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On one fine
day of my vacation at home, I happened to confront few questions from my nephew,
which has almost moved me and left me absconding.
He had a
project on Indian history, and he chose it to be the Indian independence. The moment
one goes on to study the Indian history, one cannot deprive oneself from
developing a feeling of hatred for the British. I can recall my history
syllabus, from Jallianwala Bagh to Revolt of 1857, from salt satyagrah to brutal
execution of our revolutionary leaders like bhagat singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev ,
it’s all filled with hatred for the British. No surprise, it continues to be the
same, what I read in my childhood that my nephew and other youngsters are learning.
As a child we
are always very stringent about rules and regulations, so is my nephew. On that
fine day I was watching television with him; as I was browsing through the
channels I stopped by a channel telecasting the national anthem. To my
surprise; my nephew made me stand in attention in the lonely room along with
him in the honor of the national anthem. I was impressed that my nephew has
learned the rituals well. I never knew that after 52 seconds of the national
anthem, I would be facing, some of the nightmarish questions from an innocent
kid, making my life difficult for the rest of my stay at home.
“Uncle I would like to include the national
anthem’s history to my project work. Could you help me in the preparation of the
content?” I proudly accepted the request; after all it was the national anthem,
something which I remember even after 25 years of my life-not an usual thing
for a person who do not even remember twinkle twinkle little star, completely.
“Uncle, tell
me who has written it and how long it took for the poet to complete it? It
would have been a difficult task, isn’t it uncle?” Off course, I replied, “Its Rabindra Nath Tagore
who has composed it, he was a Nobel Prize winner and an awesome writer; you are
going to read a lot of his writings in your higher classes.” Oh that’s great,
he replied, “How was he motivated to write this anthem, uncle; I want to know
the meaning of what it actually mean.”
As a child I
never thought of learning anything apart from the syllabus, but today’s kid is different
from what we used to be. In this age of internet and other innovative style of
teaching and learning, kids grow up more maturely than ever before. Trying to
save my ass from the little kid, I thought better to google, before answering
any of his queries. Who knows if I
happen to say something wrong, and he finds out someday, it would be a shame
for a lifetime.
That night I
spent hours on my system looking for the history of the national anthem. The
fact I found out was something very difficult to digest, which I had been
unaware of, since last 25 years of my life. Explaining things in that fashion
to my nephew was a distant thing, I was myself confused. I feared he would come
with many other questions which could make me sound completely unconvincing.
As per the
Wikepedia, the largest reference website, “The poem was composed in December
1911, welcoming and honoring King George V at the time of the Coronation Durbar of George V, and "Bharat Bhagya
vidhata" and "Adhinayaka" is in fact in praise of King George V
and not God. The composition was first sung during a convention of the then
loyalist Indian National Congress in Calcutta on Dec. 26, 1911. It was sung on the second day of the
convention, and the agenda of that day devoted itself to a loyal welcome of
George V on his visit to India. The event was reported thus in the British
Indian press:
"The Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore
sang a song composed by him specially to welcome the Emperor." (Statesman,
Dec. 28, 1911)”
Of course there were few controversial things as well, but
going through these facts and the thought of it to be a controversial made me more
and more anxious.
How could I justify the poem, which was composed in the
honor of a Firangi, to be our national anthem,
to a kid, who has grown up learning to hate the British and the British rule in
India?
As I was wondering how I could frame this for my nephew, I
heard a sound of knocking at the door. It was none other than my nephew,
curious to know and learn new things. “You still awake?” I asked in a loud
voice. “In fact you said that you will help me out for my project un..c..lle..
“ . “Don’t be stupid” I replied in agony, “better concentrate on your studies
than doing these rubbish projects. Your grades are degrading constantly”.
Surprised by my behavior, it took a few seconds for him to
react and apologize for something he shouldn’t be, and left the room
immediately.
Indeed I saved my ass…but I still wonder if I actually did?
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