The Gandhi effect
It was 1946, and I was in the fifth standard. I heard Gandhi was to speak in Palani. I boarded a train without telling my parents and reached Palani. Easily, 10,000 people must have been there. All of them were shouting and talking at the same time. Then Gandhi rose to speak. ‘Bhaiyyon aur behnon,’ he began, and lifted a finger to his lips. There was pin drop silence. That is where I learnt first hand the magnetism of this man. On Independence Day, the following year, it was like a thiruvizha. People strode around with the Indian flag in their hands, and mithai was distributed. When I was in college, I had the opportunity to see and hear Nehru, near St Joseph’s Convent on Trichy Road. He began by saying: ‘You speak Tamil. Forgive me for not knowing Tamil. I speak Hindi, which you may not understand. So please permit me to speak in English.’ He spoke so beautifully.
Dr. Pa Kuppusami, legal practitioner and Gandhian
A nation is born
As a 12-year-old in 1947, I was old enough to realise that the excited crowds at Delhi’s Red Fort were celebrating a momentous occasion. I was too young to experience any thrill beyond collecting as many paper flags as I could that day. While subsequent memories have somewhat dimmed, the date 15th August is too deeply etched to be forgotten. In university, I recall a small group of us from Hindu College gathering at the canteen and excitedly discussing our future career options. We seldom talked of politics, but linked the industrial and social progress being made in the country to our future prospects. I was in Kolkata one year where I mingled with flag-waving crowds on the Maidan, Coimbatore the next, then Nyoma, Leh… I am fortunate to have witnessed every Independence Day from the historic first. To have celebrated them at diverse locations is to celebrate the very diversity of India. Today, I am reassured of the future when my wife hoists the tri-colour at the small play group she runs for two-and-a-half-year-olds and they loudly sing the National Anthem ending with a lusty ‘Jai Hind’.
Veteran Air Cmde Minoo Vania
Riding high on patriotism
My father took me to Red Fort in the early 60s, when I was 13 or 14 years old. What I remember most about that day was that there were no security checks, frisking, nothing.
Nehru was there. He was a broken man after the Indo-China debacle. Yet, as he spoke, there was hope and pride in the air.
There were flags everywhere. I preserved the flag, many of us did. May be, that experience motivated me to join the army. The memory of my father taking me, the exhilarating feeling of being a patriotic Indian, not clouded by knowledge and fear of terror and other threats is what I still remember, even 50 odd years later.
Veteran Col A. Sridharan
A day to remember
August 15, 1985 was a Thursday. I was in Kumbhirgram (Assam). Even on National holidays there was always a standby crew, ready to fly in case of any emergency. It was my turn and that of Pilot Officer Iqbal Singh Chahal to be detailed that Independence Day. It meant staying near a phone and no bara khana.
We received an urgent message from the Military Hospital – about 30 km away at Masimpur – that a ‘dangerously ill’ army jawan had to be evacuated to the better equipped Military Hospital in Gauhati (now Guhawati), 190 km away. In less than an hour, we had flown the stretcher-borne jawan to hospital. Hopefully, he got a new lease of life. For us, it was a routine day. In my Air Force career, this was the only Independence Day when I was tasked — a satisfying one at that!
Veteran Wg Cdr R.R. Srinivasan
The sacrifices they made
They were inspiring times. I have watched and heard Sarojini Naidu and Padmaja Naidu, besides others. My mother was the secretary of the All India Women’s Conference, and she would haul us along for any meeting.
I also vividly remember accompanying the ashes of Gandhi to be immersed in the sea. It was so hot, and we were barefoot as we walked on the scalding Marina beach.
Earlier, during one of Gandhi’s addresses, an old lady kept fending people off saying, ‘Don’t touch me, I am a Brahmin!’ The incongruity of the situation struck me then, and even now.
We wore khadi saris those days and they were not so fine. They felt coarse and heavy and uncomfortable to the skin. But we did not mind as we were in excellent company.
I recollect speaking to school students about the freedom movement. I chose to tell them about Andaman Islands that I had visited some years ago. I saw the terrible, terrible evidence of how prisoners were treated. They were incarcerated in small cells, wore clothes made out of jute bags, ate out of rusty iron plates. And, of course, they were massacred. I described this in graphic detail to the children. They told me they could almost feel the courage and valour of these great souls who sacrificed themselves for the nation.
Dr. Sulochana Shekar, 85, retired as the joint director of Lady Willingdon College of Education, Chennai.
