Why did we choose this path?
Wanted to look cool? to look good? Is that it?
you ask as if there were many choices.
Of course there must have been. At least a few, if not too many.
So you tell me. Which one would have been a better choice?
To live or to die?
To face dis-respect in the family or to face dis-respect in the world outside?
To let goons rule this country and become one in the process?
Or to fake that everything is fine, that education eradicates all evils and hide behind a good image? Behind more cars,mobiles,money. That I am OK and you are OK and everything is OK. When the truth is that nothing is OK.
But to face the truth would be too devastating. Too scary. So let the facade go one. Yes,we are a growing country.
Yes we are an emerging economy. yes, we are moving towards gender equality ( I mean we are talking about it, a lot I must say), yes we take a holiday in the name of Gandhi, we say the right words at the right time. But that is where it stops.
Look beneath the surface and you will see that the first qualification to enter politics is the ability to indulge in mindless violence, to have a criminal background, to have loads of money and the ability to distribute liquor, dreams, promises to the poor, the scheduled castes and the have-nots without having to work for it. The poor are promised the world without working for it, if only they vote for them. How is that possible?
Success or failure in such a world would not matter. I guess we are all failures in some way. For allowing all this decay to continue. For not having the courage to stop the wheel and re-invent it. Even in our own lives, forget about others, society and the world at large.
A colleague asked me, your life is still not on track? You are still getting beaten up and dealing with the cops, actually goons in uniform. And my answer is:
My friend, I do not know whether my life is on track or not because I am still looking for the track. Where is the track?
I am still searching.
Still searching.
