No sir, I don't just write 'love' stories!

Republic Day

It is republic day tomorrow. Oh! No..the Principal would want me to say something again. What was it that I said last year? Could not even remember and to top it all dad was away on one of his trips. Where would I get information from to talk about the day? To be popular had its share of drawbacks. I remember the first day of school here. A game of 'langdi' was organized. Being from an ul-uloom school in Hyderabad where 'langdi' amongst the girls during lunch time and during PT was like a religion almost and being a little taller than everyone else in the class, I had an unfair advantage over everybody else. The principal was suitably impressed and I was tucked away into his favorites category. Though I had been inititally caught in the euphoria it was during some special event days like these when it would suck. I'd be called out of the blue to say something. It would not be different tomorrow. Again I came back to the question on hand where would I get some information about this particular day. How I wished there'd be something that I could open, type the words in and then woooosh! it would bring me all sorts of sources I could read from. Wishful thinking? Maybe not. Maybe there could be a place where we could keep all the data in the world and when somebody asks for something, maybe we could look for it there and show them everything relating to their question. I was very proud of my idea. At least it was better than my brother's who was wasting precious paper drawing diagrams of a car that would run on sunlight or some such source. Fat chance of that happening! Huh! Even if it did manage to run, what'd one do at night?

I looked at the clock. 8:00. OK time to watch 'I love Lucy'. Republic day would have to wait. 8:30. Ah! That was quite funny. The way Lucy managed to trip and fall almost everything was a delight to watch. I looked at the clock again. Dumb thing had a date going alongwith the time. 25th January it said. What was the need to have a date in there. Aren't clocks supposed to show you just the times. All this fancy stuff seems to be getting on my nerves. What next? Watches with cameras built in? Maybe a phone even? Heck! Maybe a movie camera even. What was the world coming to? My brothers were already snoring. My legs still ached from all the cycling and the running around we had been doing. Not to mention the Ice-pice. Whatever does that mean? Wonder if it is I-spies. That makes more sense anyways. And then watching the grown-ups play shuttle-cock, running around trying to be the first to retrieve the cock. What a weird name to call the thing! Wonder what else they would dream up to use that word for. Anyways so the date on the clock-piece brought me back to reaity. It was going to be 26th Jan tomorrow. What was I going to do? My eyes were drooping. Well, I shall think about it tomorrow.

Got up earlier than usual the next day. Normally it would take ammi short of a few whacks on the head to get me out of bed. But today was a holiday. Ofcourse we'd to go to school for the flag hoisting ceremony but there was no need to carry that bad of books that weighed more than a ton I am sure. How I wish there was some sort of electronic notebook where we could put all our work in and forget about it instead of lugging all these notebooks around. That we could actually do our homework without writing on reams upon reams of paper. Like we could type in some stuff and it could then magically appear on a paper and you are done with it. Ammi had already laid out the starched all-white uniform that we normally would wear on half-day saturdays. By the time Saigal's song was being played on the Ceylon Radio I was all ready. Two well-oiled tight plaits tied with a ribbon and then curved up to form a loop. A blue belt going around my waist. White keds washed and polished the day before almost shining. I looked in the mirror and decided I looked very smart. My brothers did not want to go. They wanted to stay back home and continue their game of cricket. What is it with cricket and these guys? I wonder what the popularity is all about? India wins a world cup a couple of years ago and to follow and play it is almost like a religion. I am sure with the amount of enthusiasm it has generated we shall be winning the world cup every single time. So I trudged out alone to school.

Everyone was dressed in their whites. Everyone had washed their keds the day before and the day was bright. All of us were trying to put our opinions in whether the wind was enought to have a good flag hoisting. It breaks one's spirit to be all enthusiastic and with a salute watching the flag being hoisted up only to see it falling limply by the side. Not a good sight at all. Not a very good sight at all!. Soon the assembly was called to order and the chief guest who was the principal conservator of forests was unfurling the flag. The flag did manage to create a few ripples but then fell back limply. We tried hard not to look at it. Chocolates were distributes. Speeches were given and then came the moment I was dreading for almost a week. The principal calling out to me with an indulgent smile on his lips. I had done a very good job at the last independence day courtesy my dad. But he was not here and I was in a big soup. I walked up trying to remember as much as I could about the day.
"Respected Chief Guest, Principal, Teacher and my fellow students. A very good morning to you. We are gathered here to celebrate a very important day for our country - The Republic Day. This is the day on which India became a republic. A republic means that we are independent. We gained our independence from the opressive rule of the British on August 15th 1947. Jawahar Lal Nehru was the first prime minister. Every independence day the Prime Minister hoists the Indian Flag at Red Fort...." and so it continued. All about the independence day my dad had coached me about!

posted by Fizo @ 11:04 AM