I thought I was the only one. And I'll be honest, I almost gave in. But the sunday times' article 'phoney patriotism' had me let go of the beads of guilt building over my fingertips at not SMSing my everlasting love for the Taj. Commercial it was, we all knew that. But what shocked me even more was the absolute madness it managed to evoke wasn't any different from the SMS blitzkreig that made the Jessica Lall case come to justice, that made the reservation deal so big in Delhi. At that time, I too was a vociferous SMSer - so now I wonder, was I just a pawn in NDTV's campaign to get the 'news channel that is really of the people' tag. Who's to say how much has been real about the other stories which I did support? God knows they play the card way too often what with prannoy Roy's humourless attempts at an RKLaxman style satire and Barkha Dutt's sickeningly overhyped stories that resemble emotional Ekta Kapoor mini-series more than a hard-hitting piece that everyone thinks it is.

I've been to the Taj Mahal and yes, its, well, nice. But not worthy of what the pyramids are. Not remotely.

What we have now is – and my apologies to blogger.com – push button patriotism. SMS a four digit number now and you can misquote your tax, you can ignore the HelpAge India drop box at the lifestyle cash counter as you pay your 1000 rupees bill, you can throw that bhutta peel on the road…

Makes me wonder what else nowadays is just a quick way to rid us of guilt. We strive for personalized attention for our children in schools because we can’t provide it to them ourselves, we spend hefty prices in malls on our wardrobes and our interior decorations for that ‘unique flea market’ ethnic look but I have never been to a single village in my life! How can I even judge the authenticity of it?

My point is this – its too uniform. All malls in all cities look the same. All kids listen to the same music. Its come to a point where the Home Décor store has readymade room layouts. You pick one, and the entire room – from the wall colours to the painting above the left sofa to the TV wall unit – is transported to your home. So now we can visit another person’s home only to find their bedroom is EXACTLY like ours. Creepy eh?

Patriotism too has come under the same dilemma. Everyone just wants a brand name of patriotism. So when the media tells us a quick way, we do it. Each Indian can contribute to India in a different way. Some simply by starting an aditya birla or an abused woman’s home, some by being a school teacher and some by being a face for India on the internet. Small or big, its different. And a nation like India can thrive only on diversity in patriotric expression. Cause India is bigger than the Taj. Much bigger.

This world of globalisation has perhaps robbed the world of what made us different.

United Colors of Benetton. All seems black now. Uniformly black.