A thought provoking message for us all...

The thoughts below are Sabyasachi's original feelings in his own words. I am just using this space as a platform to share it with all of you. It is this hardcore love for his country that makes Sabyasachi so loved and special. Do share your views and opinions after reading this post.

In Sabyasachi Mukherjee's words:

While we are at fashion week fretting about what to wear or not to wear, there is a man out there, refusing to eat, so Indians can breathe easy and live better. So if we ask the rhetoric question as to what is choking India, pat comes the reply – “corruption”. A social cancer that permeates into our very being, sparing no one.

It is a very strange malady, this corruption SOB. At a physical level it destabilizes your economy, disintegrates social fabric and just aborts development. At a much personal and deeper level it destroys you.

Have you ever been the victim of corruption? It just feels like you have been raped. To be violated for no fault or provocation is not exactly a great feeling. Worse still is the apathy you feel for yourself at not being able to stand up against this violation. You feel smaller, less empowered and over the years certain bitterness creeps in that destroys your spirit like nothing can.

A person indulging in corruption is worse than a murderer. He kills the faith of the living victim who just might pass the ‘bad karma’ around. It becomes like the ragging syndrome. If I have been infected I shall transmit. Revenge is never the right policy. It entraps you and ultimately destroys you. The best policy is to stand up and cut the link.

Today I see a country that is completely destroyed by this evil. And we have no one else to blame but ourselves. We have bred this evil and turned it into an all-encompassing Frankenstein.

And do you know why? It is because we never introspect. The average Indian has lost their connect with themselves, their value systems and more importantly their identity. Over fed with mindless unimaginative popular culture that passes off as entertainment, a corroding education system that makes you a Wikipedia without soul and a social structure that makes a, ‘whitening cream’ the next big superstar, ours is a country that is weak, insecure and lost. And you expect corruption to not set in?

When have you taken interest in your country’s history? When have you last read the Gita? When have you last felt more empowered in Indian clothing?

I am a designer. So I shall bring in my textile perspective. When Gandhiji started using khadi as a tool for social empowerment, he used it to bind Indians together. Today when I step down on the streets of an Indian metropolis like Mumbai, I don’t know where exactly I am. 

Indian clothing like any other national clothing of strong visual identity has a huge power to tie society and keep it connected. What you see is what you believe and it is important for us right now to believe that we are Indians.

I had spoken to corporate heads to declare Friday dressing as Indian dressing in national textiles. It would not only bind their employees, it would also attribute to quantitative CSR as the handloom industry can regenerate employment in the poorer sections of society.

If this was to happen, imagine the visual spectacle at Victoria terminus at nine thirty every Friday morning when a million Indian step out in Indian textiles. Every Indian heart and spirit would swell as it does on very 15th August whilst the anthem plays on. Despair would give way to hope, connectivity would be fostered, curiosity would lead to self education and education to empowerment. Pride would make a re emergence and so would inner strength. An inspired wife would then turn her corrupt husband in.

Jai Hind.

Sabyasachi Mukherjee