Honour thy freedom!!

I have never been able to dance to any body's tune! I am a bad dancer (leave that apart), but even figuratively, I cant make myself dance to any body's tune. As a child when I was ordered to do something my mind plummeted me in the opposite direction. Its like a reflex.. The moment I am told to do something, I don't want to do it. I think most of us are like that. We hate being ordered around, bossed around. But not many of us realise the value of this freedom. I don't. I feel its my right. Do you?

India might have many ills, but its strongest virtue is that it lets us be just as we are. We praise other nations, we leave India and settle abroad, we joke about our leaders, we rally, we march, we don't have to send our boys to the army at the age of 21, they are free to go to the USA or wherever they please. We have free press, A Tianamen Square does not happen in India. That's freedom, I think. Weather or not we honour that freedom is a different story. Read on friends and feel as proud as I do of our beautiful homeland...

(A Repost)

I had no idea that there was a panel that judged National Anthems..but something like that does exist, and its in the headlines these days that the Indian National Anthem has been judged the best. As Indians we are all proud of this fact..but am sure we don't need a panel to tell this to us. I might not be an authority on National Anthems but I can say without a doubt in my mind that each time the first notes of Jana Gana Mana float through the air, every Indian's heart soars with love, respect, pride and bonding to the motherland, such is the beauty of the composition. As a child it was just a song that had to be sung at the beginning of each day in the school assembly..we, most of the times never got the words right..but the tune even then kept us glued to the spot.

Now as I see my children singing it along with their peers, I often wonder do they feel what we felt while we sang the anthem? Does their heart surge with pride at the ebb and tide of each note? Do they picture the beauty of each state as visualized by the poet? Can they see the lofty peaks, the beautiful rivers, the bounty of nature..or do they just see a land which has lost its way? Ravaged by internal wars and terrorism, ever changing heads of state, Corruption and immoral politics, underpaid masses, record breaking inflation rates, a land which even their parents have given up on!!

We travel abroad and take our kids to the Swiss Alps for the summers, The USA, and The UK fight with The South East Asian countries for enlisting themselves into our travel plans..but as parents we never somehow plan a trip to Kaziranga, or say the temples of the south, we even keep the Taj Mahal on the back burner..saying.."Ohh we can do that any day" But does that day ever come? Definitely our children are citizens of the world..they need exposure, they need to know the different cultures all around the globe..but before that don't they need to know their country better? why not take them to Gujarat and show them how Amul revolutionized the milk industry? Why don't we give them a chance of being proud of their heritage by showing them the robust farms of Punjab..Why don't we have the courage to take them to Kashmir and show them that this land is worth protecting with your life!! Each soldier standing in attention at the LOC definitely deserves a salute form each of our kids.

Left to the news channels all they will ever hear about our country is negativity, its up to us, their parents, to point out the beauty of a nation that's still too young to be given up on.. Let them feel the splendour of our nation, to be able to feel proud of the National Anthem, to be able to relate to it, to willingly stand up in salute to a song they sing everyday at the beginning of an assembly.