So amidst the euphoria of 'Happy Independence day' wishes, keeping the national flag as the profile picture, singing vande maataram, hoisting the national flag, seeing actors and actresses showing their patriotism and of course listening to the PM speak from the red fort, my voice will be meek. Yet I dare to write; since this is what I know to express my patriotism.
So, after the euphoria settles down, and life catches up, our patriotism often is reserved for another day! May be Jan 26th! May be August 15th again next year. So why do they come out only on special days? And where were they hiding till then? May be it was just there, deep inside, and the society has just shown only these as the ways to celebrate the our independence.
So what now? I can hear you getting irritated! Why can't we try some thing different? Something long lasting? Which really shows what independence really is; Can we just think aloud of some activity, some method to show our patriotism, which will have long lasting impacts? Here are a few which came to my mind....
May be we can support a girl child's education for a year; There are brilliant organisations which do superb work. This will be petty for the amount of money most of us make. May be we can promise ourselves to visit a school for the blind, a children's orphanage, a mentally retarded home or an oldage home! Just be there whenever we could on a sustained basis and see how much change the mere presence can make. May be we can promise ourselves, that we will follow traffic rules for a year; or will not pay bribe till next independence day; May be we can just go to our old school and see what we can do there; or May be we can just follow one more sport other than cricket and support the Indian's fighting it out there; May be we can promise ourselves not to get toddy from government run shops or not to buy products from corrupt organisations.
I understand, I'm getting preachy! I could not help it. Can we just try; try to make a solemn, sustained effort for one year and see how the very definition of our independence day changes.
Well, using national flags as profile pictures are patriotic. I have done that too. But just doing that once every year does not reflect the true fragrance of independence. True, we got independence from the britishers. Still there are hundreds of unwarranted things we are dependent on. Only after getting independence from them we will realize that there is a different fragrance to independence. True fragrance!
So, after the euphoria settles down, and life catches up, our patriotism often is reserved for another day! May be Jan 26th! May be August 15th again next year. So why do they come out only on special days? And where were they hiding till then? May be it was just there, deep inside, and the society has just shown only these as the ways to celebrate the our independence.
So what now? I can hear you getting irritated! Why can't we try some thing different? Something long lasting? Which really shows what independence really is; Can we just think aloud of some activity, some method to show our patriotism, which will have long lasting impacts? Here are a few which came to my mind....
May be we can support a girl child's education for a year; There are brilliant organisations which do superb work. This will be petty for the amount of money most of us make. May be we can promise ourselves to visit a school for the blind, a children's orphanage, a mentally retarded home or an oldage home! Just be there whenever we could on a sustained basis and see how much change the mere presence can make. May be we can promise ourselves, that we will follow traffic rules for a year; or will not pay bribe till next independence day; May be we can just go to our old school and see what we can do there; or May be we can just follow one more sport other than cricket and support the Indian's fighting it out there; May be we can promise ourselves not to get toddy from government run shops or not to buy products from corrupt organisations.
I understand, I'm getting preachy! I could not help it. Can we just try; try to make a solemn, sustained effort for one year and see how the very definition of our independence day changes.
Well, using national flags as profile pictures are patriotic. I have done that too. But just doing that once every year does not reflect the true fragrance of independence. True, we got independence from the britishers. Still there are hundreds of unwarranted things we are dependent on. Only after getting independence from them we will realize that there is a different fragrance to independence. True fragrance!
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