Indy day knocking!

Whew im bak. That in itself is a massive understatement considering the amount of contempt i have towards blogging(much of it stems from the fact that i dunno if anyone's ever gonna read my blog). But then im back for an entirely new reason which is as u should have guessed by now is totally under the mat(secret!!) All i can say is that im just too embarassed by the utter selfishness of the reason that im not willing to open up!

Right then frankly speaking i don't have anything much to talk about here. So why not cook it up about our independence day.(Yeah writing about a topic... that definitely is part of my selfish plans!!) You see right from when i was that little-whos-this-stupid-guy I have always wondered about the pronunciation of this word independence. its actually in-dependence rather than inde-pendence. Hope u got that guys. Just tell it out man in-dependence... gives u a whole new feeling about what the day actually means doesn't it! For me the day is often entwined with customs and rituals almost similar toa religious festival. Whew! What a boring way to celebrate indy day. i think what we really need is a kind of way to market indy day to indians. Market in the sense make it exciting. Make people really get the feel of what indy day actually is about. I see these stuff on ndtv... little old clips which savour the actual moment of in-dependence and the things which followed it. Awesome footage i tell u... It just makes my nerve tingle with a spirit that only a bit of patriotism can give. Amazing! Why didnt they show me those stuff when i was in school.(Ofcourse i wudnt hear a word of it nor wud anyone else if they put it up in colleges now). I still remember indy days in school atleast for me was all about chocolates.. (Yummy!) They used to give more than 5 chocies!! And then they put up plays about freedom fighters in which everyone was so engrossed in laughing at the slightest mistakes that their friends were doing in the play that they forgot they were actually laughing at a gandhi or nehru!! Now it doesnt give u a great impression of gandhi or nehru when u get to laugh at them! Maybe im over exaggerating and the school did give me a pinch of patriotism but most of it i wud say is self imbibed or self imposed. Much of it stems from the students themselves who want to be patriotic.

I dont actually how the so called "NRIs" celebrate indy day. Its probably more special to them because this day gives them a chance to get together and unite as indians in a foreign land. But let me address some of those cynics who say india would have been much better off under english rule. Ofcourse these are truly comments of those people who dont have any idea what being "dependent" means. I ask them would you say ok if u were forced to buy only brand of any item rather than according to your wish? Would u like if u were not allowed to buy cars and bikes because that were meant only for a certain class of people with white skin? In modern term that sounds silly. But pre 1947 that was very much the reality. And the fact that indian in-dependence paved the way for freedom in many other countries is something we all should be proud of. Funny when people celebrate our in-dependence as a momentous event in their struggle for fredom why shouldnt we celebrate it as an even bigger event.

My personal opinion about indy day is that its a low key affair simply because it is made and portrayed to be so. Its the same reason why a new year or a world cup final(be it any sport) is celebrated with a different fervour. What we need is we need a dose of "marketing". There have been many people speaking out that the onus is one the govt to do so but thats almost irrelevant now. It simply wont work i tell u. I feel the onus is on the media. Channels like ndtv are doing a reasonable job but i think certain other regional channels could actually make indy day a much bigger event than just a day for putting new films or putting patriotic programmes which simply DONT inspire.

Ram