Dear Readers,

I understand a lot of us would be excited to read this editorial based on the above headline, hoping to find innovative solutions to help garner some ‘change’ – the most sought after commodity currently in our country that has gone into chaos, ever since our PM proclaimed the ‘D’ word! Now that most of us have managed to finally get our hands onto the ‘pinkies’ (Rs. 2000 notes), we’ve run out of people who can return the darned change for it!

But that’s not what I’m talking about… I meant ‘change’, not in terms of paper currency, but in human currency – our mindset and our attitude – the harbinger of our call to action. We all seek change on various levels – personal, societal, national, global. And seeking change in itself is empowering as it leads to growth. We all want more, as we should. Stagnation of any kind is toxic for the mind, body and spirit. But we need to get out of this ‘wishful’ stage – wanting change is not good enough, no matter how bad you may want it! The road to hell, is after all, paved with good intentions.

Clichéd as it may sound, you’ve got to be the change you seek. You need to get moving if you want change – sitting up and taking notice does nothing more than serve as a wake-up call – you need to get up and take action, not hit ‘snooze mode’ on the alarm and fall back to sleep! Our community calls for the same today. There are those working against the interests of the community to serve their own vested agendas.

Social media platforms can be very confusing because the only measure of authentic information is, sadly, the reserve of its frequency on Whatsapp or Facebook! If you read a forward often enough, it must be true! We need to stop relying on forwards and chase the truth – go out there to personally witness what’s going on, not be dependent on the screen of our mobile phones. Enough with the complaints and rants and opinions and judgments and armchair shrinking – we are not a bunch of screaming panelists on some Primetime News Channel! Heck, even Arnab has probably left the building!

For the sake of our community’s betterment and our own, we need to get out there and do our bit – if we can’t initiate a good cause, we can prove as vital support structures for one. Look what happened to the recent US Presidential elections, when the citizens decided to ‘sit back’ on election day! Our own elections had a dismal turnout some months ago – a record low! Maybe, if as Indian citizens, we’d gotten together earlier and instigated the needed ‘change’ within the system and not given in to corruption, we wouldn’t be floundering in serpentine queues outside banks for… change!!

We may be a miniscule community but immaterial of size, when people get together to activate change for the greater good – there’s no power that can stop us. Like Aristotle said, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” So, let’s unite, let’s think for ourselves and let’s choose to be doers, not just a bunch of well-wishers with good intentions. Because Thanksgiving ain’t Thanksgiving until you’ve cooked that turkey!

Have a good weekend!

 

-Anahita