Someone give me back my special Independence Day feelings please

Sev-bundi wrapped in small pieces of paper — that’s what one got after the Independence Day celebrations at school. But that was something worth waiting a year for. It was an always an exhilarating experience to open the tiny packet and tuck into the sweet-salty content with friends. At 9 or 10 independence meant happy feelings and small joys. Normally stern teachers softened unusually on the day and at home parents did not force one to study. You were allowed to prance around with a tri-colour and fix it at any height you pleased. Height then meant the top of an almirah or the lowest branch of a young mango tree. You clapped with uninhibited glee when one of your more adventurous friends tied a flag to one of the horns of a sleeping cow on the road. [caption id=“attachment_419034” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  PTI[/caption] When someone pinned the flag to your chest, you realised it was something out of the ordinary, something very significant. The person fixing it on your shirt treated the flag with reverence. Everyone around looked at it with undiluted awe. You also felt special because you had something special on your body. Back then independence was about feeling special. At school, as you gathered around the flag watching it unfurl, releasing a shower of flowers all around, you knew the occasion was like none other. It was not like the pujas in the school when you had a holiday, wore new dresses and turned up looking smart and fresh. The Independence Day celebration was loaded with an indefinable heaviness. Somehow the occasion made you feel proud. Your chest swelled with pride as you sang the National Anthem even without understanding what it meant. Independence, back then, was experiencing the pride. When teachers showed you pictures of national leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Chandra Bose, Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, Shahid Bhagat Singh and Sardar Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel among others you thought they were deities of some kind but unlike the regular gods one worshipped. Their contribution to the country was too difficult for young minds to grasp but a look at them always flooded one with a rare feeling of devotion. All of them looked alike to you. You did not understand then that someone was a Hindu, someone a Muslim, someone a Sikh and someone was a Christian. As a kid you thought all Indians were the same, a beard here and a turban there didn’t change that reality. It did not matter where in India they came from and whether they fought among themselves over ideology. The simple trust of a child did not allow any scope for questions and suspicions. Some call it innocence. Independence is about innocence too. Thirty years on, memories of those days leave you nostalgic and with a sense of loss. Back then things looked so simple, so uncomplicated and so beautiful. You did not become judgemental about everything around you, you did not have to chose the most famous Indian after Gandhiji, you did not have to tell people by their headgears or beards or the peculiar way they dressed themselves up and you did not look at every other Indian with suspicion. You did not hate people because they were different. The mind was pure and uncontaminated. One could have been wiser with experience and age now but not better. Time is a great destroyer. It kills the soul. If you get on the Independence Day morning without butterflies in your stomach and a sense of expectation, you know something is missing. When you stand up while the National Anthem is being played at the theatres and feel it’s a chore, you realise either you have changed a lot or the country has. It is the same when you presume all the leaders are dishonest people. The present is a heartless land. The past was so beautiful. Someone please give me back my innocent days, the days of sev-bundi and unadulterated joy.