A nation represents the collective soul of the Individuals who are it’s Citizens, and the State in which a nation is… is a reflection of the attitude that it’s people have towards themselves and each other.

Why am I writing this today?

Because…

It’s August, the 15th again – the Indian Independence Day. What am I going to do for this occasion?. I’ll probably go to my hospital  & do my duty,  while feeling a little bad that this 15th Aug  fell on a Sunday and I have been robbed of one of my 11 precious gazetted holidays.

What I won’t do is, I won’t go ahead and buy the national flag – which kids go about selling on every traffic signal around this time in India – and wave it around, or tweet facts about the greatness of India, the nation, or add a Patriotic status to my long line of FB status messages, or listen to patriotic songs, or sit back and discuss how everything starting from public administration to living conditions to law and order is on the down hill, or curse the government and politicians for the rotten condition of Nation. I won’t do any of that.

Why not, you may ask?

I don’t think that it helps if we wear patriotism on our sleeves on one day, while shirking away from our responsibilities & duties as a citizen day in & day out. Where is the patriotism when we forget basic civic manners like forming queues, not spitting or peeing in public, respecting women & elderly people, obeying traffic laws, keeping our environment clean, using energy judiciously?

What good can come out of waving a plastic tricolor, which has been made and is being sold by children (who are supposed to be the future of this nation) in factories when they should have been in schools, happily fed by their families.

Should I feel proud to know that I live in a country…

Where families still throw away a newborn girl child, or worse kill a still unborn child because they want sons, or where wives are burnt for dowry and are subjected to domestic violence?

Where people are killed for marrying against the wishes of their family and these killings are termed  as “Honour” killings.

Where people discriminate against fellow human beings on caste, religion, region,and  discriminate enough to kill.

Where citizens are Indians on 15th Aug/ 26th Jan/ 2nd Oct and for the rest of the year they beat each other up for being North Indians, South Indians, Maharashtrians, Kashmiris, Maoists, Communists, and the list is unending.

Where citizens spend  more time finding innovative ways of bypassing laws, evading taxes and using that money so saved for offering bribes.

Where cricketers, actors and pseudo celebrities roll in luxury while soldiers, teachers, scientists and farmers are not thanked enough.

Where news is about getting TRP’s, rather than reporting facts.

Where elected representatives of the country fight tooth & nail with each other in the Parliament, spend more time staging walk outs and getting the house adjourned than in discussing the problems of nation, spend crores in making statues and parks while millions die of malnourishment and hunger, where nothing lies above petty politics and pleasing the vote bank.

When we, The People, elect such leaders to rule us, what right do we have to crib?

The purpose of this post is not to criticize a nation that is the biggest democracy in the world, and is  over flowing with talent unlimited. I fully realize that some of the things that I have mentioned above are rampant in every society, but then ours is a nation which stands on the premise of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (The whole world is a single family). The purpose of this post is merely to show ourselves the mirror to remind ourselves that —

The change will not happen by sitting in our homes, worrying about our comforts, refusing to accept reality as it is and waiting for someone else to come and clean our backyard. To make the change happen we will have to shirk off our laziness, clean our minds and then pick up the brooms and clean our backyard ourselves.

Let us be responsible people everyday of our lives, and celebrate patriotism everyday,  rather than make a hue and cry of it for a few days in a year.

Remember, The walls, if any, lie within our own mind.

Image courtesy: vivekchugh from sxc.hu