By Robert Clements
Happy Birthday India..!
There’s going to be a lot of celebrations tomorrow as India celebrates her 77nd anniversary of Independence!
In my very vivid imagination, many countries line up to greet the young seventy-seven-year old. ” Happy Birthday India!” says China as it marches up with a jade bowl gift and a smirk, “May you become as great a super power as I am!”
“I already am,” smiles India, “with a billion and quarter people who can think what they want, say what they’d like to and not get butchered in Tiananmen Square when trying to express themselves,I am a super power!”
“May your rulers rule long!” sniggers Bangladesh.
“Ah,” smiles India indulgently, “they rule as long as my people wish them too, not like yours, overthrown by a treacherous army and college students.”
Tibet who has been standing behind goes up to India, “I wish you peace my friend!”
“Thank you,” says India hugging the bleeding country, “I wish you the same; that you be allowed to get back the freedom you deserve, that the great dragon bully who crushes your people will be thrown out and your Dalai Lama may return.”
“But there is bloodshed in your country!” cries Burma, “People are lynched and raped!”
“But,” whispers the young seventy-seven-year-old, “I have courts not guns. A constitution, not military law, and even if these courts take time, they bring justice to all!”
“Happy Birthday India,” shouts the confident voice of the USA, “Didn’t see any gold medals won at the Olympics though!”
“Ah no Mr America, we’re too busy winning with IT and software and gearing up to beat your economy in a decade or two!”
“You have a million soldiers,” says Russia after greeting India, “Send some over, we’ll pay you good money.”
“Ah no, bringing down legitimate governments is not our cup of tea Putin, even if you gift us an aircraft carrier free!”
“You are cheeky for a young seventy-one year old!”
“Seventy-one years of democracy gives you more right to be cheeky than a hundred years of dictatorial communism, right?”
And then the countries move aside with respect as somewhere up in the skies two men, long dead, walk together. One with a cigar stuck in an arrogant, determined bulldog face, the other, bespectacled, with only a loin cloth and walking stick, keeps abreast.
“Seventy-seven years Mr Gandhi! Are you happy you freed your nation from us?” asks the cigar smoking white man. The bent man with a walking stick looks down through the skies at the India he loves. “Yes,” he says.
“Look at the countries around, my half naked fakir,” says Churchill with a smirk, “at China, Korea, Malaysia, they have progressed far more than your people have.”
Gandhiji smiles, “My people are free, their minds unshackled. No dictator, and you’ve just seen that happen, tells them what to do, no military ruler makes them shine his shoes, like you see in those countries!”
“And that?” asked Churchill pointing down, “Lynching and love jihad gangs?”
A tear rolls down the eye of the Father of The Nation. “As much as freedom moulds heroes, so also does it breed bullies,” he says slowly, “but the wonder of freedom is that the heroes it moulds, are men of valour. Freedom lets their courage blossom and when they take on the bullies as they just did and won a bit, they will finally win like I did for the country. Men of courage are slowly being fashioned and they will soon be heard. It is the freedom I won for them that gives them mouths to speak.” Bulldog Churchill looks at the people and back at his old adversary, and nods in agreement. They both stand ramrod straight as the national anthem is played, and as the Mahatma shouts ‘Jai Hind,” he hears clearly next to him, the Englishman doing the same, and he smiles for a country he loved.
And finally I imagine that the seventy seven year old is interviewed by a TV channel: ““How do you feel India?”
“Very, very healthy!”
“Any aches and pains?”
“A little here, a little there, one from an injury during the Emergency and lately by politicians trying to change the constitution!”
“Any memories you’d like to talk about?”
“Life is more or less the same for everybody isn’t it? When you’re a baby you act like one, I did, I was a child and I got knocked over by bully China, but today I am slowly growing into a world power!”
“How do you look at yourself now?”
“Strong! Vibrant! Young!”
“Anything you’d like to change about yourself in the next few years?”
“Oh yes, I would like every single individual, whatever caste or creed he or she belongs to, to feel safe with me, I would want the wealth people make to be spread a little more!”
“To the poor?”
“Yes, to the poor, and homeless, and those who still go hungry each day, may they also share in the benefits I have to offer!”
“Anything else India? Any advice to your people on your birthday?”
“Yes,” sighs India, “Please stop trying to change my wonderful tapestry of colours, a tapestry made of saffron, green and white and a people who belong to every faith in the world! Stop trying to muzzle the press, because every newspaper you shut down or compromise, will have a hundred more springing up on social media voicing freedom thoughts!”
“That’s stern advice India?” says the news anchor, and the world listens hushed, the birthday celebrant ends her celebrations and TV interview saying, “Today is a day you have a right to shout with joy and raise your voices in happiness, because you’ve possessively held onto the freedom you got seventy-seven years ago. We will celebrate many, many more, only if you guard and protect me not just from invasions outside but also from those who seek to destroy me from within!”
Happy Birthday India..!
The Author conducts an Online Writers and Speakers Course. For more details send a thumbs-up to him on WhatsApp 9892572883 or [email protected]