Independence day musings
Published by Yazad Jal August 15th, 2003 in IndiaOver the last few August 15ths, I keep wondering at the hype and hoopla over “independence,” “freedom,” etc etc.
How “free” are we really?
Update: In order to please all the spelling language Nazis who visit my blog, I have corrected my heinous crime of misspelling independence. Happy Independence Day!
Free enough to make or break our own destiny, Yaz - atleast we are responsible for what we are doing to ourselves now. We cannot blame it on another country anymore (even though, we seem to have a tendency to do that every two seconds).
Shanti, Countries don’t have destinies. People do. I believe each individual has full control over his/her destiny–the only choice is to exercise that control. If Victor Frank could control his destiny in a Nazi concentration camp, British rule was a cinch.
This brief post was a vent for my disillusionment at independance not giving us real freedom. I shall post a longer piece on the topic soon. (Hopefully more optimistic in tone!) In the meanwhile, read what Rajaji had to say about this around 81 years back. (He agrees with both of us ;-)
Independence versus Freedom
Why the hell is almost everyone in the Indian blogosphere spelling “independence” incorrectly?
Damn, Madman, you stole my thunder. I was going to say just that!
Actually that’s an interesting point - why do most of us(including me - I mis-spelt it atleast 5-6 times, and was corrected by what you term, a “spelling Nazi”) incorrectly spell independence???
I mean it *has* to be something more than mere coincidence right?
Or a typo - or else I would’ve said coincidance ;-)
I agree Jivha. The term “spelling Nazi” was coined by MadMan (he’s the world leader ;)
Actually, I used “language nazi” but whatever floats your boat… ;)