Pingali Venkayya and our flag

Told in English, Telugu.

It was the evening before Independence Day, and the house in Vijayawada smelled of jaggery and fried gaarelu. Sahithi, who was eleven, sat on the floor with a folded paper flag in her lap. Her little brother Kiran, who was nine, was trying very hard to stick a flag pin onto his school shirt without poking his finger.

Thatha came in slowly, holding a cloth bundle against his chest the way some people hold a baby. He sat down on the cot, untied the knot, and lifted out a real cloth flag, soft and a little faded, folded with great care.

"This one belonged to my father," he said. "Tomorrow we will hoist it on the terrace. But before we do, do you two know whose idea this flag was?"

Kiran looked up. "Gandhiji's?"

Sahithi frowned. "No, wait. Our teacher said it was someone from Andhra. Pingali something."

Thatha smiled so wide his eyes crinkled. "Pingali Venkayya. A Telugu man, born not far from here. Come, sit close. Let me tell you about him."

The children shuffled nearer, and Thatha began.

Long ago, on the second of August in 1876, a baby boy was born in a village called Bhatlapenumarru, near Machilipatnam, in the Krishna district. Green paddy fields, coconut trees, and the sea breeze not far away. That boy was Venkayya. He was curious about everything. He wanted to know how plants grew, how rocks were formed, how people in faraway lands spoke.

When he was still a young man, only about nineteen, he went very far from home, all the way to South Africa, as a soldier in the British army. There was a war there. Thatha paused. "War is a hard thing, children. People get hurt and families are far apart. Venkayya saw how much people suffered. But in South Africa he also met someone who would change his life. A lawyer named Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi."

"Gandhiji was in Africa?" Kiran asked, surprised.

"He lived there for many years," said Thatha. "And the two of them became friends. That friendship lasted a very long time."

Sahithi was quiet for a moment. Then she asked, "Thatha, he was a soldier for the British. So why did he later want a flag for India?"

Thatha nodded, pleased with the question. "That is exactly what he must have thought about too. Back then, India was ruled by the British. Many Indians, like Venkayya, worked in their armies and offices. But slowly, more and more people began to feel in their hearts that India should belong to Indians. Venkayya came home with a dream growing inside him. A free India would need its own flag. Something every Indian, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, could look up at and feel, this is mine."

Thatha told them that Venkayya was a man of many talents. He studied geology, the science of rocks and the earth, and he searched for diamonds, so some people called him Diamond Venkayya. He worked hard on growing a special kind of cotton, so others called him Patti Venkayya. And because he learned to speak Japanese, which was very unusual in those days, some even called him Japan Venkayya.

Kiran laughed. "He had so many names!"

"He had so many interests," Thatha said. "But one thing he kept coming back to, year after year, was the flag."

Venkayya studied the flags of many countries. He drew design after design. In 1916, he published a book called A National Flag for India, full of different ideas for what our flag could look like. Imagine sitting with paper and colours, drawing again and again, never knowing if anyone would ever use your work. Many people would give up. Venkayya did not.

Then came the year 1921. A big meeting of the Congress was held right here, in this very city, which in those days was called Bezawada. Gandhiji came. Leaders came from all over the country. And Venkayya went to meet his old friend with a flag design in his hands.

Thatha lowered his voice, as if sharing a secret. "His first design had two colours. Red and green. They stood for the two biggest communities of India at the time, Hindus and Muslims, standing side by side."

Sahithi leaned in. "Did Gandhiji like it?"

"He liked it," said Thatha. "But he asked for two things more. He wanted white added, to stand for all the other communities of India, so that no one would feel left out. And he wanted the charkha, the spinning wheel, in the centre. Gandhiji believed that if Indians spun their own thread and wore their own cloth, they would become strong and free."

"So Venkayya changed it?" asked Kiran.

"He did. He did not get angry or proud. He listened. A good idea becomes a better idea when we listen to others."

Over the next years, people began using flags based on his design at meetings and marches. Then, in 1931, the Congress adopted a tricolour of saffron, white and green, with the spinning wheel in the middle. It grew out of the work Venkayya had begun. When freedom fighters marched, when brave people stood up for India, very often this was the flag they carried.

"And then," said Thatha, his voice growing warm, "came 1947."

In July of 1947, just a few weeks before India became free, the leaders of the Constituent Assembly decided on the flag for the new nation. They kept the three colours, saffron, white and green. But in place of the spinning wheel, they placed the Ashoka Chakra, a navy blue wheel with twenty-four spokes, taken from the ancient lion pillar at Sarnath, built in the time of Emperor Ashoka.

Thatha unfolded his father's flag across his knees so the children could see it properly. He touched each colour gently.

"Saffron at the top, for courage and sacrifice. White in the middle, for truth and peace. Green at the bottom, for faith and for our good earth that gives us food. And the chakra, reminding us to keep moving forward, always doing what is right."

Kiran counted the spokes under his breath, lost track, and started again.

Sahithi was looking at Thatha's face. "Thatha, was Venkayya very famous after India became free? Did he become rich?"

Thatha's smile became a little softer, a little sadder. "No, my dear. He lived a simple, humble life. In his old age, he did not have much money. He passed away here in Vijayawada, in 1963. For many years, not enough people remembered his name."

Sahithi's eyes grew shiny. "That's not fair."

Thatha put his hand on her head. "You are right. It did not feel fair. But listen. Slowly, people began to remember. In 2009, a postage stamp was made with his picture. Today, children in schools all over India learn his name. And every time our flag goes up, on every school ground, every government building, every little terrace like ours, a piece of his dream goes up with it. Some gifts are bigger than the person who gives them."

The room was quiet. Outside, someone on the street was testing a loudspeaker for tomorrow's celebrations, and a patriotic song crackled into the night.

Kiran finally got his flag pin onto his shirt. He looked down at it as if seeing it for the first time.

"Thatha," he said, "tomorrow, before we hoist the flag, can I tell everyone about Pingali Venkayya?"

"Can I help?" said Sahithi quickly.

Thatha laughed and folded the flag again, corner to corner, careful that it never touched the floor. "You can both tell it. That is how we keep a person's memory alive. We tell their story to the next person, and the next."

So now I ask you, my dear one. Tomorrow, or the next time you see our flag fluttering in the wind, will you remember the boy from Bhatlapenumarru who kept drawing, and drawing, and never gave up? Say his name with me, softly. Pingali Venkayya.

Good night. Dream of saffron skies, white clouds, and green fields.