by Chandramohan Nair
There was a time
many summers ago,
when on Independence Day
we would hurry to school and
watch engrossed, the tricolour hoisting,
stand solemnly for the anthem
and feel thrilled by the gaiety
of the songs and the dances.
But as the years rolled by
and those memories started fading,
that special day slowly transformed −
It’s just another annual ritual now
with speeches whose sentiments
are out of place with reality.
Threescore and ten years
since that midnight tryst,
how close are we to our lofty aim
of securing for our people
justice, equality
liberty of thought, speech and faith?
Eyes that shine
tell us we now dine
at the high table of superpowers.
A nuclear nation
with the second-largest army,
we are the largest democracy,
the fastest growing economy
and our demographic dividend
Is just waiting to be reaped.
Our life expectancy has doubled,
our literacy quadrupled,
our granaries are full,
our satellites are in orbit.
Surely this century
cannot but be ours.
But eyes less sanguine
paint a somewhat different picture:
A billion and a quarter
mouths to be fed,
a third of our citizens
Enduring the direst existence.
Women’s empowerment
remains a distant dream
as preyed upon they are
without relent.
Our air is polluted,
land and water defiled.
A disdain for rules
and rule of the might
means today, life is cheap
and can be had for a song.
The burgeoning ranks
of simmering unemployed
are easy fodder
for the language of hate.
Fear and unease
in the eyes of the ‘others’
tell a story of their own.
Dissent is now an ugly word,
silence the better part of valour.
For those seeking redressal,
the wheels of justice turn far too slow.
A journey started with the right intent
has gradually succumbed to familiar vices −
greed, sloth, lust and wrath,
hubris masquerading as pride;
firmly chained now to the materialist dream,
we can’t have enough of the good things in life.
Gone is the soul that secured us our freedom,
the path to redemption
needs a moral compass for mooring.
Yet I still dare to hope
we can reach that land of dreams
immortalised by the verse of our greatest poet:
‘Where the mind is without fear
And the head is held high…
…Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out
From the depth of truth…
…Where the clear stream of reason
Has not lost its way.’
