Random Thoughts: The generally uncared for 4th basic necessity of life

There are a lot of things that keep cropping up in the mind but the laziness (or whatever it might be) in not trying to put them down always results in a pathetic posting rate in the blog :)
Was thinking of the 3 basic necessities that we so religiously are taught from childhood ie "Food, clothing and shelter ." No doubt these are the bare minimum requirements for physical existence, but in the process of grappling about for these we somehow seem to have forgotten one more necessity, that which I consider is as important as the other three. That is "A right ideal."
A look at the urban society will drill down the effects that the lack of the 4th necessity is bringing about. The government comes up with the best possible plans (The execution or lack of it is a discussion for another day.) to lift the economically backward sections. We have excellent schemes in place. But at the same time there are hardly any to channelize the energy of that section of the population that has a comfortable social life.
And the result is "lopsided development." We have on one hand a large section of the society that is at loggerheads with life itself. Making ends meet is a herculean task and as Swami Vivekananda says, their life is that of "next door neighbors to brutes."
And on the other hand is the "Aimless, uninspired" urban populace immersed in self-indulgence.

We might find it "self appeasing" to speak of the freedom that democracy has endowed us with. But we must also remember that "With freedom comes responsibility." And today's urban India does not seem to deserve that freedom. A superficial glance at the astounding progress that many nations have made points to some point in their history when they had to literally rise from the ashes like the Phoenix and they had an "Iron fist" (administrator) controlling them for a while. Many a country has had to build itself from ashes. On the other hand, ours has been a relatively less dramatic last 100 years(in terms of the scale of violence and destruction). So considering the situations, if we have to achieve the same social progress that these nations have achieved and also constantly enjoy the freedom that they at many points of time did not, the responsibility on each one of us in tremendous.
I am not sure if it is my "seeing the glass half empty", but we currently have with us an educated class that instead of being the torch bearers of progress seems to be torching the progress.
I might seem overtly critical, but mere "Stock Market" justifications of economic progress are not the want of the day. Our progress and refinement of society is truly reflected by the status of the most insignificant person in our society.

The possibility of erecting a grand edifice, which if built can shelter innumerable souls and can be a beacon for the future generations to come, stands before us. Time will tell what we make of it. But everything said, it is certainly high time we got "Inspired."

More on this later.......


Cheers,
Anikethan