Did you feel Patriotic this Independence Day?

A question that bothered me on 15^th August when I attended a flag hoisting ceremony, what is it that we prove by being present at such an occasion? 

Who do we pay respect to? What do we celebrate?

The Land: every country has it, so what’s so special?

The political leaders or others: I doubt it!  We cannot be celebrating power hungry Nehru, or Indira who ran the country as a proprietor driven organization or Mute Manmohan (I had a lot of hopes on him) or any other of their kind (no I am not being anti-congress,  misadventures of other leaders don’t come to my mind now, anyways that is not the subject in concern here)

The People: nope. Let’s face it we are all corrupt. And there is hardly any respect for others. I prove this by pointing out to still pervading cast & sect system in the country. Harmony is retained because we are just ‘Tolerant’ & not respectful

They Martyrs: may be. But we have been doing this for 67 years.

The titillating questing is why do we still gather in large numbers every year?

India is not a great country!

The onus of making it great lies with us. We the people need to do something.

No, I am not send you for a war nor do I urge you to join politics.

A nation becomes great when we the people do simple things.

Simple acts or deeds by individual reforms the society & society reforms the nation. And reformed nation is a great nation!

So lets pledge to undertake something, like: I will not litter, I will save fresh water, I will educate a girl child etc.

If you can undertake this task along with someone then even better. Because while fulfilling what you pledge, you might find yourself losing some steam, others would then encourage you.

On 15^th August 2014, ask yourself again have you been able to keep you to your promise?

Here my thoughts encourage me to write the famous words of JF Kennedy “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”

But lets not go this far, lets take it simple and easy!

Truth, love & a little malice - recommended

i have recently completed reading an autobiography of Khushwant Singh, 'Thruth, Love and Little Malice. I was interested to ready anything written by Khushwant Singh because of a comment I had heard from Shobhaa De that he has nothing original to write & all this books are centered towards the same subject.Nandani Mehta in an introduction to the book 'not a nice man to know' addresses it as "some dam sexy pages, yaar!"

So this autobiography has none of those pages! (except may be 2-3 enounters with a fat french lady & an american lady, but be sure nothing materializes) 

Khushwant Singh was born with a golden spoon. it is just by the virtue of this that he could go to best of the places, study at best of the university and never had a materially struggling life. He did struggle with himself, changed careers & he cudgeled noted personalities and laureates of his time. He has penned his success and failures of his profession. He has been a lawyer, journalist, writer & a member of Rajya Sabha 

His writing is lucid & very interesting. And definitely comes across as a pendent personality. I continued to get interested because of his political connections & anecdotes surround the same.   
 He writes about prominent events like partitions, operation Blue Star, emergency etc and other event where he was affected like Sanjay Gandhi's death, family dynamics of Gandhi family when Indira Gandhi was the PM, formation of Akali Dal, his Padma Vibhushan and giving up of the same.

A para that convinces me about his forward thinking 'Who wants virgins? Good looking women with experience, vivacity and brains make much better lovers and companions' :)

One of the concluding chapters has his take on religions & rituals. He has completely dismissed any activity that involves wastage of time including prayers. he incredulously disbands astrology & numerology too. He exhibits no prude when talking about the same and is a believer of a single life. He eloquently writes about death too.

This book has introduced me to lot of authors i had never heard off. Some of them are Anita Desai, Ruth Jhabvala, Nirad Chaudhuri, VS Naipaul etc. Some of his favorites are  Aldous Huxleyan & Somerset Maugham

This one is a must read.

PS: Personally i feel I will never be able to write myself an autobiography!

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