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Perspective    
How I Feel Being an American
by Arya Bhushan

I have finally taken the American Citizenship. People congratulate me. But why? I wonder. Have I become a better person? Am I in anyway different? No, I don’t feel any different.

Why did I take the citizenship is an important question. Have I betrayed my country? Oh no! I was asked during my interview why I took so long to apply for citizenship? I replied that it is not easy to disjoin oneself from the country where one was born, brought up, and had spent a sizable portion of one’s life. One had certain bonds, links, connections and sentiments associated. There are deep roots to which one is attached. To cut them off is not easy. One has to psychologically prepare for it.

Having been brought up in India, I had read a famous poem in Bengali, during my childhood, which read as

‘nana bhasha, nana kautha, nana pauridhan
vividher maajhe dekho milan mahan’

Translated in English:

“mong variety of languages, variety of tales, and variety of attires,
you can, in all this diversity, see the great unity.”

Then, I felt proud of my country. After coming to America, however, my mind expanded as I found a greater unity on a global scale. The message 'All men are born equal' and America stands for Liberty, Democracy and Equality, are very significant indeed. America is the crucible of world cultures where one could see the great global unity. Madam Blavatsky in her secret doctrine predicted, “As to the future evolution of humanity, it is the mankind of the New World… whose mission and karma it is, to sow seeds for the forthcoming, grander, and far more glorious race than any of those we know at present… and owing to a strong admixture of various nationalities and intermarriage, will now become a new race, and many new nations… The cycles of matter will be succeeded by cycles of spirituality and fully developed mind.” These are prophetic words of a visionary, who lived over a century ago.

Leaving the Indian pride aside, where we only dwell on past glory, we have to ponder what really makes American people so great. By American people, I do not mean all American people, but it is the American thought, as Vivekananda put it, “American Civilization is in my opinion, a very great one. I find the American mind particularly susceptible to new ideas. Nothing is rejected because it is new. It is examined on its own merits, and stands and falls by those alone.” It is clearly seen that America is in the process of absorbing the best from all over the world, to produce a higher consciousness in humanity. This was further confirmed by the fact that along with me and my wife there were 11,000 people from 104 different nations of the world who took the oath of allegiance. I considered this to be a historical occasion.

India has thought globally and we have a saying, “To the large hearted, the World is a family.” Perhaps, with the various attacks from time to time, and our having remained subjugated for so long, we forgot it and started thinking in narrow channels.

Tagore had, then to write;

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
         by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
         into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever widening thought and action--
Into that haven of freedom, my father, let my country awake.

I consider this is true not only for India but for the entire World. To unite fully the fragments of the Narrow Domestic walls of the world, knitting it into one family, only America can take the lead. Rather than looking into the past, in the words of our past President, we have to look to the future in the Twenty-first Century with the National Motto: “In God we Trust” 

January 8, 2005

Top | Perspective 

The Week of January 8, 2006     
Does the Indian Government Have a Roadmap to Peace? by Rajinder Puri 
India's National Debt of Honor to The Indian Army by Dr. Subhash Kapila
Elections in Israel & Palestine : Dynamics for Peace by Sujata Ashwarya Cheema 
     Debate on this article by quoting "Telling It Like It Isn't by Robert Fisk " 
         The Debate Continues – Sujata Ashwarya Cheema Replies 
Presence of Great Soul by Dr. Anil K. Rajvanshi   
Isomers, Prions, Homonyms, Necker Cubes, Us and the Universe by Gaurang Bhatt, MD 
Weaving In Skilled Unmindfulness by Pradip Bhattacharya 
Kannada Cinema's Greatest Hero by Rajgopal Nidamboor
Kargil Widows A Story by Kusum Chopra 
Different Engineer A Memoir by Manjula Waldron 
The Dogs in Midsummer  A Story by Dhiraj Bhimji Raniga
Eat Well, Work Well by Nitin Jugran Bahuguna 
Where Are We Going? by Dr. Morice Deogratias
How I Feel Being An American by Arya Bhushan
Religion and Yoga by Meena Iyer 
Kashmir Quake: Chilling Tragedy Continues by Prakriiti Gupta 
A Court by Any Other Name... by Usha Ravelli  
A Brave New World by Sharmistha Choudhury
Wrestling with the Times by Shuriah Niazi 
Telling Their Story, Her Way - A Profile of Anju Chhetri 
Standing Up For Their Rights by Rong Jiaojiao 
Schools Eat Healthy by Radha Rastogi 
Catching Them Young by Susan Philip