Distances

I'm more compelled to write today rather than feeling an urge to write. They say it's the age of globalization, where borders are fading, distances are reducing and people are becoming freer to move from one nation to another without out hurdles. There was a time, not to long back, when going to the west of the privilege of a select few in India. And people who were about to go and had been to trips abroad would flaunt it with vigor. I remember some Punjabi pop stars even adding the name of countries like UK or Canada to their name to show where they live now. It was a thing to boast about. They would come back with pictures clicked under Big Ben or the Vancouver harbor or better still pictures taken with White people, especially White women as trophies of their conquest of the West or foreign lands. They had stories of how the "goras" want to be friendly with them and what to "adopt" the desi culture. A way to say how superior Indian Culture is that even the ones who ruled us once want to indulge in the very same culture they once considered slavish. But the distances no longer exists now. It's more convenient and faster to take a flight from New Delhi to New York today than to take the 3 days atrocious train journey to Madras. Many upper class Indians have more friends they boast about in Europe and America than in Delhi. They eat in Singapore, shop in Dubai and have an apartment in East London or Queens in New York. The media call them "The Global Indian". Boundaries don't exist for them. The world is their play ground. And so the governments and scientists can pat their back. We even have an Indian in space these days. You can find one even in the Canadian Rockies living alongside the Red Indians. Distances have ceased to Exist. But what about the distances that two minds create between them? No physical boundary exists between minds... and even if they do, nobody can see them. We talk about equality today... Gender Equality... Social Equality… and most importantly Economic Equality. But does somebody recognize the increasing inequalities of minds? Where one is recognized by the "difference" or inequality of thought rather than inequality of status. And does somebody know that the barriers minds create amongst them are even tougher to break than physical barriers? Just because those barriers, those walls cannot be sensed by one or more of our five senses does not mean they don't exist... Who will bridge those distances? Who will break those wall barriers? The modern world, especially our so called modern intellectuals and social scientists don't seem to have an answer and neither do the modern world discourages their construction. We have found a way to bridge the physical distances but unfortunately the inequalities of minds have only increased. So what even if two people sleep side by side, they can still be poles apart and on the other hand even if they are poles apart physically they can still be very close.
Has somebody realized that the difference between men and women is the greatest in countries with the best record in Gender Equality? They are the countries with some of the most furious feminist movements today. Has somebody realized that most secular countries have the worst cases of communal violence cases today? Or has somebody realized that some of the most unsatisfied and depressed people are found in some of the richest nations of the world? I don't have answers to these questions. We are moving fast to eliminate physical distances but nobody cares about these unseen distances...Who will bridge them?... who will break the walls? The modern world doesn't have an answer.
We MUST address these issues. We MUST make an effort to eliminate psycological barriers and they will not be ended through reservations. They will end by one complimenting the other rather than becoming the competitor. The problem is real and imminent and we must find way to bridge them sooner or later otherwise our societies will disintegrate and fall apart. The only way out is dialogue and mutual understanding rather than agression and ego.