Independence Day defined!!!

With India's independence day (August 15, 2011)gone, forgotten is the concept of independence. Have you ever wondered what independence means to you?
Independence is:
* when you have freedom to say what you fee
* when you are allowed to exhibit the courage to follow your convictions
* when you have the freedom of words and your words speak the language of truth
* when you say what it is and not what you are told to
* when you yourself control the reigns of your life, nobody else does it for you
* when you can move freely from one place to another without someone imposing any restrictions

The list can be endless. But do you what freedom means in reality?

So now we can safely conclude that you can do anything and everything at any point of time. After all, we live India, an independent country. We have come a long way since India gained its independence on 15 August, 1947.
Next time somebody calls you names, you can beat him black and blue in retaliation because you have the freedom of action. You can bunk your classes whenever you like because it is your life and nobody else will decide what you do. You don't have to obey to what your parents tell you as it is you who has to control the reigns of your own life in an independent country and that too in the twentieth century.



Wait a minute! Are you taking all this too seriously??? I bet you can't. Let's imagine some more things and amusing situations. The next time you don't complete your homework, you teacher can beat you with a stick for a long while. Your boss can humiliate and belittle you in front of the whole office because he has the right and freedom to say whatever he wants to.

By now you must have realised what I mean to convey. The next time you think of exercising your freedom, just keep in mind the other person too has equal and the same kind of freedom as you do. So watch what you say and do. This restraint is a part and parcel of freedom and it has to be that way. Otherwise, the result would be utter chaos and disorder. Nothing would change and improve.

Here are a few Independence Day quotes that I hope you would like:

"Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge... At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom."
 Jawaharlal Nehru
Indian Declaration of Independence, on eve of independence, August 15 1947

At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her success and her failures. Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength.
Jawaharlal Nehru
Indian Declaration of Independence, on eve of independence, August 15 1947
 

"India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grand mother of tradition. Our most valuable and most artistic materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only!"
Mark Twain (Writer, America)


"If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions, I should point to India." 
Max Mueller (German Scholar)
 
[This post would be incomplete without the following:]

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. 
Rabindra Nath Tagore
Gitanjali


So friends just say it with confidence, 'I am proud to be an Indian'. And work towards  making our country an India of Tagore's dreams!