Writing the previous post made me sit back and think about what made me develop such strong feelings for the national flag, national anthem, etc. I can never tolerate seeing people sitting and listening to National Anthem. Mind you, I am not saying that those people are not patriotic or anything like that. It’s just that I can never sit when I listen to National Anthem. That’s all.
During my training days at work, one forward that was doing the rounds was a baby singing the National Anthem. Many were listening to it on speakers sitting comfortably on their chairs. When I asked those sitting near me to stand up while listening to the Anthem, they didn’t do it. They laughed saying this was just a baby singing it and they were lost in the beauty of the kuzhandhayin mazhalai. I asked them to at least listen to it on their headphones and when that too didn’t happen, besides, how many people can I go and tell in a class of 100+, I left the classroom. I am once again clarifying myself here that I am not saying that what those people did was wrong. It is of course, the individual’s wish to do what they want to. I left the place since what happened there was something that I wouldn’t be doing.
These days, all the TV channels keep playing the National Anthem very often during the days preceding the Independence Day or Republic Day and I immediately stand up when I hear the National Anthem. Or I just change the channel.
I remember buying A.R.Rahman’s ‘Jana Gana Mana’ album only in 2002 or 2003 even though it was released earlier than that. But I am yet to listen to the full album till today! Till now, whenever I have listened to it, I have listened to only one or two versions at a time since for one, I obviously wouldn’t want to stand continuously during the entire duration of the album and besides, I don’t consider it to be just a soulful piece of music like the other songs that I listen to for time pass or relaxation or pleasure or whatever. And that was the reason why I didn’t even buy the ‘Jana Gana Mana’ DVD that was released in 2007.
At that time, I was wondering about why I was alone making a big deal out of it when there are many who are able to listen to the Anthem while sitting. That’s when I read Baradwaj Rangan’s post on it. Quoting from his post,
“Think of the anthem not as an intimidating expression of patriotism so much as an intimate outpouring of passion. (And what is patriotism if not some form of passion?) Think of it as a love song to a beloved nation, a devotional chant to a sacred entity, even a musical meditation on one’s motherland – and you’ll find that sitting down may be completely appropriate, perhaps even necessary to deal with the emotions that wash over you when DK Pattammal, in that singularly brassy timbre that has coloured so many patriotic songs in the past, launches into her clarion call of Jaya he, Jaya he, Jaye he.”
Wow! When I read his post, I thought that there couldn’t have been a better way of looking at the National Anthem than what he had written! And after that, I did try to listen to the Anthem while sitting. But, I wasn’t able to. Why was I not able to?
So here I am back in an attempt to figure out the answer to the question that I was pondering about in this beginning of this post. What was it that started making me feel so strongly about the National Flag & National Anthem? Of course, we were all taught in school that we should stand in attention while singing/listening to the National Anthem and that’s where it would have obviously started.
Yet, looking back, I think I would attribute it all to the effect that reading about the freedom struggle and the great leaders and freedom fighters who even lost their lives while trying to get back our lost Independence, had on me during my school days. Though the visual medium was there too and some movies and serials like ‘Yug’ did leave an impression on me, still it didn’t influence as much as the writings did during my school days.
But my reading wasn’t restricted to what I read in the History books at school alone. Anybody who wrote the Hindi Prachar Sabha exams will remember that there were lots of prose and poetry related to our freedom struggle that we had to study for those exams. I remember how much the struggles and sufferings that each of the freedom fighters underwent used to affect me. Reading about the thousands of innocent lives that were lost in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre or about Bhagat Singh, Chandrasekhar Azad, Netaji, etc. or about ‘koDi kaattha’ Kumaran who didn’t lose his grip on the National flag even when he was being beaten to death, etc., etc. – all these affected me so much. The respect which the freedom fighters gave to the National Flag and the National Anthem wasn’t lost on me either. I guess over a period of time, I had subconsciously developed such strong feelings about our national anthem and national flag.
Today, the feeling is so deep-rooted in my mind that I cannot imagine myself not involuntarily standing up every time I listen to the national anthem or not giving the national flag the respect that I feel it deserves!
Salute to your patriotism and respect towards national flag and anthem !
Ditto to that. I always stand when listening to the National Anthem!
Again, my weird mood continues.
Suppose we were not taught to stand during the national anthem. Would you have still stood up?
You were not able to listen to the anthem because you couldn’t stand up when it was on TV, and ended up changing the channel. Now whom did that help?
And about your colleagues, isn’t they playing music on speakers thus disturbing everybody else the main problem?
Thats nicely written on an interesting topic. Fully agree with you on all points. I, ofr one, cannot think of sitting down when the national anthem is played. Prachar Sabha exams – yet again nostalgic 🙂 Yes, those had quite a few inspiring patriotic stories.
To me, patriotism, as is said above, is very much an emotion. As for a question raised above : whether somebody would stand if not taught to, well, to me, the question is analogous to asking if we would laugh when we are happy if we we were not taught to. Well, standing is just a ‘letting out’ of patriotic emotions to me.
Again a nice take, Aparna.
Sathej
@sathej,
how is that analogous?
Firstly, sorry Aparna for using your space to ansdwer questions.
@Puranjoy,
I called that analogous because to me, the spontaneity of how I laugh or cry when we am happy or sad is the same as how I stand up when the anthem is played. It is a spontaneous display of emotion and doesn’t need to be taught, as for me. Patriotism is an emotion and giving respect to the flag is part of the emotion and this is my personal way of how I address that emotion. I really don’t think anybody needed to teach me that I ‘had’ to stand up. Further, to me, in an office atmosphere, the fact that you have said ‘disturbing others’ is the main problem doesn’t quite gel with me. Yes, disturbing ‘others’ might be a problem. That has to be addressed by ‘others’ and possibly the management. But to me, such a scenario would pose more of a problem as experienced by Aparna and not a ‘distraction.’
I guess I’ve explained quite a bit on this issue. Maybe, I’ll come up with a post on this myself sometime to discuss anything further as it doesn’t feel quite right to use this space to exhange personal discussions leaving the poster out! 🙂
Sathej
I have to agree with Puranjoy. Patriotism may or may not be a particularly meaningful emotion, I believe our actions speak louder than words.
Sorry to be blunt, but this is another kind of “ism”. Any number of people professing love for the nation/truckers putting up notices saying “Mera Bharat Mahan” does not do much for the nation or make it so. What does so are the efforts of the hundreds of hard-working souls/fighting soldiers doing their duty without having armchair discussions as to whether they should sit or stand or crawl upon hearing the national anthem.
I disagree with the implied sentiments though explicitly disavowed – as they say, if you have to say “To be honest with you” – well then you probably are not honest or at least at other times you are not.
Sami,
Your views on the topic?
Divya,
Oh. Welcome to my blog! 🙂
Puranjoy,
>> Suppose we were not taught
But we were taught. So I can’t answer that question
>> You were not able to listen to the anthem because you couldn’t stand up when it was on TV, and ended up changing the channel.
Nope it’s not because of I couldn’t stand up. As I have said in the post, I don’t consider it to be just some song that I like to listen to. So listening to it once every few minutes is well not my preference.
>>isn’t they playing music on speakers thus disturbing everybody else the main problem?
Yup. I wouldn’t even have known what they were listening to had they used their head phones.
Sathej,
Thank you.
Ramesh,
Welcome to my blog!
All I have written here is the way I express my respect for the national anthem. Neither have I commented on what one should or should not do while listening to the anthem nor have I said that just because I stand up while listening to the anthem, I am doing something great for the country. The respect that I have for the Army men is the same as that I have for my country. I know I will not be able to sit here happily and write this post but for those men who sacrifice everything for our country.
@aparna,
standing up if not taught–that was meant as a thought experiment. Come on Aparna, you with your vivid imagination should be able to think well beyond your experiences and feel something new. In fact, that’s the power of us humans, and those good at imagination excel at it.
tv channel changing–do you think the fact that you don’t listen to it as a timepass song has something to do with the extra effort involved in listening to it? For some that might be the case, I don’t think that’s with you though. I guess your case has to do more with the fact that you attach extra importance to it, and perhaps feel it would be trivialized if you listened to the national anthem like other songs. However, the thought experiment part was, wouldn’t more people on average listen to the anthem if there was no guilt attached with listening to it sitting down? (vide, you had to walk out of the office when it was no longer feasible to stand up whenever it was played) My assumption here is that more people listening to the anthem is a more desirable state of affairs than a few people listening to it standing up–I might be wrong.
And now, with your permission(courtesy a previous post where you kind of had given me permission to carry on a discussion with someone else, probably Sathej himself!), I’ll write a few words to Sathej. Till you explicitly say something against it, I’ll write a few words here and there 🙂
@sathej,
Sorry about the misunderstanding. I interpreted your comment as , “In my opinion, standing up during the national anthem is analogous to laughing when happy”. While you actually meant, “I, Sathej, feel like standing up when listening to the anthem the same way I feel like laughing when I am happy”.
I hope I clarified the source of the confusion. I thought you were making a value judgment and presenting what you consider to be a general thought while you were clearly stating your personal feelings.
Looking forward to that post of yours!
@Aparna,
Finally, I am sure you don’t mind these long comments ;). You know, you just have to say the word.
And oh where are my manners! Aparna, you are most welcome to join the conversation between Sathej and me, in which case we can continue right here 😀
@Puranjoy,
Yes, I was precisely stating only my personal feelings. I almost never make value judgements and write on general thoughts, as to me, nothing of that sort exists.
Sathej
Puranjoy,
>>you attach extra importance to it, and perhaps feel it would be trivialized if you listened to the national anthem like other songs.
I don’t know but maybe you are right about that.
>>wouldn’t more people on average listen to the anthem if there was no guilt attached with listening to it sitting down?
But aren’t many people already listening to it? Anyway let others answer this question of yours. I have no idea 😛
Btw, why don’t you tell me what you do? I mean do you always stand up while listening to the national anthem? You are discussing so much about it here and yet you are not saying what you do? With the national anthem being written in your mother tongue, don’t you feel any special attachment to it? Am all ears to hear what you have to say about this 😉
>>I am sure you don’t mind these long comments
Oh yes I don’t!
>>with your permission
The discussion already seems to have ended without me giving my permission. 😛 Just kidding
>>you are most welcome to join the conversation
I am not interested 😛
@aparna,
Alright, I also promise a post on this. BTW, this “I have no idea” refrain is not good; how about thinking and telling what you THINK might happen?
Hey Aparna,
Just happened to bump into your blog while looking for some carnatic blogs.
I go through exactly the same thing as you do when I listen to the National Anthem, you have put it so well in words!!
More often than not I tend to have moist eyes when I listen to the Anthem and at times I try avoid listening because I invariably end up in tears………strange thing, I wonder if that happened to anyone. Well…does it mean you are not patriotic because you are trying to avoid it? At least for some people it has a special place in the heart and it creates that special feeling every time you hear it……..
This led me to look up for what GOI has to say about the Anthem and you might want to have a look at this
http://india.gov.in/images/new_orders.pdf
Cheers!
Vinay
Puranjoy,
I THOUGHT about it and I guess you are right. Looking forward to reading your post!
Vinay,
Welcome to my blog! Oh wow! Thanks for the link.
As I recently watched July 4th fireworks here with my kids, I am trying to contrast different ways the emotions are expressed in eastern and western cultures. There is no doubt there is reverence as well as celebration in both the cutltures. However, in eastern cutlture we give more importance to external posture. This is taught to us from early on. The way we sit in front of elders, standing up when teacher arrives, praying to God, etc. For all of these, external posture is very important in our culture. In western cutlture, it seems they care more about what is inside than how it is expressed externally. I saw people were lying down watching fireworks, while the car stereos blasting the national anthem. I have seen in american churches, people drinking coffee, eating snacks while the pastor is teaching. I have never seen that in India.
I am not saying that importance to external posture is totally absent in western cutlure, but compared to eatern cutlture it is not given such importance. It is not used as an indicator of reverence, repect, piety, etc as we do it in our culture.
I think we should respond to the freedom we enjoy with both reverence and celebration. What is the point of having freedom, if we are not free to express in anyway we want?(ofcourse within the leagal limits) Why do we need to bother ourselves with external postures (rituals) where it is not required? At the same time one could ask “If someone really have reverence, will it not show up in external expression?” Yes!. But the questions is what kind of external expression would you consider right? Action (doing something) is also one of the external expressions. Can we equate action with posture? Is posture an action? Is not posture more of passive expression than active expression? Why do we still need to give importance to this passive mode of expressing one reverence, respect and piety?
As the world flattens more and more, we see some adoption of western cutlture into eastern and vice versa. It is not entirely bad. The tension is in picking the good and leaving the bad, and deciding what is good and what is bad. I think what you are experiencing is this tension. The reason why I am saying is, deep down you feel it is not right to sit when national anthem is played. If it is not right for you then it cannot be right for others too. Can it be? If it is right, then one should reconcile to the fact that there are different ways to express one’s reverence. I cannot change your way of thinking, but invite you to consider the possibility that it could be a liberating experience when you detach predefined external expressions from what is really inside in heart.
I admire your reverece for our country, but my question is why do you restrict yourself to the thinking that the passive way of expressing the reverence is superior to the other ways expressed actively in composing/singing/broadcasting the national anthem?
I know you clearly mentioned in your blog, you did not think what others were doing was wrong. But, you clearly thought you were wrong if you did the same. How could it be? Is it not a contradiction!!!
naane,
Those were interesting observations about the importance of posture in eastern and western cultures.
>> Can we equate action with posture? Is posture an action? Is not posture more of passive expression than active expression?
Isn’t getting into a particular posture spontaneously, an action?
Coming to your last 3 paras, the question here is not about whether what I or others do is right or wrong. Reread the post and you will find that the crux of the post is why I am not able to listen to the national anthem without standing up. I have written that I even tried to listen to the National Anthem without standing up. If I thought it was wrong to do that, why would I even have tried?
>> why do you restrict yourself to the thinking that the passive way of expressing the reverence is superior to the other ways expressed actively in composing/singing/broadcasting the national anthem?
Where have I said what I do is superior to other ways? You have only said ‘What is the point of having freedom, if we are not free to express in anyway we want?’ And that is exactly what I am doing. Expressing it the way I want to.
OK. cool 🙂
what troubled me were the following comments made by you,
“I can never tolerate seeing people sitting and listening to National Anthem”
“I left the place since what happened there was something that I wouldn’t be doing.”
“I just change the channel”
“I didn’t even buy the ‘Jana Gana Mana’ DVD that was released in 2007.”
“The respect which the freedom fighters gave to the National Flag and the National Anthem wasn’t lost on me either”
anyway just wanted to give my view…thats all!!! Its good that not everyone view things in the same way…otherwise life will not be interesting…:)
>”I had subconsciously developed such strong feelings about our national anthem and national flag.”
I am a skeptic of all these “subconcious” development… I know you have used this for a good reason. But, I have seen people use it as if they don’t have any control over what they have developed subconciously during childhood…I like to think of myself as one who have concious control over what I do, than subconciously controlled/programmed neurons in my brain :))
naane,
I never knew what I write will be dissected like this 😛
How is this for the national anthem!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GT42jMdgZo