The little child

Dancing freely in the sunlight

A tricolour badge pinned to her frock

her hair floats in the light breeze

scented with the sweet musk of the festivities

She spots another child

walking down the street

He wears tattered clothes

and his scarred brown hands hold

a few dusty limp balloons 

itching to fly away, to fly free.

Her young mind races,

Why isn't he dancing with the others?

Letting his fears melt away?

Why does he seem so tense and stiff ?

so stuck between the crowd?

Suddenly his steps halt

and he picks up something from the ground

A small and dirty stepped-on flag

He looks carefully around

Almost waiting for someone to chastise him

for taking what could never be his

but upon realising  his loneliness in the flock

He wipes it clumsily on his clothes

and finally smiles

at the familiar tangerine, milky and lime

gazing hopefully up at him

Holding the flag tight in his hands

he walks on

until  he is, but a little dot, in a world far away

He still may not have danced with the crowd

but at least he had a new spring in his step

That little girl was me about 11 years ago. I still don't know what my patriotism is. I am not brave enough to stand tall and protect my country's borders or even to don a white coat and risk my own life to save the ailing. But somehow I can't stop wondering, would things have been different if  that day,  I had been brave enough to give my own little tricolour to the poor sickly boy when I saw that he had none?

This Independence day, ask yourselves, what is YOUR patriotism? Because I truly believe it is more than just looking up to a flag and singing the national anthem on the 15th day of the Eighth month each and every year.