Tuesday 12 March 2013

Ganga Behti ho kyun



 


                      Two soldiers of the Indian Army were beheaded and the bodies were sent to the Indian side. Thirteen CRPF men were brutally killed by the Naxalites in the latehar incident in Chhattisgarh the other day. The Naxalites slit open the stomach of a soldier and sew it back with an IED inside. The nation did not get outraged at any of it. Nobody went and lit candles at India gate , no one went on rampage on the streets, nobody took law into their hands, no judicial activism was shown, none of the film stars cried or tweeted.

                         We Indians are strange people.......our blood boils at certain incidents , at certain others we prefer to mind our business.....but when we are asked to mind our business we would poke our noses.
                          When asked to queue up, not jump red lights, not triple ride a two wheeler, not travel over roofs of the trains , not to spit paan masala in clean spaces, not to throw plastics in parks, not to pluck flowers, not to honk etc we are deaf.
                           When there is an accident on the road and the injured are lying on the road and need help we become blind too. We are blind when we sit comfortably in seats reserved for women , elderly and handicapped in trains and buses while they travel standing. We are blind and deaf when the national anthem is played in cinema halls before the screening of a movie.
                            But all is not wrong with us we have a very eloquent tongue and a very swift finger. We are very good at telling everyone else what is wrong with them and point fingers at them. We are quick to point out who all are not doing their jobs except ourselves
                            The mahakumbh saw an unprecedented numbers of devotees from all over the country and outside the country taking a dip at the sangam.......and the Holy Ganges. The question is can she take it all.....what if it starts minding its own business.

Monday 11 March 2013

Verse fame and beauty are intense indeed, but death intenser- death is life's meed




How many of us have clapped when Ajay Devgan beats up a mafia don or when Amitabh Bachhan smashed a goonda's head in 80s......How many of us cried when cop played by Akshay Kumar dies in khakee ....Most of us have dreamt to be serving in one or the other uniformed services of the country and saluting the national flag. Most of us fancy those ambassador cars / gypsies with blue/red lights and pistols in the holsters. Some of us do get to be famous ........Some of us do get to live these fantasies.

Our job entails coming face to face with dead bodies often. Dead bodies in accidents, murders, suicides..... So often that probably death ceases to scare us . This usually happens because we separate the prospect of death from dead bodies. Our job also entails dangers of injuries and death and that too with a slightly higher probability than others in other normal jobs. But I guess we all take it as an occupational hazard and carry on.

That also is the reason why we in police identify more with death while performing duties, like those of army men, para military forces and the police men. A similar death of a young PPS officer during the discharge of his duty filled me with a lot of anguish which I am trying to decipher here. Similar was the pain and anguish when a young IPS officer lost his life in morena. Both were young officers who had come from humble backgrounds and made their parents immensely proud. They died and with them died the dreams of their families .These deaths are glorious and honourable. Most of us are not really scared of the prospects of our own deaths, what filled me with anguish is watching the families. Comprehending any loss is difficult but comprehending such deaths become even more difficult......the reason is too incredible.....not illness, not rashness and negligence , not old age ......it's the discharge of duty.....

I have faced death of someone close staring in my eyes and that's why I know the prospect of being dead might not affect me, the prospect of death of a loved one does.