Happy birthday, India

Red Fort in Delhi.

As India makes its way haphazardly to yet another freedom anniversary, it is a nation riddled with worries beyond the patriotic kind. This is usually the occasion to remember past glories and only becoming to sweetly sing paeans to previous victories, but this time the enemy to be vanquished is not someone baying at its borders or making away with its gold. In fact, here is a foe still laughing its evil laugh – striking in a swiftly fatal way or via a lingering breakdown. With a pandemic at the door and survival itself at stake, freedom this year spells the basic miracle of just being alive at an individual level. In the growing pandemonium of the past year, it has been every man for himself.

Freedom per se at a global platform went from narrow predetermined definitions to the very fight for life, escalating to economics and economies – who could afford what and how quickly – and boiled down to vaccine manufacture and export, the business side of saving lives. Our Brave New World now comprises those who made it and those who made it only, all other differences incidental. With barriers of caste and cash, gender and geography thus dismantled, we are merely people like any other people anywhere.

Seventy-five years of independence is a lot, and in human terms, we are almost geriatric, a senior citizen aware of its aches and pains, on the right pills and prescriptions. But in republic years we are in the adolescent phase, a teenager still groping for identity, hunting for a value system that suits.

August 15 should have been a cake kind of day, with bugle and beribboned gifts, but such celebrations are taking a backseat worldwide, with the mind on resurrection and repair.  The date itself does demand an acknowledgement, as anniversaries are a record of everything that happened so far with an understandable focus on the positive, the upbeat, the wins, but any pomp and show would only be vulgar. Signalling insensitivity to the bereaved, to the ravaged, to whom the statistics have hit home. The ripples of loss are only growing wider as time passes, with a bleak future in every direction as far as the eye can see.

What the new-age pox brought upon us is the shame of not being prepared, of being put on the back foot. In this context, the ban in Karnataka on garlands and bouquets is perhaps a step in the right direction. Ostentatious chest-thumping exercises may unsettle those still walking the path of mend.

Some birthdays are only a passage of time, the clock doing that old thing with its tick and tock, just a marking of yet another date on the calendar. Soon, very soon, we hope to party. But for now, let’s do our part in helping the spirit of a country heal. A quiet minute to reflect on how far we have come as a person, as a people, as patriots and philanthropists should see us through this Independence Day.