What does independence mean to us?

Every year, the whole country celebrates 15th August as our independence day. There are plenty of articles in all the newspapers and magazines praising our nation's long and prosperous history. There are various concerts on TV, we get to listen to quotable quotes from the world's who's who, that they cook up leisurely, while we smile gleefully and feel proud of our magnificent past. They inescapably go on about our democratic credentials. Every year the Prime Minister and the President talk about India becoming a superpower in the foreseeable future. News channels try to reacquaint us with the freedom fighters. All this is pretty routine stuff.

But, to be honest, 15th August is just another holiday to me. A day when I get to wake up late in the morning. Mess up my daily routine in the best way possible, and may be catch a bit of editorials in TOI. I find it useless to listen to the speeches. I anyway know them by heart.

I am sorry, but I really don't connect with the lousy westerner's idea of the magical and mystical India. "The cradle of Human race" Well, I don't know about the past, but with our burgeoning population, that might very well be true in today's context.

Though I have tremendous respect for our freedom fighters and their ethics; except for a few values, their passion for freedom is all that inspires me. I rather prefer people like Einstein, Bohr, Raman, Bhabha, APJ Abdul Kalam as my heroes. So, I mostly avoid going to independence day celebrations. After all, I can still commemorate them sitting at home...Actually, that's lame...but I am lazy, so that's that.

I have been disillusioned with our democratic values. The only thing that we have here in India is the extremely exaggerated form of freedom of expression, which of course I have been using liberally.

Every general election I try and hope that some other party get to power, but without fail my great countrymen ensure that the same people get to be my rulers year after year. It feels more like Monarchy behind an extremely hideous mask of Democracy. I do not understand, how one can feel empowered by getting to push a button every five years. They should rather feel ashamed of the fact that in spite of practicing their right for the better part of the century, we still face the same problems that we faced when we became independent, with a few stray figures here and there.

And I always thought that I was disastrously optimistic in my views...

and yes, of course, Happy Independence Day to all...:D