Maredumilli

Few things in life live up to the hype when, they are in fact, hyped. I was then a bit wary to burden this holiday plan with expectations. We were waiting for it to happen. To catch a break. To have a well deserved holiday. To reboot. To finally go on a perfect tour with the best of friends to the best of places and do the best of things. Yes, so many expectations. This one lived up.

Apart from the purity of the place, it had one more advantage. There was no communication to the outside world. Paradise, it was.

‘Birds Nest’, the resort we stayed, is unique in that there is nothing on either side of the resort except wild jungles. A river stream flows through a side. There are mountains all round, covered in rich green. The nights are pitch dark, silent and you can see stars like diamonds. You can try counting them but there are too many.

We spent three days doing pretty much nothing. We stared at the greenery, the mountains all around us, the stream. There was silence, disturbed only by the never-ending rush of the stream. We laughed freely, and we smoked.

At some point after midnight

I was swinging and laughing

I was high and dancing

Music was the colour, it was the wild that was dancing

I felt the warmth of fire on my back

I saw the brightest things in pitch dark

I faced the forest and the darkness beyond

Catching hold of stars, hiding behind green leaves

The forest ate away the past and the darkness, the future

I realized, I was part of it

The sixty seventh independence day - as no one else is counting

Just got this off my fb page: This happens to be the 67^th Independence day of India. Disclaimer: this was an Economic Times update on my fb – so buyer beware.

Truly we are running out of numbers. Last I remembered, people were going crazy about the half century figure but India is batting faster than Sachin after he completes his fifty. Wait, what’s my age now? Never mind.

So I was thinking why so much fuss about Independence day and its celebration. It’s quite funny to see people upload flags to their profiles to convince themselves that they still are patriotic. I could point it out to them, but then I’ll have no one to laugh at. When I think that the concept of nation is about its geography and borders as I read in the inaccurate geography text books in my high school, the illogical social text books in my high school correct me to say that the concept of a nation is its people and culmination of all the cultures it has accumulated when it was in slavery of the kings or whites, or bureaucrats later (I made that up, the text book doesn’t have the wisdom to say it).

Well, if it’s only about borders and spaces, there is no point in feeling sentimental about it. If it is about people, culture and all the crap that it comes with, the bottom line is the same. It’s more hypocritical than foolish and either ways, no need to feel attached and sentimental about it. I, for one, am starting to get allergic to  people and their stupid notions specifically because they restrict MY independence for the sake of something they are not sure they believe in.

The only good thing is that it is a public holiday. But even that’s got an angle. It’s a dry day (again, this info is not from an accurate source and I am too uninterested to google)

You want us to celebrate by holding it dry? I repeat: hypocrites.

Celebrating Independence

Independence Day usually meant two things to me annually.

One, a guaranteed holiday.

Two, something to write about in the blog.

But this year, I am kind of facing a dilemma. That is because each year I used to have more working days than holidays, but this time, it had been a total turn around. Now, I have so many days off that I have to put up a schedule if I want to do some work on some day. Each year, I used to make the Independence Day special by

1. Sleeping till lunch.

2. Watching movies which inspire my patriotism.

3. Do nothing about it.

4. Sleep, wondering when the next holiday was up.

But now, as things changed I face the challenge to do something to make this August 15^th rememberable.

I can go to the flag hoisting program in my college but I decided not to because they sent a notice almost forcing us to attend it, which amounted to disregarding my fundamental right of freedom of whatever. Hence, I decided to avoid it by all means so that I do my bit to keep the constitution in force (who cares if it is outdated). Also, the chief guest is so old that the chances of him insulting the flag by dying in front of it, of a weird cough, are really significant.

So now I have to do something out of the routine on this Saturday just for the heck of it. And here is my revised time-table for that day. Beware; this can be too surprising for you to digest.

1. Wake up at 6.

2. Play cricket in the dust till lunch.

3. Do not watch movies which inspire my patriotism.

4. Do nothing about not being patriot-zed.

5. Sleep, wondering when the hell is the next working day.