Thursday 16 August 2012

A Love Letter to My Country:

My Dear Country,

Lately I have been thinking a lot as to why I was born here. What is it that I am supposed to give to you or what is it that I am supposed to get from you? What kind of karma has bound me to you for all these years, not letting me escape?
Sorry, I didn’t want to say it like this but it’s true that I now want to escape. Escape to a land, a place where I can live my life with dignity, in peace (perhaps I am asking for too much). I want to live in a land which will let me be free.

Freedom you say is the birthright of everyone here, so how much more freedom do I need? Yes, what you have given to everyone is one of the most beautiful concepts, to cherish and nourish. I grew up in a small town enjoying every moment of it, not knowing or understanding the hidden layers of a dysfunctional and discriminating society. The books that my father gave me and the education that I got promised of an ever improving and an open world beyond that small town. I grew up with lots and lots of hope and optimism in my heart of an ever happy future. It’s been many more years than three decades and now I am beginning to feel hopeless and scared.
I grew up at a time when life was simple, full of laughter, contentment and no greed. I did not know what discrimination or intolerance was –gender or community or religion or caste or colour or money. Now despite such an upbringing, why am I forced to think of every event, every comment, every movie and every job in relation to a particular group? In a huge land like yours, there is only one city that I feel safe in and that too I can feel is slowly eroding. If Mumbai goes, where will I go? Why do I have to struggle everyday to take the train to office and struggle everyday to return home? Why do I have to sit by the sea and pretend that it’s not filthy? Why has it come to a stage in your land that virtually nothing works in the manner it was meant to be or that virtually everybody has become intolerant and belligerent?

I want to be free. I want to have the freedom to run on the roads at night if I want to. I want to have the freedom to camp alone by a river or cycle on my own all across your place. I want to have the freedom to give up my job whenever I want to knowing you are there to help me to get back. I want the freedom to smile at strangers and get a smile back in return. I want my life to be as simple, full of laughter and content as it was decades ago.
Sometimes I feel that I should have been born 15 years before or 15 years later than I did. I know what I have lost which I can never get back and I do not want what you have to offer me as a sad excuse for a future. I hope I have given to you what I was supposed to because I know you cannot give me more than what you already have. I hope my karma with you is over.  

For, My Dearest Country, I love you a lot but I am finally giving up on you.

Yours,
Unknown yet one in a billion admirer. 

8 comments:

  1. Hi Bipasha, its so intense and real though a little pessimistic. I felt while reading that its exactly i also want...may be every sensible countrymen/women want the same....as you desire from our country.

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  2. Yup, manisha....wish it werent so pessimistic. however, the more i look deeply, the more hopeless i feel about this country. yet somewhere i pray that i will be proven wrong about the future...

    Bipasha M

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  3. Not sure if I'm ready to give up just yet.. but yes i hear ya. what i wud give to be able to take this country by the shoulder and shake it up .. wake it up!!

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  4. Shalini Tripathi25 October 2012 at 05:02

    It has to change...it can't go down any further and it can't go on like this for ever. But sadly realise that we'll not be the lucky generation to see and experience the change!
    Shalini

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    1. Thats what Shalini....we will keep wondering whether it ever get better..

      Bipasha M

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  5. Your country, my country. The beautiful India of our books, dreams, childhoods and ideals. It is not a brick and mortar building, its an ever growing, ever renewing entity and we need to plough back in our passions and sweat to make it what we think it should be. Sitting back and expecting it to be so....just wont do. We will have to strive for it.

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  6. So sad, yet so honest and sincere to your naked heart. Home is where you feel safe. I hope you find peace wherever your path leads you. Whether it is in yourself or in a destination.

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  7. Its a great and nice love letters, thanks for sharing it over here. I want to find out more articles like this for my love letter exhibition.

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