Today, Saturday August 14th 2010, Eve of 64th Indian independence day, I saw and experienced this nice feeling of celebration of Indian independence which i would like to share it here.
This happened to me on the road today. I was going to meet a bunch of my colleagues who had called for a weekend fun meet at Amoeba bowling alley, Churchstreet Bangalore. I started from my place at 10:30am in the morning for we were suppose to meet at 11am IST (If you don't know the "real" meaning of it then it could be called Indian "Slip" Time) near Brigade Rd.
Roads were not so crowded up until late afternoon. I was heading to the Brigade Jn via MG Road where I had to stop for the Red signal. I saw few guys at the junction selling a lot of Indian tricolor on the streets of Bangalore.One small kid, around 10 years old, approached me with different variety and flavors of how Indian tricolor could be used - Wristband, Badges, Khadhi, Caps and finally flags. He had a plastic flag which had glue at the bottom to stick it firmly on dashboard of the car. A SUV with a dark tinted glass stopped next to my Bullet. As I said no to everything the boy showed me he had to finally move on. The window of the SUV rolled down and the boy was busy again in selling those to his new customer. To my surprise they were an old foreigner couple (around 45-50 years of age) and they did buy a Indian flag to put it on the dashboard of the car. They gave him some money and asked him to keep the rest of change. The boy was more happy than ever and gave the lady one more Indian flag for her to keep. For that fleeting moment, I saw the feeling of celebration in boy. I smiled at the couple who smiled back at me. The signal had turned green and I left with several thoughts on my mind - Who are really celebrating our Indian independence? - those foreigners! What it means to be real freedom struggle for that boy? - Is it just his daily bread! Why do we now see it just as a national holiday? - to rejoice without office work!
Even I am the victim of globalization of economies, societies and culture, working for software industry in a MNC, I don't have authority to say much about this but feels a kind of guilt that we have lost the real feeling of Indian independence and freedom struggle.
Jai hind!
2 comments:
Being late and taking pride saying "its Indian standard time"?
People elsewhere get fired from their jobs, lose respect from their peers for doing the same. Isn't it high time that we let go of all these (although funny at times) unappreciated habits and start to respect and obey small little protocols?
Isn't it high time that we change people's perspective about us for being late always? even if its amongst us?
For me, anything to be proud of on being an Indian is to change our actions and keep getting better.
I don't think its too much to ask for.
PS: Its funny that we have matching patterns in our posts but with contradictory feelings. !
btw, read this:
http://neoindian.org/2010/02/02/why-it-is-meaningless-to-say-youre-proud-of-being-an-indian/
views similar to mine.
Post a Comment