'ZOMP!!!!!!!!!!!'
They all jump inside... The next moment they come out of it, on the other side with prince-like outfits and a royal persona to go with it.
At a fair distance, there are numerous farm houses with well maintained gardens and a pool in front of the porch...
In the garden you have these huge tables with various kinds of attractive and mouth-watering delicacies that one could ever imagine and sophisticated cutleries and suited attendants waiting to serve...
Each kid walks to a specific table at which their parents are eagerly waiting for them to join so that they can enjoy the meal together and live happily ever
after..."
Now that's what I called a transformation!!! Don't take me wrong simply because this particular word has been used in the recent past with utter stupidity and ignorance.
My city Kolkata. The City of Joy. Coined by Dominique Lappiere during his eventful visit in the late 80s. Well the city remains but I am not quite sure of the "Joy" part of it.
Every coin has two sides to it. Kolkata is no exception. Today Kolkata is undergoing winds of change. It's a different issue offcourse, which particular
feature of the city will actually change. Now now now... before you jump in with your expert comments, we all know what needs to be changed... Ever since we have developed the sense of reasoning, we know what are all those things which needs to change for good. Lets us all list them down:
Education system
Health Care
Employment opportunities
Corruption
Financial stability
Well I can go on and on and on. Come to think of it all these issues are actually linked with each other. Its how you visualise all these issues and think about the remedies.
The most important thing which really needs a change is our mentality, the way we think, the way we approach life, the way we feel, the way we socialise, the way we interact. Basically we need to change the way we live.
Lethargy, they say, is in our blood. Being content with miniscule things in life is our habit. Proactiveness is not a part of our dictionary. Well according to these sceptics, our entire race is under serious threats of becoming extinct by the next century.
I object(Just like a typical Bollywood court room scene).
If that would have been the case, I dare to say, the entire Indian race would have been still cleaning the toilets of some European burgeous. Sounds cliched.
Elementary my dear Watson... "The truth is always cliched"
For the upcoming decade 'We'(by We I mean a few like-minded people who share this vision alongwith me) have a resolutiion to take care of... And I could use all the help that I can get. It goes something like this...
Kolkata of my dreams...
50 years down the line, I want my city to boast about the highest literacy rate
50 years down the line, I want my city to have the highest employment rate
50 years down the line, I don’t want anyone to leave Kolkata in search of good job options
50 years down the line, I want Hollywood to be inspired by Tollywood
50 years down the line, I want my city to be the Financial, Social and Cultural capital of India
50 years down the line, I want my city to be the most environment-friendly city in the world
50 years down the line, I want my city to showcase all its literary talents globally
50 years down the line, I want my city to be unbiased in terms of religion and caste
50 years down the line, I want my city to be a Standard… a Benchmark for the entire world
To say that I am being overly ambitious about my goals would be an understatement. But then it ain't a challenge if you take up something which is possible.
This quest of ours' has 99% chance of failure but still its not important how many times you are hit on your face, its important how you stand up again and again and hit back at your opponent even harder.
My wish list had a lot of 'want's in it. So how exactly do we proceed forward to achieve this goal. A lot of you might have several questions brewing up in your mind...
What are we?
Who are we?
Do we belong to any Organization?
Are we like one of those social walefare groups which operate at the micro level, simply ignoring the fact that the real problem lies at the macro level?
Are we a part of any political party?
To begin with we are a group of average daily wage earners who lead a straight and simple life just like you. We believe that the government, no matter whichever political party runs that, should work hand in hand with the citizens of Kolkata to bring about this Magical Transformation. We believe instead of providing education, or food, or clothing, or shelter to a selected bunch of individuals, we should look to eliminate the root cause of all these problems.
And that can only happen when we all come out of our shells and be honest enough to own up our mistakes and take the responsibility to transform Kolkata into a City of Dreams.
The scene with which I started this blog is just one small figment of our imagination. Now it's for us to decide whether to keep living in the past by mere daydreaming or take the onus to convert those dreams, which might appear to be quite strange to most of us now, into reality.
As they say, "The fact is always stranger than the fiction".
