We, the people...

Today is the 26th day of January, the Republic Day of our country...59 years ago on this date we framed our constitution proudly proclaiming ourselves to be a secular, democratic and free minded nation...a nation where there was freedom of speech and liberty of thoughts...together we pledged to uphold the virtues imbibed in our constitution and abide by it steadfastly.

I am a pretty positive person, sarcastic yes but deep within I always hold the hand of hope that things may just turn out to be better than they seem, that its probably not as bad as it seems...so I had very consciously resolved not to go on a rant this Republic Day...had hoped that for once I would instead of being the sarcastic, spitting voice of cold harsh truths be the voice of praise for the durability of this wonderful nation of ours. Yet there were two incidents in the past week that brought back the bitter taste of harsh reality to me and I could just not stop myself from once again turning into that cold voice of reason.

The first incident happened in the place of my residence, Kolkata or Calcutta (as I prefer to call it)...an IT professional who has distinguished himself in various parts of the world, now located in Calcutta is not able to find a home in the place of his choice...the man retold his story as to how after all the details being worked out he was suddenly refused lodgings when his religion came in the forefront...and the worst part being that this horror of an ordeal got repeated to him in more than a few places...sad really because for something like this to happen in secularity's so called shining child, West Bengal speaks volumes of what the state of affairs is in the rest of the country.

The second incident happened just yesterday when a mob of about 40 hooligans barged into a pub and molested and beat up a gang of girls who were out there to have their lunch...all this on the pretext of "safeguarding our culture and heritage"...and the shameful icing on the event was that the spokesperson of the so called social organization then went on to proclaim on national television that it was a spontaneous reaction by the public against the women as they were indulging in activities which went against the decency of Indian culture "pray tell me since when did Indian culture even started prohibiting women from eating"...ohh and the cherry on top is that the local administration as usual did little more than nothing...a token arrest of 3 people after almost 24 hours of the incident...pathetic, to use the lowest degree of adjective.

So, as we see not everything is right with this country of ours...the proud proclamation of being democratic,secular and free minded rings very hollow in the light of such incidents...and for those who may pass this off as mere aberrations, I hate to break this to you but this is actually the norm.

As the trumpets blow today in honor of the day, can't help but feel sorry for the fact that in the midst of those trumpets the suffering voice, the silent plea for justice will be lost again as always...as the glowing tributes come in from various sources, the clamor for help and the bare truths will get glossed over amongst the shine of the beautiful words.

Yet I have still not lost hope....and the only reason for that is that inspite of the broken promises, horrendous glitches and unfulfilled dreams, one fact does remain true and that is the undeniable existence of the republic...for all the faults of this nation of ours the fact does remain that we have endured and moved forward...in the face of harsh realities and bitter truths we have not cowed down but have faced those demons in the eyes.

I have hope because my nation is young...it is a country of young people who are vibrant and who are willing to work for a better tomorrow...who are willing to bring about a change...yes, it's a pretty tumultuous and arduous road but then the essence of reaching your goal is to overcome the obstacles in the path. I have hope because I know that more than 70% of my nation is of my age group and I cannot but believe that they share my views and my agony...so lets take another pledge today...a pledge to work in our own small way towards the changing of things...a pledge to uphold the constitution that we so lovingly framed in it's truest sense and from...

"We, the people, pledge..."