National Holiday
On 26th Jan morning, when I went early morning to the milk booth,I heard two gentleman talking and one of them was telling "arrey yaar, agar yeh republic day , monday hota to teen din ka continous chutti mil jaata". This made me think that all the important festivals have nowdays deteriorated into mere holidays. Just what is the significance of national holidays (Independence day, Republic day, Gandhi Jayanti etc.) in the present context?
When I was in school, I believe we 'celebrated' these with more gusto. I'm not talking about the forced celebrations in school :) . At home, I used to get up early on Republic Day as we had to see the parade on TV, the lovely 'Jhankiyan' (floats) and the awesome fighter jets . As I was staying in Airforce quarters, I would rush outside on hearing the thunderous sound of the aircrafts and rush back in to house to watch them do the fly past in the parade. Independence day though was more subdued as there was no celebration or fun as far as we were considered. However there used to be celebrations in our locality. On Gandhi Jayanti I remember that Doordarshan used to show Richard Attenborrough's film 'Gandhi'.
In todays date these National days are just an holiday for most of the people. I believe that most of the people flip TV channels past the Republic Day parade which was earlier such an important part of the whole 26 January experience. Today I am no longer interested to see the parade, and neither bothered to check who received param vir chakra, padmashree or the bravery award. Instead more interested to watch the cricket match in Adelaide (the game of the country from whom we got Independence), a hollywood blockbuster, a tennis match etc. As a kid, when I watched the president give away the param vir chakra and the children who received the bravery award sitting on elephants and walking along Rajpath, I used to get very emotional. I used to get moved a lot when they described the supreme sacrifices our soldiers made for us. But now I just feel flipping the channels.
Gandhi Jayanti has also deteriorated and nowdays most of the people are more worried about the fact that it is a dry day rather than any other reason on that particular day .
Independence day, I hardly see any celebrations in any colonies nearby. I see some street hawkers selling indian flags (made of plastic sheets) at the traffic signals. Newspapers carry less matter about the relevance of these national days and most of them have more advertisements like 'Sale/Discount on @#@#@", Buy one get one free, etc.
This is not a judgement call, just an observation, but it seems that we're celebrating Christmas and New Years way way more than these National days which are so much more significant in a country with a history like ours. We are more busy on these national days discussing about Harbhajan singh controversy, Share market, TV soaps, Latest Hollywood/Bollywood releases, Rakhi Sawant....etc rather than remembering about the significance of this day. We should remember how powerful and idealistic leaders we had during those times.....And then I look at our present President... :(
In todays date these National days are just an holiday for most of the people. I believe that most of the people flip TV channels past the Republic Day parade which was earlier such an important part of the whole 26 January experience. Today I am no longer interested to see the parade, and neither bothered to check who received param vir chakra, padmashree or the bravery award. Instead more interested to watch the cricket match in Adelaide (the game of the country from whom we got Independence), a hollywood blockbuster, a tennis match etc. As a kid, when I watched the president give away the param vir chakra and the children who received the bravery award sitting on elephants and walking along Rajpath, I used to get very emotional. I used to get moved a lot when they described the supreme sacrifices our soldiers made for us. But now I just feel flipping the channels.
Gandhi Jayanti has also deteriorated and nowdays most of the people are more worried about the fact that it is a dry day rather than any other reason on that particular day .
Independence day, I hardly see any celebrations in any colonies nearby. I see some street hawkers selling indian flags (made of plastic sheets) at the traffic signals. Newspapers carry less matter about the relevance of these national days and most of them have more advertisements like 'Sale/Discount on @#@#@", Buy one get one free, etc.
This is not a judgement call, just an observation, but it seems that we're celebrating Christmas and New Years way way more than these National days which are so much more significant in a country with a history like ours. We are more busy on these national days discussing about Harbhajan singh controversy, Share market, TV soaps, Latest Hollywood/Bollywood releases, Rakhi Sawant....etc rather than remembering about the significance of this day. We should remember how powerful and idealistic leaders we had during those times.....And then I look at our present President... :(
posted by Sudhi at 9:16 PM
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1 Comments:
Hi Sudhi...
HEHEHEH... for the last sentence said.
Well said Sudhi.. u r right, now its more towards holidays than looking into its significance and if you have noticed, before the next year starts, most of them will receive an email showing up how to take a leave so you can make maximum days out of it.. like if a national holiday comes on Tuesday, then the calendar will suggest to take a leave on Monday so we can get Sat, Sun, Mon and Tue.. if needed a Wednesday Sick leave LOL... but to be honest even I belong to that category, shame on me.. but no other go.. :(
One thing is for sure that we are getting ignorant....
Anywayz... good observation from your end.
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