The voice within.

August 15th, 1947 

"At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance..... We end today a period of ill fortune, and India discovers herself again."

-- Jawaharlal Nehru

(Source: wiki)

Frankly, this is neither my Independence day speech nor am I entering politics. The stuff written below is completely boring and its something that just crossed my mind. And if anybody has a problem with that, then I don't care...KEEP IT TO YOURSELF!!

For the first few years of my life, Independence day to me was:

Wake up at 6 in the morning.

Get dressed in my white uniform and rush to school.

Take part in the march - past, salute the flag when my school headmaster / chief guest hoists the national flag and sing the national anthem.

Listen to speeches, take 2-3 packs of the sweets given at school and run home.

Spend the rest of the day watching TV or playing.

August 16th morning, go to school as usual and continue as though nothing important happened the previous day.

I hope many of us had the same habit. After maybe 10th standard, we stopped doing even this.

Year after year, the Independence day image that I had in my mind changed. How do I see it now?

The Prime minister does the flag hoisting at the Red Fort & delivers a speech.

Tons of speeches from politicians on what we have to do to develop our country and take the nation to greater heights.

TV channels broadcasting all sorts of patriotic movies, music shows showing people dressed up in white with some tri-colored scarf or flags in their hands singing patriotic songs.

Some Bollywood icon playing on a game show to raise money for charity.

Programs interviewing war heroes and families who lost their loved ones in the war.

August 16th morning, we are back in the business!

Some terrorist activity killed so many people in such an area. Communal riots. The same hypocritical politicians accusing every other person of something or the other. TV channels back to their normal soaps and game shows.News channels covering stories like "Commissioner ka Kutta ghum" and "UFOs kidnapping cows" and "Gaya Viru ka form.. Gaye Viru ke baal" (Really admire their creativity though.. :P).

So, effectively, how much have things changed?

I am fully aware that I have done absolutely nothing to make things better.But on the other hand, I am content that haven't made things worse.

How long can we live being oblivious to this? Is it that hard to change? to do something good?? Have we really tried?

"You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain"

Some 4 months ago, I remember a forwarded mail that came to me with "Batman - Dark Knight Trailer" as the subject line. It really didn't interest me much because I had not watched 'Batman begins' also. Somehow, I had the impression that Batman was one lazy superhero with no superpowers who comes out at nights only to fight the bad guys and so on. So, I didn't pay much attention to it.

Around 2 weeks ago, Pramod pings me up on gtalk and says " Just watched 'Dark Knight'... Man! Its amazing!". After that, I had around 25-30 people telling me the exact same thing for the next 3 days. If all this was not enough, I had our good old Naari puttar (Harry :P) telling me to go and watch this movie atleast 5 times a day. So, I finally thought of giving it a shot. Last Saturday, Harry was in Bangalore for his WORK (read 'Night Gaming') and so, I dragged him too for the movie. :P By that time, Harry had already seen the movie 4 times! And he wasn't done yet. :D

Since I was a noob with the Batman story, Harry puttar had some story telling to do so as to give me an intro into what all has already happened in 'Batman Begins'. And then, the movie started!

One word to describe the movie in true Barny style - "LEGEND -- wait for it to come -- DARY!". Heath Ledger is just awesome as the Joker. The Joker make-up, psychopathic laugh, his dialogues and his flawless acting simply make him stand out among all the characters in the movie. All his dialogues are just so good in the movie that most of my friends are on their way to memorising them. As most people say, he truly deserves a posthumous Oscar. Also, full credits to Christian Bale and Gary Oldman for their performance. I would have preferred Katie Holmes instead of Maggie though. :)

Also worth a mention is the Bat - pod. I was simply awestruck at its sight when it first pops out of the Mother Tumbler. :D

As a final word, a must watch for all.

**Bow to Heath Ledger (R.I.P) and Christopher Nolan.

Its another weekend..