Is Patriotism.

It has become fashionable to deride Patriotism as full of noise but hollow, and meaningless. I direct all such people to this heart-wrenching account.

Great Bong in recounting a personal history has captured in this one entry what tomes on Indian freedom struggle have failed to: the idea of patriotism. The argument that patriotism is responsible for wars–and therefore it is bad–must surely be the brainchild either of people with tinted glasses or some exceptionally perverse souls

Postscript: It really is a cruel twist of sorts that Bengal which produced the most dazzling stalwarts–that includes Great Bong’s grandfather–of our freedom struggle is reduced today to a morass commanded by traitors like Jyoti Basu who infamously declared that West Bengal would secede from India if the BJP came to power.