If you didn't see the glass marbles in her eyes, you could easily believe Free India was still alive!

There is no good way of sharing bad news, so let me rip the band-aid off without further ado.

There is little of substance left in India's freedom. Whatever will happen on Independence Day is merely and strictly a pantomime. All the set pieces will be in place. The vast grounds of the Lal Qila will be teeming with youngsters assembled from schools and colleges. NCC or Bharat Scouts & Guides uniforms will be freshly ironed. Other kids will wear tricolor livery and sit in orderly rows to reveal the colours of the Tiranga when the drone cameras hover overhead. Excitable anchors, swept up in paroxysms of patriotic apoplexy, will go breathless in their search for new and even more soaring metaphors for the many-splendoured joys of our Azadi. All these will be no more than opening acts, of course, because the real star act for the morning, all 56 inches of chest, designer apparel, dazzling shahtoosh shawl and yards of turban topped off with perky tura, will stride up next, and launch into his endless ramble about deshbhakti, atmanirbharta, swabhiman, vikas and, as I learned just a short while ago, "partition horrors". He will then allude breezily to how we, the people of India, ably assisted by all the clods and incompetents who preceded him in the prime minister's office, have failed him. And how, despite our feebleness and incompetence, he is back at work, bearing the weight of all 135 crores of us upon his divine shoulders, much as Lord Krishna held aloft the Govardhan Parvat.

The anchors, given all the time he consumes with his tirade, will rush back, their laudatory paeans to the incarnate lord all ready, to flatter the grand panjandrum. The NOIDA brigade will shower their visionary, dynamic, fearless, towering plaudits, which will, of necessity, be punctuated at metronomic frequency with choice expletives for anybody and anything which still opposes or dissents. Successes will be appropriated from far and wide (Neeraj, Bajrang, Sindhu, Lovalina, the Hockey teams, having featured in the morning ramble, will now appear live on channels to reaffirm their gratitude and undying loyalty).

That, briefly, is tomorrow's news today. 

In this orgiastic bacchanal, we will be expected to collectively incinerate all the wounds, agonies and malignancies visited on India's body and spirit, since 2014. Most grievous of all? We will be expected to clap and cheer full-throated, as we watch the life force our freedoms; of our democratic republic; dissipate into an steel-grey, grief wracked sky. 

The great taxidermist will walk back, well pleased with himself. Free India will have become the finest trophy to be mounted on the walls of his swish new palace, in the necropolis of central vista.

Our fragile social compact

Trigger warning: hate speech and genocide

Yesterday, a bunch of Hindutva extremists gathered for a 'protest' in the heart of New Delhi, within sight of Connaught Place, and not quite two kilometres from Sansad Bhavan, the Parliament of India.

Their widely publicised objective was to demand the repeal of a series of what they claimed were 'British era' laws. What actually happened was ghoulish.

"Jab mulle kaate jaenge, Ram Ram chillaenge", the mob screamed. When we put Muslims to the sword, they'll scream "Ram Ram" for mercy, which will not be forthcoming.

Watch the video before you read on https://twitter.com/shivangi441/status/1424365069219995650?s=20

However much it upsets me, there will be those who see this video and suggest that it is best to ignore such 'fringe lunacy'. They will refuse to accept that this lunatic fringe is (a) not lunatic but a carefully orchestrated part of the Hindu radicalization project and (b) no longer fringe, given the growing acceptance for such sentiments in the poshest salons and living rooms, even those with Husain or Raza canvases on their walls (oh, the irony of a Husain Durga or a Raza Mandala in a closet bigot's home)!

I remember a time when our inclusiveness and assimilation were the pride of India. A time when we celebrated with gratitude the syncretic traditions which characterised everything from our attire, our food and music to dance, architecture and worship; literally every facet of our lives. A time when we acknowledged the Gharana Parampara in Hindustani Classical Music, a tradition which would have been a pale shadow of itself if you were to somehow exclude or erase countless Muslim ustads and their shagirds, who kept the art alive, generation after generation. A time when we thrilled to sher-o-shayari with all its subtlety, poignancy and sensual charm. A time when the Taj Mahal was a monument to soaring love, not a reminder of humiliation. A time when young people, regardless of religion, responded to Gandhi's call for Swaraj, and shed their blood when the tyrannical regime unleashed lathi charges and discharged guns at them.

That India had a big heart. It might have been itself destitute but it opened its home and hearth for millions of refugees fleeing war in East Pakistan. Our soldiers served with the UN Peace Keeping Force in conflict zones around the world. Our economy may have been on a ventilator but our soft power gently exerted itself. As early as the 1920s, Uday Shankar, with Anna Pavlova, prima ballerina of Imperial Russia by his side, was already conjuring a beautiful new dance form at the crossroads of Kathak and Ballet. By mid-century, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan's Sarod and Pandit Ravi Shankar's Sitar began to mesmerize audiences  around the world, with their dulcet strings. The Beatles came to India, to imbibe our classical music and our spiritual legacy. And freedom movements across the colonised world heeded Gandhi's voice of peace and temperance to frame their own struggles against the extortionate coloniser.

Today, that India, that Bharat, that Hindustan lies sundered. A cannibal monster has taken its place.

Unless there really is a god, who really does incarnate as a mortal every time cruelty and injustice are ascendant, we are one horrible step closer to doom.

p.s. If your political and social beliefs line up with those of the RSS/BJP, and you intend to continue voting for that malignant monstrosity, I would be extremely grateful for you to block, or better still erase, my number from your contacts at this very moment. I really cannot even pretend to be your friend any longer.