Letters to my daughter : It's 26th. January

Today is a special day - Republic Day! You should have read these lines on a 26th January itself, I think I would have chatted with more vigour and wider smiles.
So now you know that Baba is smiling big today right? So keep smiling with me, along the entire stretch we'll go together today.

I know you might be busy preparing for Republic Day, that's your favourite day right? Are you sitting there with paper rolls, thin sticks and pastelle pencils?? Baba knows what his Princess is doing. Making India's flag, our Tricolour. I used to do exactly the same when I was your age. Yet I don't think I could draw better than you are doing at the moment..

Take a look at what you are clasping now.
Isn't she beautiful? The grace and the gentle waves along which she dances in the wind, breath-taking and reassuring -- Our Tricolour, the mother of our inspiration, the holy garment which India drapes around herself.

An evergreen spring to harvest crops,
A pristine unblemished Truth in white,
The spiritual strength of India that keeps on evolving showing us all the way to a saffron sunrise of Wisdom..

Just do this : Close your eyes and think that you are somewhere in a foreign land. No other Indian's present. All are from different countries, different tongues speaking unknown languages. If one asks you WHO are you, what will you say?
Think, close your eyes and think. WHAT SHALL YOU SaY? MAYBE NOTHING comes to your mind for the first few seconds.

Let me tell you. Visualize our flag, our own tricolour. Think about it. Forget your parents, and if I had the chance to tell others I would've told them to forget, for a moment, wife, family, children, friends, and just think.

Think when was the first time you saw the tricolour. When was the second time? Think of the tricolour when you were in class VII, in high school. In college. One night when you might've thought about it for an extended 5 minutes and might have had goosebumps? Feeling our entire India awake, and breathing air. This is one of those days when India lives too, with all of us.

now look up again. The Tricolour. This is what that is keeping people united, where there is no threat, you and every other person are watching it high and flying. Remember our national anthem........

Is there a tear in your eye? Don't answer me. you have the answer and keep it to yourself..

Patriotism is inside all of you. It's presence faces a denial at times, when we confront our reality, trying to live through demanding situations of hard-core reality to wake up to another tomorrow. It's just that our priorities change for some time. But patriotism is never forgotten.

Why do we confront such situations?
So that the way we live doesn't change. Stability of our own selves in our respective places in the greater scheme of things. If we go through the situation, we return to our original places, following a belief - the instinct of Patriotism.

It's up to us to maintain it -- when to express, how long. If one's cause is just, he or she gets the right answers.
Keep Smiling.
Sent from my BlackBerry --------------------------------------------- Dr.Anirban Chaudhuri, Physician, Mumbai, India. http://jogyou963.blogspot.com Live Life on your own terms