Insaniyat ka janaaza

Akhbaar ke kuch panne padte hue mein kahin kho sa gaya,

thodi nazar ghumai to kashmir ki waadion sa kuch pratit hua

woh waadiyan jinhe ye kaala dhuaan apne mein jakad sa raha tha,

Uski sundarta pe kuch kalik se poth raha tha....

Kyun un waadiyon ka drishya yun bhayanak sa hai,

Kyun aaj ye hawa thami si hai,

Ye pedon ke phool kuch bejaan se hain,

Kyun aaj woh parinde apne ghosle mein yun chupe se baithe hain,

Wakt to nahi ruka, bedhadak chala ja raha hai…

Suraj to aaya hai, bus roshni yahan nai aa saki hai,

Chand bhi ja chukka hai, bus andhera yahan reh gaya hai,

Yeh din mein andhera kuch sawaal puch raha hai,

Kya insaan ne raat ke andhakaar ko chura liya hai,

Wakt to nahi ruka, bedhadak chala ja raha hai…

Kuch aage badha, to kuch atpata sa dikha

Ek school ki imaarat jahan bache nahi the,

Kuch dukaane jahan dukanwaale nahi the,

Aur ye signal ki hari batti, par koi jaane waale nahi the,

Ye ghane ped ki chaaon, par koi wahan baitha nahi tha,

Ye sadak pe khadi kuch gaadian, jo bejaan si thi,

Ye mandir aur woh masjid ka bhagwaan kuch akela sa tha

Kahan gaya ye insaan, kahan chupa hai, kahan ruka hai?

Wakt to nahi ruka, bedhadak chala ja raha hai…

Mein sochta raha ki yahaan hua kya hoga,

Kya fir se insaan ne apni nafrat ka pradarshan kiya hoga,

Kya Kashmir mein hui barbaadi ko woh bhul gaya hoga,

Kya sab kuch bhula kar who phir se khoon ki nadiyaan bahaane nikla hoga,

Aur agar nikla hoga to yahan dikhta kyun nai woh,

Kya sab kuch khatam kar khud ko kahin dafan kar chukka hai,

Wakt to nahi ruka, bedhadak chala ja raha hai…

Khud ko hi is wehshat ka shikaar bana chukka hai,

15000 logon ko ghayal kar chukka hai,

1000 ki aankon mein pallet mar 300 ko andha kar chukka hai,

Ae Insaan, kya tere andar ka insaan mar chukka hai?

4500 ko pallet se ghayal aur 4664 ko goli se ghayal kar chukka hai,

8000 logon ko jail mein daal chukka hai

Is ke ghar ki beti aur uske maa baap ko yun kaise bhul chukka hai?

Ae insaan, kya tere andar ka insaan mar chukka hai?

Is khoobsurat si zindagi ko kyun beshakal se bana raha hai,

Kyun khud ko yun har lamha jala raha hai,

Kyun har lamha khudi ko apni nazron mein gira raha hai,

Saanse to chal rahi hai, tu kyun ruk chuk hai?

Wakt to nahi ruka, bedhadak chala ja raha hai…

 

The Obligation to Condemn

The latest new wave to have hit the nation with full force is that of ‘the obligation to condemn’. It is a multifaceted, multilayered and complex phenomenon, to say the least. Let us make an attempt to understand this phenomenon. I may be wrong with the facts here, but as far as my knowledge goes, it all began with the owner of a certain private TV channel making a statement that the serials of the neighboring nation shown on his channel are being withdrawn off air, one of the reasons being that the actors of that neighboring nation had been requested to publicly condemn the Uri attacks, but had not acceded to the request. Now, the channel in question is a private channel and what has to be shown or not shown on the channel is for its owner to decide. One may agree or disagree with his decision, all the same, it remains his decision. This statement of his has led to a volley of other reactions and counter-reactions and a flurry of activity in the public domain. Breaking through all this hysteria and getting to the concrete points of discussion, it is a fact that the actors in question have not openly condemned the Uri attacks, in fact have not issued any statement whatsoever. Why would anyone think that they are not well within their rights to do so? Why is there a feeling that they are under an obligation to say something publicly? Is it because they are public personalities? If so, is it mandatory for public personalities to react to everything publicly? Are they not entitled to any private space, any views that they may not like to publicly share? If they are not, then this statement should be valid for all the public personalities around the globe, and for every issue that happens. The day they choose to enter into public domain, they should be expected to publicly state their opinions on anything and everything that might happen in the world around them, especially in their nations, and if they don’t do so, they should be socially boycotted. However, if the above expectation is not reasonable, then the actors in the extant case also are under no obligation to state any of their opinions (if they have any) publicly. Now, let us come to the question of desirableness. Would it have been desirable for them to condemn the attacks publicly? This is a subjective question and everyone is entitled to their own judgments on this. However, in my view, (and I am stating this explicitly here because somehow this is missing from the entire discourse), they have done the most practically reasonable thing to do for their sake and for the sake of their families, by not issuing any public statements. The consequences of any such act would have to be borne by them solely, and none of the people clamoring for their public condemnation today would have come to their rescue in the face of adversity. Next, is it acceptable to ban these actors from India on the basis of their not issuing any statement? Banning anyone or anything, in any case, in my view, is totally unacceptable. However, dealing with this specific case, all those who are in deep angst over the decision of these actors to not issue public condemnation are well within their rights to personally boycott them. At the same time, there is no justification, whatsoever, for forcing a public ban on something or someone, for the sole reason that certain people on the soil of the land these actors belong to committed a dastardly act that these actors had nothing to do with, their only ‘crime’ being, not holding a press conference to condemn the dastardly act and its perpetrators. In that case, each and every individual is equally condemnable because our neighbor country does not have a copyright on terror. There have been umpteen cases of internal terror strikes in our nation itself, most of us would have felt saddened by them but not felt the requirement to ‘publicly’ condemn them, maximum of our public personalities falling in this category. Why, then, not a public outcry and demands of banning all these people? May be because, in such a scenario, the world would become a collection of uncountable individuals, all existing in silos, socially boycotted by all the rest. Another fantastical assertion that has been made is that art is by its very nature political, and artists cannot shy away from their responsibilities, they are not normal human beings but by the very fact that they are artists, have stupendous responsibilities on their shoulders. Then why such a disappointment with ‘artists’ only now? Why not when uncountable times uncountable artists choose silence over public speech. Why not organize a boycott at every such instance? Because all artists are individual human beings first, and well within their rights to speak or not to speak, they are well within their rights to choose their profession and they are well within their rights to define their goals in their lives. It is not a crime to choose a profession of acting solely for making money and entertaining people rather than do it for the purpose of bringing a change in society, or for social activism, or for making political statements, whatever that may mean. The next argument being made by the boycotters is, why is it that only the army people should sacrifice their lives? Why can’t film producers sacrifice some of their earnings for the sake of their nation? Why can’t we the people sacrifice our interest in anything that has to do with our neighboring state? For the sole reason that the enemy is not any particular state here, the enemy is the terror that is perpetrated, in whatever name or form, on whichever soil. What is the end result that is expected after such a boycott of a whole nation altogether? That terror will be banished from the face of this earth? Or that our nation will become free from it? Really? Is this even a distant possibility? Terror is not going to vanish from the face of this earth by the use of some magical wand, it is not going to vanish by boycotting nations and it is not going to happen by killing and maiming people. It is going to rear its ugly head again and again in different names and forms, be it in the name of caste, class, gender, race, nation, state and so on and so forth. Is there any way out of this terror? Not visibly, not in the near or distant future. It sounds nothing more than a utopian dream, if at all we are allowed to see any such dream.

Before signing off, I would like to do one more thing. I would like to place myself at the top of the list of people worth condemning, because I did-not condemn publicly the centuries of atrocities committed by the people of my caste on the people of certain other caste, I did not condemn publicly the terror that, at times, the people of my religion perpetrate on the people of certain other religion, I did not condemn publicly the terror that the people of certain other class and status might be facing day in and day out because of certain actions of the people of my class and status, I did not condemn publicly the mass destruction and loot being perpetrated on this nature by the people of my species. There may be a thousand other things that I did not publicly condemn, so let me today volunteer to be the first person in the list of people who should be treated as social outcastes.

Random Thoughts of a Perplexed Mind

DESTRUCTION….What does this one word remind you of? What images are conjured in your mind when you hear this word? Ones of immense jubilation, celebration and happiness….or ones of grief and sadness. I assume the choice is not very difficult. Now suppose this destruction is wrought on someone you deem to be your enemy. Suppose, that someone, is a proven criminal and has perpetrated innumerable crimes. Then, how would you respond to that enemy’s destruction? By joyous celebrations? By happiness unbound? Many of you will now not have to think much to answer in the affirmative. At the cost of sounding blasphemous, this thought process is something that I would like to question today. There might surely come such times when one feels that there is no option left than destruction. Such destruction, when it needs to be resorted to, is out of compulsion, it is out of a profoundly sad realization that this inconceivable option now needs to become a reality. Once resorted to, over and done with, what is it that is left behind? At least in me, what is left behind is an emptiness that refuses to fill up, a heart broken into pieces, those pieces refusing to believe that this brutal end was their destiny. The feelings of jubilation, rejoice and celebration don’t even think of coming near to this dejected heart. In the moment of your seeming ‘triumph’, you may be forgiven for that fleeting moment of joy that you might experience, for that pump fisting and that purposeful nod of the head, for a mission that you feel is accomplished, but that moment, if it lingers on and on, if you never feel satiated by your appetite for destruction, if you want more and more of it, if your celebrations refuse to die down, what then is to be inferred from it? That the last bout, that last laugh goes to death and destruction, that humans did start to believe that they had become the most ‘civilized and cultured’ beings, but the bluff has been called off uncovering the truth that had been hidden and banished into exile. But this, after all, may just be inevitable. That may be, creation and destruction indeed are two faces of the same coin, the existence of one face is neither possible in presence of, nor without the other.

Speaking of civilization and culture, the relationship between nature and culture seems to be forever antagonistic. Culture has built itself and flourished on the foundations provided by nature, and is now in a furious rush to cut those very foundations. That, however, may be a completely different discussion altogether. I want to dwell a bit more here on another aspect of the relationship between nature and culture. There has been a recent trend in our now ‘fully civilized’ civilizations to outlaw certain things, calling them unnatural. This reasoning has started to confuse me a lot lately. Homosexuality is something that has very recently been again declared as unlawful in our society, citing that it is against the laws of nature, and thereby against man-made laws as well. Just going back a few centuries to the great ‘Greek civilization’, the one to which Alexander the Great belonged, and the one where the ‘Olympics’ originated. I would like to share two anecdotes related to these two aspects of the Greek civilization. The Greeks, then, were very fond of wrestling, and the wrestling then, used to be practiced something like this: there were separate practice grounds for men and women where men and women of various age groups would practice wrestling, completely naked. This resulted in numerous homosexual relations, which anyway, were not regarded as ‘unnatural’ in any sense of the term. Secondly, Alexander the Great himself had a male lover, Hephaestion, who was with him till his death. Both of them also married separately, Alexander marrying a woman named Roxana. (Both these anecdotes are courtesy Andrew Marr’s ‘A Brief History of the World’). This is enough proof of Alexander’s bisexuality, and the ‘naturalness’ of such relationships at that time. Now, it can be argued that it is not mandatory that what might be considered lawful in one society should be considered so in another society as well. Quite rightly so. The only thing that confuses me here is the contradictory reasoning that is resorted to, in order to outlaw certain things. Homosexuality is outlawed because it is reasoned to be ‘unnatural’. Now as per my understanding, man has progressed from nature to culture linearly, so a society that existed centuries before can be said to be ‘less civilized’ and hence ‘more close to nature’. As societies developed, the cultural quotient increased and the natural quotient concomitantly decreased. The people that were closer to nature would be thought to be having a better understanding of what was ‘natural’ or ‘unnatural’. Then how can something that was considered natural then become so completely unnatural now? The fact that many of us do-not want to own up is that homosexuality can by no stretch of mind be accused of being ‘unnatural’. Yes, the ‘cultural’ societies of today have a big problem with it because it doesn’t fit in with their elite ‘culture’ of dominance. The least that could be expected of such highly ‘civilized’ societies would be to own up to the truth and not garb their ‘civilizing instincts’ behind untenable positions.

The above examples take us to the importance of studying and understanding History and various different smaller histories that combine together to form the ‘History’. I had an idea of why and understanding of History was important, but the profoundness of its importance has dawned on me today, as if in a moment of insight, it is now as clear as it could ever be. Understanding History and various different histories, in their correct manifestations, is so very essential to the formation of any viewpoints that we may form. It is supremely essential to understand the nuances and the various different perspectives and narratives that situations can have. It is essential so that we just don’t take irresponsible and uninformed positions without a complete knowledge (if at all it is possible for any knowledge to be complete) of all the perspectives around a situation, and learn to be more responsible with our worldviews. Whether or not many of us want to be responsible and go to such an extent for acquiring that responsibility, is a different question altogether!

Moving on to the ‘Great Derangement” that the world is suffering from (Courtesy: Amitav Ghosh, “The Great Derangement”). What do you think is the utmost challenge threatening the very existence of mankind today? Climate Change, would not have been on top of many of your lists. This is precisely the ‘Great Derangement’ that Amitav Ghosh talks about. The part that struck me like a flash of lightning was the culpability of the power politics in wanting to maintain the status quo, rather than trying to mitigate any of the threats that have emerged from climate change and global warming. Climate change is being seen not as a threat, but as a golden opportunity to fulfil the insatiable thirst of the ‘Power Demon’, for more and more power and authority over the world. And what better disguise than democracy to hide these base instincts? So, in effect, the power differential that climate change is bound to create is being fed into, using the weapons of denial and obfuscation of facts. So, on the one hand, the stark realities of climate change are being vociferously denied by the powers that be, on the other hand, covert preparations are on in full swing to prepare for the worst and inevitable eventualities (incidentally, climate change is on top of the list as a security threat for the US security agencies, whereas the political establishment leaves no stone unturned to mellow down and repudiate any voices that speak up against this inevitable phenomenon). It is being ensured that the power differentials are so completely widened by the time the worst descends, that the ‘Power Demon’ no longer has to hide behind the ‘democratic veil’ and can bare itself and reign supreme, leading back to the ‘age of empires’.

नामुमकिन

जहाँ मौत आंकड़ों का एक अनंत सिलसिला बस हो

जहाँ ज़िंदगी सिफर की क़ैद से निकलने की बस तमन्ना ही करती हो

जहाँ परचमों की उम्र लंबी करते करते

जाने कितनी ही साँसों की उम्र रह गयी बस चुनिन्दा हो

जहाँ हर आवाज़ कुछ कहने की जल्दी में हो

जहाँ हर इक सोच खुद से ही अजनबी सी हो

जहाँ ज़िंदगी पाना इतना आसां हो जाये

कि ज़िंदा रह पाना उतना ही मुश्किल हो

जहाँ सड़कों पे चलने वाला इंसान भी न कहला पाये

और महलों में रहने वाला भगवान से भी कुछ ज़्यादा ही हो

जहाँ तदबीर के अनगिनत लम्हे मिलकर भी

तकदीर के इक लम्हे के सामने बारहा शर्मिंदा ही हों

जहाँ मुसलसल मौत ज़िंदगी की तलाश में हो

और ज़िंदगी ऐसी हो कि हर पल मौत के सुकून को तरसे

जहाँ मिट्टी पर खिंची लकीरें तो बहुत मायने रखती हों

उसी मिट्टी से बने इंसान ही बस बेमायने हों

ऐसे इस जहाँ में हम सांसें लेते तो हैं पर हैं क्या ज़िंदा भी ?

इस सवाल का जवाब खोज पाना दिन ब दिन शायद और ज़्यादा नामुमकिन सा हो

An Empty Vessel Makes Much Noise!!

I am stupefied and disgusted by the repeated broadcast of radio advertisement that glorifies the UP government and talks about the progress made for tourism in UP and about the world class infrastructure made available to UP police.
Is this really the progress in true sense? See this about the displaced colonies -

In Muzaffarnagar, 82 per cent colonies do not have clean drinking water, 93 per cent no street lighting, 61 per cent no drainage and not a single colony has a public toilet. 
In Shamli, 97 per cent colonies lack drinking water, 76 per cent street lights, 70 per cent drainage and 97 per cent colonies have no public toilets.

And This -

 

 

The 'God' question....and Humanity

It is the same “God” question again! In some part of my brain I feel the uselessness of dwelling on this question again and again, because in some part of my brain I feel there can never be “the one correct” answer to this question. But so it is with just about everything in life isn’t it? It is all a game of perspectives and alternatives. To quote an example I heard in one of my lectures as part of my post-graduation course in Elementary Education, suppose you are sitting in a room and there is a glass of water lying in front of you on a table. After some time, you vacate the room and go out. Keeping all the other things constant, will that glass continue to lie on the table? At first glance, this question seems childishly simple to the extent of being silly. What does your presence or absence have to do with the existence of that glass? How can your going out of the room change the location of a glass of water in any manner? As clear and factual as it sounds, let me give you another perspective that we discussed that day in class, but the import of which is fully clear to me only now. How do you know in the first place that the glass is kept on the table? Because you can see it lying there and hence, your brain/mind (I will be using both interchangeably here) tells you so. If your mind didn’t tell you, you would have no way of knowing it. Let us consider for a moment, you don’t have a mind. In that case, you can argue that you may still know about the existence of the glass if others told you so and you trusted them firmly. Let us suppose again for a second that this is a legitimate way (although I strongly disagree) to know something (I am not referring in any way here to physical disabilities like blindness. A blind person can know things through other sense organs like touch, smell etc.). Even in that case, the other person will still have to go through your mind in the first place. Blind belief also would require your mind to agree to believe blindly in the first place. This proves that the existence of a mind is a prerequisite for existence itself to be real. Everything that you experience requires the faculty of your mind for that expericence to exist in the first place. Now, let us go back to the case of the room and the glass, where we started off. Once you leave the room, you are no longer able to experience/see the existence of that glass. So, how can you say that it still exists there? You can at best conjecture that keeping everything else constant it still has to be there. But how can you say this with as much certainty as when you could say it when you were in the room? At least to my understanding, you cannot. (I would be happy if I am provided an explanation that proves to the contrary, may be that will answer many of my questions). If something as simple as the existence of a glass that is as close to a fact as can be, can have another perspective attached to it, then how can we claim that any other thing will not?

Coming back to the “God” question, is there an all-powerful being that created everything that is? If yes, why did it do so? For some solid concrete reason, or just for fun? Why did it create such diversity of everything - inequality being the sole essence of all existence? Why did it create everything in opposite pairs – life and death, happiness and sorrow, high and low, night and day….and the list can go on and on….if it is the all-powerful, all-benevolent, all-righteous one, why did it not choose to not create fear, hunger, poverty, suffering, anger, malaise, ego, and all the innumerable ‘vices’ and ‘miseries’ in the first place? The answer that usually follows these questions is the ‘theory of karma’. All that is happening to you, all sorrow that you are reaping is not ‘God’s’ doing, but your own…because every action has an equal and opposite reaction, whatever you sow, so shall you reap. Then why do we see innocents, even infants who don’t know even the meaning of happiness or sorrow, suffering untold miseries. The next explanation: their ‘karma’ form their previous births. At some time, some place, in some history that cannot be established or verified, that can exist only on faith, because you choose to believe in it, in some such history, this individual would have done something really notorious to deserve all that is happening to it today. It is but natural that such a proposition can exist only on faith, because reason can never have anything to do with something like this. Then why do so many of us believe in this? May be because we are compelled to attribute a reason to something that belies our understanding. May be because we need to still keep on breathing and moving and living despite all the million absurdities hitting at us from all directions. May be because we have attributed such all-encompassing stature to our “God” that we cannot attribute this inexplicable misery to it at the same time. So we do the next best thing. Attribute it to ourselves. Own up everything. The good or the bad. All our own doing. If not in this birth, then in some previous unknown birth that is sure to have existed. As true as that glass on the table in that room.

This is all good isn’t it? Everything explained away. Everything understood. Then why does it not feel so? Why is it that there is that huge ball of indigested questions churning up inside all the time? May be because something somewhere just does not add up. If “God” is “THE ONE”, then why did this world have to be the way it is? And if all this is our own doing, then how is that entity “THE ONE”? How is it all powerful? How can an all-powerful entity allow anything like this to go on, without batting an eyelid? Why does everything have to have a cyclical reasoning that throws oneself into a vicious circle of uncertainty? Just for instance, suppose something terrible happens to a person, which she has done nothing to deserve. What does she do after all the initial wails and cries for help? What does she do when living with this terrible feeling is becoming impossible? She needs to desperately find the reason for this madness. It has to be something, somewhere just hidden from her eyes. And then it strikes. Yes! It was her own doing, may be not in this birth but some random previous birth somewhere. She definitely has deserved it. Not only that, whatever has happened has happened for the good because it has only rid the burden of a sin from her tainted being. She has to repay one loan less now. What is the choice available to her if she doesn’t believe this? Is there any real choice? How does she go on living? Holding on to this thought with all her might comforts her, at least lets her move on. But if it is all ‘karma’, then what is the need for ‘God’? Why do we need to believe in an all-powerful entity? Why are we desperate to hold on to something at times of need? May be because we are human. That is the mantra…we are ‘HUMAN’ and being human, before anything else, means that our first and foremost value needs to be ‘HUMANITY’, plain and simple, HUMANITY. Why not, just for once, stick to the creed of humanity? Why not live by it and die by it? All the good, the bad and the ugly, is it not created by us? Is it not in our hands to try and choose wisely and steer the world towards that sunlit path of hope, of love, of prosperity? Is it that impossible to create a world that swears to live by and die by that creed of ‘HUMANITY’? Is it really, if each and every one of us willingly and positively and sincerely set out to do so? It is for each one for us to answer for ourselves….

Voices that refuse to be silenced

Humanity Above All Else

Something is really nagging me today…urging me to not let the chain of thoughts stop….pushing me to think through till the end…to come to some conclusion that manages to numb this feeling…..and I didn’t want to lose this….didn’t want to let the routine swallow up this thought…..this thought which is somehow sounding very important to me….a question that I am feeling obliged to answer….

I have always struggled with myself….time and again battled to answer one question…..debated countless times with myself…..and yet I still don’t know if I have been able to answer that question…..

What is the definition of right and wrong?....does it vary with each individual, or can it be absolute?....My right and wrong may be different from what someone else might consider right and wrong…..Is everyone not justified in holding on to their rights and wrongs? Is it essential to impose an absoluteness to it? Is it possible? Is it desirable? Is it natural? Many a times I have left this chain of thoughts midway….many a times I have emerged with no concrete answer……but today as I think, I am drawn to one conclusion that sounds to me more plausible and convincing than the others…..that satisfies me to some extent…till the time some other lingering shadow of doubt overtakes it…..

Yes, everyone is entitled to their thoughts…..their beliefs…. and the actions based on their beliefs……but there is one absolute above all else that to my mind is right there at the top…..that cannot be compromised with……that cannot be denied…..that cannot be wished away….that cannot be squashed……and that is the ultimate absolute of humanity…..humanity above all else…..humanity as that ultimate principle that cannot be violated…..

And what if its violated with impunity all around oneself, time and again…..and yet again…..in the name of all else that might be important and right for many…..but still cannot be held above humanity……in the name of caste, creed, religion, nation, gender, love, lust, greed, anger, pride…..possibly anything and everything…….

What if you see this spectacle of cold blooded murder of humanity all around you….day in and day out…..in the name of so many different things…..wearing so many different masks…..what do you do? Be content that you are not a part of this madness…..be content that at least you are the one who values humanity above all else….be content that you are a virtuous person….on the right path……or be ashamed that you watch this daily spectacle without bothering much about it…..be ashamed that you have become immune to anything that happens outside the fold of your immediate loved ones…..be ashamed that you move about comfortably in your routine pretending that all is well…..what do you do? Really what do you do? Oscillate like a pendulum between these two extremes?....Or try to arrive at a path that you can walk on for the rest of your life….a principle that you can live by from now on….what do you do?

I am caught in this labyrinth of questions and thoughts once again…..not being able to shut them off…..Is it enough to just hold on tight to your beliefs and that’s that? Is it just enough to let the unthinkable go on all around you and rest snugly in the belief that you are not the one who is involved in all this mess? More than this question, there is one more urgent question that has started plaguing me now…is it really possible to remain untouched and unscathed by any of this? Is it really possible to live a life in a shell with the belief that your life is mutually exclusive to anything happening around you and all that is around you doesn’t and will never make any difference to you? Is it really possible for the above to be true in any case? I am more and more inclined to believe that it is not. You are a part of the whole that is around you and cannot remain untouched…..

If humanity is the ultimate sacrosanct principle to be upheld and you believe so with all that you possibly can, then you cannot just sit content with this belief. You need to strive and fight hard to try and make it as much of a reality as possible….you need to speak, write, discuss, debate, do whatever you can to make other see the truth in it……you need to do this urgently….lest it is not too late…..lest things go out of control….if they have not already done so……you need to do it now…..if not for yourself then for the future generations that you have brought into this world….because this is the world that is going to be the biggest inheritance you will pass on to them…

Her life - Her own

She had seen naked death, unbound and unfettered. She had seen human lives wasted, ending with a blink of an eye, terminated with a random gunshot, lying motionless in a pool of blood. She was awestruck, dumbfounded with the meaninglessness of it all. That was the moment it all began. That was the moment she realized that the privilege and comfort of ‘routineness’ would elude her forever. For she was unable to eat after that, not being able to pass that morsel of food down her throat. That was also the moment when the journey from ordinary to extra-ordinary would begin for her. A journey that had never been a part of her plans, a journey in which many would join her, a journey that was now her life but that she would never be allowed to be in charge of. She would soon be placed on a pedestal she never intended to be on, she would be transformed from a living human being, with all her weaknesses, emotions, her frailties, into a goddess that was not allowed to possess in any of those. She had begun this journey in a child-like hope, a hope of a future for herself and her people that would not hold in its womb unspoken horrors of death and destruction, but the seeds of a life full of beaming promises and endless opportunities. She had a hope that she and her people, who were as equal as anyone else, who had as much right to a normal and ordinary life as anyone else, would be allowed to do that, to live a life that was normal. She, who had not been able to eat at first, had thought that may be this was a sign, may be her giving up food would be it, the push that was needed, the nudge that would change her and her people’s future, for good. She had believed unflinchingly in Mahatma Gandhi, his non-violence, his numerous fasts that had changed lives and made histories. This was the child-like hope she harbored. Child-like, because she had been unaware of the world she was breathing in, she was unaware of what this innocent wish could lead to. She was unaware that she could be charged for trying to commit suicide, she was unaware that she could be force-fed like an animal, she was unaware that she could be confined to a life of isolation within the four walls of a solitary room, she was unaware that such unthinkable callousness, apathy and insensitivity was possible to be displayed by human beings. Yet she soldiered on, not letting that flicker of hope die within her, for sixteen long years she survived, stealing tiny little moments from life, when she felt love, joy, hope and promise, all the emotions that each and every ordinary human being was entitled to feel. But she had forgotten that she had been catapulted out of the ordinary, not because she wished to but because others thought it should be so. It had been decided that she was not allowed to feel, to live, to love, to laugh, to be an ordinary human being again. That she could only be a goddess now, devoid of all human emotions. That her life could no longer be governed by her wishes but by everybody else’s. Then one fine day she decided. Decided that she wanted to live, to love, to laugh and to cry, to be human again. She wanted to marry and to have kids. She wanted to struggle but not how she had done for the past 16 years. She wanted to do it in a different way, in a way she thought would be more fruitful. She thought may be this was the way that could help her hopes be realized, her hopes for herself and her people. The goddess had decided to become a human again, and what a scandal that was. She was disowned and discarded, by those who proclaimed to love her, by those who hated her and buy those who were indifferent. She was left alone to make whatever she wanted of her life, it was inconsequential and useless for them now. She was also threatened that she would be robbed of this life if she dared to live it on her own terms.

 And that is where she stands now. But she stands straight, she stands tough, she stands dignified, she stands tall, in a nation full of dwarfs. She stands full of life among those who have forgotten what it means to be alive. She stands with the same child-like hope in her eyes, a hope as yet unfulfilled, but as much alive as it ever could be. Thank you Irom Sharmila Chanu, for being what you are. Thank you for reminding me the meaning of life.

Can the "Superman" ever be wrong?

I am a 30 year old working professional with a family and a child of my own. I would like to believe that I am reasonably well equipped in terms of my mental faculties to live in this world. However, a certain individual by the name of Pahlaj Nihalani wants me to believe otherwise. For the past one year he is time and again trying to tell me that I should not rely on my mental faculties to decide what is right or wrong, good or bad for me. He is trying to tell me that I am not mature enough to do so. He is trying to tell me that I should watch and listen (only on the celluloid though) to only what he thinks is suitable for me. He is trying hard to explain to me that whatever goes on in the world around me can be somehow negated and wished off only if we refuse to give it space on the celluloid screen. He is also telling me that if we committed the grave sin of giving it screen space, we are doomed as a society. It would tear apart our social and moral fabric and render us helpless and susceptible to all the demonic forces of the world. Such is the stuff that I am being forced to believe in, with the hope that repeating it over and over again would somehow legitimize it. Or that I would, some day, give up out of sheer exhaustion of resisting such absurdities, which are not even worth occupying my precious mental space.


Coming to the "Udta Punjab" controversy.  The makers of Udta Punjab have been asked to administer 89 cuts to their film, the most absurd being the removal of any reference to Punjab. What is the objective that is trying to be fulfilled here? I am myself a half-Punjabi, and it is heart-wrenching for me to witness the great fall of Punjab from the green revolution to the drug revolution. But the truth is that this is a fact, it is in the public domain and is known to one and all. It is not a secret wrapped up in some closet, that can be safely brushed under the carpet, so that no one comes to know about it. It is being lived by the old, the able and the children alike. Millions are trying to grapple with it daily. Millions are trying to make a sense of their life, gone all topsy-turvy, and trying to understand what went wrong. No ''sarkar'' has ever really honestly intended to end this scourge. It has been allowed to comfortably grow to such proportions, has been fed rather, that it has now turned into a big monster threatening to engulf the entire state and condemn it to a total ruin.


The key point here is that all of the above is widely in the public domain. So what purpose is being served by not allowing it to be depicted on the screen? Or in dressing it up in irrelevant niceties, so that it becomes meaningless drivel? What "public purpose" is being served here? Pahlaj Nihalani, the savior, is trying to save whom here, and from whom?


I think what is expected from us to understand here is that it is perfectly fine that thousands actual real of lives are actually being destroyed by this menace, but there is a big problem if we watch it being depicted on the screen.


Out of all this, I can understand only one thing, that I have seriously overestimated my mental faculties. My sincere apologies for the same! I am sure that I am incapable of ever having the requisite mental faculties to understand these simple things that are being tried to be explained to me. I am sure the fault lies with me, because the "Superman" can never be wrong!

Being a spectator!!

Have you been a spectator? I had been one and I believed the same for you as well; to each and every thing and everyone..I had been a spectator to innumerable people I knew and whom I didn't; to programs I viewed on the television and to LIVE cricket matches and to plays at Prithvi Theatre and NCPA. I had even been a spectator to corruption and to hostility of countless people..From now to the oldest of my memories, I had been a spectator to others MORE THAN to MYSELF.

And with every passing day, I intended and tried to move INWARDS. And I felt deeply revered to ludicrously pathetic at my LIFE'S LIVE performance. We LOVED being a spectator to a performance where people gave their 100% to what they did and we relished the outcome. I expected the same from myself. Sometimes, I felt so irritated at my raucous mind that I deliberately tried to assume myself drifting into irrelevance than to continue being my own spectator.

And then, the Sun rose. And the mind was afresh. And, a new thought. To rise above. Above oneself. From simply being you to being a spectator of yourself and then being what you were to what you can be OR moving away from just performing to the strategy to first visualize how you would want yourself to perform. To give yourself space and time to prepare and perform. And perform for just one person..Yourself...

It is really important to view yourself from the OUTSIDE; It lets you look at yourself from a different perspective..You assume to be another person with same mindset as yours and you watch yourself performing...And you really want to please the other person because first, its yours own virtual image and second, you would really want to enjoy your own performance. And that is what drives to perform with max energy.

I really want to enjoy my performance each day and it usually is a mix of full and partial achievement of my goals. But, I realize that I may lack in a few areas and I know that I need to fill those gaps. My Other person needs to enjoy me performing..I wanna keep him happy. My spectators must enjoy my performance. :-)

The Other Side of Silence - Urvashi Butalia

I just finished reading Urvashi Butalia’s “The Other Side of Silence”. It’s a book on Partition, dealing with the partition of Punjab….it is not an official account of the technicalities involved or the ‘’facts” about Partition, but deals with the impact of Partition on the human lives involved…. giving much needed space to the neglected and the silenced ones….women, children and the marginalized communities (the “Harijans”, as they are called)…..

After finishing this read, I expected to feel in myself an upsurge of emotions, a feeling of disbelief in what she has written…..but that didn’t happen…..may be because the accounts I read are so unbelievable that you keep on reading them like a robot without actually registering the enormity of what occurred…..may be because they are from too distant a past not having any direct bearing on me…..or is it because such barbaric and inhumane incidents are not able to surprise anymore?....Have they become a trend rather than an exception?....

The devaluing of the human lives that happened at the time of Partition, when the fact that a human being was just that first and foremost, a HUMAN BEING, became irrelevant and inconsequential….the only things that remained important were the adjectives that can be attached to a human being….those pertaining to religion, gender, caste, class and the like……did this devaluation happen only then?.....does this not happen day in and day out….may be on a different scale…..may be in a different form…..but does it not? Women are still the secondary gender, no matter how much we talk of gender equality……children are not even considered as separate individuals in their own right, but only as an extension of the parents….as if they were brought into the world for the sole purpose of the fulfilment of the unrealized drams of the parents….the marginalized on the basis of religion, caste and class are not even considered worthy of being treated as human beings at times…..

Why do these state of affairs not trouble us? Why does it not give us sleepless nights? How are we able to accept this and live our lives as usual? Why are we always ready with the excuse that a single individual was remained incapable of doing anything about anything? Why do not all these single individuals decide to make a difference, at least in their own lives, in which case everything will take care of itself automatically?

But till such time this utopia is realized, do read these personal and human accounts of the survivors of Partition…..it will force you to think, after you get over the numbness……of the meaninglessness of it all……..

A big thank you to Urvashi Butalia for uncovering some of the silences……

The Shadows..

The reverberations of an unruly mind bridging the gap of the real and imaginary you..The imaginary quotient is like that unfulfilled dream that you aspire for..The dream that you work on to achieve...

There are shadows that travel within the mind to remind about that dream...The shadows actually live that dream before the real you could  experience it...The shadows keep reminding of the commitment you once had to achieve those dreams...The shadows are really powerful because they have the capability to force you to act...They show you your naked face, the wrinkles of imaginary you behind your real face...They expose you to yourself..They bug you and hit you at time when you least want them..

The shadows of procrastination, of lies, of feeble you, of insecure you, of your lacklustre performance, of your troubled relationships, of your dark realities....The shadows that hide behind the real you, of real you creating a paradoxical mind...

And the life revolves around these shadows...Around bridging the gap between imaginary and real you..The gaps are meant to be bridged..They will certainly be bridged...The shadows will show the way...

Emptiness

Emptiness is good. It renders free space. There is huge shortage of emptiness in today's India. There are people and there are objects; all around. There are endless vehicles and the sky is full of planes. I search for emptiness everyday but I cant find it. I go out to parks which are closed in the afternoon; coffee shops and Mc. Donald's thats full of young crowd. There is construction; big malls and residential building all around. There is pollution and there is too much of rush everywhere.

Emptiness brings value to our ecosystem...my coffee mug has its value because of the space it possesses.....My mind is hardly peaceful because its hardly empty anytime....There is always a rush of blood to my head and innumerable thoughts that add to turbulence of my mind....Emptiness is peace to me and my final aim..

Where the mind is without fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

- Rabindranath Tagore

Thank God he is not alive to witness the chaos, turmoil, pettiness and the death of humanity today....

I AGREE....and I WISH

Professor Apoorvanand doesn't have a son but I am sure he would want his daughter to develop into an independent minded humane individual. I have a son, right now too young, his innocence in full bloom, untouched from most that goes around him. But he will grow in due course, and I wish that he turns into an individual capable of thinking on his own, capable of questioning anything and everything that goes around him, including his parents' thoughts, decisions, biases, prejudices, everything. I wish he grows into an individual who values humanity above all else, who understands empathy, who has the ability to suffer for others as he would for himself, who has the courage to stand up for what he thinks right and admit equally adroitly if he realizes he was wrong. I wish he develops into a human being who understands what it should mean to be a human being. I wish this now and I will wish this always. And wishes do come true, only if you wish hard enough!

Sense of responsibility!!

Shakespeare said, "The fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves".

I agree with the above statement and I have truly started to believe in it. The kind of environment in which i was brought up was charged  with 2 parallels - one to act and the other to leave the rest to God. Why leave to God - because whatever has to happen will happen anyway. This was really confusing as then, this challenged the very logic of me trying to accomplish anything. So, although the action was given true importance, it was also confronted by the predestined philosophy.
But over a period of time, i did realise the importance of "responsibility" in life and that generated the psyche to own the tasks performed by me. And then, in the absence of an action, it was me to be blamed, not the destiny. It took to me some time to start becoming responsible for the tasks I own, but it also generated a raging desire to be disciplined and focussed towards accomplishing the tasks. There were challenges and i realised - Everyone of us has some or the other responsibility and its the duty of each one of us to act with precision and take complete ownership of the tasks assigned to us.
The more we accept the responsibility of who we are and who we cam become, the greater will be our progress and contribution.

Detach yourself!!

Hope is here to stay...A man needs to trust himself and must not limit his thoughts based on the events of a day...every day is different and brings in more energy and more scope for accomplishing your half met targets...every moment is separate from the previous one and a thrust of energy, a rush of blood can change the game...keeping looking for avenues that take you towards your goal..THINK and ACT carefully and detach yourself from the outcome of the previous moment...A person need to work on an outcome based approach and also detach himself from the outcome of the previous moment. The driving factor must not be the outcome of the previous moment....IT must only be achievement of the final goal that must drive a person to move forward!

A wanderer........OR....

The pathway looked abstruse and capable of bemusing the journeyer...The real is disguised by the misrepresentations of the perplexed mind.. And the journeyer wanders... Her own fake mindset forces her to stop but she does not stop...It is her battle against her mind to keep moving and so she marches ahead...She had been a fighter till now, but just a mere fighter..And she fought and could just do that..Her energies were not spent in "where to progress" but   were rather spent in "not stopping". And so, she succeeded to move but still failed herself because in-spite of moving all through and not stopping when the circumstances were adverse, she failed to accomplish anything..

And one day she realised that all this time when she thought of herself as a focussed journeyer, she was just being a wanderer..Her fighting spirit marred by lack of reason reduced her to a mere wanderer..an aimless entity wrapped in the personification of a big tree..but a day came when the tree fell down..a rootless tree fell down...

What could she do now? Too feeble to move and realising that she was just being an irrational fighter, she lacked the strength to get up...she was unacceptable to anyone in this world. But she did fight and in some way, could win over her mind but no one registers that.. Still, she could manage to be optimistic...She regarded her journey as worthy enough of distinguishing her from the rest of the world and so, its an accomplishment in itself. The world is too ruthless to appreciate her journey...why is it that nobody admires the journey when its unfinished? The society is too used to work with the finished products of fine quality...Anything lesser is rendered inefficient and looked down upon as unfit and being tagged as a mere wanderer..

And she realised that its her life and so, nothing else mattered. And she again gathered the strength to move,but this time, she moved with a reason...A reason known only to her and that made her a journeyer in her own eyes. The world could still think of her as a wandered and it did not matter to her anymore...And she knew that she wouldn't fall this time because she had got a reason.....A reason strong enough to make her journey worthwhile.............

"Intolerance"

The purpose of this piece is solely to voice my solidarity with one and all who are standing up against the 'intolerance' being depicted in the nation. I am not apologetic of voicing my opinion now and I would not like to justify or clarify to anyone the merits or demerits of the timing chosen by me for voicing my opinion. Whether or not I had voiced my opinion in the past, what are my political inclinations and so on and so forth are nobody's concern. I am also not concerned with quantifying 'intolerance' and measuring whether it is 'rising' or 'falling'. I would also like to clarify that I do-not wish to qualify 'intolerance' with the adjective 'religious'. Castigating individuals for belonging to a particular educational institution which protested on certain issue, hurling abuses at an individual for voicing his opinions for the sole reason that he is a celebrity (forgetting that he is firstly an equal citizen of the nation) and his opinions don't coincide with yours and so on and so forth, are all examples of extreme 'intolerance'. And they will remain so irrespective of the political dispensation of the day, in a similar manner that 'Emergency' remains a shining example of extreme 'intolerance', irrespective of the political dispensation of the day. Out of the multifarious voices rising up today, some might be sane, others not, some might be sincere and genuine, others not, some might be well-intentioned, other not, but picking up all these, bundling them together and labelling them with rhetorical terms like 'politically motivated', 'anti-national' is actually quite hilarious, bordering on the insane. So, let us please not get gobbled up by paranoia and let some sense prevail....