My national pride swells

Who is taller? Image courtesy Hindustan Times

I feel proud to belong to the country that boasts of the tallest statue in the world. Silly countrymen tell me that the amount of money spent on that statue is far more than the entire annual tax revenue of many states in the country. They argue that while China is spending money on railroads across oceans, we are inane to spend it on a statue for vultures to ensconce themselves.

I liked the metaphor of vultures though I think that it is quite antinational in the context. Was Shah Jahan a vulture when he built the Taj Mahal while a lion’s share of his population lived in leaky huts? Shah Jahan spent the country’s wealth on things like the Peacock Throne which was embedded with the most coveted diamonds and pearls. Though the throne vanished from history like many other things, the mausoleum remains. Through that mausoleum Shah Jahan remains.

The tallest statue in the world is our own cultural emperor’s ingenious strategy to remain embedded in the history of the country. Shouldn’t we be proud of such a ruler? I ask these country people who question the worth of the statue. Then they tell me that it was Mahatma Gandhi who actually deserved the honour for unification of the country. Not that the Sardar was not great. There were a lot of great men in those days. Quite a lot compared to today. Didn’t the Mahatma tower above them all? They ask me.  Moreover, he was a Gujarati too if you consider the patriotism of a Gujarati who initiated the construction of the statue in the first place.

That’s where you are wrong, I tell them. There are other factors too. Can one who belonged and still belongs at heart to an organisation that was largely responsible for the assassination of a man put up the statue of that same man? A statue was required to proclaim the glory of the emperor, a statue that would span the sky and edify spectators from the moon. Next time when the kingdom of Bharat sends an astronaut to the moon and the emperor asks him what Bharat looked like from the lunar beams, the astronaut should say: “Saare jahaan se lamba Patel ji ka pratima!” My nationalist pride would swell through my veins then.

The countrymen called me all kinds of names. When prices of all essential commodities keep rising day by day and move beyond the reach of the common man, how dare I speak of nationalism? They asked me. They cited the example of the latest rise in the price of cooking gas: the sixth rise in 5 months, they reminded me.

Think of the Taj Mahal and the Peacock Throne, man, I told them. People paid their last penny, their last drop of blood and sweat, their everything for those icons of national pride. Can’t we be at least as civilised as those medieval people? Ah, I am left to lament: what kind of country men are these! Ignoramuses who have no notion of national pride!