After I moved to US, one shopping habit I picked up was to read the ingredients of a product; for various reasons —usually it was to check if the food product had any non-vegetarian content, but more important reason was ‘unfamiliarity with the Brands’!

Unlike India, if you walk into a store aisle, here in US, you will be bombarded with 100 different brands selling the same product. The choices confuse me! Initially I used to choose a product based on two parameters —

1. Cost price had to be a little more than the ‘mean cost price’ of all the brands (costlier than the average means better, right?)
2. Logo that looked more appealing (packaging is very important).

But then my most important learning was on the day I least expected — the day I had cough & cold! If you have ever visited a Walgreens or a CVS you will notice one peculiar thing — they will have a drug by a familiar pharma logo, and then an equivalent product kept next to it in look-a-like packaging but half the price. If you read the ingredients it would be ‘exactly the same’!

In my opinion, our Indian politics is very similar. I anticipated my friends and media would go gaga about how well Modi spoke on 15th August and how better he is, compared to all his predecessors. Well I agree, he is a better orator, has better overall packaging, but then as I said its the ‘Ingredients’ and not the ‘Packaging’ that is going to cure your cough!

I would highly recommend my friends to not get impressed by the visuals but would encourage them to read the ‘text’ of today’s speech. And then read last year’s independence day speech text and then the one before that and continue until the first independence day speech. You would realise that the speeches might be different but the cue-cards were the same:

1. Few lines on Freedom Fighters
2. How proud I am to be an Indian
3. Focus on removing poverty
4. farmers
5. one nation — diversity
6. technology, IT, manufacturing, jobs
7. women equality
8. mention of current year’s saddest event
9. Jai Hind!!!

I do not want to sound like a pessimist or anti any specific PM, but I think although Independence day is a proud occasion for all Indians, rather than celebrating the speech, which by all means has always been merely a repeat readout of our country’s problems, year after year; I will truly celebrate the day politicians stop validating my symptoms but rather cure my cough!