Intimate Murder!!

Relentless rain had left me with no choice but to stay home and stay glued to television and watch the persistent live show of Anna Hazare’s fast that all news channels have determined to shower on us. Reporters seem to have found an opportunity to show off their modern world journalistic expertise by bringing minute to minute development (which there wasn’t much and yet keeping its viewer interested as if something were to happen at any instant).  

Anna Hazare, an activist who, just four months ago, was not known to 75% of population of India, is now named as 'New Age Gandhi'. He and his team, according to many, represent views and ideas of whole India. I am not going to dwell too much into the details of incidents that ignited the protest. I sincerely think government has failed to contain the situation when it was well within its reach. As a matter fact, frolics of government have provided a solid base for Hazare to stand upon and build up a mammoth support to make government his puppet. As many analysts said, the timing of protest couldn’t have been better especially when people were exasperated, with revelations of few politicians being involved in sidelining unfathomable amount of money, and were looking for a way out to vent the emotions. There it was, a ‘fast’ train driven by Hazare and People had no second thought but dump their frustration to strengthen the locomotive which was determined to derail corruption (or was it headed to derail democracy itself?).

The determination of Team Anna was so firm that they never hesitated to continue the protest even when they knew their demands were unconstitutional and undemocratic. I have no objection with people demanding for introduction of new bills/resolutions to cleanse the system and stem the corruption but the path one chooses to express the protest needs to be scrutinized. It’s not just achieving goals, but the process one chooses is also as significant. In fact, if it wasn’t vital then we would have never read/ talked so high about non-violence (Non-Violence is a weapon that was introduced to the world by Gandhiji which in turn inspired many across the world to adapt and achieve greater heights.). Team Anna chose Gandhian way to begin with, which inspired millions across the nation and subsequently to retain the agitators they chose to add in histrionics by throwing cheap punches at government, which only made few analysts and activists distance themselves from the movement.  It was  so appalling to see Team Anna, some of whom were inspirational for fairer sex for fairly long time, become blinded by the light of fame and glory that many had no choice but to withdraw support when Team Anna adamantly decided to continue fast even after Government (Prime Minister himself) promised of introducing the bill/resolution and holding discussion.

One of dreadful outcomes of the protest is the precedence set by Anna Hazare by demanding the government to pass the bill that was drafted by his panel without any vote, which only encourages people to hold a gun to their head and force the government to do something that they wish even if it is unconstitutional. I wasn’t really happy to learn the comparison of Anna with Gandhi. It’s an insult to Gandhiji himself. It was perplexing, if not more, to see Sangh parivar (RSS) people call Hazare, ‘Second Mahatma Gandhi’, since they never approved or agreed the ideology of Gandhiji himself. I guess, they have no option but join the procession and gain a mileage out of it, even if it means to get rid of some of its fundamentals.

When all this was happening, even when millions of voices were echoing  Hazare and JanLokPal bill, there were few voices, which stood tall to dissect the facts and condemn wherever/whenever it was necessary. And at the same cross roads there were few intellectual voices, which were loud and clear on many occassions before, standing speechless and acquiescing spinelessly. For me this is more perilous as somebody said ‘silence of a genius is more dangerous than an idiot’s rhetoric’.

Not all outcomes were bad in this protest. It was promising to see that People still get inspired by Gandhiji, especially when many of us thought face of the nation was changing drastically. I am not against ‘change’. Change is inevitable whether you accept or not. But without any change in ‘us’, without any change in our compassion towards a fellow human being , without any change in our thoughts towards society, it would be a futile effort to bring in new bills and expect that a reform would emerge.  

Fall of a Mountain!!

Last week, my wife said, I, emotionally, was not as strong as I looked. I unquestionably agreed with her. In fact I would never want her to be wrong. Emotions are unsung tunes of melody and misery and unvented expressions of glee and glum generated in heart with empathy. I would never want to suppress my emotions, especially when someone very close to heart breathed their last.

It was 4:30 AM; I woke up early to catch live action between India and West Indies in world cup cricket. As I turned off my alarm, I observed that a message was waiting in my inbox. I opened the message up only to learn the fact that my Babayi had passed away few hours ago. I was shell shocked to say the least. The essence of the message was so stunning that I had to read more than couple of times to get grips on my balance. I immediately called home and got it confirmed. He was suffering from brain hemorrhage and was bedridden for quite a long time.

Babayi had always been a determined and kindhearted person (Some might not agree and I don’t wrong them either). If I ever made a list of well wishers in my life, He would make it in top five, indisputably. I remember my childhood days in Hyderabad (late 80s and early 90s), so very filled up with His footprints. He was very instrumental in every decision, every aspect and every step we took in our lives (siblings). He was our strength and we were his world. He would turn the lives of many upside down to see the smiles on our faces. Sometimes, in achieving smiles of His beloved, in attaining his goals, in accomplishing tasks, I feel, He might have failed to understand the consequences and troubles others had sustained. Perhaps, He was ignorant to these situations or grew nonchalant in overwhelming satisfaction rewarded in smiles on His beloved faces. Either way, His loving nature and compassionate heart should never be undervalued. His way of living was achieving the desired goal at any expense, at least up until he turned 55 years, up until he fell down for first time and, also for last time and He could never pick Himself up again.

Even though threads between families of us are not as binding as they used to be and memories of togetherness does seem fading away, but His influence on us is so powerful that a message of His death unstoppably brought buckets of tears. In retrospection, life seemed very different with Him being our forte, and we being His joy. But, as time went on, life made us to drift away from His path of possessiveness. And today, news of death made me realize, I could never be detached from Him.

I felt putting these words on the paper might console me, but deep down a voice haunts me that I never made an effort to pay a visit when He was lying on the bed, when He was hapless and when He truly needed our smile to rejuvenate Himself. My wife was very fortunate to have met Him in her latest visit to India. Her description of Him, a disheartened, speechless, helpless and motionless person left me aghast and compelled me every opportune to picture Him, but I couldn’t and I hope, I wouldn’t. My memory is so full of joyful Him. It’s impossible for my brains to picture Him vulnerable. But in the hands of death, we are all vulnerable and so was He.

He was our inspiration and He was our Babayi, He is and will always be.