Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani

It was on May 20, 1498 a strange sailor from Portugal Vasco Da Gama came with about hundred sailors in four huge ships. Since then, it’s been 524 years, 2 months and 25 days, we are living in the same confusion and same slavery of thoughts.

Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani

We slowly, stupidly, systematically brought our children out from Gurukulas, Madarasas, from forests, ashrams, mosques and introduced them to Galileo and Darwin. We expect our students to accept that Sun and Moon are the planets and Hanuman escaped the theory of evolution. We neither kept our children happy with the wrong answers, nor we encouraged them dare to ask right questions.

Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani

We sat in the Gold Class seats of multiplex watching the movie on Bhagat Singh. While munching the popcorn, our hearts melted for his starvation. Our hearts and eyes filled with admiration watching him hanged to death. The next day, in unmanned traffic signals, we silently jumped the signals breaking and misusing the trust, forgetting the sacrifices someone made to get us this freedom, clearly conveying the message ‘we are unfit to be free, made to be ruled’

Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani

We grew up listening to the story of Ravana in Ramayana who had Pushpaka Vimana. We learnt Leonardo Da Vinci had designed ornithopters, machines that could fly. We used our intelligence and time not in understanding the designs, functions, facts and figures and improvising them, but in stupidly feeling proud that we knew aeronautical science much before the rest of the world did. We spent half of our life in praising our past kings and rest of the half in hoping for the ‘good days’ in future by our present rulers.

Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani

We never let our children LEARN from nature and communities. We set WHAT to learn; we decided HOW to learn, we planned WHEN to learn. And we started the stupidest process ever: TEACHING. We called it education that disconnected students from LIFE. As a part of the great comedy, we conducted tests and exams to check how well they are DISCONNECTED from life. In addition, our parents, not knowing that the ball they have is perfect for basketball, attempted to play golf. Ball felt inferior for being unfit for the game and the cup (golf hole) remained empty. After such great enlightening EDUCATION, our engineering students started selling credit cards, our ARTS students became medical representatives.

Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani

We clapped and whistled when a corrupt officer was caught. We felt happy when someone with black money was arrested. We forgot that they were not any characters from the Greek mythology. They are humans and they were once children too. We put pressure on children on getting A grades and 100 on 100 marks, being okay with any malpractice at school. We just focussed HOW MUCH they get, not on HOW they get. And we expect that SOMEHOW the same children to grow up and remain honest in their posts and offices. We failed to see the tree of tomorrow in today’s seed. We kept sowing.

Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani

Many mikes that amplify the sounds made in the Independence Day speeches feel ashamed to make those words heard louder. People speak about sacrifices of our freedom fighters in their speeches. The same sophisticated sound people go back to their well-furnished houses with marble stone floors, adorned ceilings built by declaring themselves as BPL (Below Poverty Line) and getting the benefit of free money to build houses from the government, snatching the rights of a poor family dwelling in the nearby slum. The poor buy a litre of petrol for committing suicide, paying tax to the country and to the state for the last time because that money should be distributed among the rich. What a sacrifice! And our governments are busy in making the lines between the poor and the rich thicker. A multi-storeyed building owner can be BPL card holder. How rich our country is!

Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani

Our flag has three colours, each representing a virtue. And we have this flag in the country of the colourblind brutes. The saffron symbolizing sacrifice and courage is now the colour of one religion. The green that indicates self-sufficiency and fertility is the colour of another community. The white which represents truth and peace is just the dress code of the politicians who are at peace and tweaking the truth for their benefit. The great Ashoka chakra showing the movement towards progress is standstill and sometimes goes back, not knowing how to go.

And we give a call Har Ghar Tiranga.

Wouldn’t it make more sense if we ensured everyone has a ‘ghar’ first? Isn’t it more important to instil patriotism in the hearts before installing the flags on houses?

Phir Bhi...