Do not sit down and give up!

Got a mail from a thoughtful uncle who wants to post my writing on his blog and asked me what alias I would like to use. I told him to use my real name…the very idea of hiding seems abhorrent, I do no wrong. I do not go out and shoot down people in cold blood and dance over the dead! It’s a trifle late for me to pick up arms…and all the wishing in the world cannot change what is!

But I will keep writing. I can do nothing more….I am the accursed thinker. In another life, I may become a doer. I am the coal that burns, what use it is put to depends upon the others. The realm of thought is easily occupied by me….the world of action inhabited by the soldier raises many, many emotions in me. Makes me a mite envious too…he hears the call and marches off to do his duty with no fanfare.

I talk of the Armed Forces, I include all those in uniform who protect us….I encompass all those who don the uniform and when the time comes, do not retreat. The greater common good is what they see and can sacrifice this life so that others may live. I find it the most evolved expression of human thought! And I like paying off my debts…to acknowledge that I labour under such a great karmic debt leaves me agonized!

Peace comes to us at a cost. The financial one is the most easy to return…the moral one crushes me and makes me desperate to pay back in any way, however insignificant!

I should like it if there were some camps held where all interested were taught some basic life saving techniques. So that when next we come upon an injured person we do not look the other way merely because we feel useless and inadequate! I think to help another is an elemental quality present in all of us, the ones who walk away feel they cannot do anything. Otherwise when one comes upon a person with a shrapnel splinter in him, what does one do beside yelling and throwing up one’s hands up in the air? Maybe faint?

I think blood donation should become a part of our lives….one feels most worthy after giving up a pint.

And I really, really endorse military training for all of us…for a year. Nothing will kill off this shabby politics of division which our dear politicians practice on us so often and with such deadly results, faster. Riots are such an awful price to pay for hatred. When we perceive the enemy within we burn, loot, murder, torture, destroy trains, buses, buildings which are our own, for crying out loud!....and when the real enemy comes, see how everybody melts away! I would curse Mr. Thackeray when his subversive policies seemed to be working…do you now see what a charlatan he was? Killing off people so poor that they had to come looking for work away from home, leaving family behind and this Godawful man not only snatched the morsel from their mouth but beat them up too. Terrorised a man so weak! Working to sustain oneself and one’s family is a crime? Looking for work is a crime and one must pay for it with one’s life? This is what this insect taught! And he had followers!!

I pray that we have had our eyes well and truly opened and the next time some creep of a politician asks us to finish a community, we turn around and lynch him right there and relieve this earth of a worthless burden!

How have we all been so blind? And when the true enemy turns up, lo and behold! We are suddenly on our own…not a leader in sight, not even their rowdy henchmen to provide us with some back up! Just what happens to all these ‘maai ke laal’? I am so utterly disgusted with our leadership that I cannot find the energy or will to abuse them. I just want a responsible, sturdy character at the helm who does not wish to push us all collectively in the fire and watch gleefully as we leap about in the flames.

Who are all these fat guys on TV, talking nonsense…how come they represent me? I would not trust my dog in their safekeeping. What has happened? How did we go so wrong? How can they tell me to choose between criminals….it’s either them or then I don’t vote? How come politicians who have been seen by eyewitnesses to be involved in riots roam scot-free, stand for elections? Tell me, I am clueless and bewildered! I cannot park without getting a ticket…how do these guys survive after creating open mayhem in broad daylight? And I can’t get a tenant out of my house and that fellow doesn’t even pay rent? I wait 20 years to fight and finish a case! Where did the law of the land go? It seemed to have gone off with no forwarding address either! And why did we let it happen so easily?

I just hope to God that my fellow Indian will not give up and sit down…I hope he continues to rant and rage and organize and shows me which way to turn…right now I am thoroughly lost and the only thing which keeps me from giving in to utter panic is the hope that I am among my own who are a very determined lot right now!