On the morn of Independence Day last yr, I was overwhelmed with a feeling of patriotism.

As I lay on my bed and flipped through the pages of morning paper, the tri color seemed to pervade throughout. The youth experimenting with innovative ideas to show their fervor for the 60 yrs of freedom.

One question seems to resonate in my mind, “what is freedom, what does it signify?”

Too many people, freedom means different things, it holds different connotations. Perhaps, freedom was something we achieved when we were no longer under the colonial power. But have we truly achieved freedom is the question that bothers me.

India is a country of diverse cultures, religion and race. Our strength lies in our diversity, but how many of us truly believe this. Our social structure seems to be marred with social and cultural differences.

My first brush to any sort of discrimination was when I first came in Delhi for graduation. A delhite hollered the word “chinki” at my friend. I was aghast and so was she. Sure her eyes are small but I could not actually fathom what he actually meant. Does she look Chinese?

Not even remotely close. And to question her nationality on the basis of the way she looks is none of his business. Perhaps, this is just a reflection of ignorance and lack of knowledge well, to come to think of it, he did not ‘Indian’ to me either I could easily pass him as a ‘Sri Lankan’ or a ‘Bangladeshi’. So I got myself asking.

“How is an Indian supposed to look like”?

One thing I still fail to understand is how some people conveniently generalize people and put them into different categories as though they were goods in a general store. Most people live in the delusion that all small eyed folks hail from north east , that all south Indians are ‘Madrasi’, all Nepalis are ‘bahadurs’.

If ‘ignorance is a bliss’, then surely this cannot be ignorance. May be a failure to recognize and respect other communities.

If we still think in these lines and are unable to change our mindset, perhaps another 60 yrs of independence would pass and someone somewhere might be discussing the same issue.

If after 60 yrs of freedom our mindset still borders on such narrow mindedness, then I fail to understand what have we learnt over the years. Just getting a degree is not education. Knowledge comes to those who live a life without bondage, free from any triviality. I wonder if things continue this way, what knowledge we will pass to our future generation.

To feel alienated within your own country is a struggle you take on everyday a feeling far worse than being under some colonial rule. Not to be called ‘own’ within your ‘own people’ makes you feel detached and desperate. A feeling far worse than being discriminated in a foreign land.

Hope is what guides us and I wish that every one of us would be able to see the light filtrating at the end of the tunnel.

My wish for my country is to be rid of social and communal differences, to stay united. This is freedom to me in the real sense of term.