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I was driving, as usual. For no reason, a lady in her bikini came to my mind. Well, an American lady, to be precise. The background was obscure, and so was her face. The only part of her that was clear was the texture of her bikini, which was the american flag.
Well, the point is not the statistics of the lady, nor the color of her skin, nor her whatever. And I dont have any clue as to why this half naked lady came to my mind when I was having a frustrating day in the heat, apart from the hell lot of things I had to manage today.
I searched the net, and found this::
Well, the lady looks good, so do her body, and they are proud to wear their national flag.
And I looked back at ourselves, our nation.
I personally found it awkward for her to wear that, I thought it was a disregard for the flag. A disregard to the nation. To degrade the flag/national symbols by wearing them on places like that.
well.
I disagree myself on the last line.
'places like that'
I rewound my thoughts and corrected myself. As an Indian, I would condemn anyone who wear the tricolour on an underwear. Why, I do not know. May be that was the way I was brought up. But does that have a patriotic element in it??
Am I patriotic? Am I just showing it off??
I stand up at the national Anthem. Well, I honour the flag. I might have cheered for India at a cricket match, or looked forward how the force India team fared. I might have been happy that India won a Gold medal at the olympics.
So, am I patriotic??
I look at the political parties.
They waste millions for rallies. They manipulate govt. servants. They steal crores. They eat infrastructure. They kill. They create riots. They destroy places of worship.
I remember the issues they made on TV when Sachin tendulkar once had the nation flag - badge on his chest. A hell lot of issues were made, and then he was asked to remove it and put it on top of the head, on the helmet. The flag should be above ones head.
The flag, a piece of cloth. The symbol.
Where is your love to the nation??
How many of us will stop littering?
How many of us will start using Indian stuff?
How many of us will stop corruption by refusing to give?
How many of us will simple follow traffic rules?
How many of us will decide to keep our place clean?
I remember the old guy who picked food waste on the road by his bare hands and cleaned the area. I was ashamed to stand back and be a bystander, so I joined him. He was a man at a very high position. The place was Tokyo. He never worried about their national Flag. He never worried symbols of power. He just loved his nation.
How many of us, really do?
Apart from cheering and feeling good when someone in India does something, or some stupid newsparer reporting "Indian students better than Natives in UK" kind of stuff?
And you will get to know why India has a very slow pace of growth. We might be loving our country, but there is a lot of difference in loving our country and being patriotic.
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