26th January 2010. Today we celebrated 60 yrs of our being a republic. I really wanted to go to Rajpath today to watch the Independence Day parade; a friend had even offered to take me along. But suddenly I was struck with a terrible nausea and had to cancel my plans. Guess it was not meant to be. The next best option was to switch on the TV and watch India putting an exhibit of its strength to the world. Its amazing how I have watched the Independence Day parade since I was a little child and it still continues to fascinate me. Though I’d like to mention that there have been times in my adolescence when I was disillusioned by all this. But then, a teenager is disillusioned with a lot of things and a patriotic procession is not really on their priority list..!!
So coming back to Rajpath, the sight was mesmerizing, almost poetic. Watching the uniformed men march in the dense Delhi fog, from the confines of my warm living room, I felt proud of being an Indian. There are very few times when Indians actually feel proud of their nationality. It takes such displays of power, victory in cricket matches or triumph over terrorists (who come and kill us in our homes) to feel good about country.
In the midst of all the euphoria surrounding the 60th birthday of our constitution, a few days back I read an article titled “Whose Republic?”
The rhetoric tone instantly caught my attention. I mean seriously whose republic is it anyway? The cynical bandwagon (including me at a lot
of times) have been quick in dismissing the achievements. But come to think of it we are not doing very bad in terms of economic as well as social reforms. Yes, I believe we are slow but even stories in Panchantra on which we’ve been fed, have taught us that slow and steady wins the race. Cant say how true that is though…
Another thing we’ve been taught as a nation is to learn from the mistakes of other even though we’ve seen Amir Khan urging us to learn from our own mistakes and secretly agreed with him. So recently we saw many reputed Indian banks generously bequeathing cheap mortgage loans to people in India despite of witnessing the 2007-08 recessions. Talk of making your own mistakes! But aren’t mistakes a part of our growing up and we sure are growing up as a nation. At 60 we are young, At 60 we are the magic republic…
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
random house...
Scarlett: Sir, you are no gentleman. Rhett Butler: And you, Miss, are no lady (Gone with the wind)
"She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on. . . .far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day." (Mrs. Dalloway)
"Still, one got over things. Still, life had a way of adding day to day." (Mrs. Dalloway)
"Death was an attempt to communicate; people feeling the impossibility of reaching the centre which, mystically, evaded them; closeness drew apart; rapture faded, one was alone. There was an embrace in death." (Mrs. Dalloway)
With enough courage, you can do without a reputation. (Gone with the wind)
Herein lay the spring of the mechanical art and mystery of educating the reason without stooping to the cultivation of the sentiments and affections. Never wonder. By means of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, settle everything somehow, and never wonder. ( Hard Times)
She seemed glad to see me when I appeared in the kitchen, and by watching her I began to think there was some skill involved in being a girl. ~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
Boy, when you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody. ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 20
"Don't tell me God works in mysterious ways," Yossarian continued, hurtling on over her objection. "There's nothing so mysterious about it. He's not working at all. He's playing. Or else He's forgotten all about us. That's the kind of God you people talk about - a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain?"( catch-22)
"She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on. . . .far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day." (Mrs. Dalloway)
"Still, one got over things. Still, life had a way of adding day to day." (Mrs. Dalloway)
"Death was an attempt to communicate; people feeling the impossibility of reaching the centre which, mystically, evaded them; closeness drew apart; rapture faded, one was alone. There was an embrace in death." (Mrs. Dalloway)
With enough courage, you can do without a reputation. (Gone with the wind)
Herein lay the spring of the mechanical art and mystery of educating the reason without stooping to the cultivation of the sentiments and affections. Never wonder. By means of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, settle everything somehow, and never wonder. ( Hard Times)
She seemed glad to see me when I appeared in the kitchen, and by watching her I began to think there was some skill involved in being a girl. ~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
Boy, when you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody. ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 20
"Don't tell me God works in mysterious ways," Yossarian continued, hurtling on over her objection. "There's nothing so mysterious about it. He's not working at all. He's playing. Or else He's forgotten all about us. That's the kind of God you people talk about - a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain?"( catch-22)
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Maybe one day I can have a reunion with myself.... Sebastian Bach
An earthy yet very urbane woman was sitting on the railing of her terrace trying to mind her hair which was blowing all over her face in the untamed wind. And me? I was flipping through the pages of Femina, now and then stopping at pages that managed to hold my attention for more than two seconds. I was exhausted, not physically perhaps but the emotional turmoil too sometimes makes you behave like a depressed idiot. As if having ailing grandparents whom you are very attached to in a poignant condition was not enough my train was six hours late! Every second reminded me of the “old” times when returning from my grandparents place used to be a bittersweet moment for me. Bitter because I had to leave them and go back to resume my duties; sweet because they made every moment of my stay diabeteically sugar coated for me. Everything had changed since.
20 minutes later I was sitting in my train compartment scanning faces of the people sitting around me. It wasn’t much crowded. There were two old men discussing politics fiercely and there was a young man reading “3 Mistakes of my life”. I myself had graduated from Femina to “The Argumentative Indian”. Perhaps the young man wanted to enter some kind of intellectual competition because he suddenly ditched his current love for some book written by Jack Welch. My narcissist self wanted to believe that the act was to impress me but even if I had to choose ( no offence to Jack Welch!!) the old duo’s passionate utterings about Marxism was more electrifying.
The journey was going fairly smoothly. My mom was carrying enough food to last us if we undertook an ‘around the world’ trip. Maybe I was so insolently looking down on food because I get it 4 times everyday. Yes I was thinking about the world. About what went beyond FDIs, Strategic Business Units, brands and what not. Yes, this was the time to delve deeper for tomorrow I’d be a part of the same herd which falsely prides itself in being an army.
But that’s ok I guess. We all have the right and the habit of looking for the extraordinary in our otherwise mundane existencess…!!
20 minutes later I was sitting in my train compartment scanning faces of the people sitting around me. It wasn’t much crowded. There were two old men discussing politics fiercely and there was a young man reading “3 Mistakes of my life”. I myself had graduated from Femina to “The Argumentative Indian”. Perhaps the young man wanted to enter some kind of intellectual competition because he suddenly ditched his current love for some book written by Jack Welch. My narcissist self wanted to believe that the act was to impress me but even if I had to choose ( no offence to Jack Welch!!) the old duo’s passionate utterings about Marxism was more electrifying.
The journey was going fairly smoothly. My mom was carrying enough food to last us if we undertook an ‘around the world’ trip. Maybe I was so insolently looking down on food because I get it 4 times everyday. Yes I was thinking about the world. About what went beyond FDIs, Strategic Business Units, brands and what not. Yes, this was the time to delve deeper for tomorrow I’d be a part of the same herd which falsely prides itself in being an army.
But that’s ok I guess. We all have the right and the habit of looking for the extraordinary in our otherwise mundane existencess…!!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)