As a kid born in independent India, and learning about the freedom struggle through school, it always felt like something that happened a really long, long time ago.
Today, as India celebrates its 75th Independence Day, I realise that my country was a year younger than what I am today, on the day that I was born. I am 38, and the day I was born, independent India was 37 years old.
As I become aware of, and question my own identity, I wonder where the identity of that 37 year old independent India that I was born in come from? And what is that identity today?
Now the answer to this is fairly complicated depending on what level and what parameter you use to look at it. But please indulge me as I try to put down what I have experienced as a street photographer that has been walking around with a camera for somewhat close to decade, but definitely has had the chance to meet and interact with more strangers than the average person.
I now speak as an observer, and what I write further is my own experience. I have seen kindness in the heart of most Indians. I have been invited inside homes, I have been offered hundreds of cups of masala tea, sometimes by professional tea vendors who then refuse to take money if you have a conversation with them.
I have had the chance to meet and befriend cops, who are struggling against the expectations that we ourselves put on them. I have met children and their parents who ask me to take a photo of them, knowing they will never see me again.
I have been acknowledged, and I myself have acknowledged people with the quintessential Indian head nod and it makes me smile whenever I find myself doing that.
This is a beautiful, diverse country of such kind human beings. Whatever be your political leanings, when you walk the street and if you make the time to talk to people, you will always, always find love. And that’s the only thing I feel we don’t get to see or experience enough of, as a lot of our information based on which we form opinion, comes from rectangular screens - or black mirrors, if you may.
No matter what you think about the flag initiative, there is power in walking down the street and seeing so many flags everywhere. For me, it is a sign of hope. That people believe in the idea of independent India - what form that idea has taken, or will take, that all depends on where our collective consciousness goes. But the hope comes from the fact that we are all in this together - so if we decide to go down the right path, we all will. Oh if only we could tap into the right source.
At 38, as an individual I don’t even know who I am or what I am. At 75, as 1.4 billion individuals now, I don’t know if independent India knows who she is. And I don’t know what she will become with time, but all I can do, is try to be kind to strangers, and pay forward the kindness which I have received in my life.
Now one can always argue saying that this is a very subjective point of view, based on a very limited experience of people and places. It is. But today morning, as I saw young and old of different socio economic classes and religions waving the flag of our country with so much love, I choose to believe in my anecdotal evidence. So the question then is - what do you choose to believe in?
