WHERE IS THE RESPONSIBILITY

One of our famous ministers uttered these words when asked about why Indian football has not grown.. “I cannot build a stadium of [Rs.] 50 crores neither can the Prime Minister. Where is the money? Where is the responsibility? Where is the scheme?” These words kept haunting me again and again. What a statement of responsibility from the senior statesman. Did he not think for a minute that he was the person selected to be responsible. Ah!!! These politicians have even forgot that they are in a position where they are Responsible of something.

Where is the money???? 50 Crores cannot be spent to build a stadium and we are talking about conducting Olympics in the near future. For a country as large as ours and with the booming economy, I always thought 50 crores of money is pittance when compared to the large tax we spend, especially at a time when you have a chief minister having spent 1000 crores to install her statues all over the state. Where is all the money going…….The roads, the schools, the villages and almost the entire India remain the same and we have a minister here saying that he has not done anything worthwhile for the want of money……..Sinister, Very sinister. We, as people have gone awfully wrong that we cannot even question our own elected people…….

The next sentence is even more annoying. Where is the responsibility? What on earth is he talking about? Is he not supposed to be the person responsible for sports in this country? Has his responsibility changed to raking in more money that he even forgot that he is supposed to be the honourable minister of the large country? The problem with our country as always stated has been the “chalta hain” attitude. We accept and sometimes even absorb everything that is thrown at us and walk with our heads held high saying we are Indians, We adapt to anything. I often think that was the greatest attitude one person can have……I thought if we can adapt to any situation we can live happily there after….but there is a clause attached to it, We cannot shirk away from our responsibilities and say I will adapt to whatever that is done. That is exactly what has happened and is still happening in this county, our very own INDIA.

Now comes the third sentence. Where is the scheme??? A brilliantly worded statement. A very natural statement to come after the previous one. We have all along lived in a place and in circumstances where nobody needs any structure. We drive our vehicles on the wrong side of the road, We have our roads laid and then broken again to keep the cables inside, We throw our wastes every where except where it was supposed to be thrown, and we have all along lived knowing that once we enter the courts that is the end of it all. The whole system is so corrupt, so poor, that we have thieves and murderers sitting in the parliament talking about the growth of nuclear physics of the country, when the only thing they know about that is the spelling of nucleus ( If they had learnt the alphabets of English). To be abrupt and to be very frank, we can do anything, anywhere in this country and get away Scot free because there is no Scheme and the ministers forgot that they were supposed to make them.

I love my country. It has given me so many things. Of course all my life I have lived here and loved whatever it has given me. I have traveled to a large part of the country and seen some remarkable people. It is so colourful that I am sure God created so many colours and tested everything here. We have so many traditions that we will be 90 if we try to look at them all, So many gods that some times the number of people worshipping looks smaller than the number of Gods themselves, we speak so many languages that even if the whole world put together, we will speak more languages than them, we follow so many calendars that every day of the year there will be a new year celebrated, we follow so many leaders, that if you stand up with a flag and will have 10 people following you and yet amazingly, when we play a cricket match or when an Indian gets hurt somewhere or when some other country is against you, there is a sense of oneness and a sense of belonging which can never be reproduced anywhere.

But, the only thing we have lacked all along, and the one thing that has kept us poor, though we have had so many things going for us is we have lacked the basic honesty……….the honesty to accept that we “have” 50 crore of rupees to build a stadium, Honesty to accept the fact that “I am” responsible for this, and honesty to have a system and follow them………As a country if we lack that honesty, our former presidents dream of a developed country by 2020 will never ever happen, even till the end of this world…….