15TH JANUARY (AGENCY):-
Most Indians are crazy about foreign clothes, foreign manners, foreign food, foreign education and in fact anything that is foreign. The sweet Indian music is considered to be inferior to disco and jazz. The shyness has been replaced by the blunt talks and vulgar looks. Speaking a foreign language has become a fashion. The young would prefer to work as labourers abroad instead of taking up a good job in their own country.
There are some cheap restaurants where young boys and girls in jeans sway and scream around a mike while the band blares rock music to entertain the guests. The more discordant, the music, the happier the guests are! The guests jump about on the dance floor; their heart-throb wildly whereas their bodies jerk excitedly to the clang and bang of jet-set music.
People deliberately surround themselves with foreign goods. The imported crystal chandeliers and gilded furniture are some of the objects, which decorate their homes. Restaurants must have a bewitching singer who wearing a skin-tight, strapless flashy gown, a provocative waistcoat or even baggy trousers so that she would look like a Persian princess or a yankee American.
Some celebrate the Chinese New Year in Chinese style in a restaurant that has, for its name, the title of a song from an old Hollywood movie. The menus include Chinese, Japanese, American and Arabian delicacies. People want the hotels to organise Mexican, Swiss and French nights. The decorations, the music and even the chefs are imported.
Craze for foreign things is not in the larger interests of the country. In case we become the slaves of foreign cultures and foreign habits, we cannot be moulded according to our own culture. Just blindly aping the West would take us only to a tunnel of darkness. These developments in our society are dangerous and must be given a U-turn. Our own culture is very rich and we should imbibe it. We can adopt good aspects of any other, culture also but should not completely or blindly ape it.