Independence

Jan 30…. ” காலங்கள் தோறும் காந்தி…”

NatarajanLeave a comment

“கடவுள் என் முன்னே தோன்றி உனக்கொரு வரம் தரப்போகிறேன்! என்ன வேண்டும் கேள் என்றுகேட்டால்! என் வாழ்நாளில் மறைந்த இந்தியாவின் தேசத்தந்தை மகாத்மா காந்தியுடன் ஒருநாள் இரவு உணவருந்த வேண்டும் என்று கேட்பேன்” என்று அமெரிக்க ஜனாதிபதியாக தேர்ந்தெடுக்கப்பட்ட நாளில் பதிலளித்தார் பராக் ஒபாமா.

ஆயுத உற்பத்தியில் முன்னிலை வகிக்கும் வல்லரசு நாட்டின் தலைவர் ஒருவர் மூன்றாவது காலாக கைத்தடியை மட்டுமே வைத்துக் கொண்டு, அங்குமிங்கும் இந்திய மண்ணின் விடுதலைக்காக ஓடிக்கொண்டிருந்த அந்த மனிதரைப் பற்றி இப்படி குறிப்பிடுகிறார் எனில் அந்த அரையாடைத் துறவி நம்மைவிட்டு மறையவில்லை. கடல் கடந்து காலம் கடந்து இனம், மொழி, மதம் என எல்லாவற்றையும் கடந்து இன்றும் உலகின் வழிகாட்டியாக வாழ்ந்து கொண்டிருக்கிறார் என்பதையே இது காட்டுகிறது.

காந்தி வணங்கிய கடவுள்:

உலகில் வேறு எந்த தலைவருக்கும் இல்லாத சிறப்பு காந்திக்கு மட்டும் எப்படி என எண்ணும் போது அவரின் வாழ்க்கை நிகழ்வுகளே அதற்கான பதில்களாக விரிகின்றன. போர்பந்தரில் பிறந்த காந்தி ஆயுத போர்களை நம்பாதவர். 2500 ஆண்டுகளுக்கு முந்தைய பழமையான அகிம்சை சத்தியாகிரகம் என்ற தத்துவங்களை நவீன காலத்தில் வெற்றிகரமாக மறு நிர்மாணம் செய்து உலக மக்களைக் கவர்ந்தவர். “சத்தியமே அவரின் மதம். அன்பு அறவழி ஒழுக்கம்; மனசாட்சி இவையே அவர் வணங்கிய கடவுள்கள்”. வழக்கறிஞராக தான் சம்பாதித்த செல்வங்கள் அனைத்தையும் தாய் நாட்டின் விடுதலை வேள்விக்கு காணிக்கையாக வழங்கிய வள்ளல் நம் காந்தி! ஒத்துழையாமை இயக்கப்போராட்டம் வெற்றிகரமாக நடை பெறவேண்டுமென்றும; அதேவேளையில் சாமானிய ஏழைமக்கள் பாதிக்கப்பட கூடாது என்றும் திலகர் நினைவு நிதி வசூலிக்க உண்டியல் குலுக்கிய தன்னலமற்ற மனிதர்! இதன் மூலம் எங்களை எவரும் அசைக்க இயலாது என்று ஆணவத்துடன் எக்காள முழக்கமிட்ட ஆங்கிலேய ஏகாதிபத்தியத்தின் அரியாசனத்தை அசைத்த முதல் மனிதர். இதில் சிலருக்கு மாற்றுக் கருத்தும் உண்டு. ஆனால் முதல் சந்திப்பிலேயே முரண்பட்டு காந்தியக் கொள்கையை நிராகரித்த தேசியநாயகன் நேதாஜி, காந்தியின் போராட்ட வலிமையையும் தாய் நாட்டின் விடுதலைக்காக காந்தியின் பின்னே அணிவகுத்து நின்றமக்கள் சக்தியையும் பார்த்து, ‘தேசத்தந்தை’ என அழைத்தார். இதுவே காந்தியின் போராட்டங்களுக்கான அங்கீகாரம். பாரதியின் வரிகளைத் தொட்டுச் சொல்வதானால் “நரைகூடிக்கிழப்பருவமெய்திய”பின்னரும் “குன்றென நிமிர்ந்து நின்று” உள்ளத்தில் போராட்ட உணர்வோடு 30 கோடி இந்தியர்களை தன்னுள் அடக்கி வைத்திருந்தவர் காந்தி.

காந்தி விரும்பிய பொது வாழ்வு:

உடல் உழைப்பு சிறுமை; மூளை உழைப்பே உயர்வு என்ற மேல்த்தட்டு சிந்தனையை முற்றிலுமாக நிராகரித்த காந்தி தனது சர்வோதயா சமூகத்தில் மூளை உழைப்பாளர்களும் கண்டிப்பாக உடல் உழைப்பை செய்யவேண்டும் என்று வலியுறுத்தினார். உடல் உழைப்பும் மூளை உழைப்பும் சேரும் போதுதான் தனிமனித வளர்ச்சி மற்றும் சமூகவளர்ச்சி சாத்தியம் என்று விளக்கினார். “எல்லோரும் சரிநிகர் சமம்” என்ற உணர்வு அனைவரிடமும் ஏற்படவேண்டும் என்று விரும்பிய காந்தி எளிமையான வாழ்க்கை வாழ வேண்டும் என்று விரும்பினார். ஆனால் ஏழ்மையான வாழ்க்கையை வெறுத்தார். நாமே விரும்பி தேவைகளைக் குறைத்துக் கொள்வதன் மூலம் எளிமையான வாழ்க்கை வாழ்ந்து ஏழ்மையை விரட்டமுடியும் என்று நம்பினார். இன்றுள்ளதுபோல் நகரங்கள் கிராமங்களைச் சுரண்டும் நிலை ஏற்பட கூடாதென்று, தான் கனவுகண்ட பொதுவாழ்வு சமூகத்தை கிராமிய நாகரிகத்தால் கட்டமைக்க விரும்பியவரே நமது காந்தி.

காந்தி விரும்பிய கல்வி:

ஆங்கில அரசு 1835-ல் புகுத்திய கிளார்க்குகளை உருவாக்கும் கல்வி முறைதான் 2015-ம் ஆண்டிலும் சில மாற்றங்களுடன் தொடர்ந்து பின் பற்றப்படுகிறது. ஆங்கில அரசின் மெக்காலே கல்வித் திட்டத்தின் சீர்கேடுகளை காந்தி தெளிவாகவேஅறிந்திருந்தார். அது நமது கலாச்சார பண்பாட்டு வேர்களிலும் ஆழமாக வேரூன்றி நம் முன்னோர்களின் அடையாளங்களை மறைத்து விடும் என்று உணர்ந்தார். ஆங்கிலக் கல்வி முறை நேரடியான சமுதாய சூழ்நிலைகளிலிருந்தும் உடல் உழைப்பிலிருந்தும் நமது குழந்தைகளைப் பிரித்துவிடுகின்றது என்றும் இதனால் மாணவர்கள் உள்ளத்தில் சமுதாய உணர்வு வளராமல் போகும் என்று தீர்க்கதரிசனமாகக் கூறினார். “உண்மையான கல்வி என்பது தனிமனிதனின் மனதில் பண்பு, ஞானம், பொறுமை, உண்மை ஆகியவற்றை விதைப்பதில் அடங்கியிருக்கிறதே தவிர இலக்கிய பயிற்சியில் இல்லை” என்று சிறந்தகல்விக்கு இலக்கணம் கூறியவர் காந்தி.

“அகிம்சையை நேசித்து ஆணவத்தை எதிர்த்து சத்தியம் என்ற உண்மையைக் கடைப்பிடித்து சரித்திரமாய் ஒருவர் இந்த மண்ணில் வாழ்ந்து மடிந்துள்ளார்” என்பதையே இன்றைய பெரும்பாலான இளைய தலை முறை நம்ப மறுக்கிறது. “காந்தியவாதம்”அவர்களுக்கு இன்று கசப்பு மருந்தாகிப் போனது. இனிப்பை மட்டுமே சுவைக்க விரும்பி பழகிவிட்ட இன்றைய இளைய தலைமுறைக்கு”காந்திய சித்தாந்தம்”என்ற மருந்து கசந்தாலும் அதை நிச்சயம் அருந்த வேண்டியகாலம் வரும். அப்பொழுது இந்தப் புனித மண்ணில் எண்ணற்ற காந்திகள் தோன்றுவர்.

SOURCE:::: முனைவர் .சி.செல்லப்பாண்டியன், in http://www.dinamalar.com

Natarajan

Jan 30 2015

 

” Not Just For Laughs … “

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  • A statue of 'The Common Man' at Worli Sea Face, Mumbai
    The Hindu

    A statue of ‘The Common Man’ at Worli Sea Face, Mumbai

  • R. K. Laxman

    R. K. Laxman

Remembering R. K. Laxman, the compulsive doodler, who built a rapport with the common man through his works

R. K. Laxman, whose uncannily pertinent picture-statements brought a bit of cheer to our troubled lives, has left behind volumes of compressed complaints that will continue to speak for the common man.

For decades, R. K. Laxman kicked off a daily morning conversation with and among his readers through his delectable cartoons on the news of the day. Each was no more than a simple drawing telling a familiar story, but came infused with RKL’s wonderfully sad irony.

He gave the ever-suffering poor and the middle-classes — whose angst he understood very well — a representative, a witness, in the form of a caricatured “common-man”, whose presence made the accusations genuine and incontestable. “We know what is happening,” he said on our collective behalf. An exhibition, last year, of his 97 unpublished doodles at the Forum Art Gallery, Adyar, gave a glimpse of RKL’s genius at work.

Finding a compulsive doodler in him, his brother R. K. Srinivasan had handed him a large scrapbook when RKL visited him in Delhi in 1975. RKL doodled — on whatever they happened to be talking about. This went on till 1991. Restored with great care by techie G. S. Krishnan, they showed how these “spontaneous outpourings” — pictures and accompanying words — sparkled with Laxman’s calming wit. I saw in them his spot-on punch, his play on words (one had a large foot on an egg for ‘stand on one’s own egg’, another the phrase ‘female dear’), his sharp reading of news, his tongue-in-cheek scuttlebutt on politicos.

These were critiques without malice, carrying a child-like quality. “Not to be taken seriously” he said in one of them. A wacky set of inventions (a cyanide-infested banana and a knife) offered us help to get rid of “unwanted-but-important” people, a mechanical umbrella lifted a hapless office-goer above traffic jams. And there was the “nice, good, non-violent, pleasant-to-look-at crow” he loved to draw.

RKL was prolific and fortunately for us, had a long innings.

Among his gems, however, the ones on political figures carried the most telling lines and remain ageless in their relevance and topicality. You could fit them easily in the day’s context. Cartoons or doodles, RKL’s quizzical look invited you to laugh with him and share the funny angle he discovered in the human situation. His works form an enchanting potpourri, one that makes you look up and wonder: “OMG, how did he know what I was thinking?”

Keywords: R. K. Laxman, cartoonist death, Common Man, R. K. Laxman tribute

SOURCE::::: Geeta Padmanabhan in http://www.thehindu.com

Natarajan

Jan 28 2015

First Woman Officer Makes a Mark in Guard of Honour….

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Woman officer makes a mark in Guard of Honour

Pooja Thakur PTI

 A young Indian Air Force (IAF) officer, Wing Commander Pooja Thakur, created history on Sunday, becoming the first woman officer to lead a tri-services Guard of Honour in a small and impressive military ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Sunday morning. 

Pooja Thakur feels proud to lead Guard of Honour for Obama, says 'Officer first, woman later'

US President Barack Obama’s Cadillac “the Beast” was received at the gate of the Rashtrapati Bhavan by a cavalcade of the President’s Bodyguards dressed in bright red with contrasting blue turbans; they formed a ring around the presidential vehicle and escorted him to the forecourt.

A battalion of men from the Army, Air Force and Navy, led by Wg Cdr Thakur, gave the ceremonial Guard of Honour, after which Obama inspected them.

Commissioned in the IAF in 2001, Thakur is posted to the IAF’s publicity cell Disha, looking after the recruitment of officers. Daughter of a retired Army Colonel, she hails from Rajasthan.

“It is a proud moment for me to give the Guard of Honour to the world’s most powerful man. Right from our training days, we are treated just like male officers, so we are officers first and women later,” she said.

For the first time, the three services picked all-woman marching contingents for the Republic Day parade, in keeping with the theme of Nari Shakti (woman power).

SOURCE:::: Kalyan Ray in http://www.deccanherald.com   AND zeenewsindia.com

Natarajan

Jan 26 2015

Story of Rock Garden as Revealed by its Creator Nek Chand Who Has Turned 90 !!!…

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His statues have ended up in museums around the world. AFP PHOTO/NARINDER NANU.

His statues have ended up in museums around the world. AFP PHOTO/NARINDER NANU. Source: AFP

DEEP inside his massive garden of handmade waterfalls and sculptures, Nek Chand recalls toiling away secretly in the dead of night for a staggering 18 years to create his wonderland in north India.

Riding his bicycle after dark to a state-owned forest, Chand spent night after night clearing patches of ground and transforming the landscape into a majestic garden that would eventually cover eight hectares.

Waterfalls, gardens and sculptures dot the serene environment. Source: AFP/NARINDER NANU

Waterfalls, gardens and sculptures dot the serene environment. Source: AFP/NARINDER NANU Source: AFP

“I started building this garden as a hobby” in the 1950s, Chand told AFP in a rare interview on the eve of his 90th birthday on Monday.

“For 18 years nobody came to know. There was a forest here, who would come here and what for? There were no roads to come and go,” Chand said nostalgically, seated in the garden that has become a major tourist attraction, drawing thousands of visitors a day.

Indian visitors in the Rock Garden, built by self-taught Indian artist Nek Chand Saini ov

Indian visitors in the Rock Garden, built by self-taught Indian artist Nek Chand Saini over the course of 18 years AFP/NARINDER NANU. Source: AFP

After the deadly violence and upheaval of partition in 1947, India set about building a capital for Punjab state, carved out of a region that stretched across the border into newly formed Pakistan.

From the tonnes of building materials and rubbish that followed, Chand carefully collected what he considered gems while working as a lowly roads inspector in the upcoming Chandigarh city.

Pottery pieces, glass, tiles and even broken bathroom sinks were used to make sculptures of men and women, fairies and demons, elephants, monkeys and gods.

Pottery pieces, glass, tiles and broken household items wre used to create this wonderlan

Pottery pieces, glass, tiles and broken household items wre used to create this wonderland. AFP PHOTO/NARINDER NANU Source: AFP

“I had many ideas, I was thinking all the time. I began carrying all the material on my bicycle and collecting it here,” Chand said of his garden of mosaic pathways, hidden chambers and courtyards.

“I did three to four rounds on my cycle each day. I saw beauty and art in what people said was junk.”

‘Like reliving Willy Wonka’

When his secret was finally discovered in 1976, authorities threatened demolition, claiming Chand had violated strict land laws.

But an amazed public rallied behind him, leading to his appointment as head of the newly opened Rock Garden of Chandigarh.

Chand stepped up his creation of hundreds of sculptures — mostly made from broken household material and discarded personal items including electric sockets, switches, bangles and bicycle frames.

Riding his bicycle after dark to a state-owned forest, Chand spent night after night clea

Riding his bicycle after dark to a state-owned forest, Chand spent night after night clearing patches of ground and transforming the landscape into a majestic garden AFP/NARINDER NANU. Source: AFP

Some made of broken glass bangles show girls dancing, others of ceramic pieces depict men at a party pouring glasses of whiskey.

Ticket sales grew as word of the secret garden spread, with some 3,000 people from across the country and overseas now wandering through daily.

“It’s so amazing. It’s something like reliving Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” Jasmine Paul, a resident of Vancouver who was holidaying in India, told AFP.

“It is just like the fairy tales that you grow up reading.” With no formal education in art or sculpture, Chand drew inspiration from his childhood when he played near a river flowing through his village in what is now Muslim-majority Pakistan.

Sculptures made from discarded household items. AFP PHOTO/NARINDER NANU

Sculptures made from discarded household items. AFP PHOTO/NARINDER NANU Source: AFP

Chand and his family were forced to flee across the border during partition because they were Hindus, finally settling in Chandigarh, the shared capital of Punjab and Haryana states.

“That is why there is a childlike quality to the sculptures,” said Alan Cesarno, a British volunteer with the Nek Chand Foundation that was set up in 1997 to raise funds for the garden’s upkeep.

“When you look around you realise that it is actually a child’s version of a fantasy kingdom,” he told AFP standing next to one of the several waterfalls.

Self-taught Indian artist Nek Chand Saini on the eve of his 90th birthday. AFP PHOTO/NARI

Self-taught Indian artist Nek Chand Saini on the eve of his 90th birthday. AFP PHOTO/NARINDER NANU. Source: AFP

Conservation challenges

Chand’s statues have found their way into museums across the world, including at the National Children’s Museum in Washington, the American Folk Art Museum in New York and the RIBA gallery in Liverpool in 2007.

Back home, the garden is facing conservation challenges, including a lack of funds from the state government which takes the ticket sales, according to volunteers.

Vandalism has been reported more than once and enthusiastic visitors often climb or lean on the structures, damaging their fragile pieces.

“In a country known more for slums and garbage dumps, the rock garden stands as an exceptional example,” said Mani Dhillon, a volunteer involved in the garden’s upkeep.

“It is perhaps the only place of its kind in the entire world. The administration and the people must realise its importance, they must come forward and save it before it’s too late,” she told AFP.

Magical waterfalls enchant its visitors. AFP PHOTO/NARINDER NANU

Magical waterfalls enchant its visitors. AFP PHOTO/NARINDER NANU Source: AFP

While Chand still oversees the garden as its founding head with near daily visits, his age and failing eyesight mean he can no longer spend the long hours needed to create new sculptures.

He is however undaunted by the challenges facing his more than half a century’s work, saying he has faith in God from which he draws his strength.

“I am not scared of anything. Had I been scared, how would I have worked in the dead of the night in the jungle?”

SOURCE:::: http://www.news.com.au

Natarajan

Few Surprising Facts about the Fall of Berlin Wall …

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Nov. 9 marks the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the iconic barrier that completely enclosed East Berlin between 1961 and 1989 and symbolized the height of Cold War tensions.

West Berliners crowd in front of the Berlin Wall early

West Berliners crowd in front of the Berlin Wall Nov. 11, 1989, as they watch East German border guards demolish a section to open a crossing point. (Photo: Gerard Malie, AFP/Getty Images) 

 

Around the world, the international German community and others are marking the milestone with celebrations and shared memories. In Germany, artists have recreated the Wall with illuminated white balloons along the path that the structure once traced. The 8,000 balloons stretch more than nine miles across the city, according to the German embassy in London.

With the anniversary putting the Cold War fresh in most people’s minds, here are nine facts about the Berlin Wall that may be new to you:

• A mistake helped lead to the fall of the Wall. The flood of East Germans and West Germans to the Wall, which led to its ultimate collapse, came after East German Politburo member Guenther Schabowski on Nov. 9, 1989, mistakenly announced that East Germans would be allowed to cross into West Germany effective immediately, according to National Public Radio.

• What the world saw as the Berlin Wall was actually two concrete barriers with a 160-yard “death strip” in between that included watchtowers, trenches, runs for guard dogs, flood lights and trip-wire machine guns, according to History.com.

• Parts of the Wall are on display or in private safekeeping all over the world. One section of the Wall is in a men’s room of the Main Street Casino in Las Vegas, History.com reports. Urinals are mounted on the graffiti-covered segment, which is protected by glass. Another section is in the gardens of the Vatican. If you don’t feel like traveling to Italy or Vegas to see a part of the Wall, you can have your own little slice for as little as $10 on eBay. And you can consider that a steal; an 8,000-pound slab went for $23,500 at an Atlanta auction

• A mass exodus of East Germans into West Germany began almost 15 years before the Berlin Wall was erected in 1961. In fact, so many left that by the time the Wall went up, East Germany lost one-sixth of its population, according to the Berlin Wall Memorial website.

• The Wall and several U.S. presidents shared a relationship. President Kennedy visited in the summer of 1963, not long before his assassination that November. He said in a rousing speech that Berlin could help the world understand the divisions between the Communist and non-Communist world.

In 1987, Reagan challenged Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “Tear down this wall” during a June 1987 speech near the Wall.

When Clinton visited in 1994, he told the crowd of Berliners, “You have proved that no Wall can forever contain the mighty power of freedom.”

During President Obama’s June 2013 visit, he noted neither he nor German Chancellor Angela Merkel looked like their predecessors.

“The fact that we can stand here today, along the fault line where a city was divided, speaks to an eternal truth: No wall can stand against the yearning of justice, the yearnings for freedom, the yearnings for peace that burns in the human heart,” he said.

• The formal reunification of East and West Germany did not happen until Oct. 3, 1990, almost a year after the fall of the Wall, according to History.com.

• A July 1988 concert by Bruce Springsteen in East Berlin may have led to the growing sense of dissent in the walled city that contributed to the fall of the Wall, according to the CBC. “The Boss” told the crowd in German, “I’ve come to play rock ‘n’ roll for you in the hope that one day all the barriers will be torn down.”

Another in the U.S. music industry, conductor Leonard Bernstein, performed a series of concerts in venues on both sides of the barrier just weeks after the November 1989 fall of the Wall. Bernstein’s international orchestra included musicians from the four countries that had occupied Berlin after World War II: the United States, the former Soviet Union, France and England. Bernstein led Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and altered its final movement, “Ode to Joy,” to become “Ode to Freedom.”

• Some parts of the barrier became world famous. Checkpoint Charlie, formally known as Checkpoint C, was the nickname that Western Allies gave the best-known border crossing point between East and West Berlin.

Also, the Brandenburg Gate is an 18th-century arch that is built on the site of a former gate that marked the start of a road that led from Berlin to the town of Brandenburg. Because of its location, it was associated with the Berlin Wall for a time.

• The physical demolition of the Berlin Wall was not complete until 1992, according to the BBC.

SOURCE::::www.usatoday.com

Natarajan

 

Message For the Day…” What Is True Freedom …” ?

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In three situations, you do not have freedom: the discharge of duties (karthavyam), actions done under compulsion (nirbandham) and obligatory actions arising out of certain relationships (sambandham). If a poor man, unable to get food, resorts to stealing, he cannot claim that he is exercising his freedom to appease his hunger. Even if, for his own selfish reasons, he may try to justify the stealing, his conscience will tell him that he is committing wrong. Any action performed against one’s conscience is not an act of freedom. True freedom happens only when one is free from the impulses of the mind. Freedom (Swechcha) is made up of the words: Swa + ichcha. ‘Swa’ means Atma. Only when the will of the Atma prevails can there be real freedom. God and you are not separate. This oneness should not be a mere intellectual concept. It should be a living reality. Then you will experience true freedom – the freedom of the Spirit.   

Sathya Sai Baba

This Day …15 August…. That Year in 1947 ….@ Madras….

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The front page view of The Hindu, dated August 15, 1947.
The Hindu ArchivesThe front page view of The Hindu, dated August 15, 1947.

Deepa Alexander digs through editions of The Hindu of August 1947 and rediscovers the city’s first dawn of freedom

Celebrate with Nehru guns, Freedom sparklers and Ashoka wheels for Rs. 5,” advertised T.S. Abdeally and Bros.

P. Orr & Sons sold Vertex pocket watches for a special price of Rs. 65. Frank Capra’s classic, It’s A Wonderful Life, was playing at New Elphinstone. Madras Theatres celebrated with no shows “and a special bonus to staff”.

There is more than a century of information in The Hindu archives and it threatens to wash over me. The staff hefts the big blue file with August 1947 emblazoned on it, and turn the chemically-treated yellowing pages to the edition dated August 14.

“Quit India.” “Jai Hind.” “Satyameva Jayate”. “Vande Mataram.” A million rallying cries. Momentous though it was, the memory of our first Independence Day has faded with time although its emotional resonance never lost its glow. These pages are a chronicle of its people, hallowed by history, embellished by the celebration of our freedom struggle.

August 15, 1947 was also a Friday, like this year, a day of thundershowers according to the weather report in The Hindu, priced then at 2 annas.

Advertisements and announcements meld into the tale. Historical figures flit in and out of the pages. But the festivities in the city and across India began a day earlier, on August 14.

A page from the August 17, 1947 edition. Photo: The Hindu Archives

The music lined up for the eve of Independence included concerts by Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar at Gokhale Hall and organist Handel Manuel and a BBC violinist at St. Andrew’s Church. In an advertisement, Lady Colleen Nye, the Governor’s wife and patroness of the Madras Provincial Welfare FUND, urged citizens to proudly wear the National Flag.

At another level, the edition was pure political narrative. The editorial on page 4 urged France and Portugal to also “give up their colonial possessions in India”. The distribution of portfolios, the division of the Army between India and Pakistan and the renunciation of knighthoods and titles by S. Radhakrishnan, later the President, and R.K. Shanmukham Chetti, independent India’s first Finance Minister, crowded the pages.

At the same time, to celebrate the founding of Pakistan, a grand reception was accorded in Karachi to the Mountbattens “who flew down in their personal York”, even as fires raged in Lahore.

A BRIDGE TO THE PAST The Tricolour fluttering atop the flag mast at Fort St. George on August 15, 1947 was the first symbol of free India in Madras. Photo: V. Ganesan

Madras remained untouched by the epic spasms of the violence of Partition. Although prohibitory orders in the city “were to be enforced for bundobast”, radio sets were installed at various parks so that the public could listen to AIR broadcasting the assumption of power ceremonies, flag hoisting at India Gate, and poems by Hafeez Jullundhuri. In Mylapore, Rukmini Devi inaugurated the Fine Arts Society at Vivekananda College.

All through the evening and night, happy throngs of people visited places of worship, invoking the gods to bless their new nation. In a spirit of unity, people of all communities and castes wore the flag. “It is difficult to see even a single person without wearing a National Flag”, says an article. The Tricolour also fluttered atop almost every building in the city, Government or private, with the merchants of Madras taking the lead in illuminating the buildings.

On August 15, the newspaper brought out a free 20-page supplement, its cover page in the colours of the flag, with the words ‘Dominion of India’ proudly emblazoned. Inside was a collector’s edition of articles by eminent persons — ‘Birth of Great Asiatic Power’ by K.M. Munshi, ‘The Saga of the Nehrus’ by Krishna Huthee Singh and ‘Patriotism of India’s Press’ by Leonard W. Matters, the Australian-born London representative of The Hindu.

‘Free India is Born’, screamed the headline with the editorial ‘A Red Letter Day’ announcing “India enters the comity of free nations today, an equal among equals”. Texts of speeches by Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajendra Prasad ran alongside congratulatory messages from King George VI and other world leaders. While people in Delhi toasted the nation and the king, India Office, the seat of power for nearly a century, closed down unsung. Trains filled with refugees, the coaches smeared with taunts, were drawing in at stations in Punjab and Bengal.

The Chief Justice of Madras administering the Oath to H. E. Sir Archibald Edward Nye, the Governor of Madras, at the Secretariat, Fort St. George, on August 15, 1947. Photo: The Hindu Archives

Madras, however, heard the endless sweet echo of M.S. Subbulakshmi who performed on AIR that evening at 8. ‘Freedom’s Progress Through The Years’, a photographic journey of the most iconic moments of our struggle was published alongside advertisements by Bosotto HOTEL and Spencer and Co.

Independence brought freedom of a more visible nature to a whole category of people. Jail doors opened for many convicts who had been granted pardon. Many INA leaders were also released.

The celebrations of August 15 are reported in the August 17 edition: how trumpets that sundered the morning air when the Governor of Madras, Sir Archibald Nye, in a final burst of British pomp and glory, unfurled the Tricolour at Island Grounds; how O.P. Ramaswami Reddiar, Prime Minister (which was how the post of Chief Minister was then designated) hoisted the flag at Ripon Building, the headquarters of the Corporation, to cries of unrestrained happiness. This was after both were sworn into their new offices by the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court, Frederick Gentle. The swearing-in was held at Fort St. George, in the crowded Cabinet Room, photographers capturing the moment in a blitz of flashbulbs.

Horsemen in glistening jackets and GOLD sashes stood amidst the large crowds that streamed along the beachfront to Fort. St George, to gaze with pride at the Indian flag fluttering over the first fort of the British East India Company. It is a picture that holds pride of place in that edition.

On that page is the story of how the world map was redrawn one night. It’s a page that defines what India was, and is. It’s a page that defines us.

Keywords: The Hindu, India Independence, Independence Day, Fort. St George,

Source:::: The Hindu

Natarajan

Human….An Independence Day Short Film….

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Someone wiser than us once said that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. And this beautiful short film strives on it.

This terribly tiny tale of two strangers interacting on a deserted railway station during a mega block (where most trains remain suspended) has a very subtle message.

The moment we witness the main protagonist in a sleepy state, our twisted minds try to come to conclusions. Did the other guy spike his drink? Was he a thief? I knew it. And then..BANG, you lose. Because humanity just took you by surprise.

Brilliant…..

Source:::: You Tube and Story pick

Natarajan

 

 

 

 

 

Our National Anthem…Sung By the People , For the People…

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Jana gana mana…

The anthem that binds us together, the anthem that makes us get on our feet every time we hear it; not due to compulsion but due to respect and love for our country. It never fails to bring out the patriotism in all of us.

Being Indian came up with this beautiful video where our national anthem is sung by the people, for the people.

Happy Independence Day. 

Source::::You Tube and Storypick

Natarajan