India's Sweet National Anthem

            The genesis of this post is one of those stupid chain-mails glorifying 'India as a heaven on Earth'. Also a few days back i saw a friend's Facebook status that claims - 'Indian National anthem was voted as the sweetest by U.N' and she is proud of it. Only words i could think of when i come across this kind of stuff is  - false pride, battered egos and hyprocrisy. Or is it we are less fastidious and dont want to go into details. No one cares about the dismal performance of India on different UN indicators like:
1. Infant Mortality rate -We are 143rd  in the world on this parameter. Out of every 1000 infants that are born, 55 die in India before reaching their 1st birthday.
2. Human Development Index  - We are 134th in the world on this parameter.
3. Literacy - We are 147th in the world on this. Even with a very loose definition of being a 'literate' we achieved only 60% literacy.
            Forget these indicators just look out of the window of your car or your house. See the reality. India may be shining, but 'Bharat' is still hungry and malnourished with about 300 million Indians still not sure how and where they are going to get their 2 square-meals. When these numbers cringe you with pain and haunt, how can we forget these when we come across a few 'ethereal' observations glorifying India? Can a 'sweet national anthem' satiate the poor's hunger? Driving home somewhat a similar point with respect to religion, Swami Vivekananda said that its an insult to a starving man to teach him metaphysics. Empty stomachs don't need religion and similarly they also don't need sweet national anthems.
            Moreover this 300 million is a conservative estimate calculated on the basis of a dubious 'calorie intake' mechanism. Recent studies are suggesting that growth of these 300 million is severly getting stunted due to absence of intake of pulses and vegetables, owing to high inflation. Their earnings depend only on their heatlh due to the physical nature of work and a problem like this pushes them into a vicious
cycle. Seriously it seems the middle class of today doesnt want to even take notice or acknowledge these problems.  I felt the same when people were rebuking 'Slum Dog Millionaire' and calling it 'poverty porn'.
People are just happy being indifferent to all this. Its time these people look through their windows before they are shattered by a revolution.