For you.
My grandmother only watched TV once a year. She watched the Republic Day parade.
She was born in 1915 and was a young woman in a village in Kerala, excited about teaching the leaders of the next generation, when India gained independence and then became a Republic. She loved watching the event that celebrated a free India, a vibrant, strong, diverse, multicultural, happy India. She especially loved the military marching, the school children dancing, and the Kerala state tableau. She stood when they played the National Anthem. She was happiest on Republic Day.
When I was very young, I used to watch with her, mainly because it seemed important. Having a TV was an event in itself. Around the age of 10 or so, I slowly started losing interest because I had better things to do on a holiday (like play cricket), than sit and watch some boring procession where old people made speeches that I didn't understand. The national anthem was just the end piece of the morning assembly at school, a happy event if it was a hot morning and the end of the singing meant you could get back to the relative comfort of a classroom; or a dirge signalling the trudge back to that hellhole where they kept you indoors for hours trying to 'educate' you. Nothing more.
One of the earliest school principals I remember once called back the students retreating after assembly, and made us all sing the anthem again, because we were singing a word wrong - we were saying 'utkala' instead of 'ucchala', mainly, I think, because the word sounded dirty. He explained to us the importance of the anthem, and the meaning of the words. Not that we understood it, but we sang again anyway.
The concepts of nation, freedom, national pride are not easy to grasp for a young mind. Any young mind. It is not easy to take India out of the geography textbook, away from statistics of rivers, states and cash crops, away from map-pointing exercises and photographs taken in the 1940s. It is not easy to make our history more than 'Chapter 1 : The Indus valley civilisation', followed later by a long list of names and dates from the later years of the freedom struggle, and question papers asking you to 'describe in brief...' and promising 10 marks in return. To take India away from these shackles and show her to the young mind in all her splendour, to take the time to explain why we sing the national anthem, what it means.
It is not easy.
She was 91 at the time of her last Republic Day Parade. She could not walk, see, or hear, but she asked me if the parade had started. I managed to move her near the TV, and for the first time in several years, I watched the parade. I watched our annual national display of pride in being Indian. I gave my grandmother a running commentary by yelling into her ear. For two hours, I described the march past, the tanks, the dancing, the tableaus, the speech, and she was so happy. She was happiest on Republic Day.
My grandmother taught me our National Anthem when I was three. She taught me to stand during the anthem, and I did, though I couldn't fully understand why. That last time, I held her hand and stood for the both of us. Today, as the sun sets on January 26th where I am, I am reminded of many things when I watch this video, but mostly I just wanted to say Ammume, nyaan ninnu.
For you, and so that I too can someday teach my grandchildren to stand.
^
She was born in 1915 and was a young woman in a village in Kerala, excited about teaching the leaders of the next generation, when India gained independence and then became a Republic. She loved watching the event that celebrated a free India, a vibrant, strong, diverse, multicultural, happy India. She especially loved the military marching, the school children dancing, and the Kerala state tableau. She stood when they played the National Anthem. She was happiest on Republic Day.
When I was very young, I used to watch with her, mainly because it seemed important. Having a TV was an event in itself. Around the age of 10 or so, I slowly started losing interest because I had better things to do on a holiday (like play cricket), than sit and watch some boring procession where old people made speeches that I didn't understand. The national anthem was just the end piece of the morning assembly at school, a happy event if it was a hot morning and the end of the singing meant you could get back to the relative comfort of a classroom; or a dirge signalling the trudge back to that hellhole where they kept you indoors for hours trying to 'educate' you. Nothing more.
One of the earliest school principals I remember once called back the students retreating after assembly, and made us all sing the anthem again, because we were singing a word wrong - we were saying 'utkala' instead of 'ucchala', mainly, I think, because the word sounded dirty. He explained to us the importance of the anthem, and the meaning of the words. Not that we understood it, but we sang again anyway.
The concepts of nation, freedom, national pride are not easy to grasp for a young mind. Any young mind. It is not easy to take India out of the geography textbook, away from statistics of rivers, states and cash crops, away from map-pointing exercises and photographs taken in the 1940s. It is not easy to make our history more than 'Chapter 1 : The Indus valley civilisation', followed later by a long list of names and dates from the later years of the freedom struggle, and question papers asking you to 'describe in brief...' and promising 10 marks in return. To take India away from these shackles and show her to the young mind in all her splendour, to take the time to explain why we sing the national anthem, what it means.
It is not easy.
She was 91 at the time of her last Republic Day Parade. She could not walk, see, or hear, but she asked me if the parade had started. I managed to move her near the TV, and for the first time in several years, I watched the parade. I watched our annual national display of pride in being Indian. I gave my grandmother a running commentary by yelling into her ear. For two hours, I described the march past, the tanks, the dancing, the tableaus, the speech, and she was so happy. She was happiest on Republic Day.
My grandmother taught me our National Anthem when I was three. She taught me to stand during the anthem, and I did, though I couldn't fully understand why. That last time, I held her hand and stood for the both of us. Today, as the sun sets on January 26th where I am, I am reminded of many things when I watch this video, but mostly I just wanted to say Ammume, nyaan ninnu.
For you, and so that I too can someday teach my grandchildren to stand.
^
spouted by Non-Sensei at 1/26/2008 12:42:00 PM
9 Comments:
tears in my eyes. :)
well said sir :)
coming to spread the word?
@tangled : powerful anthem, innit? :)
@mincat : hehe. maybe, who knows?
Brilliant man.
:)
I stood up when they samg the national anthem ... and I was watchn it on youtube dude ;-)
Other day I was looking through all param vir chakra awardees and going through their profiles on wiki ... felt like i'm doin nothin but cribbin after that ... damn
I miss the republic day, used to love the parade. Never thought i'd miss it, but I did this year
@AC: :)
@adi: yeah man, I know what you mean...
i've read this post three times.
and i still don't know what to say.
:)
tis beautiful.
My grandmother passed away on the 15th. My first blogpost was supposed to be about her. I still haven't written it out.
Your post about the death of loved ones came at this uncanny time when I was struggling, for the first time, with the idea of someone from my close family passing on.
weird. oddly soothing. uncannily appropriate.
wanted to send you a hug then, but the comments were disabled. So here it is... Hug.
@TDT: :)
@H: I hope it was peaceful. If something you read here was of any help at that time, I'm glad.
It took me 5 months to write something about her, and even this is barely worthy. I don't even know where to begin for my grandfather, and it has been 9 months.
I think you need a hug more than I. So here it is...Hug.
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