As social activists delivered impassioned speeches at RBI Square on Tuesday to support crusader Anna Hazare for a comprehensive Lokpal bill against corruption, they called upon the nation's youngsters to step up to the challenge.
And, as the rousing addresses echoed in the background, 27-year-old Alekh Khanolkar was quietly doing his bit. Distributing pamphlets among the small but spirited gathering at the venue, Alekh seemed just the kind of youngster — well-educated, tech-savvy and articulate — that Hazare's anti-corruption movement could utilise. Alekh, originally from Nagpur, has also lent his support to the save tiger campaign some time back. Qualified as a flight instructor from Epic Aviation Florida, US, in 2010, Alekh has come down to India to get a pilot licence.
He says he is inspired by John Gillespie Magee Jr's 'High Flight,' regarded as the greatest aviation poem, and by Leonardo da Vinci's quest to fly. He decided to join the campaign against corruption because it's a non-political movement and he is inspired by people like Anna Hazare, RTI activist Arvind Kejriwal and India's first woman IPS officer Kiran Bedi. Alekh was born to doctor couple Ajay and Vandana but always wanted to fly. And thereby hangs a tale which inspired him to take up this cause.
"The flying course was expensive and my father had to sell some land which he had purchased with his hardearned money. The person who bought the land gave only half of the amount and the cheque for the rest of the amount bounced. It's been more than three years and the person has still not been punished. This is the kind of system that I want to oppose," he said. Indians are some of the most intelligent people in the world, but the system has moulded us such that we are forced to give bribe, he says. "Our present law holds the bribe taker and bribe giver equally guilty. This should not be the case," he adds. Alekh is all praise for the golden generation which won us freedom in 1947. "It's time for us to start a second fight for freedom," he says. "Freedom from corruption.
And, as the rousing addresses echoed in the background, 27-year-old Alekh Khanolkar was quietly doing his bit. Distributing pamphlets among the small but spirited gathering at the venue, Alekh seemed just the kind of youngster — well-educated, tech-savvy and articulate — that Hazare's anti-corruption movement could utilise. Alekh, originally from Nagpur, has also lent his support to the save tiger campaign some time back. Qualified as a flight instructor from Epic Aviation Florida, US, in 2010, Alekh has come down to India to get a pilot licence.
He says he is inspired by John Gillespie Magee Jr's 'High Flight,' regarded as the greatest aviation poem, and by Leonardo da Vinci's quest to fly. He decided to join the campaign against corruption because it's a non-political movement and he is inspired by people like Anna Hazare, RTI activist Arvind Kejriwal and India's first woman IPS officer Kiran Bedi. Alekh was born to doctor couple Ajay and Vandana but always wanted to fly. And thereby hangs a tale which inspired him to take up this cause.
"The flying course was expensive and my father had to sell some land which he had purchased with his hardearned money. The person who bought the land gave only half of the amount and the cheque for the rest of the amount bounced. It's been more than three years and the person has still not been punished. This is the kind of system that I want to oppose," he said. Indians are some of the most intelligent people in the world, but the system has moulded us such that we are forced to give bribe, he says. "Our present law holds the bribe taker and bribe giver equally guilty. This should not be the case," he adds. Alekh is all praise for the golden generation which won us freedom in 1947. "It's time for us to start a second fight for freedom," he says. "Freedom from corruption.
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