A week ago, the whole of my facebook wall was painted with patriotism. There were profile pics with Indian Flags, many patriotic songs were posted, and I saw people liking pages like India, and some others with that name in it. And now, barely a week has passed but it seems like it has been ages. There is nothing abnormal in it, nor is it something to be ashamed of. We dont need to be reminded everytime that we are Indians, twice a year is more than enough, and it makes me overwhelmingly happy to get a glance of this patriotism twice a year.

The only thing that concerns me is that what happens to this patriotism? Where does the energy go?Is this energy only enough to post things on the wall and listen to patriotic songs? I have a feeling that these national holidays are like alcohol. You drink it, you get high, you speak your mind out, and then the next day you forget everything. Even alcohols have their hangovers, which these days fail to manifest into us.

Its easy to lecture people, especially youths like us, about the importance of standing for our nation. They very vaguely ask us to do something for our country. They ask us to fight against corruption. They ask us to follow our ethics, speak truth and become a good citizen. They ask us to go into politics and clean up the mess the politicians have created. They even tell us how to do those things, but they forget to give us a very important lesson.

The lesson is: How to survive?

Evil prevails because the truth is silenced. Either by the lies of the evils, or by the silence of the good ones. I see a girl being eve-teased by some boys, and as it is not one of those bollywood movies, if I say something, I risk being beaten by those three boys. The auto-wala is over-charging me, what do I do? Should I call the police? These auto walas have their own union, which pays in lacs to the police monthly, so do you think police would help me? I am travelling with a waiting-list ticket, with say WL-1, now should I give bribe to the TTE to secure a berth? Because if I dont do so, some other person will give, and irrespective of whether he/she has a ticket or not, he/she would get that berth.

These are the simplest cases of everyday life. We are here dealing with the players at the lowest level of the pyramid of evil. Guess what happens when we try to challenge someone at a higher level. There is no reason and I am not optimistic enough to expect that the case would be better than the likes of Satyendra Dubey or Shanmughan Manjunath. Its easy to die when you know that 21 canons will be fired to salute you on your deathbed to acknowledge your sacrifice for the nation, as compared to when you know that although you would be doing something for your country, your death will be treated no better than the deaths of those 1,50,000 other who died on the same day.

I dont have enough courage to stand alone in this kurukshetra, I need someone to hold onto, someone to support me, someone to save me when I am in trouble.

I would like you to have a look at these sites:

http://india.5thpillar.org/

http://ipaidabribe.com/