Ok. First things first. This is not a story. There are no Varun Shyamaks and no other morons out here. I have been too crunched to think for the past couple of month, so I can’t form a story to share my opinions that I have got used to doing. And even though today I am not in a position to sound sarcastic when I want to sound bitter, I wanted to write this. I wanted to write this even though my life is too burdened at this time with the ‘more important’ stuff, the stuffs that you require to do even though you despise them. For today is our independence day, the one of the few days that reminds us that we are Indians and that we are free.
So I woke up today and as a usual routine logged into Facebook and saw a lot of people have waved flags on the facebook, some of them had posted poems and some due to maybe a lack of time to google such poems or anecdotes had just posted a “Jai Hind”. I just pondered over it, as to what I should do to show that even I care about the Independence day. Unable to find a way I decided to not do it, as I logged into office network to do some pending work even though it was a Sunday and there is no way an Indian employee will be paid more for putting in an extra day or even an extra hour. But there was no relief as people kept pinging me on gtalk wishing me happy Independence Day and then suddenly I started getting a hollow feeling. I started feeling that I am not a ‘true’ Indian for I have neither updated my status, nor have I joined a page asking facebook to delete the page “Fuck India” created by “true” Pakistanis, nor did I joined a page promoting a social cause, and till then I haven’t even ‘waved the flag’. I waited for the feeling to go away, but it didn’t. So I decided to walk out and go to a restaurant alone, even though it felt awkward. When I walked out I saw a biker standing and having a tricolor flag made of paper installed just above is headlight. I wanted to point him that this is a disrespect of the tricolor and if you want to have a flag on your vehicle, it must be hoisted on a stick 1 at least one foot above your headlight as the rule says, but then I did not. As I moved further I saw a car which had a tricolor spread like a mattress on its bonnet. I thought it was ridiculous but again I didn’t say a word. Then there came a procession of pampered ‘dudes’ who till yesterday could easily be seen around wearing a English football club jersey and shouting ManU, Chelsea, Rooney and Barca shit, who were driving a car probably gifted by their parents, and shouting ‘Bharat mata ki jai’ and waving the tricolors some of them even holding it upside down. I wanted to ask them do you even understand what three colors symbolize, but again I didn’t.
When I reached the restaurant, the ever polite waitress told me that they have a special Independence day buffet, and looked at me slightly incredulously when I told her that I wanted a table for ‘one’. However, before starting I just wanted to see what was special about that buffet. So I browsed over once, and just when I reached the desserts section I saw a large cake which was formed like the tricolor and also had the chakra in between and some parts of it had already been eaten and then I saw that even the pastries had three colors same as our tricolor. I wanted to shout, I wanted to tell the owners of that Chinese restaurant to fuck off from my country if they cannot respect our symbols. But then I simply walked off the restaurant (after considering taking a pic and posting it on facebook so that there is a discussion) and went straight home and didn’t leave till now, planning and plotting how I too can show that I am a true Indian. Just then it dawned upon me that I have just done that what most true Indians do. We just see things and talk about them and do nothing about them. I could have got the biker or the car owner to correct things. I could have pointed the disrespect shown by the Chinese restaurant, but I didn’t. So now the feeling has slightly evaporated. Tomorrow, I will again go to office and work for the Americans and I might totally forget about it until maybe republic day, so I decided to post this today.
I have still not ‘waved the flag’ on facebook, but as long as we have the great Indians who wave the flag on facebook, join patriotic pages and invite people, tweet what great leaders have already said and people who write blogs about it (Chetan Bhagat has solved all problems of India in one two thousand word long blog post!!!!!) we don’t need to worry for things will correct itself when it wants to.
