TimeWalk!

 

 

I live to travel; specifically speaking, I love to drive and explore the landscape opening out in front of me. I hold the steering in my hand and attempt to touch the horizon. The sheer attempt to get there is the high. History doesn’t excite me. What does though is the marketplace of the cities and towns that I visit, its eateries, the bookshops, the talk with the chaiwallah outside the monuments…. I learn more about the present that surrounds me, and I become sensitive to the ‘present’ of others that till that moment had alluded me. The future too for a long time didn’t interest me! Didn’t being the operational term. 

A visit to the Parliament house brought meaning to “If current Parliament fulfilled India’s needs, the new Parliament would fulfill its aspirations”. And I am going to reflect on the day backwards. The last stop of the visit was the Central Hall of the Old Parliament – a space that was often seen by me in pictures, documentaries, and news channels. A big hall with portraits of legends towering tall, 10 feet fans, and the sense of claps that would have resounded when the first act (Dowry Act) and last act (Demonetization) were passed by a Joint Session in that hall. What hits your senses is the semblance of warmth and coldness. The temperature in Delhi yesterday was a warm 35.6 degrees around 1pm and inside the central hall was about 22 degrees breathing a climate that one can succumb, to listen, debate, discuss (perhaps even argue without literally sweating it out), and arrive at a consensus. The place gave us the Act that made it illegal to take or give dowry, and finally gave us a decision that paved the way to a Digitized India and the birth of online payments. 

Fidel Castro said, “A revolution is a struggle to the death between the past and the present” and that revolution is beautifully exemplified when we see the Constitutional Hall of the New Parliament Building. The Foucault’s Pendulum at the Centre surrounded by the embossing of the Samudra Manthan, the brilliant and emotional outpourings of 75 women painting their lives, the home to the Art and Crafts of our country, and most importantly that one book that homes the language of what our country lays its trust on – The Constitution! Our present is going through the churn, and we are witnessing that while struggling to balance the past and the aspired and promised future. 

The new Parliament is a milestone in India’s democratic History – a process that one can see in play in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. A process that demands the play of Sangosthi (discussion) based on Sampushthi (evidence and documentation), and Samanvay (Coordination). The use of a native language, that symbolizes the coming together of Science (fact based discussion) and Emotions (Collaboration and Toleration), all of which was bringing together the firmness of a resolve that the building of a stronger nation is embedded in DEBATE. The synonym for Democracy must be Debate… and no other. 

And then the people – a group that came across to me as individuals who knew what they had to do, all of whom respectfully made eye contact, and displayed a maturity that is so essential for people in position that take decisions for running our country. 

Today, we don’t need to build our decisions on architectures (literally and figuratively) that are handed down to us. We have the potential and capability of building our own. It will take us time (75 + years), and we are ok to wait it out. Every piece of that architecture will be a thought that comes from the soul of India (its people), the breath of the sensitivities expressed in our arts, crafts, and R and D centers, a stability that we have sought in our own ways in the constitution that attempts to balance our past (Colonial and Religious) and the aspirational future!