Chintan: India and Me (A Series for the Indian Youth)

As part of this new series, Chintan I wish to write at least one post every month, directed primarily at the Indian youth. This will include some positive, inspirational material with a specific theme of “India and Me”.

An unfortunate and sad truth of modern India is that thanks to our modern mainstream education most of our urban and well-schooled Indian youth are hardly aware of anything deeper about their motherland or about their own Indian-ness. This series will serve as a small corrective measure in this regard by presenting some selected material for reflection.

I will write for a target audience of readers between 15-30 years of age (yes, 30 is still youth!). Additionally, some of the parents who are more in touch with the blogging scene might also find some of these posts relevant and would then share some of the ideas with their children. My main focus is on creating some meaningful content that can hopefully give our youngsters an opportunity to be in touch with a somewhat deeper view of India.

Why the name Chintan? It is a Hindi word (चिन्तन) which means a deep thought or a process of deep thinking, meditating on something specific. For India’s glorious future, for the future of any nation and the world, it is important that our youth begin to think deeply, rationally and holistically. This series will, hopefully, provide some opportunities for the young minds to engage in some serious thinking.

Individual and societal evolution is a slow business, very slow. If some of the material presented in this series could help to make even a handful of youngsters (starting with those in my own extended family) think a bit more deeply about their connection with India and their Indian-ness, I would be thrilled.

I launch this series today in the loving memory of my first teacher, my mother who would have been 75 years old yesterday. She was a primary school teacher for almost four decades, taught tens of thousands of children. She taught my siblings and me the value of learning, but through her life and choices she emphasised more the value of un-learning and re-learning. There could have been no better occasion than her birthday to launch this series Chintan, which I hope would also help my young readers to learn, un-learn and possibly re-learn a few things.

I offer this work to That One Guide who leads us all through everything, generally hiding behind the many veils of our ignorance, but without fail helping us to walk toward greater and greater light.

Chintan begins…come, join me!

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Linking this with ABCWednesday, Y: Y is for Youth