15th august,
Another day under the shadows of the independent India has dawned on us....the sun shone brighter than the usual, today, to anticipate the feelings of patriotism & freedom.
Independence...freedom...doing what your heart says, without being imposed by others, being accepted & accepting the way things are....breathing in the whiff of happiness & self gratification...wait! Hold on for a sec!! Happiness?? Contentment?? Don’t these words sound unfamiliar to your ears? What do you think are we really liberated???
Every person has a different meaning that tags along this day, for some its just another national holiday meant for the politicians to take the age old vows they had been taking since last 61years, for some, its a day off to catch up with a movie or friends, while for school kids its presumed to be a fun day loaded with lots of events, shows & singing the national anthem with full on energy. I do miss being part of the hyperactive bunch drooling over the ladoos meant to be distributed after the function gets over. But unfortunately the period has passed, & it’s high time for me to have come out of the shield where Independence Day meant nothing more that howling patriotic phrases, tossing flowers, & nibbling on coveted ladoos.
I am always accused of being cynical by nature; I always crib about the not-so-bright aspects of being in India, & I sometimes even feel, I would have been better off, if I was brought up on a foreign land with a silver spoon. I hereby confess that the luxurious-high tech life, with ‘devil may care’ attitude of the people in west attracts me in great deal.
But today, Its independence day, tune into any channel, you will be greeted by our musical maestros, political cavaliers, & the golden pillars of our country speaking ,singing & uttering the magical words eulogizing the glories achieved by our country.
but since I am out from the days of roaring feverish jingoistic words, I thought of going deep into myself to answer the above question from my perception- that are we really liberated n contented being an Indian in the throttled up jet age...???
I took a stroll down the street, to find the kids running around sporting tricolor paper flags....kids....with immaculate emotions do their level best to mark this special day unaware of its deep rooted purpose of celebrating the day, by having fun, getting a day off from school, & spilling out their frisky instincts on every thing around them...n most importantly they are celebrating their freedom from homework, irk some lectures, & schools....if not for every day, but yes they seem happy & liberated today..
On moving a little further, as every body seemed to be in real hurry to reach don’t know where. The traffic comes to an abrupt end when the signal turns green. A woman rushes to a nearby car holding dozens of paper tricolor flags...faces rejection at first...but an Innova owner gets out of his car, approaches the lady to spend few coins to provoke a sweet smile on her lips...that gesture dint really improved her lifestyle...but did buy her a moment of happiness....
i wonder......
So diverse are our dreams......our mindset, our dilemmas & glories,...how unlike each one is from the other....six decades back, we were fledging republic struggling with our newly attained identity of a free & independent nation. the entire nation shook with the rampage initiated by our own people, to throw away the foreign ruler, & pledged to get their ashes buried in an independent India...one dream, one destination, a single vision with uncountable eyes .....today, the word skeptics say that the word “we” is replaced by “I”...n we are far from the ideal sketch of India conceived by our great leaders of the past...I agree to this to some extent, but not entirely....I mean, what is expected of us,??? to change the entire nation & transform it completely into some idealistic country with little flaws, by swaying a magic wand?? But what’s again “ideal” defined as??? To be an active competitor in the rat race of escalating to the apex of technological, nuclear
advancement.....somewhat like the US?? Or to make it a nation of uniform wealth with no mayhem whatsoever?? sounds like a delusion to me...I completely agree, today’s youth have somewhat gone astray, with their stereotypical lives, aping & doing things robotically without any passion...but think the other way round, we might not have reached remotely nearer to that dream which shone in the eyes of our past leaders, we may not have one destination, we may not be doing any solemn good to our country....but we have kept ourselves entrenched to the primeval land of India, we shed tears & held each other & resurrected our lives after being attacked sporadically by terror groups, we roared in ultimate bliss by creating history in the first ever twenty-20 world cup series, we see the faces of our own sons in Dhoni, Yuvraj & others..we couldnt bat an eyelid, when Abhinab Bindra kissed the gold & saluted our tricolor flag .....our heart wrenched when our own bollywood diva- shilpa shetty was a victim of racism, & cheered when she walked through it all, & created a new name for herself & her country on a global arena....we are the only country who boasts of an array of filmstars who can not only make the tough stone to break into tears..but can mesmerize every foreigner by the ethereal beauty & masala entertainment, if not the creator of microsoft, we house tata, birlas ,mallaya & ambanis who are not very far from being at the top most level ever reached by anyone. We are in a regular spree of producing geniuses from IITs & IIMs...we are the proud bunch to claim the eternal love exhibited by the erudite architects who built the Taj Mahal, to have the nightingale in the form of lata mangeshkar, to boast of ethereal beauties like meena kumaris & aishwaryas.....to have an eclectic range of tastes served on our dining tables with vigor, we are perhaps the only one to prefer our mom’s made dal-roti over pizzas & noodles, to make hullabaloo spiced with dance & music for umpteen days during festivals, weddings, engagements & what not...to cry & laugh together as a family over the dinner table....the only one to drool over blonde babes & brawny hunks...but favor to settle with salwar-kameez, sari clad ladies & specy dal-chawal consuming gentlemen....to address every person from rickshaw puller to vegetable seller as chacha, dada..etc.....to burst into moans & cries when shahrukh or Amitabh faces any unexpected catastrophe on screen, but we drink our tears of blood when encountered a similar situation in real life...we are Indians, we are sensitive, we break down very easily but the next moment we muster enough strength to turn the tables & fight back, we exhibit extreme emotions, we belong to the families of brave blood which created an uproar decades back...we have kept the diverse flavor intact....if not the best...we have the dream to be better than the rest...& have the devotion to be up there...we are, I am, proud to be born as Indian...n yes!!! I am happy, proud...& if not completely liberated...I celebrate the bundle of joys hidden behind my dependence over certain things that sum up to make be independent...to make my country independent...
