Jan 26th. Happy Independence Day !!

Today is Jan 26th. And I take this opportunity to wish everybody a Happy Independence Day !! Yes, today is India’s Independence Day. Wait, before you brand me ‘An Ignorant’, please read the below lines.
Let’s travel back in time for a while. It was back on Jan 26th,1930 Lahore session that the then Congress president, Nehru unfurled the tricolor and declared India as a ‘Poorna Swaraj’. It was also decided that Jan 26th would be celebrated as India’s Independence Day. Indians celebrated 26th Jan as the Independence Day every year with great pride and nationalism until 1947 arrived.
When the British agreed to free India to keep their promise made to India as Indian troops had represented England in the Second World War. Every Indian leader wanted India to be given independence on Jan 26th(of may be 1948). But British chose August 15th to commemorate the second anniversary of the end of Second World War. This upset Indians though. For three years 1947,1948 and 1949 India celebrated both August 15th and Jan 26th as two Independence days. It was in 1950 Jan26th, that Indian union was declared a republic and rest, as they say is history.
Let’s discuss an interesting topic here. When India got independence, 99% of western scholars, journalists, intellectuals predicted that India would divide into pieces within few years. It was quite logical as well. India had such diverse population (even more diverse than the entire Europe put together). As far as I know, there is no country in the world which has more than one official language. But India has whopping 22. Let me tell you something
When I was in Atlanta, the US, I was working as a consultant for ING through our company. We were 40 plus Indians in that project. Among them we had a group of 10 friends. We always hanged out together, whether it’s for lunch, or movies or Saturday booze sessions (I mostly drank orange juice then).
We all used to wait restlessly for Saturday evenings and used to have a blast. I never thought about our origins then. But when I realize now, it makes me proud. Let me mention our gang’s diversity. I and Santhosh were kannadigas. Ramnathan and Karthik were Tamilians. Suresh was Andhra. Shanky was a Mumbaikar. Ghanshyam(my roomy) was Sindhi. Ayan was a Bihari. Varun Pratap singh was from UP and Sourav Ghosh, a Bengali. Sadly we didn’t have any maliyali. Yeah, Eldho(a maliyali) always helped us get our booze. We spoke in Hindi and the thought of we hailing from different states never crossed our minds. We always spoke about India as a nation and not different states. We referred ourselves as ‘Desis’. I miss them all now.
This is India after 60 years of being made a republic. It stands strong as a democratic secular nation (of course there are hiccups). The entire credit should go to Nehru mainly and Vallabbhai Patel and VP Menon. Else India would have become yet another Europe with many small nations. It’s not over yet. We need to carry India to a position as developed as Europe for sure. Insha allah ! If Gandhi were alive he would be proud to see our ING gang but he would have loathed our boozing activity for sure. Anyway, I again wish, a very Happy Independence Day ;-) See you soon, till then Chill Maadi ;-)

Chetan Bhagat, The Real Idiot !!

Dear Mr. Chetan Bhagat,

First of all I admit that I admire your writing. You are a talented, hugely popular writer and I have enjoyed reading your books especially ‘five point someone’ and ‘two states’(the other two looked average).

My sympathies to you for all the drama of the last week surrounding ‘3 Idiots’. Having said that I would like to say that the real idiot out of the controversy is none other than you ! Four years back when the 3 idiots team approached you, you were overwhelmed just by the fact that your book would be made into a movie by best of the lot featuring Shahrukh Khan(Eventually SRK opted out of the project and Amir got in). Then you didn’t care about the remuneration of selling the copy write of your book to Mr Vidhu Vinod Chopra(yet another Idiot). It was mere 11 lakh rupees. Now that when the movie is released and has created havoc at the box office, becoming the highest grosser ever earning 100s of crores, anyone in your place would have got a pinch of the proceedings. It must have pained you financially like hell.

But what made you an Idiot is your outcry in the media about you not getting credit bla bla bla. Come on. Grow up man. You don’t know whom are you taking on. These guys Chopra, Khan have been in the business over decades and they know the intricacies of the trade. Firstly, you being a noob(beginner) in the industry would not get any sympathy and secondly you need to get classes on how to handle the little success you got by writing. Being successful is easy but maintaining it is very very difficult especially if you are in the entertainment industry. You should control your inhibitions and act to be 100% politically correct even in your dreams if you wanna sustain your success. I wouldn’t mention any other name other than Mr SRK to be your mentor on how to handle success(not because I am his fan). Did you look at him how he behaved on the premier of 3 Idiots? He is supposed to be not in good terms with Mr. Chopra(remember Chopra-Farah Khan war because of which SRK opted out of 3 Idiots?) yet he hugged, kissed and wished Mr. Chopra. He also hugged his rival Amir Khan and wished him as if he is his closest buddy. That’s called being politically correct and no wonder why he is such a big super star in spite of his hits and flops. Good that you quickly apologized to Amir, fans etc else I was afraid you would have become one more Vivek oberoi.

It was a big lesson learnt for you. When you are at top, be extra careful before you utter a word in the press. Hope you wouldn’t do any such idiocracy in the future. Everything lies in your hands now, whether to become an other Shahrukh or an other Vivek. Good Luck. Happy new year !