A Day of Mixed Emotions
-- Malavika Happey Athimattathil, VIII-A, Indian Educational School (Bhavans)
Wednesday, January 12, 2022
The day has finally come! Indian flags hung all around the house, people wearing the colors of the majestic Indian flag, and the smell of sweets from the kitchen. From all the people I’ve seen today, I can say confidently that my father was the most excited. He was a lawyer and thankfully he had no work today. It was the 26th of January, most commonly known as the Republic Day of India among the Indians. My siblings and I sprinted out of the house and on to our bicycles with mouthfuls of sweets. The whole neighborhood was decorated with the three colors of the Indian flag. It shined like a jewel of saffron, white and green from space (from what I can imagine). Children were running around with the Indian flag on their hands. It was honestly a sight to witness. We came back home and ate even more sweets. I could hear Ma shouting from the kitchen, “Eat your breakfast or no sweets!”. But my dad gave me a look of eat-more-sweets. I went to Dadi and sat with her for a while. She’s the person whom I share most of my secrets with. Her stories are the ones which deserve a Nobel prize. An interesting thing about her is that on each day, depending upon the specialty of the day, she has a story prepared up her sleeve. She started off by saying that when she was a child, her mother (my great-grandmother) said to her that she had faced a lot of social problems when she was at her teenage. Equality was lacking within the ground. Justice seemed to be seen nowhere. But some people from her society arose and highlighted these situations to the public. And after 3 years of independence, our country become republic. I asked to my Dadi, “Dadi, what do you mean by ‘our country became republic’? I know it has something to do with today. But honestly, I have no clue why we celebrate Republic Day. I just celebrate today because I get to eat more sweets than any other day, exclude Diwali though”. Dadi told,
“Very bad. Instead of playing on your tab, why can’t you search in your golgol?”
“Dadi, its google”
“Whatever it maybe, you can search it no?”
“Dadi, tab is for playing, not for searching stuff”
“Is that why your father bought the tab for you? Shall I tell this to your father?”
“Please don’t! Are you telling me to search this because you don’t know?”
“Of course not! “
“Then tell!”
“Ok, you see, before independence, kings and queens were ruling India. And the people were not happy about that. Then British people came, and they started ruling, and once again we were not happy about that.”
“So, we decided that after independence, there will be no monarchy in India, instead we will have the people of India decide who will be the controlling India, but with certain regulations”
Dadi said, “India’s most educated scholars and leaders sat together and discussed so many things and made the Constitution of India. A Constitution is a set of rules and regulations guiding the administration of a country. India declared itself a Sovereign, Democratic and Republic state with the adoption of the Constitution on January 26, 1950.”
I was shook, because I didn’t have the slightest idea about any of this. Dadi had a tendency to talk a bit too much sometimes. And that happened right after she finished explaining. I said to her that Ma is calling me before she makes me to sleep. As I went out, I could hear her say, “Let me tell you about what happened with me and Ramesh ji 24 years ago no!” “Later Dadi!” I again went and carried more sweets on my hand. My dad allowed to take us to the mall, and all of us were so excited. It was a spectacular moment when I witnessed the respect each and every one of us had towards our country. A huge feeling of gratitude arose inside of me towards my country and to all of the leaders to what they have gone through so that we can have the lives they wish they had. The day, of course, had ended of when I grabbed the last piece of sweet with happiness and pride.
|
Malavika Happey Athimattathil, VIII-A, Indian Educational School (Bhavans) |
Disclaimer: Statements and opinions expressed in the article are those of the authors and written by them; the author is solely responsible for the content in this article. IndiansinKuwait.com does not hold any responsibility for them.