I do not know why but I am never able to look at the tricolour for long without getting tearful. 

No, it's not "plucky patriotism". Medals, trophies and victories do not make me swell with pride, if you see what I mean. 

Neither does the Muse of History constantly work on my memory with ancient narratives and sagas. 

Also, the calendar does not inspire me into rehearsed routine demonstrations.

To add, there are few things which touch me and fewer that evoke emotions. 

And yet, this mystery of the tricolour... the symbol which is so vast..so enchantingly beautiful.

A symbol so expansive that it contains silently embedded within its being, so many stories...so many histories...the symbol that flutters in the breeze - just the same in the hands of a shabby child on the street as it would do on the most prestigious poles - easeful fluttering as stories continue to be told... the symbol which accommodates all claims, covers all follies, forgives all manipulations, conceals all insecurities and stands upright, perhaps, to awaken the drugged conscience of a collective. 

I do not understand my dazed mind which imagines the tricolour to be woven out of so many individual narratives that are lost. Forever. Like, lost lives, broken promises, betrayed faith, slaughtered hopes.

I do not know, but I sometimes wonder whether it is just coincidental that independence and integrity - both, begin with an I - the I which (and it must be coincidental) happens to refer to one's Self...