What is the Color of your Topi?

What is the color of your Topi


From being the symbol of simplicity, austerity and piousness,


the topi has taken many colors, many hues.


Starting from the Gandhi topi -


worn by the father of the nation as a symbol of resistance to the imperial brutality - a white khaki topi.


It was associated to cultural pride, self-reliance and solidarity with India's rural masses.


Later on the cap was made more popular by Nehru and other politicians,


that is when it took the shape of being a symbol of political activism and being a politician.


Recently, It got a new birth, in a new avatar as the white cap by Anna, where it found a new meaning: of standing up to claim our own right against the corrupt sarkari Imperial.


Since then the simple cap has taken many turns and many colors.


First, what looked like a simple copy paste by the AAP, eventually turned out to be a political turn.


Looks like the topi cannot stay away from political agenda.


Seeing the popularity and value of the symbols it brought in, other parties could not stay away.


We have the Red cap of the Samajwadi Party.


The Saffron cap of the BJP


Blue cap of BSP


And then of course, there is the much debated skull cap.


It is not uncommon to see common men wearing these multi-colored topis to show solidarity of the party they support.


The emotional ploy has worked!


Are all these topis a way of putting topi on the emotions of the poor citizens ? What will really happen and which topi will eventually win. Only time will tell.


Meanwhile, what is the color of your Topi?





April 13, 2014 at 5:59pm

A Slap that defines the state of our nation : Sad

Overzealous, patriot, publicity hound or a mentally unstable man. Whatever he may be doesn't really matter. What matters however is the reactions that followed the public slap Harvinder Singh delivered on to the unaware Sharad Pawar.

I am quite aghast by the reactions i saw from people in general and also by the politicians, one and all.

If India truly was a civil democratic society, the reactions i would have expected would be following.

Mass condemnation by the public in general.

Message on facebook and otherwise, which would have deplored such an un-civic act.

And i would have expected the political class to go into contemplation. “What could have caused a young Indian - and potentially many more - to do such an extreme act?” ; “What could have caused the tolerance of the nation to fall so much?”. Such questions should have made all our politicians go into a reflective mood.

What happened on the other hand was completely reverse.

The young man was praised by most people, making a hero of him - and to some extend comparing his ideology with that of Bhagat Singh. And this reaction, i saw, came from many well educated middle class people.

The political class on the other hand got together to deplore the "cowardly" and undemocratic act - as if all their actions are always bold democratic and virtuous.

Some others were chuckling within.

Someone questioned "only one slap?" and that someone was fighting a battle of non-violence just a few weeks ago and had revived the Gandhian ideology.

And no one seems to be really bothered by the same.

Personally i am quite saddened by seeing the state of our nation and the idea and perception of democracy as understood by the people in general.

And also by the lack of empathy from our politicians about the mood of the nation and their desire to explore what could have caused it and what could be done about it.

The democracy and the civic sense itself is in danger. Forget about upholding the Gandhian values.