Street Food and Republic Day!!!
well i had written a fairly long post but my computer bailed out on me so that was lost. well it went something like this-
brrr...cold thursday morning, and the ear still hurts but i am in high spirits. there are 2 reaons for this- 1. i met nannu online today (first thing in the morning), boy do i miss her(i love u sweety), and we spoke about our street food excursions, which made me all hungry. hmm...so today i think i'll go and eat all the junk just like we used to and miss her when i am alone with an aching tummy. nannu , though the food was always from street vendors with deplorable hygiene levels, still somehow we never got sick did we? so, today i'll binge away to glory, or to an upset stomach!!
the other reason for my sunny side up is that today is Republic Day!! now dnt go judging me as this jingoistic individual who gets goosebumps everytime she hears the national anthem. read on....
Some scenes leave indelible impressions. Some are occurrences which one remembers through a flash, through scents, taste, caress. These might be grave or ordinary occurences that just got stowed away in some recess of the mind and surface every now and then. Some of these we remember from the sheer repetition of it. Well, ever since I was a kid, on every Republic Day we used to sit as a family(well almost) n watch the ‘parade’. Papa, Didi and I used to curlup in front of the television and watch with rapt attention. I used to eagerly await the tableaux bit as that was my absolute favorite!! The sheer brilliance of theses huge moving cities almost! Papa ofcourse loved the display of the weapons of war(very masculine and patriarchal I can say now) but he loved it.
The scene changed a bit as years passed. Didi stopped being interested and mummy was always the wise one who saw the sheer waste of such a display.
Well, I have heard it is an ‘image building’ tactic of the nation. We invite foreign dignitaries, display our military might, our diverse culture(this sounds so clichéd!), with VVIPs and blackcat commandos. The audience are all proud Indians from a thriving and well fed economic class. This is the India we would want all to see and believe in. but there are those who are conspicuous by their absence. The millions that are below the poverty line are almost forgotten. The amount of money that goes into this elaborate façade makes one think that, is image building so important? Is this pomp and waste the only way we can derive a sense of national identity? And then isn’t this construct, of a unified so what if diverse India, at the end of it all completely just that, a construct, a fictitious projection of jingoistic ideas?
hmm...still i ponder as should you. but this day would never lose its charm for me which was inculcated in me as a child. but the fact that i am sitting here writing this blog instead of watching the parade (which btw is on rt now) makes me smile at the irony of it all.
brrr...cold thursday morning, and the ear still hurts but i am in high spirits. there are 2 reaons for this- 1. i met nannu online today (first thing in the morning), boy do i miss her(i love u sweety), and we spoke about our street food excursions, which made me all hungry. hmm...so today i think i'll go and eat all the junk just like we used to and miss her when i am alone with an aching tummy. nannu , though the food was always from street vendors with deplorable hygiene levels, still somehow we never got sick did we? so, today i'll binge away to glory, or to an upset stomach!!
the other reason for my sunny side up is that today is Republic Day!! now dnt go judging me as this jingoistic individual who gets goosebumps everytime she hears the national anthem. read on....
Some scenes leave indelible impressions. Some are occurrences which one remembers through a flash, through scents, taste, caress. These might be grave or ordinary occurences that just got stowed away in some recess of the mind and surface every now and then. Some of these we remember from the sheer repetition of it. Well, ever since I was a kid, on every Republic Day we used to sit as a family(well almost) n watch the ‘parade’. Papa, Didi and I used to curlup in front of the television and watch with rapt attention. I used to eagerly await the tableaux bit as that was my absolute favorite!! The sheer brilliance of theses huge moving cities almost! Papa ofcourse loved the display of the weapons of war(very masculine and patriarchal I can say now) but he loved it.
The scene changed a bit as years passed. Didi stopped being interested and mummy was always the wise one who saw the sheer waste of such a display.
Well, I have heard it is an ‘image building’ tactic of the nation. We invite foreign dignitaries, display our military might, our diverse culture(this sounds so clichéd!), with VVIPs and blackcat commandos. The audience are all proud Indians from a thriving and well fed economic class. This is the India we would want all to see and believe in. but there are those who are conspicuous by their absence. The millions that are below the poverty line are almost forgotten. The amount of money that goes into this elaborate façade makes one think that, is image building so important? Is this pomp and waste the only way we can derive a sense of national identity? And then isn’t this construct, of a unified so what if diverse India, at the end of it all completely just that, a construct, a fictitious projection of jingoistic ideas?
hmm...still i ponder as should you. but this day would never lose its charm for me which was inculcated in me as a child. but the fact that i am sitting here writing this blog instead of watching the parade (which btw is on rt now) makes me smile at the irony of it all.
posted by ugly duckling at 10:27 AM
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