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The rise of the common man

Obama looks calm and composed as he sits to be sworn in. The quotes of coloured skin, the fight of millions for equality has finally opened the eyes of the nation to the character underneath the dark skin. He sits like a common man, he speaks in an honest and genuine voice. He even faltered a little while taking the oath: like a common man. And corrected himself. It was a reaffirmation of the journey where the common man reached. And his voice reaches millions.

It was a moment similar to the one when our parents' parents must have watched 'when the clock struck midnight' speech by Nehru, a moment when a leader reaffirms his and his land's place in the world. A moment when history takes a turn.

I don't care as much for how he performs. For we all know that he has taken charge of the country which already has one and a half foot in the grave. How much of it he can save and how much 'change' he can bring is not difficult for anyone to imagine. Yet, it was a triumph for the dreamers of equality and liberty. It was a triumph for a black man to enter the white house. And like some are already saying, this will mark the possible end of the entire caste system.

In the future to come, opportunity will be a religion which will discriminate between individuals. Opportunity given, provided and opportunity used. Perhaps that's why Slumdog Millionaire made such a mark in the world. It is a story of opportunity given to a person on the lowest rung of the society. A story of how he uses an 'opportunity' in a nation which has as many religions and castes as perhaps the number all our fingers counted together. Apart from the divide created by the politicians for the vote bank, this is an age of the triumph of a common man above all. Above your caste or religion, what matters is 'whether you get the opportunity you wanted, and what you make of that opportunity'.

Comments

  1. oh really!? you are not even naive when you are writing this, first of all there is nothing common about someone like Obama, he is a person endowed with gifts of intelligence and persevarnce which are his genetic inheritence, he was never brought up in the ghetto or the projects, he went to the top schools just like any white boy can and he is not even fully black as can be seen from the fact that he did not say "i do bro" at the end of the speech. the fumbling of the oath was not because of him but because of the chief justice, obama had the oath pat which shows how uncommonly meticulously he is, now i wonder if he is so programmed and hard-wired on his logical thinking that he may not be really creative in hs approach at what 6 billion people in this planet would throw at him. good morning kirti.

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  2. :-) Glad that it irks you soo much.
    If you read your comment carefully, you will see how you belittle a common man and say that he is not intelligent, that he is not meticulous, that he is not logical in his thinking, that he cannot go to top schools, that he has to always remember where he comes from ('I do bro') and he can never reach uncommon heights.
    :-)
    So then I assume that you think you are uncommonly gifted as you think Obama is and all the rest are below you because of your critical intelligence?
    This is where the divide occurs. In the minds of the supposedly 'intelligent' man to think that all the rest are fools.
    I still believe in the commonness of everyone. And I am very much the common fool who sees the world through coloured glasses.
    Thank you very much. :-)

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  3. yes on all counts dear, yes,

    commom=average and people choose to be average not because they are average, every human is unique but they choose a herd every single time

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  4. first of all, common doesn't equal average. Average shows a point which is not common. Common means that what most people think, see and understand. And to be in the herd, you have to have a common vision. There is no place in the herd for the uncommonly intelligent critique!
    :-)

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