my article published in tehelka

what follows is an article that i wrote on a whim on the eve of independence day....sent it to tehelka...got published....this is the kind of writing that i like, cynical but rousing....a reason perhaps why i love arundhati roy's articles so much....i have got to find more time to write articles....anyway for now, this is the article....




"So we renew ourselves for the 57^th time…well apparently at least...

Today I saw many people fluttering paper flags on the streets…saw them on the streets, in cars, saw them on the trucks with the inevitable message of “mera bharat mahan”; you know the flags u get to buy for a couple of rupees on the pavement from a guy, just another small windfall for him…and for us? A holiday with a difference eh? A day when being patriotic is chic…hmmm a day when on the front page of Delhi Times or HT City star struck P3Ps peer over their liquor glasses and tell us what independence means for them…independence? Them?…but then again its fashionable for us, the so called non-P3Ps (even the secretly aspiring ones) to make the P3Ps our favorite whipping boys…so what about us? Take yr pick…

The Fastidious

With my trademark, well practiced cynical smirk on my faces I rave and rant in my ‘dignified manner’ about the non issue of the day…ah yes we would say…look at the corruption, the promises not kept...the usual, hmmm have u seen the litter on the streets?, bah 57 years and still we take in more insecticides than food…”tck tck we are not really free are we?”

Children of the reflected glory

Remember the clichéd saying “united we stand, divided we fall” that we read in our social studies books in I Std? I suddenly feel a gush of patriotism today with songs like “mere watan ke logo” or films like “shaheed bhagat singh” suddenly seems to hold a poignant hidden meaning, when suddenly a picture of Gandhi evokes a feeling of intense pride in being an Indian…so let us remember this day when we finally ‘threw’ out the Brits (which incidentally was an act of charity by the Anglos but lets leave that for another time…)…what better way to celebrate our day of salvation from colonial slavery than to flutter the paper tricolor you bought yesterday (which naturally disappears mysteriously overnight…)…I am the ‘shiny happy people’ today…

They say ignorance is bliss don’t they?

Never having an opinion than what is reflected by peers or the mainstream media, I wd celebrate the day by flying the kite, going off to sleep in the noon and its back to cursing when I going to wake up next day to the humdrum of daily life and then begins the wait for the next holiday, which of course in this country is never really far off…

Now u have every right to ask me, this self-righteous punk who is writing this piece, “so mate which category do you stand in?” … Believe me I have vacillated b/w all three just like all of us and I found them inadequate…

But let me answer yr question by asking a question…in the above three categories, in which one did you decipher a semblance of action? an act of independence?…isn’t independence an act of free will…a verb…an action? Since when did independence begin to mean mere platitudes…positive or negative? What was that poster that used to hang in our school…ah yes…”better to light a candle than to curse the darkness”…the point is that this day is never going to change anything…a murder is still going to be committed every 20 minutes, a women is still going to be raped every 10 minutes, children are still going to be stillborn, farmers will still end their misery with the very substances that was supposed to have made their life, demi-gods are still going to whiz away in their Ferrari Modenas believing in the infallibility of public adoration and filmstar’s love triangles and their breakups are still going to remain top headlines, and the people who make the most dough are still going to be feted as the greatest Indians of modern times….unless we shear off the garb of self pity that we mistakenly call patriotism…pop patriotism is the in word I believe…

But remember what Lennon sang “I am just watching the wheels go round and round”…maybe its time we all go to the infringes just to see how it looks from outside…just this once...but then come back in the midst to tell everyone that its possible…remember that story by Maxim Gorky “The Reader” in which is asked the all pervasive question to Gorky…”its easy to feed on the weaknesses and fears of people but can u give them hope, can u give them dignity? Can u make them see that it’s easy but weak to be cynical? Can you free yourself? Can you free them?”

Can we?

I do not and cannot offer anymore…each man and woman has his or her own methods of rebellion and protest…it is for each one to find that way the best they can…lets keep the flag fluttering in whatever color we see fit…but let it flutter..."