What if..?

“What if….. “, this two word phrase engulfs meanings as vast as an ocean. At some crossroad in life all of us sigh or cry in vain wishing we could undo a misfortune, had we acted affirmatively in the past, or contemplate our moves and probably feel lucky for not having done something that could have had severe repercussions in the future. Hence human thinking is always forked; what if, if not, what then?

When good happens, our thoughts linger upon what wrong could have happened had this not been the course of action, and when we are doomed to agonies we repent for not having sown the seeds right. But time is like the flow of a river, as the same flow will never come again.

It is our quest for happiness that makes us calculate what best could have come to us, had something happened, or not happened. But our tryst with both happiness and sorrow is a never ending cycle. What is disheartening is not the misery of a bad phase, rather envisaging the bad phase at a later date in life, and repenting for things that were not in our interest, or for not having had control over the situation. It becomes a vicious circle, which now unfolds:

While watching the epic “The sword of Tipu Sultan”, I was contemplating what if India had not been ruled by the Britons. What if?

Would status quo reflect India as the golden sparrow, would India still be split into provinces instead of states? We are aware of the cons, but the pros can’t be ignored either. Liberal thinking, education, abolition of some superstition based evils in the society, upliftment of women, major infrastructure for the country, and the most important of all, English, our window to the world are the remains of the British rule.

Of course, one view makes us that think we may have risen higher had we not been slaved, but history speaks volumes of the treachery and infighting that existed between the various provinces. It is due to this weakness we became easy prey to the Britons, and a sense of unification came about only after India was completely under British rule. We may have lost our wealth even otherwise; in the quest to prove the supremacy of one province over the other, by killing each other.

The struggle for independence was not merely a heavy price paid to gain freedom from the rule of a different country, it was also a price paid to liberate our society from our own narrow thoughts. The patriotic fervor arose when we were totally under the shackles of British rule. Our kings and their court men, who played foul amongst each other, out powered those few good men who wanted to save the country. Petty greed for land, power and titles, made us slaves. But what is remarkable is that our crusaders for freedom graduated as barristers from Britain, learnt their culture, others adopted the English medium of education and beliefs within the country, and strived not only to liberate India, but to liberate the orthodox society as well.

Today we stand as a challenge to all English speaking countries! Remarkably we are still maintaining the infrastructure created by the Britons. Though it was our money, our labour, but it was their endeavor and even in the most inhospitable terrain, they made a living of comfort. To exemplify, the railway tracks were their contribution. Ironically, 50 years past independence, with our money, our people and our endeavor we can’t claim we are the golden sparrow again. Certainly, the pace of reforms and liberalization is not able to out weigh our inherited evils, be it discrimination based on caste or gender, or corruption and foul play.

So what would have been the other face of India, had we not been slaved? A potpourri of thoughts….

This is not to say that British rule was welcome, but akin to we Indians realizing the wholesome value of the corn grown in the backyard of the poor Indian farmer, only after it being processed as cornflakes and labelled with pricy tags and MNC brand names; we realized the wholesome value of our nation too only after we were slaved. Because our nation was not conquered overnight in a bloody battle, rather in a game of deceit played to the advantage of someone else, to which we were accomplice. This makes one wonder, what if India had not been invaded by the Mughals, the Portugese… what if?

Hence this vicious circle of what if, can never draw to a close, be it personal or impersonal. However, we need to reckon that many times a bad omen is a precursor to something good. So if we are battling a plethora of what ifs, we need to find solace by understanding that “Every cloud has a silver lining”.