കരള്‍ പിളരും കാലം

[sajith]

Expecting to stay impervious to all this by staying away from newspapers, television, and blog noise as I usually do has turned out to be quite ineffective. Now that the weekend is here, I wondered if I could perhaps contemplate at my slow pace how we are all taking ourselves too seriously, how the murderers had taken themselves too seriously, and how all this could have been avoided had we all agreed upon our own insignificance and insignificantly short lifespans and the silliness of religions and national borders. Or dig out the significant news bits and factoids. Or dig out thoughtful analysis pieces and be able to think further.

How wrong I was. Clearly it does not work that way. I did worry about friends in Mumbai, and about those who deserved none of this. I however did expect myself to be able to give a nonchalant look, and avoid the standard emotion-led response. I am after all this guy who could stand by my own uncle's body and perform his last rites with complete detachment and could find humour in the rituals -- hey, he would look great at f/2.8 on Provia 400RXP in the glow of all these flames, and such.

How wrong I was. As I'm poring over the news, I find it hard to hold tears and fury and anger. Not breaking down is hard, close to impossible. Clear thinking is the last thing I can do now. I'm writing this down with hopes of revisiting this from another time, to gladly find out how wrong and uninformed I was again. That faith-foolish thing again.

***

Even in the recent history, India had this immense capacity to absorb everything, and set itself straight in its course -- the Delhi mass murder of Sikhs took place only two decades back, and look who we've for a Prime Minister now, for example. Or how a largely illiterate population set Indira Gandhi straight when she showed her fangs. Despite the numerous mutinies, we still manage to hold ourself together.

My intuition however says things will never be the same this time around. Pretty soon, quietude and normalcy will return on the surface, but only on the surface. Resentment and vengeful fury will seethe underneath, and eruptions are going to be far more frequent. What could be a more perfect recruitment chance for right wing militancy now? Aren't chances of living under further state control greater now? And greater amount of surveillance, and numerous associated inconveniences to be faced by ordinary citizens like us? To that extent, aren't we allowing the murderers to achieve their target? I'm afraid these are wounds time cannot heal, now that the rhetoric around deficiencies of Hindu tolerance will find greater voice and more takers.

I remember wondering at the somewhat self-inflicted ghettoising of communities around Delhi's Jama Masjid, Hyderabad's Makka Masjid, and the shrine of Hasrat Baal in Srinagar; and wondering why it has to be so. There's so much common to them. I remember how different my Muslim friends' lives are from what I'd seen there. I worry about them, as much as I worry about what future holds us for all. If subjugation was the problem as claimed by one of the murderers, every single community -- dalits, adivasis, Brahmins, north Indians, south Indians, north-east Indians, majorities, minorities, everyone -- in this country could take up arms.

My country, we did not deserve any of this. We never did.

Comments

[sajith.livejournal.com]

I have no right to judge if this is naiveté or not.

I think all conflicts essentially trace down to absence of empathy, but I have no idea if this is a solvable problem. How can anyone ever know what's truly driving and what conditioned men that are willing to attack innocent people going about their daily lives? Other than that we're wired to be cruel to each other? My own anger and rage and sorrow are the result of that very wiring..

Sorry about pontificating. :-)

[locks.livejournal.com]

I kinda differ or maybe I can extend your thought to say - even absence of empathy, I feel, is due to lack of essential human values, misguded beliefs and ignorance. I certainly don't believe that we are wired to be cruel to each other.