A word called India

At 11:30 am, I got up from my deep slumber fully rejuvenated, and thanked GOD for providing me this holiday. I loved being free for a day and that too a weekday. After doing my business of the morning(which was now tending to afternoon), I broke my long gap of 14 hours(for me its really really long!) by signing in my orkut account with my strange ID - quantum.harsh and an eleven-lettered password(which everyone pronounces incorrectly). Orkut homepage took 3 seconds to open, and what I observed was that there was a new scrap from a friend of mine, he scrapped me, “Happy Independence Day”. I realized, “Its Independence Day that bestowed me a 10 hours of sleep”. I wondered why the hell is this guy wishing ME? After all, it isn’t so special day of my life.

After 10 minutes of wandering in the profiles of the ‘few’ people in my friend-list, I saw about hundreds of profiles on orkut which had the Tricolor as their picture; which said “Happy Independence Day” with two smileys enclosing the caption in their profile. I was impressed by the patriotism of my friends, their love for the nation was extraordinary, for they got up this day quite early inspite of it being a national holiday and also they are utilising this leisure time by wishing their friends and bigwigs - Happy Independence Day. Strangely, where does this love for nation go in the remaining 363 days of the year? (one day subtracted considering Republic Day)

Sincerely asking, how many of us, in the remaining days of the year, have even thought about our nation? We just have one task to do in the remaining time of the year and that is to criticize the system, to disrespect the motherland by comparing it with other nations, to abuse our motherland for its prejudiced society, becoming more and more inclined towards western style of living but we have no time to contemplate on this freedom which was stamped on our personality right from the day we began to exist. India has become just a word for a vast majority of population living in this country, with the feeling of love for it being aroused only during national holidays.

Today is 15th Aug. If its not your birthday, then certainly you can think of something else for which this day holds some importance. It’s about it being the day of freedom. Freedom once it was achieved became a commonplace straightaway. We took it for granted. But the bitter truth is we still do not value this independence, we don’t still know the meaning of this word freedom.

The meaning of this word ‘freedom’ needs to be elaborated. The lexicons have found the meaning of freedom as the ability to pursue what we want without any second thought. But I personally think that is a very superficial definition. This word freedom has many hidden meanings which need to be stressed. If I ask a straight-forward short-answer question, “Is India free?” The one-word answer that will splatter out of the most mouths of Bhartiya Nagarik would be “YES”. But the question of the moment is - Are we really free? Still we are over-burdened by superstitions and prejudices, still there are stigmas like caste system and regional discriminations in various parts of the country, the political dominion is majorly motivated by personal goals and nepotism and yet we are rejoicing for the fact that we are free. Freedom means being free from all these biases and irrationality. Freedom means freedom to dream big and even bigger and our surroundings encouraging us to capture that dream. Freedom means freedom from hate, anger, violence and jealousy; freedom to do anything we like but taking the consideration of society also. Freedom does not imply having 10 kids and still be in the arena of ministry of the country and thinking for the progress of the nation. Freedom has an ingredient in itself of personal fulfilment as well as social responsibility.

It’s not about becoming respectful to the nation on a particular day but to change the course of our entire actions so that it affects our nation in a positive way. That action maybe as simple as throwing a chewing gum wrapper in a dustbin to returning a lost wallet to the person who lost it; it can be helping destitute with their medicines or stopping bribery wherever it occurs; from removing a brick lying in the middle of the road or preventing embezzlement of hostel funds; from having true insurance claims to speaking truth to your life-partner about your previous relations. The list goes on, these things are very simple and straightforward but it requires immense grit to be able to do them. The effect these actions have on this country may be very subtle to notice, but it will be quite visible in the long term. I am not an idealist who loves writing essays to provoke the mind of people, but I just want you to be aware of your nation and your responsibility to it. Just scrapping “Happy Independence Day” in my scrapbook and thereby incrementing my 5000 scraps by one, does not make me(and even others) feel happy, but your actions in some way or the other has the ability to make the entire nation happy. One day patriotism is like a new chewing gum which loses its taste as time progresses.

P.S. If you have read it, then I appreciate you a lot. Thanks for reading it. Please do comment to make me know who amongst my friends truly value their nation and did not get bored reading about it.
P.S. It was not meant to hurt some real nation lovers, it is just meant for fake people for who INDIA is just a word.

P.S. Country needs you. You just have to look up.

India

It was 29th Aug, 1989 when I bawled out on this planet. From that day only, a stamp of being an Indian was embedded in my nature. Times passed by, India continued to be responsible for quite a lot of my actions.

The early childhood had in me immense love for my motherland. Every time Tiranga flashed on the Doordarshan, it would give me goosebumps. I unconsciously stood up in attention position and rejoiced while singing our national anthem in full volume. There was a song called ‘Mile sur mera tumhara’ telecasted every now and then on my small Salora black and white TV which had many maestros of music singing for the peace in the nation, of which I never ever got bored off. Every year I would wait for the Republic Day to see the nation’s power showcased during the shows. Every duels and quarrels with friends faded away at the time of any cricket match, when we used to dance together every time Sachin hit fours and sixes. Films like Roja and Border stirred my soul from within. A TV serial called ‘Yug’ referring to the Indian Freedom Struggle was telecasted on DD-Metro and each and every show brought immense patriotic fervour in me. I could not even hear a wrong word against my country. I remember a fight I had with a friend of mine when he said, “I hate this country.” That was the time India was the driving force for my life.

As I grew older(as well as more mature and more sensible, as they say) that early enthusiasm was lost on the way. Being an Indian didn’t bring that pride that it used to bring. India has been lost in the dust of the cricket grounds of my childhood. When elders asked me, “What do you want to do?” I replied, “I want to graduate from the IITs and settle in US.” Time had reached when there was not a single thing that I liked about my country. The pollution pinched me hard, I hated walking on roads that had spits of betel on it and I felt all the mythology as mere rubbish, all the politicians as gamblers and somewhere felt that the world outside India as much more beautiful. Before every cricket match, yet another loss was what consistently hit my mind. I began thinking twice before standing for our national anthem, and in school at the time of national anthem I used to do lips-ing as if some playback singer was singing the anthem for me. I remained asleep on 26th January as it was nothing more than a holiday for me. Indians looked more superstitious and narrow-minded than ever before and I wanted desperately wanted to run out of this country. The only thing which I liked about India was Aishwarya Rai (who also broke my heart by marrying the guy who does “chiki-chaka-chaka-jung-jung” for motorocker).

The maturity that came with the ageing childhood had caused the loss of the vigour for my country, but at the same time brought a new side of the country (this was the phase when real sensibility came in me). The country with so many colours, traditions and rituals, and every tradition having a heritage as well as history of its own; became fascinating for this matured soul. The beliefs of people here on the idols of Rama and Krishna who they have never seen, different sects of people living in the same area with harmony and unison, the innocence of the villagers, the perseverance of farmers, the bliss of sages, the melody of Indian music, the happiness on the face of every child, the marvellous brain of India and creativity of artisans suddenly became visible. My indifference to India faded as soon as I saw it being a conglomeration of every beautiful thing here on earth. The same things which I despised became strikingly beautiful for me. The stamp that was laid on me at the time of birth showed its essence then. Life changes its course, maybe I will leave this country one day, but that does not lower my respect for this nation that has provided me a heritage to be proud of and many beautiful people to enrich my life.

We say we don’t love this country, we criticize the system, we point out flaws but in all of these we don’t see what feelings we have that has made them to criticize it. I mean to say that Why don’t we criticise Somalia or Ethiopia? It’s because we don’t care about them. But for India, we care. We know that we are responsible for the condition of our country and we can bring a change ourselves. We want our country to be the best; we want it to be a superpower, to be developed, to win all the cricket matches it plays and to surpass every nation with its values and beliefs intact. We are, in one way or another, linked to the nation. After seeing the English movies and the kind of language they use, a sudden pride pops up amongst us because we are more civilised, we are more respectful to our parents and more cultured. We must be proud to be born in such a country where the people have discovered all the arts and sciences at a time when the guys and gals of the rest of the world were killing animals for their flesh to make their underpants!