sobbing at sixty !

"Hey did you know Priyanka Chopra is coming to the parade this year".. that was one of my colleagues telling her friend about the Independence day parade in NY - this year on Aug 12...
"I don't think its Priyanka, I heard its Urmila" replied the other

As I drove down the New Jersey Turnpike, I was lost in thoughts... its her 60 years after independence... How do I celebrate ?

Two hours thence, hopes have turned into .. may be fears and sleeplessness, that I am up on my bed past 12 and penning this !! And all I did was run my mind through some of the recent developments ...

Sleepless, did I say ? The good news is that I share the quality with the PM of India Man Mohan Singh .. the bad news is that the latter is losing sleep over how to protect alleged terrorists ! (1) .... to the extend where the former chief of anti-terrorism unit of RAW wrote ‘‘God save this country and its men, women and children from the depredations of the jihadi terrorists. Since our own Prime Minister has let us down, what else can we do?’’ ... A former IB chief was no different in his opinion (2)

The esteemed Prime Minister did not lose sleep over last years Mumbai blasts ( the 7-7) .. neither did he bother to observe the anniversary ! (3) .. Of course, after all this one obviously cannot expect him to have bothered when sometime in end July a brave Col Vasanth sacrificed his life fighting Islamic terrorists in Kashmir (4) ...

But he would sure lose it if any of the perpetrators of the numerous terrorists attacks on Indian soil in the past few years ( Malegaon, Jama Masjid, Mecca , Ayodhya, Samjhauta Express, Sankat Mochan Mandir , the Indian Institute of Science, Sarojini Nagar in New Delhi to name a few ...... ) are brought to justice.. or if Afzal Guru (5) - the convicted terrorist - is brought to justice ...

Least surprised would I be if the two MMS ( Man Mohan Singh and Madam Maino Sonia) were involved or indeed master minded it such that ex-President Kalam never received the papers of Afzal Guru (6) .. and now they have in place a corrupt (7) puppet Pres and so things are much more easy ...And no surprises as the two major parties supporting the Prime Minister - namely Congress and the Left- welcomed Madhani the Kerala based terrorist after having spent 9 years in jail, with open arms (8) ...

Uffff.. compared to all this, the inappropriate remark on the opposition leader's mother by the AP Chief Minister (9) seems a bit less a crime, doesn't it ? and the continued calls for reservations for vote-banks by Union Ministers even go unnoticed (10) .. Is it fatigue ? Is it a loss of sensitivity ? sensibility ?

One may say isn't the 123 agreement (the Indo-US nuclear deal) a silver lining ? Once a supporter of the deal, over time I have lost confidence in it... and the what shook my hopes in the bilateralness of the deal was this passing comment by K Subrahmanyam "The 123 Agreement was drafted by US lawyers. No lawyers from the Indian side were present"
WHY ? Doesn't that bother you ?!

I can go on and on.... what can one do ? rather than keeping faith in those word of Aurobindo... "India of the ages is not dead nor has she spoken her last creative word; she lives and has still something to do for herself and the human peoples"(11)..........

I usually do not miss an Independence day celebration- be at IIT or at the local Indian community in US or in the University (I consider it fortunate to have been founded the group which initiated it) .. and most times, while I salute the tricolor, my eyes will uncontrollably be filled....

this year too I am sure they will be filled... but for all the wrong reasons !!

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(1) http://www.hvk.org/articles/0707/133.html

(2) http://www.newindpress.com/Column.asp?ID=IE620060922133748&P=old

(3) http://retributions.nationalinterest.in/no-tears-for-mumbai-blast-victims/

(4) http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/jul/31jk.htm

(5) http://drisyadrisya.blogspot.com/2006/10/taaki-aksar-na-ho-afzal.html ( an old blog post of mine and a 16 comment discussion !!)

(6) http://us.rediff.com/news/2007/jul/27parl.htm

(7) http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2007/06/shocking-if-true-arun-shouries-expose.html

(8) http://www.indianexpress.com/story/208157.html

(9) http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2007/07/christist-cm-of-andhra-stoops-to-lowest.html

(10) http://www.hindu.com/2007/08/05/stories/2007080554631100.htm

(11) http://www.voiceofdharma.com/books/ir/IR_frontpage.htm