This is going to be one hell of a cynical and boring piece. Read at your own risk.

Is it the 59th year running that we have become Independent? Well what did I do to gain this "Independence"? Independence from what? What has changed? Instead of another country screwing us, we are screwing ourselves! What's the big difference? Instead of our people being exploited by the RAJ, our own brethren our exploiting some of the others! Sounds like Rang De Basanti?

May Be! I heard a cliche somewhere "With great power comes great responsibility!"

Who has the power and who should be reponsible? We are a democracy and have the right to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea! Is that freedom? We still have cadavers of the RAJ in most of the government functioning and the bureaucracy is stifling if not strangling!

Neighbours are killing our masses in the name of freedom struggles what we call terrorism and we are stoically making speeches! Inflamatory! So be it! We have become a buch of eunuchs! I am sure their kind will feel insulted on being compared with us. I guess they are better, because thay have nothing to lose and have more courage than us, so called ....

If we call ourselves a sovereign then why is it that we need to negotiate with others to fix an internal problem?

If we call ourselves Republic, the only reason I see is that all our state secrets are known to the common public of other countries. The "re" is for repeated, I guess.

We gave ourselves a constitution which is about the ripe age for retirement! We claim equal opportunity and enforce laws for reservation. We are in the habit of assuaging for the sins of our forefathers or is it just political greed?

Blasts in Mumbai not once but twice! 1993 & 2006! What have we done? ZILCH.

Hezbollah captures 2 soldiers and Israel sacrifices 90 soldiers to gain their release in a month long invasion of Lebanon. We sacrifice hundreds of innocents to save a bunch of jokers!

Kargil! Outcome? ZILCH! Handshakes with the perpetrator and competition to vie the favours from Big Brother!

I am sorry, I find nothing to be happy about this Independence day!

I am part of the system and am equally responsible for the state of affairs today. Since I am guilty too, I shall keep quiet and smile and wish everyone a "Happy Independence Day" knowing within, that I am escaping from the fact that we need to confront our inability to change things!