Right now, when I am writing this, I'm in a de facto general coach of an express train. Yaha paav rakhne tak ki jagah nhi hai (There’s not even space to set foot here), and when I'm saying this, I mean it. I was holding my pee for quite a while now, but when I could not hold on anymore, I had to go down, and there I saw people everywhere, no space to put my foot. Somehow I manage, yelling at them, thinking How are you travelling like this? But at the core of me, only I know how I feel while saying this, and I know why they are travelling like this. When you live in a country where poverty is every next door yeah ofcourse unless you live in posh society or colony. How can they travel in a sleeper class which will cost them 350-400. Maybe this is not even their daily earning; they only learned one thing very well, that is to tolerate pain (tear comes out of my eye), they have been trained to tolerate since they were born into this country. They are born to die an undignified death in a stampede, derailment, or floods. Tomorrow is Independence Day. But will we ever get independence from the poverty, inequality, and this pain that these people have been bearing since their birth? Whenever I travel like this, all the optimism inside me dies an excruciating death, but whenever I hear a national anthem, my body comes to life and shivers and gets goosebumps, I'm confused now whether it was pride or fear that someone has slapped me so hard on my face that my whole body shivered. I'm confused. Kis muh se kahu, Happy Independence Day?

P.S. Aur kuch vote chori karke bas power mein bane rehna chahte hai.