I-Day, You-Day

Big B’s outdated tryst, small b’s new wish-list

Hasina’s inglorious exit triggered remembers of India’s superb function in releasing Bangladesh. Alas, too many nations have squandered their hard-fought for independence. Net-net, we’ve stored our tryst, ‘not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially’ – even when netas preserve attempting to enslave the Net. Since this Erratica has coincided with I-Day, let me return to the Midday/midnight hour in 2002 when FM radio awoke to licence and freedom.

Working briefly at that tabloid, I’d requested mellifluous Mr Bachchan if he’d launch our station with Nehru’s historic speech. ‘Sure,’ he stated, ‘provided you get Sonia Gandhi’s permission’. Why? It wasn’t her property. But they’d had their notorious fall-out so arguably he didn’t need another fall-out. We stored writing to her PS, dwarpal George, however received solely, erm, radio silence. We let go of Ms G, however not of Mr B. Would he learn out the as-apt Tagore poem as a substitute? ‘Sure,’ he stated, ‘provided I can record it beforehand’. But the entire level was to have him personally flagging off the FM station. ‘I’ll be there too,’ he promised. He practised until inflection-perfect; recorded; and stored his tryst with us on the midnight hour.

So, right here’s my tackle Tagore’s 1913 prayer:

‘Where the pedestrian is without fear and can walk without head held low
Where access is free
Where the pavement has not been broken up into fragments
Or narrowed by encroachment walls
Where wheels don’t want to return out from the depth of potholes
Where drained commute stretches its arms in direction of aid
Where the clear stream of visitors has not misplaced its manner
Into the dreary desert sand of municipal indifference
Where limitless infrastructure blunts the mind
With ever-widening din and destruction,