Many countries line up to greet the young seventy-seven-year-old, " Happy Birthday India!" says China, "May you become as great a super power as I am!"
"I already am," smiles India, "with a billion and quarter people who can think what they want, say what they’d like to and not get butchered in Tiananmen Square when trying to express themselves! I am a super power!"
"May your rulers rule long!" sniggers Bangladesh.
"Ah," smiles India indulgently, "they rule as long as my people wish them too, not like yours, overthrown by a treacherous army and college students."
Tibet who has been standing behind goes up to India, "I wish you peace my friend!"
"Thank you," says India hugging the bleeding country, "I wish you the same; that you be allowed to get back the freedom you deserve, that the great dragon bully who crushes your people will be thrown out and your Dalai Lama may return."
"But there is bloodshed in your country!" cries Burma, "People are lynched and raped!"
"But," whispers the young seventy-seven-year-old, "I have courts not guns. A constitution, not military law, and even if these courts take time, they bring justice to all!"
"Happy Birthday India," shouts the confident voice of the USA, "Didn’t see any gold medals won at the Olympics though!"
"Ah no Mr America, we're too busy winning with IT and software and gearing up to beat your economy in a decade or two!"
"You have a million soldiers," says Russia after greeting India, "Send some over, we'll pay you good money."
"Ah no, bringing down legitimate governments is not our cup of tea Putin, even if you gift us an aircraft carrier free!"
And then near the birthday party, two men, long dead, walk together. One with a cigar stuck in an arrogant, determined bulldog face, the other, bespectacled, with only a loin cloth and walking stick, keeps abreast.
“Look at the countries around,” says Churchill with a smirk, “at China, Korea, Malaysia, they have progressed far more than your people have.”
Gandhiji smiles, “My people are free, their minds unshackled!”
“And that?” asked Churchill pointing down, “Lynching and love jihad gangs?”
A tear rolls down the eye of the Father of The Nation. “As much as freedom moulds heroes, so also does it breed bullies,” he says slowly, “but the heroes we have are men of valour who when they take on the bullies will finally win like I did for the country. Men of courage are slowly being fashioned and they are slowly being heard. The freedom I won for them gives them courage to speak.”
The national anthem is played. The Mahatma shouts ‘Jai Hind,” as he clearly hears next to him, the Englishman doing the same, and he smiles for a country he loved..!
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