Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Mobs, Bombs and My Country



To overexert a cliche "History repeats itself". And it really does for the people who don't learn from it the first time around. Some 51 years ago, this country failed an exam of History and it tore up the geography. No. Not the geography textbook. We tore up the geography of the country.

Over the last few years we failed exams of Social Sciences and this time we might end up with torn up Moral Sciences at the end of it all.

It is distressing to see how religions become bandwagons for all crooks thirsty for blood of "the others". VHP, Bajrang Dal, SIMI, IM, Al Qaida each one of these organizations have been able to motivate people to either burn "others" alive or bomb "others" for the confoundingly vague purposes.



When I was a kid, if I had to go somewhere alone in the dark I would shiver with fear. So mother would suggest, remember the name of a god and you shall fear no more. Now when I am walking among the crowds and by accident I remember gods, and the fear returns to me. The mortal fear not of ghosts or ghastly animals who might be lurking in the shadows of my imagination, but of some of the foulest creature in my own race.


PS - This entry was written before the lemantable 26/11 episode and does not consider Indo-Pak relations as a dimension.