Happy Independence Day India!

Like so many Independence Days, today too I woke up listening to the same old patriotic songs from bygone Bollywood movies blaring through the loudspeakers – मेरे देश की धरती सोना उगले, वंदे मातरम and ऐ मेरे वतन के लोगो.

Then the familiar feelings and thoughts came back – as on all past Independence Days. Why do we have a day off on this date? Majority of us treat it like any other holiday – lolling about in beds, completing our pending chores from the week or visiting friends. Why cannot our offices use this day – maybe on a voluntary basis – to plan some concrete measures for the benefit of the society which we can then implement in the later half of the year? But the gloom lasted only for a while. I have decided that I will not spend the day doing normal chores.

I have started by sending the customary SMS to all my friends. The difference this time was that I didn’t send any forwarded message – I constructed my own and sent it.

Then I switched on the TV in the hopes of watching some decent footage of the 1947 Independence Day. No luck! Half the channels were airing the Prime Minister’s speech in which he was either claiming that they were ready for half the disasters currently plaguing India or claiming that they were busy making plans for the other half. And the remaining channels were airing some news about BJP’s Rajnath and Vasundhara Sindia. I guess India’s filthy politicians (now isn’t that an oxymoron?) will keep squabbling for their petty turfs even if the Apocalypse comes!

History channel looked promising enough as the TV Guide showed a program “Colours of War – Tryst with Destiny”. Unfortunately it raised my BP to dangerous levels as I watched “stiff-upper lip” Brits enjoy such luxury that they couldn’t have hoped to enjoy back home – all at the natives’ expense. The program showed very little of India’s freedom struggle and even gave an impression that the Brits left India solely to honour their promise of giving India her freedom in exchange for help in fighting 2nd World War! What a funny idea!

On top of it, the gruesome partition scenes boiled my blood and I cursed the Brits for dividing the nation in two - leaving millions to suffer. I don’t normally use any expletives but as I watched Mountbatten’s (I don’t care if this spelling is wrong and I hope to God it is. That’s my tiny revenge!) wife visiting the refugee camps, I lost my cool. What cheek!

There was a silver lining to the cloud though – it was a different feeling watching many of India’s leaders from that era apart from Nehru and Gandhi – Sardar VallabhBhai Patel, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar and Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad to name a few. I remember seeing them last in the history books and the walls of the school classrooms. :-(

I am not overly superstitious but when the program showed a rainbow that appeared across the skies the day India gained her freedom, I felt that the Gods themselves have blessed the birth of our free nation. Whatever our shortcomings and fallies – I know now we will triumph in the end. We will keep our Tryst With the Destiny :-)