Ankit Malhotra 😷

I feel like a failure, here is why. Growing up, I believed that if I worked hard and earned enough money, I could fix the problems around me and make life better for my family. But money can not fix things if you want to live in this country. The streetlight outside my office is dead. The road outside my home is full of potholes. The road to my office is covered in filth and litter. The air outside my home is polluted. These may sound like small things, but they define the quality of our everyday lives. I have a little more money today than I had growing up, yet I still cannot fix any of these basic problems. And that is what scares me. Will my children grow up believing that if they work hard enough, they can build a better life only to reach their 40s and realise that personal success cannot compensate for a broken public system? We are approaching 80 years of independence, yet basic civic dignity still feels like a privilege. A country cannot truly progress when clean air, safe roads, working streetlights and clean surroundings depend on your postcode, influence or access to people in power. The real elite are not simply the wealthy. They are those who hold power and authority over the system and face little consequence when that system fails ordinary citizens. 🇮🇳 We may celebrate political independence, but real independence also means being able to live with dignity, safety and basic public services. And on that front, we still have a very long way to go...we will never be there I am sure.