“all men are created equal, some more so”

We live in a dream. A dream made of our ideals, our desires, our quest to be perfect in an imperfect world. We put on rose tinted glasses and refuse to see the grey clouds that have rolled over our homes. We walk in the shade and hope to feel the sun beat down on our faces but it never will. For the sun has been lost in the storm that brews over our head and the direction of the wind has begun to change but we are still too lost in this world of make believe to realize what is happening.

Eight decades ago a man with a an ideal picked up a staff and marched across our nation to prove a point as simple as salt – that man was made free, he is still free and if he has the courage to preserve it, he will die free. Seventeen later he won his war, the following year he was shot. His enemies were forced to concede defeat, they left and they left behind a nation who’s very first act was to break in two on the grounds of who worshiped Allah and who followed Ram. So was born our country, an independent secular nation, tolerant of all castes and creed, but home to only one.

We have come a long way since then. We have spilled enough blood to overflow oceans. We have passed laws and decrees by the truckload to ensure freedom, equality and a sense of belonging to all those who dare call this land their mother. We have aired more news and shows citing tolerance than any other nation in history. We still have a long way to go.

Independence is not a one time victory, it is a constant struggle against the odds, against the perennial instinct of man to dominate the other, against our overwhelming need to be recognized over our peers. Sure, there are innumerable troubles that ail this country today. The ruling classes of the politicians and the industrialists who pave the way to their personal successes by grinding the bones of the weak and unarmed with the mortar of their spirit. The unsympathetic media who’s ever-growing lust for TRP’s and their total lack of respect for the truth and individual privacy which is moulding the minds of this generation into some sort of noir-sycophantic state. The common man, you and me, who have washed our hands of all responsibility. The general sense of apathy that prevails. These problems are numerous and I could go on endlessly, but that is not the issue at hand. For though all this malevolence threatens to tear apart our country, there still is a graver concern, like an ace in a dark hand, that even after all these many years of so called independence, not everyone feels at home in their own nation.

Like a malignant cancer that has wrapped itself around the very heart of this country, threatening to choke its very core, this growing sense of alienisation amongst the so-called fringe communities has done nothing but grow over the decades. Kashmir, the north-east, they are all jarring examples of this fact. We might like to believe that these are just secluded incidents, that the rest of the country is united as one but one only need to look at the numerous signs in our day to day life. We label people instantly on the basis of their religion and region and long before we even know who the person is, we already have him profiled as one thing or another. Don’t think you are above suspicion of such charges, none of us are. I see a bearded man in a kurta and I cant help but think terrorist. I see a marwadi shopkeeper, I think cheapskate. I see someone from the northeast, I think chink. See someone from the south, and there’s a unanimous ‘aaiyo rama!’. I see someone from the Jharkhand or Bihar and I can’t help thinking illiterate and unkempt. I see anyone and I think something or the other. I’ll have to step out of this country to be able to see them as my countrymen, for in here it is just me and them.

A person will always feel at ease amongst people of like mind and in this case, people who belong to the same region, speak the same language and pray to the same god. This is inevitable, for these traits are deeply embedded in us as is our need for survival. But in giving into our natural instincts so freely we are causing a chasm to open up amongst ourselves. Our nation is no longer truly independent (but it never was to begin with). Independence exists but at different levels and to different degrees for everyone. Based on our community, beliefs and language, we are offered varying extents of leeway. There is a kind of hierarchical structure being set up based on the above, a structure that is seemingly becoming more evident as the days progress. If this continues, it won’t be surprising to see more uprisings like the ones taking place right now.

This is not child of politics or vicious vote-bank polices, it is not born of ill-will, just the ever consuming need to belong. And it surely will not be solved by ‘unity speeches’ by our leaders. If change must be brought about, it must first be instilled in our hearts. The differential coating over our eyes need to be removed. We need to see each other as individuals and not offspring of common moulds. A tree is only as strong as its roots and we are the roots of this India. Roots who have long refused to grow together though we all lie in the same mud. It is time we realized this.

We are a single nation. I know we have our differences. I know we will never always share the same beliefs or rituals. I know the way you speak may sound funny to me and mine to you. I know that at times we will be at loggerheads over some issue or the other. I know this because it is inevitable. I do not ask you to like everything I do, or believe everything I do. I do not ask you to understand everything about me. But I only ask you to respect me. To acknowledge me your equal. To give me my space to grow as I should give you yours. We might not look alike, talk alike or dress alike but you will not find a truer brother than me. It will not be easy to accept me for who I am but as long as you accept that there is this gap that needs to bridged I believe that there is a future. We are a single nation. We are India. We are one.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY.

An Idea

I BELIEVE IN YOU.
Is there an idea more sublime? Anyone who has ever felt down, lost or disheartened; anyone who has ever lost all hope and found themselves staring at a future devoid of even a single ray of light knows what I’m talking about. To find oneself on the edge, standing there, waiting for the wind to tip the balance in favour of an endless drop; to have closed your eyes and expelling the last gusts of wind from your lungs as you wait for the ground to punch your face and to hear those four words whispered in your ear.

SILENCE.

GASP.

AAARGH!

Like a new spirit born within you, a fire rekindled, you come alive once again. Like a drowning man who manages to just break the surface before the putrid air breaks his lungs. Its ecstasy. Its power. Its love. Its anger. And most of all its you as you were meant to be.

You scream as wings begin to erupt from your body, tearing you apart and pulling you out of a dive so low that you can taste the stony ground grazing you by, and with piercing cries and gushing tears you feel the last of your fears washing away.

You have been defeated and yet victory is yours. Your qualms and apprehensions that you so closely guarded, protected and used as shields against every failure have suddenly been crushed asunder and as its fragments fly past you and your vision opens up, you see the shadow of a giant of hulking mass and irrepressible energy.

It scares you at first, you don’t know what it is but as you follow the dark vision, hesitantly at first and surely towards the end, you find its source at your feet. With a chill down your spine you feel it now, of who you are and what you can be. You are no longer simply human, you are an idea, a vision and the thought that made it all possible does not belong to you. The whisperer is the dreamer and you are the dream and it is their strength that weaves through you, thread by thread transforming you from mere vision to solid reality.

That is the strength of belief, like the presence of an updraft below a failing kite that not only stops its descent but at the same time throws it back up into the blue, stretching its tensile string and eventually snapping it. Their faith makes you free and restores to you an identity you never knew existed. Who is to say then it ever did, maybe it is just you trying to live up to the vision but it does not matter. All that matters is what you have become, a symbol and beacon for someone else’s dreams. A responsibility to be shouldered without fail, to fulfill a hope and become better than you can ever be.