Ramblings Of An Insane Mind!!!

NOR dread nor hope attend

A dying animal;

A man awaits his end

Dreading and hoping all;

Many times he died,

Many times rose again.

A great man in his pride

Confronting murderous men

Casts derision upon

Suppression of breath;

He knows death to the bone --

Man has created death.

By William Butler Yeats

A very eventful week passed us by and a lot of lessons to be learned, but will we? Yes, I am talking about the gory incident that happened in Mumbai. Innocent lives extinguished. Why? Just because some misguided youth happen to think that this is the way it should be; because the powers that govern us think this is the right thing.

We say this is the work of Islamic terrorism; terrorism in the guise of religious beliefs. No, it is not. Terrorism is just plain terrorism; there is nothing Islamic to it or for that matter there are no Islamic terrorists, Hindu terrorists or Christian militia. I really doubt if there is any religion, or faith, which openly advocates terrorism as a way of life. Faith doesn’t breed terrorists, politics does. If you are an English language student and the next time you need a good example of an oxymoron, the best one you would find is ‘a noble politician’.

It’s rather easy nowadays to breed terrorists. The recipe is quite simple; so simple that we could have small manufacturing units everywhere, even in your neighborhood. All one needs is the right ingredients and you have yourself a good terrorist. The ingredients aren’t very hard to find.

Take a few young guys, low on luck and from poor families. First make them feel that they are really wasted. After doing this successfully, make them feel that they can redeem themselves and make their existence purposeful. Throw in some good clothes, some easy money and of course the most important thing the GUN! Make them feel every bit of a MAN!

Holding a gun gives men a strange sense of being a real MAN! Once you have all this in place, toss in a few lessons on religious bigotry. The rewards: Nirvana, Heaven, Jannat, etc. and the real reward of it all – Money! Money, that is promised to the poor family (Come on fella, you have a chance of being a good child. You couldn’t provide your family with your useless life at least provide them one with your death), and voila you have yourself a Terrorist!

Why am I writing all this? I am saddened by what has happened. Like you, I feel sick and want to vent out. Yes, this is what I will do, and like you, I will forget about it on Monday, when life takes it normal course and I go about worrying for my daily bread.

I don’t want to blame anybody, any caste, or any religion, for what has happened. I just want to blame ourselves for we have failed to bring about the change in our social fabric. We have abused the best weapon we have to bring about the change: our VOTE. We have failed to exercise our ballot judiciously. We have chosen people responsible for all this. We shun change because it’s painful. We have become comfortably numb. We shake out of this numbness once in a while when confronted with events like these (terror attacks); only to go back to being comfortably numb until another attack happens. Some might accuse me of being a pseudo secular…..nope I am just tryin2b humane!