Jalebis and Flags

Its a bright sunny day. Everyone is dressed in formals. The sweet smell of jalebis dancing around in the air, rising from the corner stall. Children, with hair all tidied up and wrapped in white kurtas, running around with the tricolor flapping in their hands. You look around and you know what day it is- the day of the nation. 

For me, this has been the oldest memory of the National Days as it must be for some others too. But this year, something's different. Much like those crisp and sugar-soaked jalebis, the sense of freedom is a tad bit sweeter than the last time I remember. 

26th January has always been the day of turning over a new page for our nation. New year, new face, new chapter and new hope. In the year 1950, this day gave us our Constitution, which entailed the freedom from the turmoil and mess that Britain had left behind. 71 years later, the year 2021, we are celebrating another such liberation, this time the freedom is from the mess that the pandemic left behind. Freedom from the suffocating routine of masks, from hiding inside walls, and from falling prey to fear and anxiety.

And just like the freedom fight, the fight against pandemic gave us our heroes who fought relentlessly to save lives, and our martyrs who faced the fateful salvation in this struggle. 

But beyond this, our nation has stood rigid in this global crisis and is returning back on its feet. Our mother India, the great, the beautiful, the strong and the resolute, has shown us yet another time, that we are as powerful as we want to be. No one is a greater survivor than Mother India, and we need to inspire from her every time we fall in our life. 

So, this 72nd Republic Day, lets savor our sweet freedom in the name of the COVID pandemic heroes and martyrs and raise our jalebis and flags- one for the determined endeavor and one more for the road ahead of us. 

Happy Republic Day. 

Jai Hind.