And I(ndia) would like to thank...

Lookie, lookie. It's a blog award that Sandeepa has bestowed on me! And it's pink and pretty too. I put it up on my sidebar at first as a perpetual reminder of my greatness, but then decided to be modest and do a post, so that with time and blogging it slips down, further down on the page, and I come across it with a sudden quickening of the heart when I'm visiting my page in an attempt to push up the visitor count!

I've been wanting to do a post on Independence Day, and what it means to me, to us, to the country, to the world. But no words of earth-shattering significance that will make bloghoppers stop to listen come to mind. I shall carry on regardless.

Probably the most patriotic thing I did yesterday was to stand for the national anthem when it played on TV. We didn't need to. So what if the words can be outdated and Sindh is no longer a part of India? I see the song as a symbol that makes us unite, just like our flag. And whatever issues one has with the lyrics or the genesis, aside, the song stands for something, and so, I am happy to stand for it.

60 years since the magical 'tryst with destiny', and news channels spent most of yesterday trying to quantify India's achievements, create top-5 lists, share the results of polls that declared 'the best sportsman', 'the best film', and so on. What does any of that accomplish? This was not a closing ceremony where awards could be given out. Formalising such ratings does not validate or take stock of where we stand now. Can you seriously say that India today is 60% good and 40% bad? Or that our successes outweigh our failures? Whose perspective are we looking at things from?

For if you ask the same questions of an educated youngster from a bustling metropolis and a hrshly realistic youngster from a starving village, you cannot expect the same answers. And how can you possibly buy one answer rather than another?

What does it mean to be Indian today?

I notice that we are all very quick to defend India against outsiders, specially from Pakistanis. A blogger friend's comments section on an innocuous post turned into a battleground recently. It was a simple post that had nothing to do with Indianness or nationalism, just a rant against idiocy of a particular person. One of her commenters---a regular visitor---is a Pakistani man with a dry sense of humour. He came up in this case with a comment that used the phrase 'You Indians are no better than us, and still the pretensions.' And you should have seen the machine-guns come out! The battle lines were drawn instantly and there was a barrage of comments asking him what the hell he meant by what he said! It was rather alarming to see how quickly the matter turned unpleasant. And yet, it was nice to see so many people alert to a slur on India. I wish that meant something good. Unfortunately, I don't think it's that easy---or that these people would be that motivated---to protect India from the problems caused from within.

It's nice to be Indian when the Taj Mahal is chosen one of the Seven Wonders. It's nice to be Indian when you see that Laxmi Mittal's making the rich Westerners look shabby by contrast. It's nice to be Indian when you see people lapping up Bollywood and curry and yoga (in changeable order) outside our borders. But what about when there are reports on female foeticide in India? When disease figures are revealed? When there are communal riots and the 'secular' government doesn't necessarily do as much as it can?


One category of people whose criticism of India irks me no end are the NRIs. The ones who have decided that life is better elsewhere and lived abroad for years on end. The ones who decide never to return. I can't and won't fault them for what they have done. It is a practical choice, I suppose. I have close relatives and friends who have done the same. But if you've opted out, then, my friend, I feel you no longer have the right to laugh at and criticise India. Sending back lots of foreign exchange doesn't buy you the right to complain. Come and enjoy it, and more importantly, come and suffer it with the rest of us, and you can say what you like. But do not sit at a distance and point fingers!


India is a human being. An organic entity you can't quantify and classify. She is multi-faceted, does bad things when no one's looking, puts on a pretty face to greet the world while the pimples fester, is guilty of hypocrisy on occasion, appreciates admiration of her superficial beauty while pushing the ugliness under the carpet, has a heart that thinks of good and evil, and is guilty of both from time to time. She is unpredictable, she is a character! She is unmistakably alive. And hard to tame. To be sat down and kept clean. And educated. And rich. And healthy. She will wander off and get into troubl because there are more than a billion people pulling her in different directions and playing mind games in her head.


I see India in little things, like the slightly crazed looking woman in a stained and rumpled frock who decided to direct traffic, whistle and all, in a traffic jam at rush hour on the eve of Independence Day. No waiting for the traffic police. She took charge and everyone---buses to scooters---listened, obeyed and followed her directions. She was, that day, literally one in a billion. And she made a difference. That's what I call taking your country into your own hands and making it better. Bit by painstaking bit.


And people who do that are the ones I would like to thank, not just today, but everday.