Our 64th Independence Day came and went. This time however, I think it brought with it a lot more reflection on our part than usual, perhaps because there was a lot more to reflect upon than the previous years.
When I was young we didn’t really have such Independence Day celebrations, perhaps because there was just PTV at that time and it too only aired during certain times each day. We didn’t have flags on each house but we did have the whole neighborhood decked with buntings and of course the lighting which still continues. The difference is at that time we didn’t resent the lights because we didn’t even know there was such a thing as ‘load shedding’. These days when we see all the government buildings lit up we usually think more consumption means more load shedding for us.
As a kid I remember my mother used to make everyone in the house stand up whenever the anthem was played on the radio or TV. It was the done thing. But then something changed, suddenly it became very ‘uncool’ to stand up for your anthem. This transition was most evident in cinema houses. In the beginning everyone used to stand up, without any hesitation, then we started seeing half the people standing up while the others kept sitting and snickered at those who did. Eventually no body would get up and I think they stopped playing the anthem in the halls after a while (I’m not sure what happens nowadays, I haven’t seen the inside of a theater in decades). How many parents are teaching their children nowadays to stand up for their anthem? There was less hullabaloo in those days but more genuine respect.
We seem to have become a society that is addicted to events – whether it is a tragedy like the floods of 2010 or a happy occasion like 14th August, we come alive and rally together only to go back to our slumber when the occasion ends or the novelty wears off. This is a nation which has a lot of excess energy and events bring us the mechanism to release it. If we could find ways of channeling this energy on a more consistent basis we could change this country. We seem to be all asking questions these days, how to focus our energies? How to bring about change? And then we ask the BIG one and draw a blank – who will bring this change???
I belong to a generation which witnessed the fall of Dhaka. I was very young at that time, but old enough to notice the pin drop silence in our entire neighborhood when the news came. The initial reaction was disbelief, then the shock of acceptance followed by brief and eventually shame. Those who didn’t live through that time can’t even imagine what it was like; it was the height of shame and our lowest point ever. But we eventually came out of it, we survived and came back on our track. If we could survive that blow to our very existence I’m sure we can survive the internal chaos and rampant corruption we are facing nowadays. When one hits rock bottom there is nowhere else to go but up. However we will need to take some responsibility for this change. I am alarmed at the discussions people have nowadays in front of their children. Negativity, pessimism, a send of hopelessness and helplessness is the gist of conversations in most homes. I am not saying that we become ostriches but at least we can ensure that these messages are not being absorbed by children. It is the job of parents to instill confidence, values and focus in their children. That’s what responsible parenting is all about.
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