Till two decades back we kept complaining that nothing much was happening out here in India. Life was too laidback. Traditions were oppressive. Change was too languid. Opportunities were few. Options even less. Old was boring. New had no takers. Regulations made it impossible to do anything at all. Only politicians ruled. The rest of us played dumb charades.
Then came 1991 and the first whiff of freedom. Our eyes opened to what India could be one day. Slowly the pace of change picked up. The first tentative moves towards reforms were made. We began to notice there was a world outside we could relate to. And the laws began to allow us to do so. FERA was scrapped. We regained our dignity. We could now travel abroad with more than $500 in our wallets and did not have to cadge free meals from friends and relatives. We could send our children abroad to study, our parents for medical treatment without resorting to illegal hawala transactions. And, O yes, we suddenly discovered there were lots of people out there ready to invest in our dreams.
But not at the Hindu rate of growth. So companies began to grow faster. Wages increased. So did employer expectations. Jobs became 24/7. We earned more, spent more, saved more than anyone else in the world and we began investing those savings in more imaginative options, not just bank FDs, LIC and PF. Equities happened. IPOs happened. And even as the bureaucracy resisted change, no one could stop it. India had tasted freedom. For the first time, we saw ourselves as a free nation, a free people, free to discover our talents, our identity, our dreams. The economic barriers that kept the rich, rich and the poor, poor began to break down. People started crossing over. The knowledge economy empowered the educated middle classes, gave them a new confidence.
Millions of people stopped seeing themselves as job seekers and began to take risks with their life and careers. Sitar players became millionaires. So did painters, singers, movie stars, sportsmen. Dancing, modelling, journalism, wild life photography became new career options. Even politicians stopped stashing away their cash in mattresses and with mistresses and began to invest in land, factories, Reliance shares.
The new India swaggered in: Successful, imaginative, globally competitive. Work ethics changed. Job security vanished. You were as good as your last deal. Holidays shrank. Pressure piled on. We became one of the world's busiest nations. If you weren't ready to change quickly enough, people forgot you existed. More people travelled, saw the world. More people ate out, shopped, watched movies, partied. Life became that much more competitive. Everyone wanted more, more, more. Everything was so hectic, so stressful that we desperately needed to find new ways to regain our sanity.
So we are back to short vacations. To quieter destinations like Thailand-- or Europe, where nothing seems to ever change. Tranquillity is the new challenge, to escape the hectic nightmare of our lives. The noise, the smells, the colours, the buzz, the excitement, it's much too much. We need to drop stress levels, slow down the adrenaline rush. Spend some more time with ourselves. Bring down, as it were, the temperature of our lives. Thousands of investment options, millions of consumer choices hasn't made life easy. Nor has the challenge of keeping pace with technology. People spend sleepless nights figuring out whether DTH is a better option than cable or broadband, whether they should catch their mail on a Blackberry or a Vaio. What defines you best? Being on Facebook or Orkut?
Even the new jobs are getting more stressful. Be it in an IT company or in a BPO. Even running your own business is tough. Regulations are getting more complex. Tax collectors are more hostile. Privacy is no more assured. You feel naked and vulnerable all the time. There are hostiles constantly attacking you from all sides, increasing your paranoia. Your PAN card, your credit card details, your banking transactions, your tax returns, your cell phone, your e-mail ID: nothing's private any more. Anyone can hack in anywhere and walk off with your life.
Is there a way out of this madness? I guess you have to go back and regain the quietude you had once rejected as boring. The action you once thought you were missing out on is now crowding you in like a nightmare and you desperately need that break, to sit out, introspect, rediscover yourself. Too much is happening all around you. To cope, you have no choice but to cop out. So you go to a spa or find a yoga teacher who can take you back in time, teach you the power of stillness, meditation. You repair your health, restore the joys of sleep, find the peace which eludes you lurking somewhere within your own self.
The circle's complete. You are back to where you began. Maybe richer, more fulfilled, more knowledgeable. But still searching for that miracle which could change your life.
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