Celebration...

I read this post on Shruthi's blog about celebrating two momentous events in Indian history. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev. This seems to have gone absolutely unnoticed in Government quarters. Where does such official apathy come from? Why is it we choose to recognize and reward a few people, a few events but simply gloss over the rest?

Yesterday, I was watching the movie Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero on television with my 10-year-old nephew. Bose has always been my hero - and I don't really want to say much about the movie itself. But while watching the movie it struck me how little we know about so many people who quietly laid down their lives for the freedom struggle - the leaders who inspired them and the many who knew this was the only calling of their life. My nephew had interesting questions, and I had no answers. Is it any surprise that a lot of these stories are being confined to annals of history books which are very rarely read by the common man? I am not sure how much I can do about this, but at this point of time I am only joining Anil and Shruthi in trying to remember. With them I am ready to say this: We the people shall celebrate the anniversaries of these momentous events. What the government seems to be ignoring, we shall celebrate in our own way.