Kashmir. The best place to be born, and live in. We are achievers. You doubt? Kashmir is the most beautiful place I’ve seen. It is also the second most corrupt in India. The fourth dirtiest. One of the most turmoiled. One of the poorest. One of the most illiterate. One of the most economically, technologically, administratively backward.. Need more? And to top it all, everyone is happy, and why not! Students don’t have to study. Teachers don’t have to teach. Employees don’t have to work. Ministry doesn’t have to administer. And we all get paid for nothing! Magic! It is, indeed, the happy valley. And being a part of India also comes with a bonus. They spend millions on the Sarvashiksha Abhiyan, and then promote illiteracy (take coins for example).

      The problem is not that Kashmir (and India) is run by goons. The problem is that everyone wants to be a goon. Whenever you go out, don’t you see people looking for an excuse to get into a fight? The popular thinking- “If you haven’t done something cunning, and gained unduly from someone’s loss; your day is wasted”. Goons in politics; goons in religion.  Speaking of religion, we aren’t behind. We have our fair share of organizations, which are more of a cause of trouble than a guiding agency. I wonder why these “leaders” aren’t the first one among the mobs to pelt a stone; or why aren’t their children and family ever involved in the issues that are so “close to their hearts”. But what bothers me most is nobody seems to be thinking this way. Why hasn’t it occurred to the commoner? Or is it that they don’t want to acknowledge it?

I can’t imagine how we can be so forgetful. We completely turn our lives upside down for a cause, and then after a month, nothing is remembered. Most of us spend our lives sleepwalking through it. Sources of inspiration always surround us. And how we get inspired! (Yeah, Rang De Basanti was able to create a revolution within you for THREE DAYS!) After all this inspiring and getting inspired, we are left with our bereft souls which thirst for nothing but peace. So, PEACE!

What everyone seems to have forgotten is - God has given us freewill, and no one has any right to take that away; but how we make use of our freewill depends entirely on us. You can use it to destroy, or use it for a constructive purpose (which, any day, is preferable).

The first step towards it- Take things as they are. Accept. What we all have got to remember is that nothing lasts for ever. There’s always a tomorrow. Well, almost always. After all they say the world’s going to end in 2012. So it may not be long before everything changes. Or if this prediction, like all the other predictions, fails; we can hope to make plans for a change (we never act, let’s at least plan) and hope for a better life. In an ordinary situation, I’d say – Don’t just hope; do something about it. But that would be too much to ask for.

Moral of the story?  Nothing. Use your own discretion, dumb ass!

Lastupdate on : Thu, 1 Jul 2010 21:30:00 Mecca time
Lastupdate on : Thu, 1 Jul 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Fri, 2 Jul 2010 00:00:00 IST