Our Sovereignity!
Went to the movies the other day with friends. Since all of us were famished, we picked our favourites to munch all through the movie. The National Anthem started playing as the tricolour fluttered on the screen.
All rise...was the verdict! I stood erect & looked placidly at the screen. The person standing right in front restlessly shifted his weight from one leg to the other & looked around with a bored expression on his face. The young couple standing next to us popped crispys & moaned about how life sucked & the futility of enforcing the National Anthem on all cinema goers.
I was thinking…is this where we are all headed? No sense of belonging to our own country? It crossed my mind, how all my friends who were settled abroad, away from home & hearth were more patriotic than us Indians staying in India. They had sent me emails wishing me a Happy Independence Day. Looking around, could see the hapless figures silhouetted against the gigantic screen, waiting for the Anthem to get over.
Disturbed, I reminiscenced about "Sadhu Baba" from my childhood. Sadhu Baba was my maternal great grand father (mom's grandfather). He was born into a feudal family of landlords to moneyed parents. Sadhu Baba was married at the age of 13 & was already a parent by 18yrs. He was a restless man, well educated from a comfortable background & yet aware of the freedom struggle happening around him. As he became more aware of the British Empires atrocities, he joined a group of spirited freedom fighters. They swam across the Padma river to reach the Dacca area (which is a part of Bangladesh now).They would meet up with fellow rebels there, collect formulae to make crude bombs & swim back with the tiny chits hidden in their mouths. The swatantratawadis would collect cash & jewellery willingly donated by their wives & near & dear ones which would fuel their activities in their struggle for independence.
It was the year 1937 when the British finally caught up with Sadhu Baba better known in those days as Dr Keshab Prasad Sinha.
He was tried & later sent to the cellular jail more commonly known as Kala Pani in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands.
Life at Kala Pani was a living hell. The freedom fighters would be tortured mercilessly by whipping them till they fainted only to be later tortured again by rubbing salt into their open wounds. Any Swatantrata Sainiks who would chant the Vande Mataram would be tied to the ice slabs specially designed to crush the enthusiastic freedom fighters spirits. Dr Keshab was one of the veterans in irking the british soldiers even if it meant sleeping on the ice slabs till he turned blue with cold & lost consciousness.
After 7 yrs at Kala Pani, he was released only to come back & again carry on the freedom struggle from where he had left 7 yrs back.
India finally got its independence in 1947 & Dr Keshab practiced medicine & was also the MLA in the new Swaraj. He had rubbed shoulders with great leaders like Pt Jawaharlal Nehru & Dr Rajendra Prasad (our first President who also hailed from Bihar). Dr Keshab was a man with strong connections & was troubled looking at how his relatives & friends tried milking him to bag lucrative contracts, jobs, ludicrous favors etc.
The madness around him made him reflect how it had taken sheer guts & determination to fight & rout the British Raj & where our country was headed after achieving the unachievable. He decided to renounce all his worldly possessions & became a hermit, wearing just a loin cloth living in a sparse cottage on the outskirts of Vrindavan.
I remember Sadhu Baba as a person with a long white beard who loved children. He had this serene calmness in his voice & face & people flocked to hear him talk about the supreme being & how simple acts of kindness was close to godliness.
As the National Anthem finally ends in the cinema hall, people around me flop to their seats relieved that it was over & the movie would finally starts. I'm lost in thought..will we experience the same dedication like the likes of Sadhu Baba towards our country...ever?
Listed below are names of Political internees, incarcerated in the cellular jail in the Andamans.
From Bihar
1. Shri Ahmadullah 21-11-1881
2. Shri Bishwanath Prasad 1937
* 3. Dr Keshab Prasad Sinha 1937
4. Shri Suraj Nath Chaube 1938
5. Shri Malaya Krishna Brahmachary 1937
6. Shri Pranatha Nath Ghosh 1937
7. Shri Kanhaiya Lall Missir 1938
8. Shri Jagendra Shukul 1938
9. Shri Mahabir Missir 1937
10 Shri Shyam Krishna Agarwal 1938
11 Shri Shyamdeo Narayan 1938
From Maharashtra
1 Shri Vinayak Damodar Savarkar 1911 - 1921
2 Shri Ganesh 1911-1921
( The above names are of political internees lodged in the same prison room from 1911 onwards )
Jai Hind !
Copyright © BuntysBanter 2005
All rise...was the verdict! I stood erect & looked placidly at the screen. The person standing right in front restlessly shifted his weight from one leg to the other & looked around with a bored expression on his face. The young couple standing next to us popped crispys & moaned about how life sucked & the futility of enforcing the National Anthem on all cinema goers.
I was thinking…is this where we are all headed? No sense of belonging to our own country? It crossed my mind, how all my friends who were settled abroad, away from home & hearth were more patriotic than us Indians staying in India. They had sent me emails wishing me a Happy Independence Day. Looking around, could see the hapless figures silhouetted against the gigantic screen, waiting for the Anthem to get over.
Disturbed, I reminiscenced about "Sadhu Baba" from my childhood. Sadhu Baba was my maternal great grand father (mom's grandfather). He was born into a feudal family of landlords to moneyed parents. Sadhu Baba was married at the age of 13 & was already a parent by 18yrs. He was a restless man, well educated from a comfortable background & yet aware of the freedom struggle happening around him. As he became more aware of the British Empires atrocities, he joined a group of spirited freedom fighters. They swam across the Padma river to reach the Dacca area (which is a part of Bangladesh now).They would meet up with fellow rebels there, collect formulae to make crude bombs & swim back with the tiny chits hidden in their mouths. The swatantratawadis would collect cash & jewellery willingly donated by their wives & near & dear ones which would fuel their activities in their struggle for independence.
It was the year 1937 when the British finally caught up with Sadhu Baba better known in those days as Dr Keshab Prasad Sinha.
He was tried & later sent to the cellular jail more commonly known as Kala Pani in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands.
Life at Kala Pani was a living hell. The freedom fighters would be tortured mercilessly by whipping them till they fainted only to be later tortured again by rubbing salt into their open wounds. Any Swatantrata Sainiks who would chant the Vande Mataram would be tied to the ice slabs specially designed to crush the enthusiastic freedom fighters spirits. Dr Keshab was one of the veterans in irking the british soldiers even if it meant sleeping on the ice slabs till he turned blue with cold & lost consciousness.
After 7 yrs at Kala Pani, he was released only to come back & again carry on the freedom struggle from where he had left 7 yrs back.
India finally got its independence in 1947 & Dr Keshab practiced medicine & was also the MLA in the new Swaraj. He had rubbed shoulders with great leaders like Pt Jawaharlal Nehru & Dr Rajendra Prasad (our first President who also hailed from Bihar). Dr Keshab was a man with strong connections & was troubled looking at how his relatives & friends tried milking him to bag lucrative contracts, jobs, ludicrous favors etc.
The madness around him made him reflect how it had taken sheer guts & determination to fight & rout the British Raj & where our country was headed after achieving the unachievable. He decided to renounce all his worldly possessions & became a hermit, wearing just a loin cloth living in a sparse cottage on the outskirts of Vrindavan.
I remember Sadhu Baba as a person with a long white beard who loved children. He had this serene calmness in his voice & face & people flocked to hear him talk about the supreme being & how simple acts of kindness was close to godliness.
As the National Anthem finally ends in the cinema hall, people around me flop to their seats relieved that it was over & the movie would finally starts. I'm lost in thought..will we experience the same dedication like the likes of Sadhu Baba towards our country...ever?
Listed below are names of Political internees, incarcerated in the cellular jail in the Andamans.
From Bihar
1. Shri Ahmadullah 21-11-1881
2. Shri Bishwanath Prasad 1937
* 3. Dr Keshab Prasad Sinha 1937
4. Shri Suraj Nath Chaube 1938
5. Shri Malaya Krishna Brahmachary 1937
6. Shri Pranatha Nath Ghosh 1937
7. Shri Kanhaiya Lall Missir 1938
8. Shri Jagendra Shukul 1938
9. Shri Mahabir Missir 1937
10 Shri Shyam Krishna Agarwal 1938
11 Shri Shyamdeo Narayan 1938
From Maharashtra
1 Shri Vinayak Damodar Savarkar 1911 - 1921
2 Shri Ganesh 1911-1921
( The above names are of political internees lodged in the same prison room from 1911 onwards )
Jai Hind !
Copyright © BuntysBanter 2005
posted by Bunty's Banter at 9:26 AM
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