The In-dependence day

The last time I celebrated my Independence Day was on the 9^th June, 2010 and my country’s Independence Day on the obvious date of 2003. As a school boy, marching with the pluck-card of “Vivekananda House”, I listened to a gravitating speech by person, whose name I do not remember, but, he was from an organization called Alma Mater. My vocabulary was at horrifying levels that I did not even understand the meaning of Alma Mater. But, the speech was in simple English that I understood. It was a speech that ignited the spirit of “I can” in me. I can, I can and I just did the opposite. Fared badly in the 12^th boards, screwed up the JEE and the other EEs as well.

The next Independence Day of 2004, I found myself attending a quiz (Ragging?? Rectification??) in a place some 2000km away from my home. The dogma of marching a parade and the head of the institute hoisting the National flag was unconventionally replaced by the quizzes that we underwent. The whole agenda of gleefully singing the National Anthem which was written just 60km from where I was being quizzed came as a slap on my face (pun intended).

The next Independence Day of 2005, I was awakened by a few juniors singing the National Anthem outside my door and who were quizzed after the show. After the formal introduction, a yawning me went outside my hostel to see hoards of juniors returning after the parade. A new convention was started that year to hoist the flag. I vowed a breakable vow to attend the ceremony next year without fail.

Independence Day of 2006 was no better. There were more juniors and being in the pre-final year gave me more autonomy to dictate things. Not because I was in pre-final year, but, because, I was residing in a final years’ wing. There were different versions of the 52-second starched-chest-high-head-proud-anthem with the length of it variably varying with the geography of India. Pushed the breakable vow to the Independence Day of 2007, which will be my final year at the place. So, I had to attend it. Then the day came and I was cozily sleeping in my bed, without any of my wing-mates’ disturbance. I think we had a party the last night, with an afore-seen fact that the next day is going to be a dry-day.

2008, Independence Day was on a weekly-off day. Working in shifts had my off shifted to Friday than the normal beings’ Sunday. The village where I was working in had a new or the first supermarket opened. Flocking with a couple of colleagues, I bought my daily accessories (brand of my choice actually) after put into a jail for two months. When my Independence Day will come from this place was the thought that extended to infinity.

Surprisingly, for the Independence Day of 2009, I had booked my tickets to the place where I was physically present on the Day from 2004 to 2007. I was merrily spending on shopping thinking that the big bucks will stop one-day and my breakable vow remained broken. I did not wake up the parade for the fourth time out of the given four chances. Independence meant Freedom and I had it with me then. The real freedom to say yes for the thing you want to.

It was 0400 hours when my mom woke me up on the 15^th August 2010. A couple of text messages wishing me “Happy Independence Day” with a text-drawing of the nation. I thought how superbly they have included the whole of Jammu & Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh in it without knowing the real state of affairs. After my Sehri, I slept off and woke up around 0800 hours to find my cousin brother getting ready to leave for the flag hoisting at his college. It rang some bell in me. The guy with the freedom in me has changed over the years. While fasting in the holy month of Ramadhan, I realized, this is how millions of Indians feel 365 days a year, although their lives. The mental agony of hunger and thirst haunts them day and night. Irrespective of millions of tons of food grains rotting waste at the mega-warehouses of FCI, the responsible government still imports food grains and increase the deficit. They won’t even distribute the rotting grains for free to the unprivileged. With millions swindled in the name of Wealth that was supposed to be Common, with Indian Rupee getting a new face, with Communist East India fighting the Fascist West India, both of whom are against the secular North India with a completely intangible South India, lest we forget the North-East limb of Mother India.

Independence did not bring order but chaos. Only if we would have been a little more patient, the Englishmen themselves would have granted us the Independence without all the bloodshed. Nothing against the martyrs, who laid down their lives! As an Indian I salute them. On the contrary, is this is what they wished their country to be after 63 years of Free State?