Just when everyone wants to hide their age we as a nation are proud to celebrate our 63rd birthday! Happy birthday, free India, happy independence day, fellow countrymen! Internationally we have been able to position ourselves as a competent nation, as an emerging superpower but to me it looks like our leadership has taken the meaning of superpower literally and in a different direction completely. To them it means once in power you become SUPER… What am I getting at? Well, it’s like this. It is “disgusting” if I may use the word to see our politicians and their supporters taking politics to terrible levels…when your opponent doesn’t listen to you or agree with your viewpoint they behave like hooligans. Throw the first thing they can lay their hands on, hurl the chair next and if nothing else take the mike (the person speaking on) home! Non-stop tamasha. What happened yesterday when a shoe found itself aimed at J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah and we got to see the visuals on TV, many questions crossed my mind. Is this also PDP generated or are those Omar’s supporters’ tactics to garner sympathy and is the shoe made in Agra? Kashmir holds a special place in my heart as have spent a large part of my childhood there. As my mother is a Kashmiri, it was customary to go to ‘naani ke ghar’ in summer holidays year after year after year but the party ended for me in 1989 when the yearly sojourn was discontinued and what remained were just memories. I just loved the place. I still do. I am Kashmir-proud and so last year after 20 years I went back and boy was it fun! What was it I can’t express in words! Touching down at Srinagar airport. Four days that I was there I did all that I always did. Dal lake, a stay in the shikara, a day trip to Gulmarg loitering on the boulevard, shopping downtown and suddenly something happened I had not experienced ever before, I was stuck in cross firing! But oblivious of the situation around me I went about doing my business and shopping as my auto driver was taking me around and since he called me his ‘sister’, my security was of paramount importance to him, so I shopped for silver jewellery (my weakness) without care and safely returned home and lived to tell the tale! Not to forget, the guy was a Muslim and unknown to me. So the point is who is fighting whom? Because people aren’t fighting people! It’s the ruling government and the opposition party or vice versa. Regular people are really done with this mayhem and want an end to it! What’s the solution? I know it isn’t simple but surely calls for very strict action, so strict that it could cost political parties governance rights at state and national level. But what has got to be done has to be done. Accepting line of control as an international border, tough crackdown on militant organizations, removal of Article 370 from J&K…something’s gotta give and give it NOW. Every citizen of this country deserves to live with freewill in the right environment, enjoy their freedom without costing others theirs! But the question still remains: was the shoe really made in Agra? Disclaimer: the views expressed in this column are those of the author and TellyChakkar does not necessarily subscribe to the same.