So much has happened since I wrote my last column, almost three weeks ago, that even though I try to keep away from commenting on current affairs, I have to reflect on the new trends emerging in public celebrations. Let me begin with my own memories of the Independence Day celebrations in my childhood. Of course, we loved the holiday that came with it but since I studied in a convent run by German nuns, there was no attempt to involve the students in any meaningful way.As day scholars (not boarders), we balanced our lives between that very ‘phoren’ education and the values practised by our family and the rest of the town. My father used to hoist the flag in the lawn of our house and his staff came to participate even though that meant a stiff climb to our Nainital home in the high Ayarpata area. The previous evening, flowers were tucked into the flag to be hoisted in the morning and carefully mounted on the tall flagpole. After it was over, my mother would serve tea and homemade snacks to all those who were there.We watched the whole ceremony (accompanied by children from the neighbouring houses) and after the elders had gone home, we enacted our own version of it. A smaller copy of the high flagpole (often just a crooked branch from a tree) was erected on the other side of the large lawn and we did our own version of the solemn ceremony my father used to preside over. We saluted the flag, sang the National Anthem lustily and marched round and round the lawn, saying ‘left right’.Our patriotism was probably greater than what was on display in the other ceremony and how we loved to pretend we were grown-ups. The previous evening, we all crowded round our ancient radio to hear the President’s message to the nation, delivered by President Dr S Radhakrishnan, surely the most thrilling orator of his time. We weren’t allowed even to speak or get up until it was over. Mind you, this wasn’t just in our home but in every home around us.The same reverence was accorded to the Prime Minister’s speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort by the one and only Chacha Nehru. No forced shouts of Vande Mataram, just a moving speech heard in rapt attention by the whole nation. There was a difference in that when I compare it to the state-choreographed version of the present times. Is it because we are now older and therefore more cynical, or is there a gradual ebbing away of the spontaneity that marked our celebrations all those years ago? Perhaps that is part of the reason but the muggy, miserable weather when the entire diplomatic corps, the Army bigwigs and the high officials of the government are expected to be present in formal suits, ties or bandhgalas, wiping their sweaty faces, takes away the joy that should be the primary mood of such an occasion.Later, when I was married and we took part in the official Independence Day celebrations, where my husband had to do what was his duty as a government servant and hoist the flag, the childhood memory refused to go away. The reception at the Governor’s At Home in the evening (or the President’s At Home in Rashtrapati Bhavan when we moved to Delhi) was a nightmare of another kind. The tea served was often a mishmash of what the historical records from colonial times showed (tea, cakes and sandwiches) alongside chhola bhaturas, samosas, sticky sweets or juicy rasgullas and gulab jamuns that sat uneasily together on one’s plate. A separate enclosure, with a cordoned-off area, was created for the Prime Minister and his Cabinet colleagues, the Chief Justice and important Opposition leaders, and people gawped at them from afar. I can well imagine how uncomfortable it must be for those who were gawped at.I could go on and on but this is not the occasion to dampen the patriotic mood that still shines through despite the cynicism, funny memes and muggy weather. Something stirs one each time one hears the National Anthem, no matter who you are or what your political and ideological position may be. To boycott the ceremony and not attend the reception is just not on.Moving on, I am relieved that we are finally confronting the trauma suffered during Partition. It has taken almost 75 years for us to acknowledge what a cruel and horrifying effect it had on those who lost loved ones, homes and their land. What is worse, it drove a wedge through the subcontinent that made neighbours into enemies, languages into cultural battles and irretrievably damaged the bonhomie between two faiths. The colonial state and the British have a lot to answer for to all those who they permanently crippled, both culturally and socially.It is thus ironic that their own lands are now facing the problems that they inflicted on their erstwhile territories. Europe and Britain are wondering how to go back to the time when they were racially ‘pure’. Rare is the country in that part of the world that will soon not be overrun by people who will occupy the land they considered ‘theirs’. I may not be alive to see that but I think we in the subcontinent know that story well.— The writer is a social commentator