Independence day

"Listen up students. Tomorrow you have to come to the school at 6:45 in the morning. The celebration is going to start sharp at 7 o'clock. Before the chief guest arrives we have to be ready," our class teacher Mrs Kulkarni had made the announcement. Of course the next day was 15th August the Independence Day of India.

After hearing the announcement I looked at my left to my friend Mira who was sitting next to me. "Are you going to come tomorrow?" I asked her.

Mira looked irritated and she said, "I have no other option. I have to be here even if I don't want to come. I am a part of the singing group. We have to sing the national anthem. I have to come even if I am unwell. Are you planning to come or you plan to take a leave?"

"It does not matter what I want to do. It will be all up to my parents. If my mother wakes me up tomorrow I will be here else it will be a leave for me. I wish my mother does not wake me up tomorrow. I really do not want to come. We hardly get any holidays. Why does the school force us to attend the celebration of the Independence Day? I can celebrate it even in my society complex. If I want to show patriotism I can show it there is well," I told Mira expressing my desire to not attend the celebration next day.

"I really do not understand how we become patriotic by attending such celebration for 2 days in a year? Shouldn't patriotism be a constant feeling?" Mira asked a philosophical question to me.

I was too young to understand and answer that question. But I responded with what my thoughts were, " I completely agree with you. Patriotism is not something that we should Express only for 2 days. It has to be exercised every single day. I do not understand the logic of attending the celebration at school. Not like we are fighting on the border and defeating the enemy. Instead in the school it is 1 hour of formality and unnecessarily it includes the speeches by chief guests. How is that patriotism?"

" You know what? When we are forced to attend the celebrations at school and we are told that our attendance on these days will be counted against our performance in the school, I sometimes wonder if we are really independent? Sometimes I really think if this is the real freedom? Did all the freedom fighters fight with the British to get us a holiday where in the school will force us to attend the celebrations? Do we really have choices of our own or we are only expected to follow what we have been told? Are we really free or we are still under the rule of people who want to enforce their will on to us?" Mira was furious.

I was looking at my dear friend with wide eyes in horror. I really could not understand who had taken her over. My calm and gentle friend suddenly sounded so rebellious. I knew that she was asking relevant questions and I did not have any answers to that. Maybe nobody in the school had any answers to that. I was worried and confused.

It had been 30 years since that incident. I still think about her questions sometimes. Surprisingly even today I do not have the answers to her questions.