Sunday, October 22, 2017

I wish....

No, I am not turning into an atheist. I still believe in God and am still a God-fearing person. But I have lost any interest in wishing people on various religious or national festivals. It has two major reasons –
    (a)    These days on any religious or national festival, people simply forward you a good wish. There is no personal touch and it looks so mechanical. Wake up in the morning, you already have wishes in the form of forwarded text messages or images, choose the one you like and forward them to others on your contact list.
   (b)   We are all pretending to wish for a beautiful world and a good year. We are not actually doing anything about it. We, on the contrary, are ruining the world around us. So, what’s the point of wishing someone a Happy New Year when you yourself are going to turn around and throw a piece of garbage on the road in the very next moment? Are you contributing to making the upcoming year as Happy by turning your locality, your city, your country into a garbage pile?

I remember my childhood days when a week before Diwali, people would start visiting us with sweets and gifts and my mother made sure to prepare some homemade delicacies for us and for the guests who were expected to visit us. We, as kids, would make fun of our parents for the fact that one guest leaves and before we could refill, another guest would arrive but to think about it, we were meeting people and not just merely forwarding wishes on our smartphones or Facebook pages. Some of those guests were regulars every year and would always compliment my mother for her ‘special’ festival delicacies. She still tries to prepare them but just for the sake of it, for she knows that no one is going to come to taste them and compliment her.

I have stopped sending good wishes to people now. I call up limited few people with whom I really want to talk and wish them happiness. I don’t wish people on various WhatsApp groups that I am a part of. Why? Because everyone is just pouring their wishes with the images and forwarded text. Even if someone is typing them on their own, does anyone on the group even spare a minute admiring that message? The phone just keeps on pinging with message alerts.
Secondly, am not happy from within. No, my husband is all good, my in-laws are caring, my daughter throws tantrums as any other 3.5 year old would. But am not happy with what is happening around all of us. Kids, ladies, men are being raped, beaten up and murdered mercilessly for any trivial issue, roads are bad coz the governing bodies have had their share of bribe from the hard earned money of the people of this nation and they are least bothered about correcting the infrastructure, law and order, politicians are busy in mudslinging on the opposition parties. We don’t feel safe anywhere. We are a bunch of scared parents who can’t sleep through the nights just thinking about what to do to make sure that our kids remain safe. They are not physically, emotionally and sexually violated.

A few weeks back I heard over a radio channel that as per official numbers, 52% kids in India are sexually abused. Out of which 48% are boys. The rest of my journey to the office was not very pleasant. 52% means that every second child that you see around you is sexually abused. The offenders are not booked. Even if caught, the punishment is so trivial that it hardly makes any difference to them. We just take out candle march rallies and sign some online petitions but is it making any difference? No.

So many CCTV footages are floating on the social media where someone beats up and kills someone mercilessly in broad daylight among so many people. But no one does anything.
I know there are people who live happily and professes the philosophy of finding something good in everything. Sorry to say, but they are turning their eyes off from the reality. A 2-year-old boy or girl raped by some pervert – I fail to see anything positive in that. A girl murdered by a man in broad daylight just because she refused to marry him – I again can’t see anything positive in that. A business tycoon who fooled so many banks and left them high and dry of money and fled the country leaving thousands of his employees jobless overnight, while he still enjoys all of his luxuries in another country – I don’t find it amusing. Lakhs of fake self-styled Godmen and Godwomen fooling around lakhs of people to rob them of their properties and modesties – this doesn’t please me either. Thousands of builders gulp in the hard earned money of people and do not give them their dream home even after several years, while those helpless people keep on paying EMIs to the banks – I see positive side only for their fraud builder.

How often do we see a Happy news making it to the front page of the newspaper? The TV, newspapers, online news channels – every one of them are loaded with sad and cringe-worthy news. Why can’t they see something positive and show it to the public? We are sick and tired of listening to the same old fights, plotting and scheming type of news.
And yet, we simply wish each other a Happy Dussehra – the festival of celebrating the triumph of good over evil with the fanciest of the images. I wonder, what’s the point? All of us are evil within ourselves. I fight with people around me for any trivial thing. I still have that alter ego which forces me to hurt someone emotionally. There are so many people around me who would not budge for even a moment in hurting someone beyond imagination.

Ever since the Diwali night, the Facebook page is covered with people posting their photos of themselves dressed in the best of clothes, colorful rangolis made by them, having a good time with their families. Among all of those posts, only 1 person seems to be making sense of the festivities. He spent his festival days along with his families visiting not-so-lucky people in shelter homes and spending time with them and sharing food and sweets with them. I felt ashamed of myself but proud of him.

So, my dear fellas. Don’t just wish someone good. Do something good. Be good. I have started my revolution for myself. In a small way but I am bringing about changes in myself. I was and will always be God-fearing but I am trying to kill that dark side of my personality which forces me to be evil with few of the people.


With folded hands, I say Sorry for not wishing you on those important festivals and not even responding to your wishes. I sincerely wish for a better world every day and not only on those special days.