Seeing Red

76 jawans were slaughtered yesterday by over 1000 Naxalites. Ambushed and massacred. Why on earth are we worried so much about what the neighbouring country is trying to do? Why are we wasting our time and energy about a nation that is not even under our governance? Shouldn’t we first look into ourselves. Our country. Regions and people under our governance.

In a lay man’s terms, Naxalites are people who take a violent approach to Communism. They are against the red tapism, against the bureaucracy. If I think about it, I am forced to agree with their ideologies, if not their methods. Remember 26/11? The death toll for that ordeal was 173. Do you know how many people have died during this Naxalite struggle in the year 2009? 1134. Isn’t the number significantly larger than the death by external terrorism? But still, why is Pakistan given more screen space, more news time and more importance than this persisting issue? Because it is high profile. Why do the terrorist attacks get more importance? Because they happen in cities where civilians like you and me are affected. So what if in some rural internal part of the country men are dying to try and maintain peace in the country. That merely makes an interesting topic for conversation over a cup of coffee. Even today, more news time is given to IPL and for some weird reason the marriage of Sania Mirza and Shoaib Malik. How is that of any importance to the nation? Two people find each other compatible and want to spend the rest of their lives together. What the f**k is the country’s objection/interest in that?

Humara kya jaata hain? We sit in our air conditioned homes and see the news and mourn over it for a couple of minutes. The fault lies in us. Because we are more interested in Sania Mirza, the media shows more of her. Because we give more importance to IPL, the media covers it extensively. Have we completely disconnected ourselves from that inner voice we loosely refer to as the conscience? There are people out there, dying to maintain peace in our country; people who have pledged to fight against any threat internal or external. Forget about helping them, forget about supporting them, we don’t even have the decency, the courtesy to show solidarity towards their deaths.

What is wrong if someone is raising a voice against such development? What is wrong if someone is raising a voice against such a government? What is wrong if someone is raising a voice against such people? So, the real questions is, are the Naxalites the villains or are we, the people, the society the villains? Naxalites are merely the effect, we are the cause.

26th November 2009, Realisation

26^th November 2009. Exactly a year after the dreadful siege had started in Mumbai. I went to the Gateway of India to show my solidarity, to mourn, to let the buildings make me feel the way they had felt exactly a year ago. Yes, today I heard buildings, buildings made of stone and mortar talk to me. They told me their story. They had merely just started and I had tears in my eyes. I can’t picture, imagine or comprehend what the people present here a year ago must have felt. But I felt the pain today. I felt the fear. I felt the feeling of utter powerlessness. I had to forcefully take my eyes away from the dome of the Taj; before I break down. I couldn’t take it anymore. All the noise, all the slogans, all the chants lost and forgotten at that very instant when I locked eyes with the dome. There was an immediate connection. It was terrifying. For a brief second I was transported back a year and the barrage of various uncontrollable emotions and fear was too much to bear. Imagine being there while it was happening and having ‘access’ to the feelings of everyone present there. That is how I felt.

Scary and terrifying though it was, I wanted more. I wanted to feel that connect again. I wanted to hear the story, I wanted to feel what they felt. I wanted to feel the extent of uselessness, my powerlessness. Rather I wanted to realise it. All the illusion about how I was going to make a difference shattered. At first I did not understand the purpose of people lighting candles outside the Taj. Suddenly it made sense. I lit a candle and let myself go, to be embraced, to be taken. The rush, the force, the power of the emotions was too strong. I couldn’t pull out. I couldn’t or maybe didn’t want to step out, get disconnected. I cried.

And then the feeling of utter uselessness sinks in, again. The realisation of the extent of my powerlessness kicks in. And it’s frustrating. This is not how it was supposed to be. This is not how it was supposed to be. I WANT TO DO SOMETHING WORTHWHILE. I WANT TO CONTRIBUTE. The time to point fingers at others is gone, done, over. It’s time to take the mantle in my own hands and ‘do’. That’s the operative word. No more hesitation. No more wait. No more doubt. Just one clear thought and objective.

government type: democracy, people type: hypocrisy

‘Hahahahaha’…Laugh, that’s all I could do at seeing the incredibly pathetic turnout for the general elections, especially in Mumbai. It’s the kind of laugh that escapes from you when you feel so much grief that you do not know how to react. One would think that after a shocking awakening that we were handed out on 26th November 2008 Mumbai would not fall asleep so soon.

After all those rallies, after all that ‘we need change’ and after all that drama this is what the citizens of ‘the great city’ Mumbai do. And then you have the audacity in celebrating ‘the Mumbai spirit’ in getting life back to normal in a jiffy. Haha. I’ll tell you what seems to be ‘the Mumbai spirit’ after this turnout, ‘Ignorance is bliss’. Of all the teams in the highly hyped IPL, no team deserves to call itself ‘INDIANS’. Not after this. This is not a launch on Mumbai or the Mumbai spirit. I was a believer in all those things and that is why it hurts so much to see all that go down the drain. It seems like it was just a publicity stunt. It seems like we like to call ourselves ‘Mumbaikars’ and our team ‘Mumbai Indians’. But when it comes to being them, swish and we are no where to be found. It is not the democratic system of India that is at fault here, it is the hypocritical people of India that are.

What was equally appalling was the response of the media to this abysmal turnout. It was a bigger news for them that ‘a lot’ of celebrities had turned up for voting rather than the fact that there was just 41% turnout overall. It’s depressing. And to top it all, they then find excuses to support the low turnout. And what were the reasons? ‘it was a long weekend, people were vacationing’ and ‘it was too hot’. I’m feeling ashamed just typing this down. If you call these reasons for not being part of the process of the formation of the Government then God damn it you have no fucking right to utter a single word of distress against the way this country is run. Instead of travelling with the celebrities in their cars and interviewing them about who they voted and why, shouldn’t they have gone and found those people vacationing (thanks to the long weekend) or sitting in their air conditioned homes because its too hot. It’s not like we’re made of wax and we’ll melt in the heat.

I’m not saying I expected a 100% turnout. It is a time bound process, this so called ‘awakening’. But atleast we should make some progress. Atleast take some steps forward, hell atleast take one step forward.

I had thought that Mumbai could be the spearhead in bringing about the change that this country so desperately needs. But this is disheartening. Almost draining me of all the hope that there will be a better India tomorrow but at the same time, giving me an insight that it is time to take this change outside of living room chats and blog articles. It’s time to act, to do. Of course, we can’t expect to see immediate results, but maybe by the next elections, or maybe the one after that, or maybe the one after that. However long it takes, the process should start now, has to start now.