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BEING YOUNG

Independence Day

Listening to the national anthem gives me a rush, not of jingoistic patriotism — that dangerously overrated virtue — but of contentment. When I get in the mood, I set the mp3 file on repeat. Tagore’s ‘Jana Gana Mana,’ like other great tunes, is a thing of magnificent beauty. Comparisons can be drawn to John Williams’s score for the Superman theme, which is a grand plea for world peace (although a reading of the political subtext of the f ilm exposes an American conceit).

I do not understand Bengali or Sanskrit, yet the national anthem defines a piece of my identity as an Indian. I am reminded of morning prayers in school when we stood rigidly in line, miming the words to Jana Gana Mana, wanting to fidget without drawing the attention of our borderline sadistic sports instructor, he of the calloused palm and whistle-whip. It reminds me of a time when history and geography, time and space, meant little more to me than a worn notebook.

During the course of eight or nine years, fragmented fiefdoms gradually assembled into a whole: we studied the exploits of men and women who secured a cathartic release from the British. I wondered what it must have sounded like, a hundred million people roaring in unison as the clock heralded Nehru’s India; could they have been heard in America? (We’d just learnt in science class that voices carried long distances over water; my rampant imagination was not easily suppressed.)

In the classroom, our struggles were of a different nature. India’s history was broken down into half-marks. We crammed dates, places, names and found ourselves tested on what we didn’t know. Every inch of territory warranted a fight. I remember carelessly misspelling Gandhi as Ghandhi once in class six; it cost me the highest score in an examination. Should it matter that I no longer remember when Hume founded the Indian National Congress?

I visited my old school in Bombay last month. The damp air hanging in the staircases smelt the same; cream paint was still peeling in the corners. I haven’t grown much taller since I passed out, nevertheless it felt like trying on a shoe two sizes smaller. I met Mrs. Manjeet Kaur, my English teacher from class seven, for a few minutes outside her classroom. I’d never noticed how tired she looked. She told me in the course of an oft-interrupted conversation — “Silence, class!” — that kids were more riotous than ever; “they will shove you without apologising. They are encouraged to show-off: their parents give them expensive cell phones, though bringing gadgets to school is against the rules. I feel what happens in American schools will soon start happening here.”

The names and faces passing out of these institutions change every year, but judging from what Mrs. Kaur said and from my own observations, the system hasn’t adapted to the changing times. Internet-savvy kids are pushing the boundaries of precocity all the time; ironically, individuality is only reluctantly encouraged.

The fear is that freedom of expression will undermine discipline in oversized classrooms. The emphasis on rote learning continues, leaving many students ill equipped to compete professionally. Despite the proliferation of opportunities today, young folk continue to be herded by their well-meaning parents towards careers in engineering, business and, to a lesser extent, law and medicine.

Seen especially in the context of recent demographic trends — 51 per cent of the population is under 25 — ambition cannot substitute for talent that is honed by an excellent liberal education. Many have hitched their fortunes to outsourcing; this particular demon is enticing kids with easy cash and promoting smugness among the emerging middle class.

There is enough new money for today’s youth to roll in, if they know where to find it. Sadly, the development of many who are especially suited to careers in, say, writing or comedy remains stunted in those areas. Owing to a combination of prejudice and misplaced machismo, the Indian arts have suffered the most.

A superficial sense of prestige remains attached to travelling abroad: our engineer siblings and cousins who have settled in the U.S. are said to have “made it”; largely ignored is the fact that their struggle to find their space and reinvent themselves has just begun. The urban youth is hardwired to believe that a high standard of living in Bangalore is not as desirable as a cramped bachelor pad in Boston; meanwhile an ambitious lad in the rural heartland can now bypass Mumbai, once The City of Opportunity, in favour of New York.

In many ways, that is a good thing. We must constantly seek to broaden our perspective, it’s the right way forward. It’s inspiring to see so many of my generation determinedly fight their way out of a life mired in disappointment and poverty. The downside is that many of us struggle to deal with conflicting post-post-colonial identities. The world has more or less given up the fight against the hegemony that English exerts.

Notwithstanding the mixed atmosphere of relief and self-congratulation, most Indians aren’t as fluent as we would like to believe — not because our vocabulary is limited but because school did not teach us to think independently. Coherence transcends language and cruelly exposes the limited scope of our ideas.

We have lost our self-assurance. In the curve of civilisational progress, we have arrived at a point of inflexion labelled ‘Identity Crisis.’ That is not something to sneer at. In the larger scheme of things, we are akin to foot-soldiers in the march towards progress, and one hopes our progeny, and theirs, will emerge the stronger from the experiences of successive generations.

For people like me — and I don’t presume to speak for a majority — ‘independence’ is a political abstraction, a dated concept, a state of being that is taken for granted because we have never known otherwise. August 15, 1947 is a date seared in our minds not from personal memories but through regurgitations. ‘Freedom’ as such holds as much relevance to us as the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Independence day is ritually celebrated in part so men may be mythified for future consumption. As a people, we have recognised the impact of independence on our condition but moved on. The new rebellion is against ourselves. Until we subside, we shan’t truly be free.