Thoughts on I-day

Technically, it’s midnight and it’s already the 16^th of August but there is something I have to pen down, though totally unprecedented, on this somewhat seemingly important occasion .

I don’t regard myself as patriotic. Though few years ago it was a part of my identity. Being patriotic was similar to being secular or being a vegetarian. The scruples I attached with all these forms of identities are at times hard to identify. Then as the world opened before my eyes, inch-by-inch, and I started living in a state of catechism, where everything was questionable, every idea not an absolute, I started searching for the roots of this deep-seated, almost congenital, sense of patriotism within me. I remember reading an article in some newspaper. It challenged the very notion of nationalism and secularism being valid at the same time. Then came along Shadow Lines, one of the most influential books for me in many years, which again challenged the notion of boundaries and their recognition and their futility and meaninglessness. It’s a beautiful book. I have read it more than once. The second time, because there was so much that seemed absurd and I found no meaning in when I read it for the first time. But then I had underestimated the author. I had underestimated his brilliance to put into words those ideas which are ineffable for most of us. “Language is inapt”, as they say, and yet, it may not be, when the mind knows what it is trying to express. The key lies in being able to delineate the pathos and then trying to figure out its contents, what it is made of up of. But even after all this reasoning and dissent I mentally experienced against my almost innate tendency to be patriotic, the feeling has cropped up every now and then. Is it because deep within me I believe that I owe something to the land of my birth? I am not sure. It’s instinctual more than a reasoned out feeling. On the 15^th of August, 2007, as India supposedly celebrated it’s 60th Independence Day, I woke up late in the morning, missed the flag hoisting ceremony, experienced no sense of guilt, wondered which sweet I missed in the breakfast(we usually have sweet in breakfast on I-day), and went ahead with my usual routine. The day had no special meaning. In fact I don’t see any logical reason for the contrary. I was casually going through the newspaper when I read a synopsis of the Prime Minister’s address to the Nation. Whimsically I went online to search for the entire speech. Read it. And now, after a series of train of thoughts that followed, am sitting in front of my computer, at 1 am, on the 16^th of August, writing about an Independence Day which didn’t mean much to me till now and maybe doesn’t mean much even now.

My mistrust in politicians always leaves out a few on the top. Out of desperate optimism I sometimes hope that the few at the top who bear the onus of the future and aspirations of over a billion people on their shoulders are sincere. I secretly hope that they are concerned and are fervently trying to find solutions to the problems of this confused, diverse, seemingly growing nation. I hope that they possess the gift of foresight and the desire to improve the plight of the people. I hope that they dream of a country “Where the mind is without fear and ..”. I give them the benefit of doubt of being bogged down by vested interests of several parties, evils of a diverse society and other numerous things that plague this country. I sincerely hope that deep within their heart they feel for the condition of poorest of the poor who are born in slums with no hope in their future. And I read His speech. I let myself forget for a moment that our Prime Minister was a politician, a member of a political party, a party like every other party whose primary objective is to maintain status quo and stay in power, to achieve this by all possible means, be it reforms or sectarian instigation and violence. I believed his speech was an expression of the purest of all human desires to fight challenges, to erase boundaries and triumph over forces of nature. It was beautiful. I could have cried in this virtually created moment of beatitude. And here I am writing. If only all of what he said he meant. If only each and every individual could feel the same and be able to put it into words, words carved out from the desire to strive against injustice, violence, ignorance and inequality… It will be the most excellent example of triumph of humanity over its own evils.