I have been performing since 1971 and have done 28,942 shows till date. While my central goal is to entertain, I also try to address different social issues through my shows. Two of my "items" use the National-Flag. It is to evoke patriotism among our audience and to paint a dream world where corruption has been totally eradicated and there is prosperity across our land.

It is my great fortune that in my 23-year sports career, I was instrumental in the tricolour being raised on foreign soil 67 times. Each time the tricolour went up, my heart filled with joy and in the depth of my mind I felt grateful to the lakhs of people back in India who had suffered hardships while trying to raise the flag and the thousands others who sacrificed their lives for the sake of the same flag. At that time I felt those heavenly souls were blessing me and asking me to do more and more.

The freedom to fly the flag is welcome but also carries with it the responsibility for every Indian to be courteous and respectful towards the flag. We should not meaninglessly ape a developed country where the National-Flag and colours are depicted on all sorts of things, be it garments or commercial merchandise.

I am not entirely comfortable with notions of an exaggerated patriotism that uses the symbols of a nation state. We are in a rapidly shrinking globalised world where my aspiration would be for a borderless, nationless inter-dependent planet. Having said that I think it is important that these symbols as they exist, such as the flag, belong to all citizens. Respect for them must be evoked by the state, not imposed.

Can the tricolour not represent the triumvirate controlling the cycle of birth, life and death? The green symbolizes Lord Brahma - the eternal creator of all living forms while the white stands for God Vishnu - the supreme sustainer and controller of all the living beings. In saffron manifests Lord Shiva - the Lord of destruction, the destroyer of evil. Can this cycle go on without any of their interventions?
Can we, as a nation, progress without any of the qualities embodied in our tricolour?

Children are less disillusioned, less cynical, less defeated than adults. Theirs is a state of hope, of buoyant optimism; their lives are ahead of them, spaces of possibility. To that extent, they are more likely to have patriotic feelings. It is important that this patriotism is not translated into a mindless jingoism as they grow older; and that they realise that it is not the abstract idea of a nation, but rather, the pulsing reality of human lives, citizens, people, that they must attend to.
There is no reason why the National-Flag should be reserved for the use of dignitaries and state officials. It signifies the emotional and political investment of millions of citizens, and is therefore pre-eminently their symbol. It is faintly absurd, therefore, that they should be denied the right to display it. At the same time, we must recall that the flag is a symbol of greater realities; and that, therefore, we must not become fixated on the symbol to the point of forgetting the drama of human need and vulnerability, the mandates of sacrifice and duty, the values of compassion and serenity that the flag enshrines.
The colours of the flag remind me of self-sacrifice, tranquility, discipline and fruitfulness. The ethno-religious colouring that the flag has suffered is unfortunate: we cannot afford to fight wars over saffron vs. green, blue wheel vs. white band, if these elements are taken to embody different communitarian interests. I do not approve of the use of the National-Flag on everyday items of clothing: a symbol of its exalted status must be allowed to remain, to some extent, inviolate. Citizens must exercise their discretion, in the matter of how to deploy the flag in their daily lives.

The Indian tricolour is a beautiful flag. I have had many close associations with it in my 75-year career by performing on India's Independence Day and Republic Day in various parts of the world. I don't think it is appropriate that the National-Flag is fashioned into a bikini or a t-shirt as is common in some countries.

In 1973 I was part of a large Indian delegation participating in the 10th World Youth Festival at Berlin and got the unexpected honour of being the flag bearer of the Indian delegation at the inauguration ceremony. I was so excited that I hardly slept the previous night. In the morning I was aflutter inside, reducing into a jelly with every passing moment. Too many issues kept crowding my mind. I hope I hold the flag pole right; I hope I lower it at the right time for the ceremonial greeting before the Presidential dais; I hope I maintain the proper distance with other delegations ahead of us in the queue.
After what seemed an eternity, the inauguration ceremony started. As I took the flag and held it aloft, I had goose pimples all over and as the tri-colour fluttered gaily in the air, in rhythm with our Anthem, my eyes filled with tears of joy and pride! We were proud to be Indians and proud of our motherland.
What is it about a flag that makes one's heart beat faster and brings a lump to the throat? As individuals, there is an innate hunger to 'belong' and to have a 'sense of belonging'. It is here that the flag fills that need by providing the much-needed symbol. For a citizen of any country, the design and colours of the flag carry their own special significance. And so is it with ours.

The sacrifices made by my grandfather and my maternal uncles who laid down their lives in the freedom movement had not gone waste for though they themselves were not here to witness the tricolour flying freely, however what they died for, had become a reality and we were enjoying its fruits. I also thought to myself that patriotism cannot be taught; it has to be felt and experienced within for it is purely an emotional matter. Respect, pride and honouring one's mother and motherland, comes from the heart!

Just then, a strong wind made the flag flutter to such an extent that there was danger of the pole slipping from my hand. An unbidden thought entered my mind. What if the pole fell down and my feet stamped on it? I shuddered inwardly at the thought for it represented my motherland and could I ever think of stamping on my mother? As a dancer, I was used to take leave of the ground, the 'bhoomi' before starting my performance, asking 'leave' of mother Earth. Fortunately nothing of that sort happened and later I kissed the flag softly before handing it over. That day was one of the most memorable days of my life!!


Using the flag in a degrading manner is a matter of shades and needs to be figured out. For someone putting the flag on the t-shirt is degrading but for someone else it may not be and these are bound to be contentious and controversial issues. But I would rather take the controversial stuff in the stride than have the flag restricted to 15th August or the President or some VIPs only.