Indians are the best clan on the planet. Not because of genetic genius or spiritual superiority, but because of a unique cultural gift: the ability to live in two time zones at once—an embellished past and an imagined future—while gracefully ignoring the inconvenient present.
It’s a national habit, almost a civilizational coping mechanism. We wax lyrical about ancient India: the land of zero, the Vedas, surgical sages, and flying chariots. Every street corner has a self-proclaimed historian ready to narrate 5,000 years of uninterrupted greatness. At the same time, we are deeply invested in a glittering future—“Viksit Bharat,” a $10 trillion economy, AI dominance, global respect. The past gives us pride, the future gives us hope. But what does the present offer? Accountability? Discomfort? Responsibility? It’s much easier to scroll past that.
This temporal schizophrenia infects everything: politics, education, culture, even our personal lives. A student is told to recite slokas for values and code for Silicon Valley. A politician invokes Ram Rajya while promising bullet trains. Bollywood rehashes patriotism with drone shots and mythological metaphors. Everyone is looking backward or forward. No one is here.
Why? Because the present is messy. It demands confrontation—with caste, corruption, inequality, failing institutions, and decaying public life. The mythologized past asks for reverence. The imagined future demands belief. The present requires action, and that’s the one thing we’re always ready to postpone.
It’s time to break the spell. Not by denying our heritage or ambition, but by standing still for a moment, looking around, and asking: what kind of present are we living in—and leaving behind?
Until then, we remain a people in transit—nostalgic pilgrims of the past, hopeful passengers of the future—forever skipping the station called now.