Who's side are you on?

Life moves along. There's money to be earned. Food needs to be put on the table. Mouths need to be fed. Babies need to be shushed - and put to bed.

For now, the mother nation (India, for me) mulls recent events. As always, thoughts and discussions have veered towards who supplies the folks within with ammunition/ bomb material to express their sentiments. Sentiments arising perhaps from displeasure at past grievances/crimes. Perhaps from interpretations of whatever it is that they believe in (for e.g. "its time to send society back into the stone age"). There's time for all that. But, more than ever - or once again, it's time to think about actions and consequences.

Sure, when you're competing for resources, its consequences on your side that matter more than reactions from the other side, i.e. those you compete with. So you don't really care about reactions from others then.

But it's time to the take the competition more seriously.

Make no mistake, with people its always "our side" and "their side". For a large section of Indians, partly frustrated by years of competition for resources and brainwashed by people who've smartly learned to play on their frustrations, its mostly Hindus and Muslims on opposing sides. And it's always been a matter of teaching the other side a lesson. (What that lesson really is however escapes me.)

In Gujarat, for the past few years, one side has been practicing a strategy of inculcating respect from the other side largely through fear. A respect that has led to an uneasy peace. Life has had to move along. It's back to bread and butter: earning money, feeding kids, watching cricket and senseless film songs and dances. There's never any choice (especially with those songs).

And then, a weekend came along and someone pissed all over the uneasy pax. Maybe people will start taking the competition more seriously now. But maybe people also need to figure out who and what the competition is. Especially, if the "other side" has already been cowered into a corner after presumably having been taught a lesson.

The whole, insane, "us and them" exercises have gone on for too long. It's time to recalibrate and choose new players to crush.

Gujarat 2002 in perspective

It's official then - well - at least more official than it has been before. A lot of you may know about this already - Tehelka.com dug it all up recently. I'm referring to, what Dr. Manmohan Singh recently referred to as, the genocide in Gujarat in 2002 that followed the horrific killings of several dozen people in a train in Godhra, Gujarat. Tehelka just brought to light what a lot of us felt that we knew already- that the whole thing had indeed been planned right from the start and had the sanction of people in high positions of power.

We also know that this wouldn't have happened however if the groundswell of tacit support for committing such atrocities hadn't existed / didn't exist. That this culture of hate is rampant - is a reality that cannot be wished away. At least, not just yet.

Warning: The report is a disturbing read.