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…
wow! you write so well. your writing is refreshing and smooth.
ReplyDelete"Another thing we’ve been taught as a nation is to learn from the mistakes of other"
ReplyDeletenow, who taught us this thing and when?
isnt that what our parents have kept telling us since we gained conciousness??..u knw we as indians, are people with limited resources..the generations before us have seen worse so its ingrained in the psyche that making mistakes are not a very good idea...
ReplyDeletethats all i meant..