keeps melting, and jobless people like me keep reading blogs and commenting
(cant help it. in high school, even i thought i was the next big thing after arundhati roy. too bad my school didnt try to send me to the UN or rashtrapati bhavan or anything)
May 23, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Dont bother the words of this child….
it has different meanings when seen @ different angles….
anyhow I do appreciate ur patrioticism…
and ur high layer thoughts like “people like me–
will make developed india in another 20 years”…
dont put it in words…
but let us all see some action!!
May 23, 2008 at 11:16 pm
in case you have read my earlier comment and are still reading this one:- thankyou for putting upwith me. your patience and tolerance is infinite.
i wrote the first comment without hearing the speech. now, after doing so, well, i feel the canadian girl was showing many of the symptoms i described in indian essay proteges. poor thing travelled 5000 miles, not calculating the carbon footprint of her trip, to tell a bunch of zombies that she knew that they did not know how to solve problems. and i expect everyone expects her to deserve a lot of applause.
another point to note: birds of a feather flock together. similarly, intellectually gifted children invariably meet one another and make grandiose future projections invlving philanthropy. the brazilian kid wanted money to redistribute among others. som eother kids dream of a second noah’s ark for endangered species. when i was in hghschool it was fashionable to say “i wanna be a doctor so that ican help the poor…”
sadly, these promises die innocent deaths….they die slowly as the kid loses his innocence. by that time, the kid wants to be a doc cos mamma says so and he knows doctors earn a lot
May 26, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Everything in this world changes and so will India …
The silent revolution has already begun …
what the kings of our past lost to the foreigners is going to be revived by us …
wud take a another 15 years for that
May 26, 2008 at 1:53 pm
@Sachin & @Logesh
True dudes,
What these people don’t understand is that its easier to sit there and speak about all this nonsense but the ground reality is worse. We need people who can and who will bring abut the change. And I believe the above said genre of people are people like us. The 20-40 age category in India, who are educated, who are not blindly following the crowd and who want the change and who can live the change.
May 30, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Well and Good, Every one has something to say, and I’ll have mine too. Let us forgive the small girl who said “I am Angry” twice and forgetting to recite the third “I am Angry”, the poor one has to look at the sheet to see the next word and say vehemently ” I am Angry” third time.. May be the words were written a 30 yrs back by a 2nd-world-war-veteran-turned-Green-peace-activist and picked up by an Arkansas 2nd grade tutor who had this poor one as his child and know some really powerful ones at the UN. I can remember a joke regarding elderly ones at village reading a real old newspaper and exclaiming “Indira gandhi nejamave sethutangala?”
June 1, 2008 at 1:25 pm
To lot of uninformend non-indians, India is still a country of kings, magicians and beggars. The speech was artificial.
June 1, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Deepak, you said it right. What you said has to be the truth.
June 2, 2008 at 11:44 pm
@Abhijith,
Agreed but again you missed , Entreprenuers, Software Engineers and some of the best brains the world has ever seen.
June 20, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Somehow i missed the point. Probably lost in translation
Anyway … nice blog to visit.
cheers, Homeric!
August 26, 2008 at 10:49 pm
india has the capacity and will to exceed expectations and it will definetly become a world leader in next 20 years
January 28, 2009 at 7:33 pm
What the girl is doing is in fact projecting a growing concern/ awareness of the children/ young adults in a highly insensitive forum as the UN / bureaucrats, if you pride has taken a beating (mostly so as a NRI) it should not reflect on the putting her down but in relating with the concern she displays. Children who exhibit heightened awareness will in all probability pollute less, conserve more and recycle often. The patronizing nonsense of being a child acting above her age is deep rooted in Indian psyche and tends to curtail may a talent.
Peace