By Trivedi Jaimin
What I like for breakfast is a toast of controversy, crispy, burnt around the edges that rustles with a drag of a knife, and a smear of irony on top. Then I take caveman bites off of it. Only such a hearty breakfast makes me go to bed peacefully. I reckon that’s just my nature.
I’ve always been timid of penning down my musings, and I’m too illiterate to write, to add to my shyness. But what I do, is think.
People often take me for a creep when I mention that I take long showers, or morning dumps accompanied by my phone, or that I prefer public transport, it’s not due to my lack of ability to drive, but for my insatiable hunger to think. It’s oxygen for my hyperdynamic brain. The only two freedoms I care about is my freedom to dress and think.
I don’t like freedom of speech. Because for all the time people speak, is time wasted for seeing and thinking. It is a common observation of the trend that places with uninhibited mouths show the greatest foolishness. I prefer not to speak. But I am also human. I often make mistake of ‘socialising’. An unfortunate consequence of it, is invitations. Yes, I am that guy who has ‘hot takes’ at a party who burns members with it and gets thrown out.
My most recent party embarrassment was my hot take on nationalism. ‘Nationalism is stupid’ is what I said. I continued when I had the desirable amount of interjections and frowns. I put out a disclaimer saying: I am merely exercising my right to speak. So, the patriots calmed down. Activists and feminists were still pissed off. And the alcoholics didn’t care. I went on to say, that people who have nothing else to do, no one else to love, love their country. When we have nothing to take pride in, we are proud of our nations. Must we hug some imaginary boundaries so tightly, that we are ready to shed our blood for it? It is impossible for me to fathom that I will someday love something just by the virtue of its existence, and not by the virtue of my deed. Pardon me for being practical. Putting the tricolour on my porch is not going to make me a patriot all of a sudden. If anything, it spoils the symphony of colours on the exterior of my house, that I’ve carefully picked out. I dare you to look me in the eye and tell me that our tricolour goes well with brown and ochre! Neither am I one of those who’d be vigilant enough to spot a fallen tricolour and pick it up. It just doesn’t move me. My blood doesn’t boil on watching mockery of my nation. I’ve had people retort to this by asking me to settle somewhere else, or that I don’t deserve the resources of this land. I am not anti-nationalist. I’m just not a nationalist. And if martial law is applied tomorrow, will I feel protective, or am I just saving myself from being oppressed if defeated? I guess we’ll never know.
I don’t vote. I am neither well versed with our politics, nor interested in my country’s future and democracy. It still baffles me that lib-dems aren’t baffled by the amount of success dictatorships have had in the past. Nevertheless, my opinion doesn’t matter. Neither does yours! Socrates called this demagoguery. He basically predicted that when the mass votes in the name of freedoms (to vote and/or speak), Trumps and Bidens happen everywhere. Here’s another hot one, I bet he’d say Chinese elections are more democratic.
My issue starts when I stop speaking. Just imagine the reaction to this destruction! Destruction of what? Their pride and love for a nation? Or is it that I am offending, not validating their meaningless existence in a herd lead by someone smart? I am lost for an answer. This is where I question my freedoms. Isn’t it a fact that this nation does provide freedom to its citizens to hate the very sentiment that defines its occurrence? Our neighbours do have blasphemy laws. Or is it freedom of speech until it crosses a ‘line’! Whose line? Mine? Yours? Again with these lines, the boundaries of states, countries and what not? I reckon a Brit drew this line too! Anyway, I feel that we are governed by the lines of the powerful. So do such freedoms really exist? Yes. In our heads! Hence, I think. Now that I am not in deep deep love with my country shouldn’t be a problem to anyone, right?
However, I love my home. If my neighbour is wounded, I’ll help him, be it Indian or Chinese or whatever. I’d rather be here than anywhere else. I’ll end my thoughts here for now. I’m late for watching the independence day parade. Why am I going? Because it’s a pretty site and my nationalist mother is yelling. For the record, yes, I do love my mother
By Trivedi Jaimin
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