Monday, August 18, 2008

From I-Day to Me-Day!

Yet another Independence Day (61st to be exact), yet another round introspection about our progress (or the lack of it) in the last 60 yrs, yet another day of patriotic entertainment, yet another day to make money out of a “cause”… and for most of us, another holiday, a well-deserved break from the mundane grind, from trudging through filthy roads and battling the traffic during the monsoons. The icing on the cake is that it fell on a Friday with Raksha Bandhan the next day, giving ample opportunity to get away, to enjoy the extended weekend, to indulge ourselves without any inhibitions, to celebrate the spirit of freedom while reciprocating to our repressed desires.

While the Olympics are in full swing, and India repeats its embarrassingly humble performance yet again, Abhinav Bindra manages to salvage some pride as he won India’s maiden gold medal in the individual events in 107 years of India’s Olympics history. That few seconds of seeing him on the highest podium, with the world at his feet and the Indian anthem in the background made me more proud than all the hoopla surrounding I-Day.

Now that I have trivialized the most important landmark in Indian history, let me be even more brutally honest: this year, the best part of I-day was that it was a Friday, which meant no FSA lecture (HUGE SMILE), an extended weekend and a trip to Mumbai (yet again). So it ended up being yet another self-indulgent unproductive jaunt with lots of pampering, shopping, food, ice-creams and coffee. As they say, a lot can happen over coffee; it just depends on the moment…

2 comments:

Ashwin said...

small moments can make stories

Nefertiti said...

m still waiting for a fairy tale :)