30 minute patriotism

The evening of 13th May was a much anticipated one. Diwakar and Srikanth wanted to see Wagah border - the line where India ends. After visiting Jallianwala Bagh, we left for Wagah Border - about 30km from Amritsar. The traffic sense of people at Amritsar has been donated to Pakistan. People happily criss cross roads without any warnings. I always thought that this behaviour was a copy right of Bangalore rickshaw drivers. But it seems Punjab as such lacks this discipline. After juggling through the nightmarish traffic, we ended up at the Wagah gates to see even worse things. The entire open auditorium is jam packed with people. We had to struggle even to park the bikes. As this was my second visit, I did not bother to get into the auditorium. It must have been much easier for Abhimanyu to penetrate Chakravyuha, but making way through this crowd would have been almost impossible for him.

The show began with patriotic songs, some running around by school children with Indian flags and some jawan shouting ‘Vande Mataram’ in a very peculiar manner. Then guards started marching towards the gate to lower the flag. The extreme movement of the legs while marching looked very disgraceful. The guards at the Pakistani end opened the gates, shook hands in no-man’s land and closed the gate once again. Our patriotic audience shouted ‘Vande Mataram’ and ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’. The entire auditorium was filled with pride, joy and love for the country. The show ended in about 30 minutes and the audience started to barge out. It was a chaos for few minutes. Later on I, Silje, Diwakar and Srikanth entered the auditorium to find plastic waste and other garbage left by our patriotic people. Few patriotic people even stood next to Silje (a foreign national) and took pictures. All of a sudden Silje was a celebrity.

We left the border thinking how superficial our patriotism was. People were not willing to accommodate fellow citizens who had come from far off distances to watch the show. There was no discrimination between women and children. Everyone just focussed on making his way inside and watching the show. We saw many people especially women returning back in frustration. On our way back we could see the board with an arrow to Immigration Checkpost. To our dismay, it had the logo of Pepsi on it. It said it all - people throwing garbage at the very place where they sang patriotic songs and a government board with and MNC logo.

Is this the right choice?

Bharat Mata ki Jai

Related GPS Track:
Day 18 at EveryTrail