The Vice President of the first company I worked for once told me "In life one has to be both fair and square. If you will be goody goody all the times you will be considered weak and will be taken advantage of". Twenty years since I have seen this vindicated time and again, in both private and public life. I love my child but I also reprimand him as needed. If I don't tomorrow he will seat over my head (as they say in Oriya MUNDARE BASIBA and in Hindi SAR PE BAITHEGA). Blow hot and cold should be the motto. Same can be extended to nations. Pakistan and China thumb their nose regularly at us, latest example being the killing of Indian soldiers at LOC. In 2008 when I was in India soon after 26-11 Mumbai attacks a cartoon on Times of India drew my attention. Our PM is warning his Pakistani counterpart that next time you do something like this we will condemn you more severely. Hopefully we can do more than just condemn and stop playing cricket. With due respect to the Armed Forces our chink in the armor has been exposed time and again and our preparedness has left lot to be desired. In early 2000 in a Global Summit in New Zealand the then Chinese President made a mockery at our forces. He went on telling the delegates how once the Chinese were testing the preparedness of our forces and our forces readily surrendered when caught off guard. Reminds me of a story from PANCHATANTRA. Once a sage told snake to stop attacking people. One day the badly beaten snake came back to the sage blaming the later for his contemporary HAALAT (plight). The sage said " I told you to stop biting, did not tell you to stop hissing or raising your fang". The snake followed the sage's advise and was never attacked again. Hopefully we take a cue from CHANAKYA and Ancient texts.
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