the second green
The calendar has run two festivals up the same pole today. Alongside the tricolour, in courtyards across the north, it is Hariyali Teej — the green one, the monsoon's own holiday, when the season's colour is not just seen but worn: mehndi deepening on hands, green bangles by the dozen, and swings — proper ones, ropes over a high branch or a hook in the ceiling, hung specially for these weeks of Shravan.
It is worth showing the children the quieter flag today, because Teej carries its own commentary on this morning's word, and it carries it in the body.
Consider the swing, as a piece of engineering for the heart. A person on a jhoola is doing something mildly impossible: leaving the ground, repeatedly, on purpose, laughing. The trick is not courage in the air. The trick was earlier, on the ground — the choosing of the branch, the testing of the knots, the two hard tugs before anyone sat. Then the flying is free. The old festival hands every child who sits on one the same quiet syllabus: rise as high as you like — because you did the ropework first.
Which is this whole day's teaching, said in rope instead of words. The morning's word called freedom the holding of one's own threads. The swing is that sentence, built, and moving.
If there is a swing anywhere in reach today — a society garden, a neighbour's terrace, the old tyre at the native place you are visiting — put the children on it, and take a turn yourself; the ropes hold adults, and the adults need the reminder more.
Two greens in one sky tonight: the band on the flag, and the deep monsoon green of the mehndi drying on somebody's hands at your table. The country's freedom and the season's joy, sharing a date, as if to say the large ones and the small ones keep each other honest.