We the people.........

                               There were times when I could write pages together supporting the freedom of press, quoting Article 19 of the constitution , stating  media to be the  `fourth pillar of the democracy, blah ,blah ,blah……….An ardent supporter of the right to expression and individual 

liberty , I was dumbfounded when I closely saw the media working.

                               Sacrilege : the newspaper headlines screamed……..the SP City agra steps on a stage set for a religious function, with her shoes on. Blasphemy???........read on

                              It was one ‘o’ clock in the morning and I was taking a round in the city.......  to make sure the pickets, the mobiles and the chowkis-in-charge,the station officers are on their jobs........... what an ungodly hour to be working one would say, but in policing its a matter of routine. We provide security to people at the cost of our families, our children's education, our leisure.............

                            The traffic on the roads had thinned out and hence i decided to open the "no entry" which was in force and let the heavy vehicles into the city on the MG Road. As i moved forward i noticed a crowd of around 80 people sitting around a makeshift stage, set for a religious function ,with some ten odd people sitting on the stage and one man standing and playing a harmoniun and singing "dulhan to jayegi dulhe raja ke saath......suno sasurji".I got down from my car and enquired the station officer as to who the organizers of the event were and whether they had the permission to organize it. i was informed that they did not have the permission but it was a traditional function held every year for the past 300 years or so.

                         I climbed up the stage and tried to reason with them asking them not to block the whole road which would cause both way traffic to move on the same side of the divider and hence increase the chances of accidents. We also  offered them a solution whereby we would place some barriers on the road so as to partition it and let the traffic pass slowly on one side.Also we arranged within 20 minutes for the barriers and some bamboos and made makeshift barricading so that the gathering would be safe and the traffic would also be able to pass slowly, at which they decided to call off  the event itself. I came back home and slept.

                         Woke up next morning to learn that people  have jammed the MG Road saying that the SP City had misbehaved with them the previous night. I reach there, the city magistrate reaches and we hold conciliatory talks with them and finally the matter is resolved. They propose that they would go ahead with the function the coming night and we agree saying that it would be without blocking the whole road.

                       The same night i got a call from my station officer saying that the organizers would not allow barricading and demanded a diversion of traffic for the night. we along with the administration tried speaking to the organizers but they would not relent. Religion is indeed the opiate of the masses, but religion has always been amenable to logic,the followers are not.At last we had to divert the traffic which resulted in heavy traffic jams and accidents.

                           

                        As i entered the hospital the unmistakable , sickening smell of the hospital filled my nostrils, i walked towards the lift and went up to the 5th floor and there he was, my constable ,lying in the ICU one leg amputated, bandaged all over,two bottles hanging over him one filled with blood,other with some other fluid both flowing into him through needles pierced into his body, surrounded by a paraphernalia of equipment beeping with LEDs emitting green ,yellow lights ................fighting for his life.The victim of the religious insanity of people, who care a bit too much about God but care two hoots about his creations. He was lying there quietly, will not merit even a mention in the newspapers ,forget about media highlighting the apathy of people and educating their readers and viewers 

                        The media today is a bunch of metric pass,tobacco chewing morons with yellow teeth who i doubt can even spell journalism.They use "press" so that they can violate the traffic rules without being challaned, so that they can force their entry in an exclusive event, so that they can hold people to ransom on various pretexts and all this at what cost............. exactly at the price of a decent camera and shamelessness.

                        

                         I felt ashamed of being a part of this society when the media had come up with cheapest of slogans after India had won the finals and the match against Pakistan.We as a nation had shown utmost disregard for sport spirit and proved to be such contemptuous and conceited hosts. I felt disgraced, and, as on many other occasions earlier as well, it left such a bad taste in the mouth............... and lets not be under any illusion, mind you there is no light at the end of the tunnel as well. The media is selling us bullshit because we are buying it, because the intelligentsia is either dead or dying, because either we have lost our ability to think and react or we have accepted it as our fate.............. Its a pity that we have a sterile leadership who will rather gladly succumb to this yellow journalism than stand up and call a spade a spade 

                     

Finding meaning......

    The moon looked beautiful as it rose at the horizon behind the trees, she was walking on the deserted road in the campus attempting to appreciate things she always did……………..the moon, the flowers, the sight of an old couple walking . She always believed that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder and it seemed more true than ever to her now…………… because all of it didn’t seem beautiful now             

               

                       The moon always fascinated her, it made her philosophical, it forced her to think , to ponder, to theorize, to appreciate , to find meaning....................but  today it made her sad . she believed beautiful things always make one happy but she  made amends  to her beliefs now and felt things seem beautiful when one is happy..............one must be happy to see the beauty she correlated. and she wondered what was happiness?

How does one achieve it?

Where does one find it?

Are all the people who seem happy really happy?

Is it  ephemeral ?

Is it always followed by sorrow or does it always follow sorrow.................??????

She thought for a while ,then gave up realizing she was trying to find answers, to the most difficult questions that the human race was ever confronted with, just by looking at the moon!!!!! She gave up and thought it all depended on God........one should probably leave it to Him

                   But how did she know that? who told her that it all depended on Him?..........She was reminded of the theories of religion she had studied in Anthropology which suggested that it was man who created God and not God that has created man. Those theories had suggested that the ancient man could not comprehend the reasons behind whatever happened around him or could not make sense out of events such as thunderstorm, lightning, disease, death etc and hence was overawed and associated all of this with something that was more  powerful than the combined power of humanity,something or someone who controlled the universe and the events.this also helped psychologically because it meant shrugging off the burden of responsibility and accept things as His will.

                   She herself had undergone major upheavals in her religious inclinations..............in the early phase when she hadn't attained much in life and consequently did not have much to lose as well , she had been sort of  an atheist and believed in nothing but her capabilities to make things happen .After a while she attained some things in life  and didn't want to lose them and turned into a believer , a bit later she lost them and turned into a god fearing individual ................

                  She saw various interpretations of God and religion..............people getting drunk in the name of religion and picking up fights, people who believed that taking out a procession with music systems blaring vulgar songs was the only way one could satiate one's God, people who would bribe the authorities to get a faster darshan,  people believing that religion could have no relationship whatsoever with logic...............

                                       Another one  was by a friend when he narrated to her a story portraying a young  blind woman who begs for a living , clad in filthy torn clothes  has been abandoned and lives on the streets ,eats all rubbish she can get, raped by people, kicked out of places............. she lives in this very world created by god and amongst the people who are believers of god. There is a man who lives in the same world and one day beheads the woman  proclaiming himself to be God.

 ‘Naan kadavul" a tamil phrase meaning i am God...............

God is supposed to end our suffering and he ends hers

 Her trail of thoughts  got interrupted by the blaze of the headlights of a car that took a turn and entered into the compound..............”tu na jaane aas paas hai khuda “ was the song that played in the car

 she looked up, the moon had travelled up in the sky, it looked smaller......................and less beautiful