A few days ago I read an article about as man who had filed a case against Sania Mirza for keeping her feet on a table on which Indian flag was also kept. In the best part of the report that man was quoted as saying: “Me and my friends will move around the city from 2pm onwards on Republic Day collecting flags lying everywhere and destroy them in private with full dignity.” Yes even flags have dignity and, in all probability, feelings! I hope he and his friends had a good time that day! I am sad that this is what we have reduced patriotism into.

India has advanced so much in the last couple of decades, but we still have not got the confidence that a matured democracy should have. We are still so thin-skinned about symbols of our nationhood, and that’s a shame.

As a nation that won it’s independence with such difficulty, if there is one thing we should be proud of, and should continue to aspire towards, it is freedom. Not just freedom to vote, but freedom in every sense.

I have a school near my place and the time I leave for college in the morning clashes with the morning assembly in that school and coincidently the students there are usually singing the national anthem when I leave. Now does anybody expect me to stand on road till they finish the anthem? Don’t say ‘yes’!

As long as we don’t breach into the freedom of others, we should be free to watch the movies we want, read the books we want, express our sexual preferences, and yes, freedom to disrespect the national flag or refuse to stand up and stop moving when the anthem is played. In fact I won’t call ‘disrespect’, it is ‘not giving phony respect’. What is the point of being a free country otherwise?