63rd......

So Nescafe is still like that tomb which despite all its affluence and glamour, still signifies hopelessness. But here it is again, as I call it, as Shakespeare might have called it, the ‘ides of aug.’ the day when we came to know the meaning of that Spiderman dialogue “with responsibility comes power”, the day when Raisina Hills, seemed to be ours, the day when Mall Road seemed more Indian, the day , frankly speaking , when we got independent.

It’s a different kind of festival, celebrated more by law, than by heart. That’s why , we the descendents of Aryans like to treat it as holiday, nothing else. A holiday which is more or less cloudy, a holiday when the most powerful man (the P.M.) comes at the most powerful looking place (the Red Fort) to utter the most powerful words of his life with perhaps the weakest will, the weakest intention. If that is the irony, or pure logic(of power politics) I cannot say, for me its been a tradition, repeated 40th time when I was born, and this time ....62nd time, when I am, perhaps at the most crucial point of my life.

Traditions , yes , they are something good old mathematicians, called axioms, great rulers called rules and the flamboyant bureaucrats call them sections, points, “which come under IPC so and so”. So we have been following traditions,right. Traditions of hoisting flag at sharp 8, tradition of watching an odd movie as a matinee show, and then sleep/make love according to ones requirements for a brighter tomorrow.

Everything above is logical , it happens, it does execute on that rainy August 15 , we wake up, we hoist the flag we watch movie, sleep ,make love, except for that last few words, ‘brighter tomorrow’. Now that is a bit miraculous, a bit illogical, as those mystics might have said, beyond language, beyond words.

Because , for all the other things the mission was one the target was one, me, I, our ego. Simple logic. For that last thing we have to be a bit altruistic, a bit generous, we have to be miraculous. Miracles, as the great Yogis say, let yourself become infinite, let yourself feel that ever so constant light, that ever so constant divinity, and materialize or dematerialize, a child’s play.
But are we, in that situation, or lets put it like this, what if we are in that situation. When we are able to be above all ego, when we are weightless ,when we are able to feel what Kashmir feels when each hour its childen are attacked ruthlessly, what those martyrs feel when they see that those who planned an attack at our parliament are still roaming around freely, when we are able to see the thousands of swords that have risen in revenge against “god knows what” in the North East. Then we will be able see that solution that way, of breaking the rules, cracking the tradition, modernizing the orient, making a way for the 200+ year old IPC to go to the gallows so that peace may be born the next day.

Then it will all become mathematics, having , in Tagore’s words a clear stream of reason, reason for everything, a secure Mumbai, a beautiful Kashmir, and a prosperous North East.