Independence day

Independence day


                Independence day… 15th august…. Independence for whom???? I had to wake up at 7 or so…. Waking up so early on a holiday…yes… we all just consider it as a one more holiday… still I am swatantra…. Or to say free… I come to office… why?? Because my client is non-Indian.. so he doesn’t know the value of ‘Independence day’ for us Indians….( whether we ourselves know it is a debatable topic but he doesn’t know that and that’s for sure…)… So I come to office to earn my daily bread and butter… I stay in the office for the whole day… I repent on this because by national holiday we just mean hanging out with friends… or sleep for hours or watch a movie….

                In the evening I and my roommates decide to have dinner out and we go to a nearby multiplex for dinner as well as movie… we are totally 6 + 1 and ½ people in a rickshaw which is licensed to allow only 3 + 1… the ½ person who is a child around 5-6 year old is sitting on the driver’s lap… that’s my free country… I go to McD… one more place where we pay to get insulted… we pay 4 times more than the actual value of the food there… and then we wait in a queue just like the beggars outside a party hall waiting for their number to arrive so that they can have plenty of food… We still eat there…. Because of the holiday rush, almost all items there are simply stale they taste awful rather than awesome… but we eat there… because on eves like Independence day we prefer a good looking restaurant be it a multi cuisine restaurant or a world-wide food outlet chain… we don’t give damn to our own India’s Udipi hotels or so.. that’s what we call ‘celebration’…. We are not concerned about the quality… we are concerned about the show-off and the mention of ‘international’ on the things available there….

                Then we reach the departmental store…. ‘big bazaar’ which has it’s last day of giving more than 50% discount on purchases…. My fellow countrymen are standing there in a queue… no comments for this because it was simply like the queue at McD… just that the queue there was for the stale food which you buy after paying some handsome price… whereas this queue was to get something cheaper…. People tend to waste money at times… and they go down to any level to save the same.. surprising…

                Then we go for the movie… ‘chak de India’ .. What’s there in that? a story of a person who tried to prove to his own countrymen…. That he played for his country and not for his own selfish purpose… the great tragedy of the true sportsman… but we consider just the filmy part… we clap on the dialogues.. we clap for the sports sequences… we don’t give even a little thought to the literally hopeless situation of media in creating hypes…. in the next screen we have the show of another movie named ‘Gandhi my father’ where the most unfortunate part of the life my country’s great leader is depicted… he gave us freedom… and so he couldn’t give much to his own family… but when we come out of the theatre… we say ‘see… he even couldn’t control his own son….’ When we comment like this… doesn’t the whole purpose of his fights, his sacrifices go in vain ?…. When his own countrymen can’t acknowledge his greatness… why did he fight after all? But again no comments….

                We return to our home …. Again the same intended 3 seater but now actually used as a 7 seater vehicle is ready…. We reach back… on this route we see a car parked at the side of the road…. Two guys… can be termed to be the youth or to say the future of this nation are puking…. Others are still enjoying the liquor in the car…. And these are not just the guys… even girls are accompanying them… again this is a national day… they should celebrate it… it’s their choice as to how to celebrate it…

                We return to our home… it’s the sleeping time… of course tomorrow again there is office…. We have to reach on time…. My country …The Independent India just turned senior citizen today… is it??? does it have even the enough maturity level of a 22 year old youth? When we see all that youth running for international restaurants…. Queuing for some cheap things… taking out literally insensible meaning from things when the intended meaning is miles away… assuming that celebrations only mean drinking/smoking…. Spitting/throwing garbage at the corners of roads rather than in dustbins… just one question arises in mind…. Are we the responsible citizens of the country for whom our great forefathers brought the freedom sacrificing their family life… their blood …at times their lives?