The other day, I flared up a friend’s emotions by calling this country stupid. One single reason among many suffices: India revels in snatching away opportunities for anyone to grow in life and even if it does, the option of pulling that opportunity down is not out of question. And given this state of affairs, if you fail –very much possible– hardly would a helping hand come up; stigma springs up more naturally. Tenured positions and bootlicking the bureaucracy are helping most academics in this country outlive their purpose. Such straight-faced talk about this country makes me unpatriotic! I would not mind as patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels.

Freedom and with it the will to behave responsibly matters more. Rota got it right: “Truth offends…more precisely, particular truths offend.” Calling spade a spade is sometimes splendidly better than otherwise. My friend suggested India is a pretty young country compared to the developed lot. But consider Israel: they got independence an year after us, live amid trying circumstances and yet have one of the best defenses – physical, technological as well as scientific. So, there’s hardly any reason to defend our dishonesty!