Tiranga!! Our National Flag

'At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new...' said Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India.

Recently my aunt, who lives in Trinidad, came to visit me and she saw an Indian flag in my house. It was one of those flags that we find at the streets. I had purchased it at one of the signals, but I don’t own a car and therefore all I could do was to keep it on my dresser. She was delighted to see the flag on my dresser and asked me to buy for her too because she said that she is a proud Indian and loves to flaunt her nationality in her adopted place. She asked me to buy ten flags for her. Why would she want ten flags, I had asked her and she had said that she would like to distribute it to her friends because she was very proud to be an Indian.

I could not buy for her immediately because these flags are only available on January 26th and on August 15th when Indians are super patriotic.

Actually, ordinary Indians can only fly the flag on Republic Day (January 26), Independence Day (August 15), and Gandhi Jayanti (October 2) even though it was ordinary Indians who won India's independence.

Worse, our politicians and bureaucrats (who during the freedom struggle remained loyal to the British and now they remain disloyal to their own people) have the right to fly the flag when and where they pleased.

It is mainly because Indian flag entails huge responsibility upon its citizens, known as the Flag Code, such as, it must be maintained well; it must not be torn; when the flag is hoisted, all must stand at attention; likewise when it is pulled down, and so on.

But how many people know that? The next day of those two important days, we do see these on the streets flying with the rest of the garbage, little value for a piece of tri-colored flag.

A little Samajdhari on national flag:

The Indian national flag was originally designed by Pingali Venkayya in 1921. With a few necessary changes, the flag was adopted during an ad hoc meeting of the Constituent Assembly on July 22, 1947, just a couple of weeks before India won her independence. The flag served as the national flag of the Dominion of India from August 15, 1947 to January 26, 1950 and as the national flag for the Republic of India thereafter. Based on the flag of the Indian National Congress, the flag is a horizontal tricolour with saffron on top, white in the middle and green at the bottom. A navy blue wheel known as the Ashok Chakra lies at the centre. The wheel with 24 spokes has been taken from the Lion Capital of Ashoka on the Ashoka Pillar.

The Indian national flag, when presented to Mahatma Gandhi, had two colours; red for the Hindus and green for the Muslims. The traditional spinning wheel suggesting self-reliance took up the centre. Gandhi modified the flag by adding a white stripe in the centre for other religious communities. The red was later changed to saffron to avoid narrow-minded associations. The tricolour comes to mean what the country represents with orange standing for courage and sacrifice, white for peace and truth and green for faith and chivalry.

Nevertheless, I am sure it will have its greatest respect at my aunt’s house in Trinidad. It will be stored in a better place and distriuted with pride.

I hope to pick up a dozen or two for my aunt on this August 15th

Wordless Wednesday..children still play board games in India

The long wait

The wait was long. Almost nine months. My sister waited for her first grandchild.


I waited patiently looking at her DIL’s tummy as it bloated each month. And when she spoke of the child’s movement, she complained about the activity of the baby inside her womb.

“I think he is playing football” she would say.

“How do you know it’s a boy or a girl? It could be 'she' stretching out of discomfort” said I.

“Well, from the boisterous activity that is going on inside my tummy, it cannot be a girl” she said

She wanted to know the sex of the child.

“What does it matter?” I said

“I need to shop for the baby, don’t know if it’s blue or pink.” So much planning before the child is born. She bought clothes in yellows and greens but posponed the purchase of the baby cot.

And finally he arrived….a baby boy…

There was too much excitement in the family, everybody congratulating on entry of a new member in the family, too much activity, more than one could see during football season.

But he looked so serene and calm, cannot believe he had so much activity in there.

The new life has just begun. It’s a miracle. Really!!!

Celebrating Friendship and Chocolate day!!

On Friday, when I entered the school, I was in for a surprise. The children were in festive mood, some of them singing into the mike while others dancing to the music. Group of children sat on the floor to enjoy the show while most of the other children were excitedly greeting each other ‘Happy Friendship day’

Now you may wonder if all children understand the meaning of ‘Friendship day’ especially if they are mentally challenged, It’s true they may not understand the word ‘friendship’ but every child understands the meaning of chocolate and teachers had cleverly named the day as 'friendship and chocolate day'.

After the singing and dancing session, each child was given a packet containing assorted sweets and some friendship bands and they were asked to tie the band on the wrist of their friends. Soon the children popped the first sweet into their own mouth and then went about tying friendship band to their friends' wrist and exchanging sweets.

After they were done with the friends of their choice, some of them came to the staff room to put the band over their favorite teacher’s wrist. Soon our wrist were covered with many colored bands and we had collected so many sweets.

When this child came to my side and tied one friendship band on my wrist, I exchanged sweets with him and he bend down to touch my feet…..

Such sweet kids who know neither to hate nor do they judge their friends, when we smile they smile, we exchange chocolates, they accept it with gratitude and become our friends.

Comfort Zone

During my visits to one of the blogs, I came across the woes of the blogger who complained that worldclass T3 is built to welcome the visitors of Common Wealth Games and he was wondering why the station like VT, which handles more than 2 million commuters are given a raw deal.

He then spoke of a lady who was picking up the garbage with two pieces of cardboard and was not even given a something better to pick up the trash.

This sets me thinking. Some people are used to doing things which is most convenient for them and giving them something better is not going to make any difference to them, they might discard that fancy better stuff or even sell them off and continue to do what they are comfortable.

Don’t believe it?

I have this fruit seller who visits me regularly, climbing up two floors to give me his service. The other day he came to sell apples. I wanted half kilo but he had no 500gms-weight. He weighed one kilo apples and then distributed equally into two plates of the scale to give me my half kilo.

Clever!!

But silly me, I asked to buy half-kilo-weight to avoid this problem and he said it cost Rs40. I gave him money to buy one, thinking it will be nice if he had a proper way to measure his fruits.

The next time he visited me, I asked him if he had bought one, he still hadn’t. He said he had not yet found time to go to purchase it.

It has been four months now and he has still not bought it. He is comfortable weighing the fruits the way he is used to.

I want my money back. I feel cheated.

And since, I ask him whenever he knocks on my door, he has stopped visiting me. No more door service for me. Haaha!!