Great Minds

I was reading a chapter of "Ignited Minds" by Dr. Kalam yesterday (and no, I have not read "Wings of Fire" yet!) in which he talks about genius. He talks about Ramanujan, who had no formal education or proper means of living. But his genius and love of mathematics transcended those limitations. Sir C.V. Raman, the Nobel laureate started off at an Accountant General's office. The Indian mind and intellect, Sir Raman says, are by no means inferior in quality in comparison to other nations. But probably what we lack is courage and driving force. we need a destruction of the defeatist spirit that we so readily embrace. Another notable point is made by Dr. Chandrasekhar, also a Nobel laureate. He noticed that in the modern era before 1910, there were no outstanding scientists in the country. But suddenly in the period from 1920-1925, we had 5 or 6 internationally acclaimed scientists. He attributes that to the need for self-expression that was a dominant motive of the young during the freedom movement. Self-assertion to show to the West that we were no less competent.

Is this why we appear to be stagnant intellectually? Yes, we do have great minds and great ideas generated in the country even now. But somehow, I expect more greatness from a country of a billion people. The freedom struggle was too long ago for us to relate to it, all we know about it is what we get from history books and hyped-up movies. But do we need something like a freedom struggle to motivate us? The struggle of the modern day, the tussle between political parties, the tug-of-war between feeding the poor and launching space rockets....there is soo much to trigger our minds and draw inspiration from. What are we waiting for?