61. The New Year

May it turn out the way you want it to.

Lets try to be better people.
Lets indulge in acts of random kindness.
Lets play safe.
Lets be a bit more positive.
Lets bring a change in the world around.

Amen.

60. A Prisoner's dilemma

Lets just say that there's this prisoner, lets call him Pappu. Now, our Pappu serves a two-year sentence in a  dingy, over-crowded  facility called the 'Innovative Molesters and Torturers' demented center,where the in-mates are a bunch of frustrated criminals. They've all been put in for crimes ranging from petty stuff like 'following the crowd', 'excessive drinking before the day of crime' to major ones like kidnaps and molestation. The general pop. there vent out their anger by howling (from their cells)at night, stealing each others' belongings and even exercising the pleasure of sodomizing a few weak members of their brethren(whenever time permits).

Amidst these hysterical crackpots, there are a few sensible heads who got caught in the line of fire and so were arrested and thrown into this facility. Pappu initially has a hard time adjusting to the new prison. As time passes, he makes friends with a few of the good people over there, which makes the ordeal a bit less painful.

But here's the deal. The times that were the hardest are the ones that one remembers the most. Pappu wants to forget that these two years ever happened to him. He just wants to wake up and find himself out of prison again. But since it is here that he has been screwed the most, he isn't able to erase these memories so easily. Moreover, when he thinks of the few good times he has had in prison, of the few goodfellas he hung around with, that 'good' feel gets engulfed by the hatred for the facility, which makes the whole 'memory-recollection process' dole out a pretty twisted emotion. Pappu wants to retain the good memories but not at the expense of retaining the traumatic ones. That's his dilemma.

59. I knew it

Now, 6 days after the Mumbai massacre, everyone who is anyone seems to have known or have had some information about the occurrence of such an attack for months !

We get to read that Maharashtra's deputy CM knew about it 4 months back, the Navy knew about it, IB knew about it, RAW knew about it, the fishermen's union knew about it, the turtles on the beach knew about it, even Bejan Daruwala claims to have known that such an incident would occur: this he inferred by looking at the stars, moons, comets and the cows in the by-lanes. 

My only question: if so many people knew about it, then why wasn't anything done? It seems like only you and me are the ignorant ones in the country; everyone else seems to have known that such a thing would happen. Like expecting a movie release, or a solar eclipse. And all these people are calling the leaders 'toothless', 'careless' while they could themselves have helped to make these people look toothed and careful, by helping them out with information.

Be it as it may be, two things seem clear - either people knew about it and wished to remain quiet, or this was a genuine intelligence failure where no one knew pretty much anything. If its the latter(which I think it is), then the govt can draw a new intelligence strategy and beef it up with the technologies and minds required. But if it's the former, then our country is in grave danger. The mindset of the people is in question then. Whoever knew about it and helped this dirty cause, or even let it carry on without reporting it to the authorities, has traded his/her country off for some material benefit. It can be for a new boat, a promotion, obscene amounts of money, an oil-well or a Russian blonde. 

The mindset of the people has to change, that is the only true way in which we can shield ourselves from any attack ever. This can only be done through education. Look at our country's literacy rate. It is still down there, and a lot needs to be done to improve it. But why don't politicians do anything about it ? 

It is not difficult to realise why - It's because the more intelligent a voter gets, the tougher it is for a party to get his vote. An illiterate will vote for you if you give him a mere bottle of liquor, and a pack of biryani. If he learns more, he will bargain for better, won't he? If he is poor and uneducated, he will remain poor, his next generation will also remain poor. He will continue to believe in the false promises each political party makes, not being able to understand what's actually going on. 

Look at countries which started at par with us when we got independence...Just see where they are now. Its only after a country has achieved development at the grass-root levels, that it makes sense to send stuff to the Moon or Mars or Krypton. Wouldn't you agree? 

But, not doing what we always do, let us, ourselves, start paying close attention to what is going on around us.Let us be sensitized to our environments; let us be aware. If we get the hint of anyone being involved in something shady, let us not ignore it? And as for ourselves getting involved in something shady, think again - is it worth putting our country in jeopardy for a few more shillings.

This article has been put up on http://themag.in/