Anant Arora at A a T m A n...conversations with the self

Is out mind-set or is our mind set not to accept the mind-set!

When I talk of mindset, I mean the preconceived notions that are imbibed within us, which are not liable to change, no matter how forceful the beseiged environment maybe. Who cares of what the govt. says or how stringent the laws are, we'll still throw the refuse cans on the street, bribe the policeman for not wearing the seatbelt of the cars or jumping over the street light, always be ignorant of the people around and talk (read: shout) in leisure, waste fuel (the bus on the depot on which I was travelling stood ignition turned on for almost 30 mins before moving on) after all, the government is paying for it ad infinitum. Dont we, the literate genre of the 21st century understand a simplefact that it is for our own good to accept changes and not for our neighbours (read: Pakistan).

To quote a recent incident, sometime back I had gone to a village to do some sort of a study for my project and on conversing with the villagers, most of which were farmers, I exclaimed and talked at length about the advancement in technology and the need for computers in the following decade. But, they were not willing to accept any alteration to their lifestyle and wanted to be left as they were. Is that beacuse of the insecurity of their livelihood or they just do not want to change? I recall a saying that goes like," Change is not necessary, survival is not Mandatory". In case of the former, the so-called techno savvy government that promises a healthy living for all, could not give so much amount of a confidence to farmers as to try out something that might lead to their own betterment or the people still follow the contemporary feudal system, to put it for the latter? In both the cases, what I believe and state responsible is the mind-set of the people. No matter how much a country is developing or accepting outsourced business processes, it wont be able to sustain if the mindset of the the people is not willing to change and move on with time. I may be wrong in making such a futile statement or non-affirmative in holding its truthulness, but something somewhere has gone wrong which is stopping the people to adopt the tao of change.

posted by Anant Arora @ 4:14 AM