But then, somewhere in that cheerful scene, you suddenly spot a child, drooling with excitement, holding a horn almost as long as he is tall. He puts it to his mouth and begins demonstrating such extraordinary vocal power that even the neighbourhood cats might decide to change their route. And a question inevitably crosses your mind. Did we win independence, or merely the freedom to make noise?
To be fair, there is nothing inherently wrong with a horn. They are children, they are happy, it is a celebration, let them enjoy themselves. But in our society, everything has a limit. And when it comes to Independence Day horns, perhaps even that limit has produced a father of its own.
The child takes his horn out in the morning. The same horn continues through the afternoon. Then comes evening, and if the horn has somehow survived, it receives the honour of his undivided attention at night as well.
Parents, too, probably look at their child and think, 'What a beautiful expression of patriotism'. Although, if that same horn were continuously blown beside the parents' ears for a few minutes, it is quite possible that all those patriotic feelings would suddenly begin to fade.
Perhaps we have developed a strange national principle: if we cannot tolerate something ourselves, we simply give it the respectable name of celebration when we inflict it on others.
Then there are our young men, who have taken the Independence Day celebration to an entirely different level.
Removing the silencer from a motorcycle seems to have become, in their minds, the final stage of patriotism the point at which no further evidence of love for the country is required.
When a motorcycle without a silencer takes to the road, its roar is so magnificent that someone sitting at a distance might reasonably assume that a major industrial accident has occurred somewhere nearby. But a few moments later, when a young man appears, waving a national flag and riding through the street amid all that noise, the mystery is solved. No, gentlemen. The nation is celebrating its independence.
The young man's face carries the expression of someone who has just returned victorious after capturing an enemy fortress. In reality, all he has accomplished is to inform fifty households in the neighbourhood that his motorcycle contains absolutely no such thing as a silencer.
The most amusing part of this entire spectacle is that the person making the noise never experiences his own noise as noise. He hears the roar of his motorcycle and calls it the sound of freedom.
Meanwhile, people like me perfectly patriotic citizens, of course are probably hurling all sorts of colourful curses in their hearts. Only in their hearts, mind you, lest the patriot hear them.
Never mind that someone might be sleeping. There may be a sick person in a house. A newborn baby may finally have fallen asleep. A labourer may have to wake up early to earn his daily bread. A student may have an examination the next morning.
To the young patriot, all of these matters apparently rank rather low against the national interest. He twists the accelerator, the motorcycle goes BAAANG BAAANG, and he disappears down the road.
Those left behind simply stare at one another for a few moments, trying to figure out what exactly they have just survived.
Then there is one-wheeling, another glorious feature of our Independence Day celebrations. Watching it sometimes makes you wonder whether our young people have assigned an unusually cheap price to their own lives.
Parents spend years raising their children with prayers, hard work, sacrifice and love. And then, one day, that very child lifts the front wheel of a motorcycle into the air to prove that the country is now free, and therefore common sense deserves a few hours of freedom too.
People standing along the roadside hold their breath as they watch the spectacle. The young man, meanwhile, wears the triumphant smile of a conqueror.
Perhaps it does not occur to him that a few seconds of this so-called bravery could leave his parents with a lifetime of mourning.
What kind of celebration requires you to gamble with your own life? And then there is aerial firing, another cherished component of our national celebration culture.
A wedding? Fire a gun.
A son is born? Fire a gun.
Your cricket team wins a match? Fire a gun.
Independence Day? Naturally, fire a gun.
For some people, apparently, happiness remains incomplete until a firearm has also been given its share of the celebration. The bullet fired into the air, however, does not know whose house is below it, whose roof it will come down on, or whose child happens to be playing outside.
It simply returns to the ground. And sometimes it turns a celebration into mourning a possibility the person firing it may never have imagined.
Firecrackers and excessively loud music are further links in the same chain. Perhaps it will take us a little longer to understand that there is a very thin line between collective happiness and collective suffering.
If listening to a national song at midnight fills you with joy, wonderful. But if someone in the neighbouring house is sick and desperately trying to sleep at that very moment, your happiness has become someone else's misery.
So yes, celebrate. By all means, celebrate. This country does not belong to one class, one generation or one group. It belongs to all of us. And therefore, the joy of its independence should belong to everyone as well.
But the beauty of a celebration survives only when it is accompanied by a little civility. Flying the national flag is love. Singing national songs is love. Teaching children about the country's history is love. Keeping our cities clean is love.
And caring about the peace and comfort of our fellow citizens is also a form of love. Simply because you are happy does not mean an entire neighbourhood must pay the price for your happiness.
Written by: Hamid Lal
Note: The views expressed by the blogger are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of the institution. — Editor
