My father, Mr. Badruddin Tyabji, was an ICS officer attached to the Constituent Assembly and both my parents were artists and art connoisseurs, and so considered suitable by Pandit Nehru and Dr. Rajendra Prasad for the task of helping design the National-Flag and the National Emblem. My parents are no more, but we still have the numerous elaborate designs that were made for the National Emblem by various artists, until a simple sketch by my mother of the three lions on top of the Ashoka column persuaded everyone that this was it!

Mere displaying of flag or standing to attention in the cinema houses when the National Anthem is played does not mean that we have become better citizens or our nation is making progress. As long as corruption is rampant in our country the only flag that should be shown on 15th August and 26th January is the black flag.

The National-Flag and national colours are our innermost being. Humans are born on earth and look up to the skies. The nation embodies heaven and earth, existence and transcendence. The land of birth is inspiration and the ground of action. It is dream and doing. It is the lila-bhomi of our secular and spiritual horizons.

Just because the flag is being put up everywhere does not mean that it is getting trivialized. God has created Indians - more than a billion of them. You think by doing this He has trivialized humanity?

While respect for the flag is fine, to me true patriotism is serving the poor and the needy of our country. I have tried to do this in my own way for fifty years by going to remote places and to people who did not have access to medical facilities and treating various eye-related ailments of some ten million people.

As a sportsman, to see the flag being hoisted or the National Anthem being played in the hour of your triumph is a feeling beyond compare. The flag hoisting at that moment is not something that has happened by itself or as a matter of preset routine but solely because of your hard work.

Americans may be trivializing the flag by putting it everywhere and on anything but they also have a strong sense of nationalism, their Americanism. In contrast we lack a sense of Indianess. And whatever little there is, I am not sure how much would be left under the present onslaught of globalization.
Whether it is the flag or any other symbol, we are a society uninterested in putting the essence of a symbol into practice. Instead we become obsessed with the symbol itself.

I was only nine when we gained independence and the liberty to fly our National-Flag. So I did not have the honour of dying or getting arrested for defying the ban, but my teacher was in school during the movement of 1931-32. The girls at her school had decided to hoist the flag and brave the un-brave batons of the British police after the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev. But the Principal came down heavily on them and forbade a demonstration of any kind. Came the next morning. The girls dutifully gathered for morning assembly. And lo there was the tricolour in all its glory. The girls had got together and in utmost secrecy, laid the plan. They divided themselves into three groups. One wore saffron, the other white and the third, green sarees. There they stood in neat rows with a group of four wearing black in the centre. A perfect flag. A perfect protest and a proud tribute to the flag.

In an international get-together, I grow an immediate sense of belonging, I feel proud of being an Indian. Which is why in film festivals abroad, I always look for the Indian flag, for my identity, if, however, India is also a participant.

The flag embodies for me the unity of India, the diversity of cultures, the multifaceted colours that come together in a great togetherness of humanity. It is the national anthem Jana Gana, which salutes our varied faiths. All religions respected each other's beliefs in spite of occasional skirmishes and all communities lived in peace. Let us never forget that great background as we raise our national flag! The orange of the Eternal Sun, the green of Mother Earth and the white of Eternal Purity.

The spurt in number of people buying and waving the flag has to do with an increasing sense of patriotism today. After all they are not being forced or paid to do it.

I think this view of flag being commercialized is quite absurd. How can you commercialize something that belongs to the whole nation and no single person or group has a monopoly, copyright or ownership over it. It is a national flag and everyone can use it.

The flag represents our unity, national integrity and harmonious coexistence. So if a political party is using the flag they are willingly or unwillingly endorsing the values represented by the flag, which is a good thing. If a scoundrel, for his own interests, cites Gandhiji's name, he has to be commended for thinking of such a great soul and not of another scoundrel. Similarly if three dacoits get together and hoist the National-Flag, the flag's prestige does not lower, instead the dacoits may get some respect for choosing to put up the flag instead of a picture of a murderer.