How to be a patriot.

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As I watch a school principal deliver an impassioned speech, on ‘doing our bit for India and taking India to highest of loftiest heights’, to her rather bewildered students, I only have one question – How??
I like Guidelines and things like ’10 easy steps to…’ articles.  So in an attempt to create a ‘Guide to be a Patriot’, I gathered data. India is too big so I reflected on how people around me, are doing their bit - to get Delhi freedom from it’s biggest threat – pollution/ecological damage. 



And I categorised these under the following:
1.       Patriotic Activity Type 1: Public Transport/Cycling. Because there is no fun polluting the air that you are breathing, all intelligent people use the Metro or cycle or at least, car pool. I know those who go to great lengths (literally) to use the metro – change trains, take e-autos to the station, and end up paying as much as fuel would have cost. The super cool ones cycle.  
2.       Patriotic Activity Type 2: Trees/ecology. Green is cool – so much so that you don’t need A/C! I see those who diligently plant trees, protect them, climb them and talk knowledgeably about them so that others can love them as much as they do.
3.       Patriotic Activity Type 3: Saving Resources. There is enough for everyone’s need, not for their greed – only fair that we quote the Father of the Nation on Independence Day. We had used up the resources that were meant to be used for the whole year, in August beginning this year. I am proud to know those who take/buy/serve themselves only the bare minimum that they ‘need’. They switch off, reuse, conserve.
4.       Patriotic Activity Type 4: No chemical/eco-contaminants. An increasing number around me have gone vegetarian and ultra cool ones, vegan. Most of my friends are anti-chemicals rather than anti-ageing creams, and believe me, they look infinitely younger than the anti-aged ones! There is a lot of innovative stuff like ‘baking soda-vinegar’ combinations being used instead of detergents. Whole lot of ‘Tulsi/Turmeric’ therapies rather than chemicals in plastic bottles.

Delhi is full of such patriots – we are cool like that. But there are also many traitors, who flout all or some of the above rules of patriotism and it’s useless to dwell on them. While I watch helplessly as a diesel-guzzling SUV owner rolls down a window and throws a plastic packet of chemical laden processed food onto the road, I can only feel sorry. That s/he doesn’t have the brain to realize that s/he is also living (and quickly dying) in the poison that s/he is actively creating.



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