Thursday, September 02, 2004

Patriotism or Hypocrisy

August 15, 1947, 0.00hrs...

trumpets were blowing, people were marching through the streets, sweets were distributed, tricolor was hoisted high its the time to enjoy..its our independence day..

August 15 2004, 0.00hrs..

everyone is in deep sleep, some snoring others tossing around,

August 15 2004, 8.00 hrs..

i was going to get vegetable s for my mom ( i dont feel helping in household chores is a prestige issue for guys) when a small kid living in the flat opposite my house came running to me and gave me a tricolor to pin it on my shirt as he had done so..i took it but refused to pin it, well the kid had to go disappointed....one of the not so young not so old (around 35yrs) person who was watching this scene came to me and asked tht question that enraged me to such an extent it made me loose my cool on the middle of the road..this is wat he asked " y did u refuse to wear the flag ? r u not patriotic?" the next thing he said was even more ridiculous " look at us we r wearing the flag cos we are patriotic" (this is a rough translation of wat the man said and meant).. i was so enraged i couldnt think properly on the road..but the moment i took control i started rolling with laughter at the exhibition of ignorance frm tht person ( he is working as a Software engineer who has recently returned frm USof A)..
wat does it mean to be patriotic?? is it just pinning the tricolor on independence day?? how many Indian know the time duration for our National Anthem? how many of us know who wrote Vande Mataram?? well we dont try to find out anything abt our country but just celebrate independence day as any other festival like Diwali or sankaranti..this is the most ignominous thing to do to our nation...in my view this amounts to hypocrisy and not patriotism cos we pin the tricolor today and fly off the next day to US of A or UK or anyother damn country in the atlas rather than stay here and fight ( this is not to point finger at any one..this is a personal opinion)..
in my view patriotism is to do with the kind of attitude ppl show towards their country, towards their ppl and so on and so forth and remaining things are either hyprocrisy or total bullshit.

wow i think i'll put it to rest.. cos i would have stirred quite a lot of hornet's nest..i just wanted ppl to know the difference between the two...

P.S: hope this is not read by any politician (or wannabe politicos)..even then I say GO TO HELL!!!!!!