Lately I’ve been hard to reach
I’ve been too long on my own
Everyone has a private world
Where they can be alone
Are you calling me, are you trying to get through
Are you reaching out for me, and I’m reaching out for you
-Beautiful by Eminem
I guess, I am not alone…even Eminem was hibernating !!
I think, soon there will be a time, when I will hang my head down with shame, on being called an Indian. Shame not because I belong to this beautiful country called India, but shame because I belong to this irrational set of people called Indians!!
Panchtantra, a collection of short stories, is difficult to comprehend. Same action is described as right and same action is described as wrong in a different story.
Indian Mythology, in Mahabharata and Ramayana, has highlighted that it is alright to deceive others, if they are your enemies.
I love my country, but lately, I have begun to feel a certain kind of disgust against the people of my country.
We are the supposedly the biggest democracy in the world. Yet, the common man is almost hapless. There is no freedom of doing things which one feels like, even though if it is allowed in the constitution. In the Maharashtra assembly, an MLA is physically assaulted because he chooses to take oath in the National and Official Language of the Country instead the language of the state. MLA Abu Azmi is manhandled by the MNS MLAs and it remains to be seen what our judicial system does to the people who assault him in front of all the elected representatives of the people. The political fiasco in the ruling camp of the state I am presently residing in, the common man watch in amazement how to groups of people were fighting like cats and dogs only few days back and suddenly decide to put everything beneath the carpet and walk hand in hand. To shove pieces of cake in each others mouths. For the simple reason to put the equation of money and power in balance.
An educated person, a person many people look up to him for his fine qualities, preaches regionalism on his blogs. Even though, as a child, I remember how we were taught that the colonials used a simple technique of divide and rule to overcome our defenses against them.
A colleague explains the trouble he has to through to get his marriage certificate, even though he has all the necessary documents, with whom another colleague jumps in to share his experience on how to get his certain property registered and how the agent claimed that the cut goes to the very top level.
A stranger meeting with me by chance, asking me my native place. Asking which one is better so that he can hear some praises of his native land from my mouth. And getting agitated when I highlighted the points which I don’t like or claimed are better in my native.
The granting of the permit to shoot a certain movie, based on a prominent figure of Indian history, only if the script is changed as per the government, so that no harm comes to the image of that person. Even though there may be some truth or there may not be.
A movie being banned in India, because it builds on subjects which used to happen in the past and which may hurt the sentiments of the people of the country. But, it is allowed to screen in the country and infact appreciated very well, just because it won an Academy Award.
The group of people who vehemently agree or disagree with certain subjects and deeds, without having their own reasons, but of those they were taught from childhood by their parents, which in turn taught the same thing by theirs.
The group of people, to which I belong, who just crib about the things which are not right, sit in their chairs and type a sorry reading post on their blogs.
I sometimes wonder, are we really that democratic? Do we really have that freedom which we claim or feel we do?? Or are we just trapped in our own understanding of the system around us without having a clear picture of the reality.
I am proud of my Country, of India. Of its beauty and of its eccentricity. But strangely, I am beginning to have a contempt towards the people who have taken over it and claim it to be theirs. I am beginning to have a strong dislike for the person who says I am an Indian!!
Titli daboch li maine,
Zindagi khyal ki tere.
Saare Jahan ki jannat,
Muthi mein aa gayi mere!!
-Chinnama Chilkama, Meenaxi
And, there are a lot of times I wish I could !!
I am under self induced hibernation. And I don’t know until when I will be in this state.
Irritation creeps within me whenever my phone rings. My continuous struggle to remain away from the near and dear ones…at times is frustrating for me … and at times it is frustrating for the person on the other side. For some, it ends up as being my vent of frustration, on people who actually matter. Yet, for some time I have been yearning for a dialogue. Is the setting really important?
The quest of discovering, yet the quest is turning out to be more futile then fertile. It is leaving me unaware. Lacking in something that I still have not figured out. Independence, means not dependent on anyone, anything. Is the quest to be independent or is it just a mere excuse to runaway…it is my old habit…to do that.
Time and again, I have questioned the same thing, yet the process has not helped me a bit. I am still lost, searching for the way that should have been there, here. Strange thoughts, weird thoughts, outrageous thoughts and scandalous thoughts, they crowd my mind. For some things I wish I was strong enough to actually do them and for some, I don’t have the zeal to do them.
It feels like I am stuck in a confined space and I am desperate to look for an exit. Yet, I am very sure, this confined space is my own creation. But somehow, I am unable to find the foundation on which I build these walls around me, so that I can break open. Like standing on that square of the chessboard, from where every and any move is sure shot death.
Could zero of the sum everything. Could the great summation of all these great things be zero? Questions abound, but where is the motive. Only mindless rattle and more frustration.
The feeling is not there. Feeling of bliss, does not last forever. Yet how can you settle for anything less, once you have tasted it. In constant search, it is turning out more aimless than anything. Trying new things, and giving up on them equally fast. The building up of restlessness and having no outlet to release it.
I have been making full circles and ending exactly in the same spot from where I started from. And then wondering…where to go next…and in the meantime…hibernating !!
Clueless, looking for the crossroad,
which I was sure would have been somewhere here.
Fatigued and Frustrated with my journey,
Desperate, I sat silently, screaming!!
