“Aae mere vatan ke logo… Zara aakh mea bhar lo paani” the loud speakers blared… and that being at the unearthly hour of 8 in the morning (yes… its unearthly for me) it really did bring tears in my eyes…
Anyways… it made me realize that it had to be i.e. 15th August or 26th January (Yes… with a new job I forgot not the date but also which month it was)… so after saying my prayer (which is usually in half sleep)… I went to the balcony…
Tricolour fluttering in the cool breeze… decorations using a series of small national flags… flowers… hmm… confirmation of my unusually early morning assumption… had to be Independence day…
I sat there observing silently the playful creation of god… Reminiscing and ruminating my yesteryear’s… 5 years before I would be down… just like small Parth and Krushi who are down there today… carefree, playing mirthfully… like Jash and Akash running helter-skelter without direction…like all the small kids below… incessantly and ultimately in the state of ecstasy… oblivious of anyone around…
But today I am different… 5 years have passed… and like most of the young men of my age… life seems to have taken a different direction…
But what has changed?
Relating to the circumstance… and appropriately what struck my mind was that… people believe… that now I am no longer dependent… on the path of becoming independent… can make my own decisions… live life by a self made constitution…
And the irony is… that I found that state of independence & sovereignty as to be same as what my country as a nation was celebrating today… a thoughtless farce and illusion, believed merely to pacify the mind, which in actuality was misguiding…
Suddenly my chain of thought was broken by some husk noises… almost all the aged people were chattering incessantly… Desai kaka, Mansukh uncle, Doctor Sharma and everyone were discussing how the world had changed from theirs (which actually made me think that they themselves believe unconsciously that now it is not their world… and then also complain that they feel ignored)…
Looking at both ends of the spectrum… I saw small kids and aged people down there… one considered dependents… and the other believing themselves to be dependent… one ardently beginning their play… and the others desolately sharing their believed ends… one running innocently without any direction but full of joy… and the others withdrawn from a race they chose with a notion of free will, which they believed to lead towards happiness…
And they both were the ones who were celebrating the occasion of sovereignty… a symbol of independence…
And youths (???) like me… of my age group believed to be independent… were sleeping or relaxing in our balconies…
But was I actually independent… if free will to make the decisions meant independence than was I taking my own decisions?
If I was than on what and whose basis was I making them?
Wasn’t it true that some people were influencing my decision?
Was it not true that I choose a direction by analyzing visible results?
Had I in fact taken a stance ever in my life, which in this world wad never taken before?
Was not than I merely a follower and dependent of the person whose results I analysed and whose direction I accepted?
It is than that the fact dawned upon me… I realized that…
We have only that much INDEPENDENCE to decide on whom or on what to DEPEND…
I could become a slave of my desire of laziness and follow that… or choose to listen to my mind and get ready and go down to celebrate the day…
I could choose the direction lived by great men like Swami Vivekanand, Shivaji, etc… or follow the path of Doctor Uncle and Mansukh kaka…
And in that small decision I realized that all I had to do was decide the direction… decide on whom to depend… and that was the only thing in my hand…
And then my eyes (oh… if only my heart did) fell on Shrimad Bhagwad Gita… and I recollected… “Uddhare dat manat manam, na manat manam vasadeyat”…
All this thinking and one simple line…
Anyways…
I decided to go down… after all there were going to be sweets distributed after Jana Gana Mana… Little prerna knew some trick how to get a second piece… and I was never able to get more than one sweet… Prerna thought me how to… and I savored them… come on… with all this thinking up there I believe I deserved two ladoos… don’t you?
– Written on 29 January 2003
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