Skip to main content

Happy Independence Day

If there is one starving person in your country, your country is not independent. That old man called Gandhi said it.  May he rest in peace. 

 I live in a country of beggars.  The helpless beg, the slightly less helpless steal, and a few are billionaires.  Quite many others are our leaders in the Assembly Houses and the Parliament Houses.  And a few others are religious beggars, a very fascinating lot they are: they provide us with our daily sustenance of fun.

 Five individuals in my country possess assets worth Rs 5,23,897 crore rupees.  Mukesh Ambani's wealth amounts to Rs 1,49,474 crore rupees.  But he will sell our petroleum abroad and not give it to us.  That's called "the Gujarat model of development".  For more about India's wealth and beggary, read the report by Wealth-X.

 "Don't be a spoilsport," says M.  "Let us celebrate our Independence."

 OK.  I don't want to burst the balloons on Rajpath.  Quite a few crore rupees of the taxpayers in India have been spent on those balloons, I know.  Let the black ghosts in Swiss Banks rest in peace too.  If we can bury the father of the nation in peace, we can also bury the black money in peace.  Or vice versa.  And we, the ordinary people, should learn to bargain on Jan Path.

 Happy Independence Day.

 Let the emperor have his way.  Let him call the Tribal Chiefs for his coronation and have parties.  And then let him go to the borders and hurl challenges.  

 We have an emperor.  That is more important.  Not a dumb Prime Minister. We have an emperor who can hurl challenges to the neighbouring enemy.  We have nuclear bombs too to show off.  We are in a position to hunt heads. 

 Jai Ho!  Let us be happy.  

 Happy Independence Day.  

Labels:

Comments

  1. AnonymousAugust 14, 2014 at 9:48 PM

    Happy Independence Day to you too

    ReplyDelete
  2. drchinmoyhazarikaAugust 14, 2014 at 10:44 PM

    I wish being independent was the same as staying independent. :/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 15, 2014 at 9:42 AM

      Dr Chinmoy, did we ever become independent? When the British left, we started killing ourselves in the name of religion. Colonial slavery gave way to religious slavery. Then we learnt to live with it. Now, with the new govt at the centre, I think we will see a reenactment of the drama that Khushwant Singh depicted in 'A Train to Pakistan'.

      Delete
  3. hindustanisakhisaheliAugust 14, 2014 at 11:24 PM

    Happy independence day..nyc post

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 15, 2014 at 9:44 AM

      Thanks, Aparna. Wish you too a wonderful Independence Day.

      Delete
  4. Ravish ManiAugust 15, 2014 at 12:38 AM

    If we test countries' independence on Late Mohandas K Gandhi's criteria then no country would be declared as independent. It suddenly reminds me of that dialogue of the movie, Yeswant, where Nana says "Sau me se assi beiman fir bhi mera desh mahan." Anyway, Happy Independence Day!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 15, 2014 at 9:46 AM

      Nice observation Ravish. Now the ratio will be different; assi must be nabe. Even the economic ratio changed proportionately, you know. It used to be 80:20, meaning 20% f the population owned 80% of wealth; now it is 90:20, soon it will be 99:1 !

      Happy Independence Day.

      Delete
  5. Brendan DabhiAugust 15, 2014 at 1:46 AM

    Scathing enough!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 15, 2014 at 9:47 AM

      Couldn't help it, Brendan. Sorry for bringing such thoughts that don't match the occasion. That's why I'm a called a moron by some people. :)

      Delete
  6. UnknownAugust 15, 2014 at 11:22 AM

    Happy independence day sir :)... do you think India would have been more prosperous had it been still under the ruling of British ??? May be a completely different question but I wonder if independence has really made us independent!!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 15, 2014 at 11:33 AM

      Shruti,

      No. The British were in India not for making India prosperous, but for making the Great Britain greater.

      But their departure, unfortunately, didn't give us "independence". We have become more slavish now.

      Delete
  7. Alok VatsAugust 15, 2014 at 12:49 PM

    Truly said if the last person of the society won't get the feeling of Happy Independence Day, it won't be a happy Independence Day, just now published a blog on the same. Hope you will like it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 16, 2014 at 8:13 AM

      Alok, I completed reading a novel yesterday and have reviewed it today in my latest blog. It speaks about the human urge to create a better world. My endeavour, limited as it is, is the same: strive for a better world. Empower people to hope and dream as also to materialise the dream. Thanks for sharing your post with us.

      Delete
  8. IndraniAugust 15, 2014 at 2:59 PM

    oh! Few words and many meanings. :)
    Greetings!

    ReplyDelete
  9. JRDashAugust 17, 2014 at 5:46 PM

    Happy Independence Day

    ReplyDelete
  10. UnknownAugust 18, 2014 at 2:06 PM

    I'm surprised at some comments wishing gladly when the entire post is a satirical scathing attack on the state of affairs. Is it just my lack of clarity or did some not get the moot point of the post?
    Sorry if this offends someone...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Florentino’s Many Loves

Florentino Ariza has had 622 serious relationships (combo pack with sex) apart from numerous fleeting liaisons before he is able to embrace the only woman whom he loved with all his heart and soul. And that embrace happens “after a long and troubled love affair” that lasted 51 years, 9 months, and 4 days. Florentino is in his late 70s when he is able to behold, and hold as well, the very body of his beloved Fermina, who is just a few years younger than him. She now stands before him with her wrinkled shoulders, sagged breasts, and flabby skin that is as pale and cold as a frog’s. It is the culmination of a long, very long, wait as far as Florentino is concerned, the end of his passionate quest for his holy grail. “I’ve remained a virgin for you,” he says. All those 622 and more women whose details filled the 25 diaries that he kept writing with meticulous devotion have now vanished into thin air. They mean nothing now that he has reached where he longed to reach all his life. The
62 comments
Read more

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
44 comments
Read more

Unromantic Men

Romance is a tenderness of the heart. That is disappearing even from the movies. Tenderness of heart is not a virtue anymore; it is a weakness. Who is an ideal man in today’s world? Shakespeare’s Romeo and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Devdas would be considered as fools in today’s world in which the wealthiest individuals appear on elite lists, ‘strong’ leaders are hailed as nationalist heroes, and success is equated with anything other than traditional virtues. The protagonist of Colleen McCullough’s 1977 novel, The Thorn Birds [which sold more than 33 million copies], is torn between his idealism and his natural weaknesses as a human being. Ralph de Bricassart is a young Catholic priest who is sent on a kind of punishment-appointment to a remote rural area of Australia where the Cleary family arrives from New Zealand in 1921 to take care of the enormous estate of Mary Carson who is Paddy Cleary’s own sister. Meggy Cleary is the only daughter of Paddy and Fiona who have eight so
39 comments
Read more

Octlantis

I was reading an essay on octopuses when friend John walked in. When he is bored of his usual activities – babysitting and gardening – he would come over. Politics was the favourite concern of our conversations. We discussed politics so earnestly that any observer might think that we were running the world through the politicians quite like the gods running it through their devotees. “Octopuses are quite queer creatures,” I said. The essay I was reading had got all my attention. Moreover, I was getting bored of politics which is irredeemable anyway. “They have too many brains and a lot of hearts.” “That’s queer indeed,” John agreed. “Each arm has a mind of its own. Two-thirds of an octopus’s neurons are found in their arms. The arms can taste, touch, feel and act on their own without any input from the brain.” “They are quite like our politicians,” John observed. Everything is linked to politics in John’s mind. I was impressed with his analogy, however. “Perhaps, you’re r
34 comments
Read more

Yesterday

With students of Carmel Margaret, are you grieving / Over Goldengrove unleaving…? It was one of my first days in the eleventh class of Carmel Public School in Kerala, the last school of my teaching career. One girl, whose name was not Margaret, was in the class looking extremely melancholy. I had noticed her for a few days. I didn’t know how to put the matter over to her. I had already told the students that a smiling face was a rule in the English class. Since Margaret didn’t comply, I chose to drag Hopkins in. I replaced the name of Margaret with the girl’s actual name, however, when I quoted the lines. Margaret is a little girl in the Hopkins poem. Looking at autumn’s falling leaves, Margaret is saddened by the fact of life’s inevitable degeneration. The leaves have to turn yellow and eventually fall. And decay. The poet tells her that she has no choice but accept certain inevitabilities of life. Sorrow is our legacy, Margaret , I said to Margaret’s alter ego in my class. Let
36 comments
Read more