Indians born in the 1950s have lived through a major part of our nation’s independent history. We grew up in the 1960s listening to Mohammad Rafi singing, “Hum laye hain toofan se kashti nikal ke, iss desh ko rakhna mere bachhon sambhal ke.” Our generation followed the one to whom our freedom fighters had handed over our nation – an India with a weak economy living on foreign aid (remember wheat aid through US PL 480?), a communal divide that reared its head very often and neighbours with whom we went to two wars in the decade of the ’60s. But we kids believed in India being a golden bird and as we left school and went our different ways. This desire to see India up there in the comity of nations didn’t diminish one bit.
The Indian Air Force that I joined took me to many places, and one was to Israel, a country one had grown up admiring. American author Leon Uris’s masterpieces like ‘Exodus’ and ‘Mila 18’ had engendered a feeling of empathising with the underdog who rises up and comes of age with his own determination.
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Source : News 18