Mother do you think they'll drop the bomb?
Ever since I have come to Germany, I have been doing only two things in the evening
While, point 1 is the most exciting thing that's happened to me in the last two weeks (if you don't count my conversation with the iyengar mami) the latter one is well, quite depressing to say the least. Here's a summary of what I have been listening to
- Cooking (yeah baby! I am still alive ;))
- Watching CNN
While, point 1 is the most exciting thing that's happened to me in the last two weeks (if you don't count my conversation with the iyengar mami) the latter one is well, quite depressing to say the least. Here's a summary of what I have been listening to
- 53 dead in the london 7/7 bombing (7,9,11 - what's with these odd numbers!)
- 4 more (thankfully failed) attempts but one guy killed during investigation
- More bloodshed in Egypt - 4 bomb blasts
- Violence in Turkey
- Yet another suicide bomb blast in Iraq
Do you listen to other sources of news - are all of them as scary and as doomsday-ish as CNN is? Because, if they are, thank god I don't have a TV in Bangalore. Trust me it is a very depressing feeling when you go to bed when the last thing is you see is a headless corpse bleeding outside a hotel villa with no one to tend (I guess that's one stage before getting so scared that you vote a nincompoop for president and two stages before getting completely desensitized to all the blood and gore).
Has the world always been this way? We have had worse situations I am sure. We have had the world wars for one, the atrocities in the gulf, vietnam, srilanka ... we have always had it in india - the blue star fiasco, the bleeding north-east, not to mention kashmir, and recently the shameful godhra riots - every corner of the country bleeding at some point or the other. But in the last 60 years, we probably have never had a global threat as this one, where a substantial number of the population finds a justifiable (though never acceptable) reason to all this violence. Evil probably never had such a strong motive where youngsters attend schools, visit websites and learn to incite violence in normal laymen.
All of us carry multiple identities - I am an Indian, a hindu, a malayali (and a tamilian too), a software engineer, a son and a brother - and all these identities coexist. The motives of one doesn't contradict the other and in cases that they have, I have been able to priortize and decide (probably because, there's one supreme unquestionable identity I carry of being a rational human being). And the greatest atrocities in the world have occurred when power mongers have appealed to the social identity of people - To one's nationality (Hitler) or religion (Godhra) or caste - a passionate appeal to brotherhood that hits a man's reason first, and his neighbour next. And when this brotherhood spans nations and social strata, and uses one of the holiest books in the world as the proof of reason, you have vengeance disseminating in the speed of light.
I have always believed, I knew the difference between the good and the bad. When I was ten, the difference was crystal clear. Dictators are evil. Democray is good (I didn't understand Communism then. I am not sure whether I still do). After seeing the cold war aftermaths, the iraq war, I am not sure. Who's evil? A man who for his personal gains kills thousands of people and rules his country? Or a man who for his business gains kills thousands of people and rules another country? North korea has nuclear weapons - does that make it evil? Is India Evil then? Pakistan is infiltrating terrorism in india and hence is evil? My Pakistani friend probably believes India is initiating rumours about Pakistan all around the world. Afghanistan has a terrorist streak - it is evil. Or should I have to blame the country that initiated the terrorist streak? The United nations has been trying to define Terrorism and the member countries have not yet been able to reach a consensus on what Terrorism is (No! I am not kidding). They are hoping to do it in the next couple of years. No wonder.
When I was ten, I wasn't sure if I know the complete truth. Now I am - that I don't and never will. When I was ten, I believed that people who read the news in my language are saying the truth (coz that is the only one I could understand). Now, I am not sure of even that. All that I know is every evening, strangers take turns to enter my bedroom through a cathode ray window and scare me out of my wits; they take pains in proving to me that I am next in the list of those blown-to-bits (there were good ol' days when I could appreciate the pun), convincing me that cooking my own dinner is far safer than going out on the roads and eating in a restaurant.
My Mom is eternally thankful to them for that.
Title Credits: Who else? :) Click to read the rest
Has the world always been this way? We have had worse situations I am sure. We have had the world wars for one, the atrocities in the gulf, vietnam, srilanka ... we have always had it in india - the blue star fiasco, the bleeding north-east, not to mention kashmir, and recently the shameful godhra riots - every corner of the country bleeding at some point or the other. But in the last 60 years, we probably have never had a global threat as this one, where a substantial number of the population finds a justifiable (though never acceptable) reason to all this violence. Evil probably never had such a strong motive where youngsters attend schools, visit websites and learn to incite violence in normal laymen.
All of us carry multiple identities - I am an Indian, a hindu, a malayali (and a tamilian too), a software engineer, a son and a brother - and all these identities coexist. The motives of one doesn't contradict the other and in cases that they have, I have been able to priortize and decide (probably because, there's one supreme unquestionable identity I carry of being a rational human being). And the greatest atrocities in the world have occurred when power mongers have appealed to the social identity of people - To one's nationality (Hitler) or religion (Godhra) or caste - a passionate appeal to brotherhood that hits a man's reason first, and his neighbour next. And when this brotherhood spans nations and social strata, and uses one of the holiest books in the world as the proof of reason, you have vengeance disseminating in the speed of light.
I have always believed, I knew the difference between the good and the bad. When I was ten, the difference was crystal clear. Dictators are evil. Democray is good (I didn't understand Communism then. I am not sure whether I still do). After seeing the cold war aftermaths, the iraq war, I am not sure. Who's evil? A man who for his personal gains kills thousands of people and rules his country? Or a man who for his business gains kills thousands of people and rules another country? North korea has nuclear weapons - does that make it evil? Is India Evil then? Pakistan is infiltrating terrorism in india and hence is evil? My Pakistani friend probably believes India is initiating rumours about Pakistan all around the world. Afghanistan has a terrorist streak - it is evil. Or should I have to blame the country that initiated the terrorist streak? The United nations has been trying to define Terrorism and the member countries have not yet been able to reach a consensus on what Terrorism is (No! I am not kidding). They are hoping to do it in the next couple of years. No wonder.
When I was ten, I wasn't sure if I know the complete truth. Now I am - that I don't and never will. When I was ten, I believed that people who read the news in my language are saying the truth (coz that is the only one I could understand). Now, I am not sure of even that. All that I know is every evening, strangers take turns to enter my bedroom through a cathode ray window and scare me out of my wits; they take pains in proving to me that I am next in the list of those blown-to-bits (there were good ol' days when I could appreciate the pun), convincing me that cooking my own dinner is far safer than going out on the roads and eating in a restaurant.
My Mom is eternally thankful to them for that.
Title Credits: Who else? :) Click to read the rest
posted by Rathish at 11:20 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home