Existence amidst complete Chaos - Independent India

CHAK DE INDIA

Its 15^th August tomorrow and we celebrate the 60^th year of our independence. The only memories I have of this day is waking up early in the morning going to school, singing the national anthem, pretending to listen to a chief guest, eat some sweets and be back home for breakfast. The evening was spent playing a fine game of cricket. More often that not, Doordarshan would play Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi or one of the many patriotic Manoj Kumar movies. Rangoli and Chitrahaar would play an hour of patriotic classics. These days my independence day means marching thru the heart of Manhattan as part of the India day parade. To see so many flag waving Indians lined up in the streets of Manhattan is a great feeling. The NY parade is the largest one outside India.

Being born in free India post emergency, I can probably never understand the importance of freedom since it’s something that I have always taken for granted nor can I possibly imagine the scale of sacrifices made by people.

In spite of all the imperfections and problems that besiege us, from corruption in all places to religious extremism and terrorism, from poverty and farmer suicides to lagging infrastructure, from proliferation of slums in cities to the mockery of justice for the rich and mighty, from traffic chaos to a pathetic record in international sports and chaos which reigns supreme in almost every facet of life, the very fact that we still continue to make great progress and flourish is a miracle and a tribute to the people. We are second to none and proud of that. Mess with us at your own peril. After all we are a civilization that has thrived for more than 5000 years and we plan on being here for a long time. We are the future and we better be, since 1/7th of every person in the world is Indian.

So a Happy Independence Day and a silent prayer to all those who made celebrating this day possible ;)!!!