I am amazed by the number of patriotic messages and songs being flooded on my twitter and facebook feed up till today. I wonder if this is some sort of contagious syndrome that makes even an incident bastard with a contradictory lifestyle to either post a poorly constructed patriotic message or the obvious clichéd and overused PPT with a catchy background music highlighting our achievements so far.
Back at school, Independence Day was just about singing the national anthem, dressed in white, trying to collect as many sweets as possible and have rest of the day off. Fast forward few years, the ways might have changed but the protocol somehow is pretty much the fucking same. I bet whilst you read this you are cribbing about today being a weekend and that if it was on a weekday, you could've had a day off to hangout at some “happening Mall”.
What do we celebrate this day? Freedom? 62 years into it and a group of culturally challenged demented fucks have the audacity to physically abuse people while they drag them out of a pub in broad daylight. And the justification for their actions? Supposedly because the pub culture is destroying our rich heritage.
They proved to keeping alive our rich old culture of treating women with respect. Whatever happened to the follow up of this story or the actions taken against these un-evolved society pricks! I guess the story wasn’t that “breaking news” material enough after a week or so. Thanks to our 24/7 ratings oriented fucks a.k.a Media.
And you; guess you were you patriotic enough to buy a flag and stick it on the dashboard of your car? You must have got a good price on that when you bargained with that little kid who sold you that at the traffic signal. It’s a big day for the billion plus of us, it is even more important to have the flag to show our patriotism and as a proof of being a good citizen. The kid's poverty or his right to education is none of your concern. Well done.
To me being Indian is not about waving flags once a year and writing posts to claim how unique we are. You are much better a citizen trying to help out the society in your own bits and pieces rather than a well scripted piece of literature that describes how, in spite of diversity why we (consider ourselves) the best. We are good at pointing fingers, but do not realize we are all standing in a big circle. Break the chain; take up initiative for the betterment of the society. No effort is too small. Shy? Get involved with groups that share similar concerns. Chasing the invaders out of the country more than half a century ago doesn’t mean we shouldn’t adopt some of their best practices. Be a good citizen first, in your own little ways- stop littering, follow the rules, abide by good work ethics even for the simplest of tasks, be polite, stop saying "we are like this only" to justify all your cheap thrills and most importantly stop using culture and tradition as an excuse or to justify your uneducated actions.
There are sentiments associated with celebrating this glorious day and it is a joyous sight to see the entire country celebrating it as a whole. But isn’t it high time to add meaning to to the celebration and not let it be just another holiday in a year?
3 comments:
Very true :)
I love the penultimate paragraph. I wholly agree.
I also note the "you" and "your" in it :P
@Jamal: Good to know we agree on the same view. :)
@Niki: I was pretty sure this might come up. But I took complete care to avoid possible reference as a third party. I am very much in the group, but the "you" and "your" in this context, I think is an acceptable usage, right?
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