I am an Indian. The feeling of Indianness isnt synthetic in me. Infact in all of us! Can we escape from being an Indian? Can we throw the India out of us? I think we cant. On the road, in the mall, standing next to that roadside pav-bhaji wala, sitting at Starbucks,,, we carry the Hindustaan inside. There is constantly a Mahatma Gandhi walking with us. There is constantly a Sachin Tendulkar in our every act. Our every dance move has Mithunda embedded in it. We form a typical breed of human... rustic, dreamer, winner, demonstrative, careless, warmhearted...a positive and a negative at the same time. We are humble and haughty at the same time. I am no different. I adore roadside cutting chai and aspire Armani suit at the same time. We believe India is great and rest all are mediocre. Complacently we have developed this cliche "Mera Bharat Mahan".. We are not Mahan...we are not the Greatest. Yes, we are good. We are progressing. But Greatness is yet too far. We at times get so engrossed with ourselves that we tend to ignore the greatness of others like Japan and South Korea... I don't say they are 100% perfect.... but better on the grounds of self-governance, self-reliance. Even today each Indian has a dream of going abroad, dream of Americanisation. and these thoughts are not of one typical Indian. Its not me, Its not you...It is the The Great Indian.
60 years back India "clinched" Independence and our generation has visited this great feat on the pages of History books. We can always listen, read to the great martyrdom but never feel it. Couple of good movies can take us to that world but never let us live that moment. We have heard of Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Netaji, Nehruji... but we dont know them. We dont need to know them. We need to know ourselves. We need to inculcate their teachings and experiences in our lives. I wonder, how could Sardar Patel unite India... merge princely states into one nation??? Simply because people believed in what he said. They trusted his words, they trusted him. Precisely they respected him. We dont respect people anymore. Abusing fellow MLA (Ex-CM) by current CM in Andhra inside the House, is one minute exhibition of disgusting politics today. We crib there aren't leaders anymore. Leaders are dead because Followers died long back. Now we dont lead and dont even like to follow. But have we ever asked ourselves about the dead leader inside us? Can we lead by not spitting on the platform today? We enjoy independence today.
We have all the right to do so! and then, we very slowly extend right to misuse and misuse to commercialisation. 15th Aug and 26th Jan are two extra holidays for country today. Another opportunity for PSU's to build their Brand. Another opportunity for news channels to run contests on cell phone. Another opportunity for music companies to launch new albums. Gigantic hoardings of real estate corps to justify their contribution in developing India. These days we get to listen almost all forgotten patriotic songs on radio. On TV its tight scheduled...somewhere Mahatma Gandhi is being sold, somewhere Rang de Basanti is selling, somewhere Munnabhai is selling. Sweet shops have already sold out their Motichor ke ladoos to schools. Everybody is minting money on Independence day. We are celebrating a New Independence Day.
Fair enough! Tomorrow we will be the same again. We will spit, urinate on the same walls again. We will engrave "Raj loves Tina" on Historical Monuments. We will be we. But how long???Independence is momentary. The freedom fighters did not guarantee us its perpetuity. We can loose it again. Yes we can if we continue with this reckless, "chalta hai" attitude. Its time to gear up. Spiderman said "great power comes with great responsibility"... so does Independence. We need to be more responsible. We need to lead from the front. We need to awaken the Leader inside us. We need to raise our voice and speak sense.
We need to become the true Indian. Don't we?
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