Life is good!

Argggghhhh! I shouted. It was pitch dark. My friend had just left me by. He heard me shout and came running. "Are you okay!" He helped me on my feet. I'm fine, I'm fine! I said, getting back on my feet slowly.

I had a bad fall. We were on my way back home from my badminton courts and I twisted the ankle; I think I stepped on some random rocks. I have a long history of ankle injuries. Something to do with my awkward walking style I presume. Once a doc saw me and said I have slightly cleft legs too. Whatever that meant!

So, I was helped home and then I laid down on the sofa while my wife helped me remove the shoes and then helped me with some ointments. She called a friend and got some pain killers. I joked around to take my mind off, and slowly things settled down. I still could not walk without pain but I was managing. For a finicky patient like me, I think it was not a bad enough injury to fuss. Wifey asked me to bunk work the next day and I happily concurred.

While things settled down and I went back to my reading, it struck me, life indeed had been incredibly kind! It was just a minor injury and there were at least three people worried for me. And there is the huge loving family who was not even informed of the incident. The brilliant friends. The nice warm house. Life of dreams living near London. Meeting some of the biggest stars of my sector day in and day out.

Last week I heard first hand from a country I shall leave unnamed on the atrocities on the daily life of the common man. The week before I listened to another friend from a different continent almost cry about how his country is going through the doldrums and millions are rendered homeless every month. Another colleague once remarked that by the end of this year he does not even know whether he will have a home to go back to.  I have been to some of the remotest parts of my own country and have seen people living without having more than one meal a day. I once went through a refugee camp and the less said the better about them.

As I take my philosopher cap off, just reminding myself again. That I'm one of those who are blessed enough to start counting my blessings and stop complaining.

P.S: The boss did not concur to take one more day off and so I went to work grudgingly.

The courage to say 'NO'!

She called me frantically! "Can you meet me today?, I want to talk to you", her voice shivered. I said an immediate 'yes'. We decided to meet in a busy coffee shop in Chennai.

I entered the coffee shop and waited for her. She came in a little late. Very unlike her! We finished our coffee and then she started the conversation. "Sam, a man is willing to take care of my treatment bills; He is willing to give me a job and also is asking me to move into the office provided accommodation!", her voice not radiating any sense of excitement! "Oh great ka, what is bothering you then?" I asked her.

She had cancer! She was poor and was living off friends! She had lost her father quite early in life. The mother had her own problems to deal with and left her. She was not thirty yet! 

My reply made no sense to her! I was too naive. "Sam, he is asking me to move into the office provided", she said again. It hit me hard. I kept quiet. "My treatment will be costly sam; I won't be able to afford it", said she. I knew it all too well. "What shall I do sam?" Came the inevitable question. She knew that we could also not afford that kind of money. 

What would have I done in her place! What if somebody had threatened me with life, to do something which I would not normally do? or what if somebody promises me a million dollar to manipulate official documents? Okay, money is not an attraction! What if they promise me the post of the member of the parliament. Just do it once, was the offer! Will I agree? Or worse, what if they threaten my wife's life with that?

The phone rang the next day. It was her again. "Sam, I will be honest with you; The offer was tempting. But I decided to say 'NO'. I decided to die instead". I could sense tears in her eyes. I kept quiet. Words deserted me. 

The moral courage to say 'NO' at the face of extreme adversity! I'm not here to preach moral standards; For I don't qualify for that. But to draw a line, and to stand within that line, even if the world tries to push you over needs incredible courage. And for that, I bow down. 

She died five years ago today! Would she have lived had she said 'Yes' then? I don't know. Maybe she was not practical enough in the eyes of the world. But that day, she taught me a lesson for life. 

"Sam, If you decide to draw a moral line, don't step on it, ever and for whatever", I could hear her loud and clear. 

To read more about her

http://samszammy.blogspot.com/2015/03/reflecting-on-life-that-deserved-more.html

http://samszammy.blogspot.com/2014/03/a-life-world-was-not-worthy-of.html

What do I stand for in life?

I'm that crazy individual whose mind just keeps pushing the body all over the place. So one day I will be all pumped up doing the gym and the next day I will be wallowing in my bed like a couch potato. One day you can see me full of passion thinking on different ways of changing the world, and the next day I will get the 'who cares what you become' attitude and just watch YouTube videos through the day.

But this question kept haunting me for a long time! What do you stand for in life? And I decided to write them down just coz the writers want to boast themselves off to the world, not only about their writing prowess but also on how their lives are wonderful.

So here am I, thinking my life out loud! Nope, writing my life out loud? rather silently.

And as I started writing this I got reminded of this voice in the background; The voice of Gregory Boyle whose organization 'homeboy industries' works among the incarcerated gangmen from the cities and bylanes of the United States of America.

He reflected on his life in the following words, and this is me wishing at the end of it all, this to be mine.

"To stand with the demonized, so that the demonizing will stop,
  To stand with the disposable, so that a day will come when we stop throwing people away,
  To stand with those whose dignity has been denied, and
  To stand with those whose burdens are more than they could bare
  To stand with the poor and the powerless,
  And the voiceless, making those voices heard"


Well, after all the showing off! I finish with this prayer in my heart. The prayer to give me a heart full of tenderness, for only a heart that ventilates tenderness for the broken world has any chance of changing it.
  

The War and its history!

My history book in school was replete with war heroes. 'Alexander the Great', conquered the world, I studied. 'Napolean' the French emperor who led France through many victories and conquered many parts of Europe was celebrated. We were taught resilience and never say die attitude from the hero Ghazni Mohammed. I was ten years old when the Kargil war was fought. The bare minimal memory of those days was celebrating victory in a war. We had won! The enemy was conquered, hurray!

The movie Lakshya on Kargil which I watched with so much passion never showed the lives of the many soldiers who died along the way; on the way to capturing the highest point of 'Nowhere in particular'.

I celebrated the movie. Loved it to bits. Had goosebumps when Hrithik Roshan limped to the peak and planted the Indian flag on the cliff. On that unlivable cliff!

Wars, the bloodiest wars of history had always been portrayed as the fiefdoms of courage and valour. Yet, there is another side to it. The sadder side! Strangely, war never meant destruction. No, never we learnt about the number of people Gazni killed in his conquests. Whatever happened to their families? Did they manage to rebuild the damaged houses? What happened to the widow? Did she end up living all her life wearing the sad white sarees? Were they thrown in the funeral pyre of the martyred husbands? What about the children? Did the scar of losing dads ever go away? Did they harbour the hurt of their loved ones getting killed all their lives? Ah! The sadness of war. That gory face which was never shown in our history books.

The history books were written by the Winners, said, my friend! Well, didn't the winner lose anything? Of course, India supposedly won the Kargil war. And what did we get out of it? The pride of keeping the national flag on the snowy ice-clad mountain where mankind can never live. Maybe a few goosebumps and for sure some respect among the other nations! All of these are important. Very important; but did we count the cost? The lives of many soldiers. The devastated families. Orphaned children and widowed women. Will the Paramvir chakra ever give them their lives?

Warmongering people, Count the cost! Wars can never be profitable. Not even for the winners. For there are no winners in a war.

War histories were not written by winners! History books were written by those who lost lesser comparatively.

Do we really want to be done away with casteism?

Sneha could get a 'No Caste', 'No religion' certificate! And as soon as this news came into the world of social media, the true blue activist in me woke up. So I presume she will not get admissions for her children using the quota designated to the caste. Quite brave of her, I suppose!

So how many of you believe that by doing away with the caste certificate, we can do away with casteism in its true and original form? I'm not a fool to believe that! Casteism is here till to stay till we don't let our children intermarry.

The sad reality of India is, we all are casteist. In our innermost hearts, we have the caste bias. I know for sure a few in my family had! Well, they sure have! Ah, we don't believe in casteism, they say; Yet they won't let their children get married to a person from another caste. Even if it is another caste, not from the lowest caste, they say in private. I call them the hypocritic Christian. For casteism in its true form should never have anything to do with Christ and Christianity. If any so-called follower of Christ has a caste-bias, well, rest assured they are a hypocrite. HYPOCRITE! That is how I spell it.

And so coming back to question, do we really want to do away with casteism?

I had often thought we will all one day win over the cruel world of Casteism! In the distant utopian world. But having second thoughts now. For, we need to sacrifice certain things to win over. We need to let our privileged children stand on equal grounds with those who are considered to be on a higher pedestal. Are we ready for the sacrifice? The sacrifice of letting our children fight it out without a quota! And in the process may even lose a seat which they could have got otherwise.

Well, sacrifices are not our forte anyways!

Of course, intermarriage will have to happen. And it will inevitably happen with the generational shift from the predominance of arranged marriages to the love marriages. But then, till the structural roots of the casteism in the dependence of the citizen on the completely caste-based reservation is not done away with, casteism and its ugly head will never really go away.

Yes, casteism is a much deeper problem than quota based reservation! Of course, it will take many generations for it to be completely done away with, Ture, we need a lot more interventions apart from giving simple 'No caste' certificates. And for sure, we will have to keep marriages out of casteism.

Yet, if you really think casteism is a disease, and it should be done away with, be ready to sacrifice! 

Can terrorism ever be avenged?

I felt numb reading the news that 40 young men were killed in a dastardly terror attack! Those pictures reminded me of another day in Mumbai, when the terrorists from the neighbouring country wreaked havoc. The heart felt a pain.

Like every time when India lost its Bravehearts, the media uproar started. "we need revenge", was the audible discourse. Hashtag #pulwamaavenge was trending widely. Every Indian got really riled up. And got ready for revenge.

So how to get revenge? How do you avenge a terrorist attack?

The terrorist who is ready to kill is ready to die. In fact that one man who executed the job is already dead. He was ready to die and so no point even talking about it. What next? The planners and the others involved in the logistics of the killing should be the next target. But do we know where they live? If only we had known!

So let us imagine they live in the neighbouring country. And we get ready to do another surgical strike! or a war! The soldiers, sadly the very same group which had lost its friends, will be sent again. Deep into the war-torn territories. The territory of bloodthirsty warmongers. Is it safe to do that? What guarantee will we have that not one of ours will not be killed again? Or at least the guarantee that we will kill only the planners of this gruesome attack without any other innocent life lost.

And even if there is the remote possibility of everything going on perfectly and we killed only those who planned and executed this gruesome attack; What next? Another group will come! And we will be avenging another attack.

And lest we forget, we(both us and the neighbours) are nuclear countries. One wrong move and we would end up fighting nuclear wars destroying a million lives.

So where do we start? Can we just leave this incident aside?

Nope! The terrorist who executed the plan was a young boy who lived and worked in Kashmir(India) for most of his life. We had done something terribly wrong to have made another young man take this route. We will go to the root of this as a problem and solve it. Let not another young Kashmiri boy take this route.

And before everything else, this is a huge intelligence failure. Do a thorough study; Plug in the gaps. 40Kg of bombs brought in to the country without our notice is a shame. It cannot have happened without involving locals. Catch hold of them and punish them! India cannot afford another terror module developing inside our territory.

And seal the porous borders! I understand it is very very difficult. But do we have a choice?

The only way to avenge terrorism is to prevent them from entering the territory again and not let our people enter the terrorist gangs. 

Nationalism, An idea that needs reflection

Nationalism is the hot topic in India today! So much that there are certificates of nationalism being given to people. Like, 'Anti Nationals', 'Nationalists' etc. So I decided to have a deeper look at the term nationalism

A simple google search on nationalism gives the following definition "Identification with one's own nation and support for its interest, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations"

So, identifying with one's own nation is a part of nationalism! Of course, I identify with my nation's interest. I want the best for the people of my country and the country as a whole. Does that make me a nationalist? But, my idea of nations interest is different from my friend's! In fact, we are polar opposites and yet both of us want the best for our country. So where do we stand?

I think secularism is good, he feels secularism is abused; both in the interest of the nation! I feel socialism has a role, he believes capitalism should be overarching; both in the interest of the nation. Does that make one of us 'Anti National'?

No! I believe, 99% of people living in any country want the best for their country. Of course, they have their own ideas about what is best for the country. Some even believe, living within their country is detrimental for their group of people. That is their belief. It is the role of the nation-state to show that they belong and overcome their negative feelings towards their country. Rather than giving negative 'Anti-national' certificates.

And the second part of the definition says that the support for one country should be the detriment of the interests of other nations!

Well, in a complex globalized world, it is difficult for countries to grow on their own! A stable neighbour, which is doing well is always beneficial for the country. We cannot and should not wish for the detriment of another country. It just does not work that way.

So, Nationalism is good! Thinking about the interest of a country and its people is obviously a good thing. But that does not mean, my way is the only way for the country to become better and everybody else who has different ideas have different intentions.

And finally, nationalism is a deep concept of living together in a diverse country happily and making sure everybody in the country grow up together. Let us not belittle nationalism by shoving it into small bottles like singing patriotic songs and standing still for the national anthem.

Nationalism is an idea that needs a serious rethinking in this world of namesake nationalists.