Its the land of my dreams... the land i love... to which i pledge my alligiance each day... n in whose lap i sleep each night.
who am i?
its the land of broken dreams.. shattered hopes... of open dumps n silent cries... its the land of religions, not people.. its the home 2 politics, fashion, food n economy.. its the land of the homeless too.
its the land of changing times, adaptive trends, of bunglows n 7-stars n life in apartments...
its the home of riots n orthodoxy, of stubborn ideologies n ever-persistant differences..of slums n villages n of naked, hungry children..
its the land where i was born... the land that is mine.. n the land that i shall always have.
They say its a magical place.. but where is that magic?
i look out n try to breathe... i smell a heavy, regular waft of air...sumthin told me of frsh samosas bein fried... of the streets being washed... of the baby blooms on the marigold tree beyond my balcony... that was something i had never noticed, or maybe had become so accustomed to, that it ws just a regular fragrance... nthn more
i closed my eyes n could hear a noise... the rag-pickers singing alien songs and the children fighting... sumone was playing the latest songs from singh is king... my mother was talkin to the maid...sumwhere a group of mainas were chirping away...
what could they be discussing? were they too, worried bout the lost magic?
i opened an atlas... n my eyes went straight fr the blue, white and red flag.. it looked so nice n glossy...
but sumthing pricked at the corner of the page... sumthing safron, white n green... sumthin that though my eyes could not see.. they knew it was there... sobre n earthly... hidden amongst the many flags.. yet ever visible
but where did the magic go?
i traced the path to a restraunt so i cud buy sum burgers fr the lunch....
but a small eatery with its pani-puri stall caught all my senses at once.. and i rushed to hav sum...
unable to resist the taste that i knew so well...
i read of articles that say we spend the 15th of August n the 26th of January as public holidays and nothing more... and i agree with them from head to toe...
yet i fail to understand why my hair stands on end each time i hear the national anthem...
i see sadhus n babas n say "its trash, i dnt believe in jyotish!"
yet i steal a glance at the horoscope each sunday to see what all's in store for me...
i choose hide 'n' seek over parle-g
i pick skirts over kurtis...
i go for harry potter over hanuman chalisa...
i keep God in my heart than in a decorative temple..
i have 4 friends, 1 is a christian, the other a punjabi, the 3rd a muslim and the 4th a south indian...
yet we all love the same songs, the same clothes, the same food...
i see foreign documentaries n get mad at why they always show india as so poor and dark?
i see the way we copy them and get mad at why we cant accept us as we are?
The magic... m still on search....
i go to my coaching centre... and i see how hundreds of children mug up, study, read, revise and prepre for the same IIT's and IIM's...
and i hate it why there's always the OBC and the SC-ST seats cuz of which so many of us will never gt a place in those colleges..
The day ends.. and i cum home.. tired and sleepy... and i change into my pyjamas...
my eyes go wearily onto the mirror and the person beyond it...
The magic, its still on my mind...
and as i turn to go to bed, i can feel the cold floor 'neathe my bare feet...
a step, and i recall the beauty in the smell of India...
another, and i recall the music in the sound of India..
a few more steps and i remember the flavour in the taste of India...
my 6th step and i see the colour in the sight of India...
i bend to pick a book... and i count the senses... 4...
hmm.. i turn around ad stare at myself again... what's the 5th sense?
where du i find that?
the magic... its present in everything abut India...
i smiled... i had found it... but then why was it so hidden... where is it lost?
my eyes stare at my reflection... and my hands go for the hand in the mirror...
i touchd it... the feeling of a soothing cool creeps up my warm fingers... and i suddenly go mum in surprise...
it was the 5th sense... the touch n feel of India...
it was right there.. always had been...the missing piece of the puzzle...
had always been "ME".
the true India.. is right here...
not only beyond us... but truly within us...
without us, India can never be a land of dreams, the perfect haven, the success story...
what it needs is us... and our belief...
That night, the search was over... and as i stood staring at myself, expploring the possibilities i held...
The MAGIC was... complete.
