No I didn’t misspell independence. I prefer calling today the Indipendence day. My country became free sixty odd years ago, and ever year since then, we had an extra holiday in the list. A holiday! To celebrate indipendence! Weird!
A better way to show respect to the nation would have been to work for few extra hours on the 15th of August.
I shall remember this day for a long time. It was past midnight and I was high on booze. I was with an interesting bunch of folks. They were high on booze too. Those were the few minutes before I totally lost it when I started playing the Indian national anthem on mouthorgan. And guess what? All the guys stood up. Boozed up, drunk and shaking. But they stood up. I don’t know if you call that respect but at that very moment, I felt proud to be an Indian. We were people from different places, out there on the terrace, united together to let ourselves escape to another world. We knew each other because we were in the same college. The common thing about us had always been the fact that all of us were IITians. And yet, at that very moment, there was just one uniting factor that hit me. We were Indians. And we weren’t just another bunch of Indians. We were guys who could decide how India would be doing few years down the line. India definitely needs a li’l more than just respect. It needs us to work for it.
I guess this is what the day is all about. It is about the celebration of being an Indian. Wish you Indipendence Day.