The birth centenary of the legendary writer R K Narayan was celebrated recently. As I left India, among the few books that I brought with me was Mr. Sampath, The Printer of Malgudi. Having read most of the author's fiction and non-fiction, this was one of my last remaining treasures. In dire need of a breadth of fresh air, I pulled out the book last night.
The world of Mr. Sampath, at Malgudi is not perfect.
Our world view of progress today is linearly focused on wealth generation and economic development. Imagine many of our ancestors, living in a self-contained, self-sufficient world, with a strong sense of community and family. I'm not proclaiming that all of us become hunter, gatherers again, or maintain status quo. Instead, societies internally should decide the pace of progress. And this was true for hundreds of years, until colonization began.
Today, progress is enforced on people in most parts of the world. Communities which have traditionally decided to 'stick to their ways' are classified are poverty-stricken. Or as C K Prahalad would say, "Living in less than $2 a day" (recently I guess the 'magic' number was upgraded to $4). He would also say, selling fairness creams to these communities would bring them out of "poverty".
Isn't that a brilliant notion of progress?
The world of Mr. Sampath, at Malgudi is not perfect.
Our world view of progress today is linearly focused on wealth generation and economic development. Imagine many of our ancestors, living in a self-contained, self-sufficient world, with a strong sense of community and family. I'm not proclaiming that all of us become hunter, gatherers again, or maintain status quo. Instead, societies internally should decide the pace of progress. And this was true for hundreds of years, until colonization began.
Today, progress is enforced on people in most parts of the world. Communities which have traditionally decided to 'stick to their ways' are classified are poverty-stricken. Or as C K Prahalad would say, "Living in less than $2 a day" (recently I guess the 'magic' number was upgraded to $4). He would also say, selling fairness creams to these communities would bring them out of "poverty".
Isn't that a brilliant notion of progress?
9 comments:
:)))))))
well i guess if u have a way of life which is different from soceity's perception then do lead it... and if there are enuff sound reasons for leading that way of life then soceity would definitely adopt it i guess...i guess what ck prahlad was preaching was not just selling fairness creams to the poor...surely it goes beyond that...always remember its not just the soceity but individuals have a choice and are at liberty to exercise it...for if it was not the case then what good is democracy...
Yeah Right!!!!! you sound like one of those pastorals- 17th centuruy poets glorfying a Shepherd's life.... nostalgia for what you can never know. MAlgudi all said and done is FICTIONAL. it doesnt represent the myriad of problems we come across. So stop being a sentimental hypocritie and get REAL!
Saw the cluster map showing the spread of your readership. Impressive.
BTW, like a lot others, do you have an anonymous blog too...one without keeping the audience in mind?
Sud,
The notion of democracy, I dont even want to get into it. May be I will write a follow-up post.
Archana,
Dont be fooled by the cluster map. Those are random google search hits - people looking for everything from Toilet Seats to Shakeela, and my regular readers, would be three to four a week!
(including losers like Hari!)
Check out the library of the many university around NYC - there will be several of them with RKN books [ u can actually check their lib catalogs online :) ]
TM,
Checked out the NYU lib, and they have the entire RKN collection, including some rare stuff.
thanks for the tip
Santhosh
should i take your silence to my question above to mean a yes?
Archana,
The answer is no, I dont have an anonymous blog. And as you may have realized I dont have much of an audience to keep in mind.
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