Thoughts on the Republic...

Years ago a lot of young men and women had a dream. And they also had the will and the courage to follow their dream. It took them through a treacherous path... a path full of seemingly insurmountable challenges. And yet the dream lived on and finally culminated in a dawn when a country was born. A country of their dreams... imperfect and yet beautiful in its various flaws. India was born.

Years later a lot of water has passed beneath the bridge and today’s youth cherishes a dream to conquer the moon. India has moved on.

Have the gaps widened between the haves and the have-nots or have we bridged the divide substantially...

Have we achieved the manifestation of the idea that our founding fathers nurtured in their defiant dreams...

It’s easy to jump to conclusions and lose oneself either in jingoistic affirmation or negate everything and wallow in self-pity. But the answer, if any, to the above questions is as mysterious as the idea of India itself.

Only time will tell.

Reverie...

After a weary day as I walk back in the fading sunlight I close my eyes and hold my breath ...and I can feel it.

Far away in the realm of the unknown I can feel the warmth of the lamp that’s just been lit and placed on the window sill. I open my eyes and I can see the flickering light of the lamp at a distance. My feet sense a strange energy as I start approaching the light. My heart warms up with the joy of homecoming.

Now I’m closer and I can feel the touch of the early evening dew on the grass. Like a thirsty traveller my heat parched feet drink it all up and rejoice in contentment. I look up and in a sky sparsed with white tufts of woolly clouds I see the moon... clear and bright. Far off the hills cover themselves with a blanket of darkness and go to sleep... dark giants... gentle and lazy.

The air is bathed in the sweet aroma of the evening flowers freshly bloomed and full of youthful vigour. The cricket rattles off a busy song as if it woke up suddenly to find that it was already too late for riyaaz. As the gentle breeze brings on its wings the evening mist I close my eyes...

I open my eyes and I see concrete mammoths all around me. I shudder and look up...the moon’s gone and the sky is a mix of a sickly neon and halogen. A screaming mass of metal rushes past me honking madly. The air is still and heavy with the stench of the rotting mass that lay by the roadside. I am scared and I want to run away... but all around me I see an ocean of artificial lights. And amidst this I see people... but they are not alive. They walk in a deathly stupor and with a predestined motion. And I realise that I too am a part of this. A cog in this gigantic wheel of illusion.

And yet the heart is unconquered. It still beats in a silent protest and I realise that all is not lost... all is never lost. My far away land in the realm of the unknown is ...just a blink away...