EK CUP CHAI

Thanks to media, somewhere from 100 miles people called me to check if I were safe, and to run away if I was anywhere near the old city. Reason! There is a bomb blast at a Mosque, in the praying yard, on a Friday, when thousands of people gather to offer their prayers.

When I mentioned it to a friend, I didn’t realize that I had no feeling of surprise or shock. Just plain passing of news. Somebody (whom I don’t even know) made a comment: how can a bomb blast happen in a mosque, after all they are the ones who do it. Will they kill their own people. I got irritated. I replied, “most naxalites are Hindus sir!”

From a bomb blast, the topic suddenly went off to religion. And as I went home, I saw the city - Hyderabad the ever developing city with loads of traffic, with loads of things to be seen… looking dull. News media said one side of it was supposed to be full of traffic jams as people went haywires - buses were burnt, shops and ATM centers broken.

And then, I was on the other side of this city. Where there were no traffic jams at places you expect them. There were no irate public and no signs of mayhem. There was this calm in the way people walked, drove. Everyone was escaping, laughing nervously (or was it my feeling). Was it fear? I do not know.

Later, before I slept and after I woke today, I was wondering, what is it that religions today have been demanding from us? Isn’t it feasr of something that we don’t understand (or something that we don’t want to understand?) Or probably it is not religions but people who follow the religions. Wait a minute I’m trying to be safe here.
Krishna’s ‘Bhagvad Gita’ says that we are just players in the game of Nature. Qoran says people from any other religion are outsiders! Bible, I’m not sure of, and for Sikhs a sword is an important asset.

It is as if, we all have nothing to do with what we are doing, and yet we are asked to be aware of outsiders, of how to beat them and with stories that say that we all are sinners. Excuse me! What is wrong with these religions. Why do they instill fear, insecurity, violence into our minds? Or is the term ‘religion’ an escape from our reality - like bollywood cinema or things like that.

I will never know. I’m not an atheist. But somehow…I think the way we see religion will give us more bomb blasts, and more black Fridays. I’m not sure what I can do to change this. But I also ask why should do something about it?

The author is on a break!!!

It is interesting to find that in different parts of the world, (possibly including India) people are trying to understand the thin line of difference between pornography and art. But until a full understanding comes, it is going to be yet another tale of twists and turns until the Law of India tries to define Obscenity, Pornography, Sex, Sensuality and Censorship!
Why am I saying this?

Whether it was for a piece of photo art or for a political agenda or just for fun, none of the eighteen thousand people would have expected that they would be eighteen thousand of them. For a photo shoot in Mexico Eighteen thousand people gathered in an outdoor public space, without putting a single piece of cloth on their body! (Imagine such a thing in India or Middle East of Pakistan?”)

What was surprising to hear (or rather read on news for me) was that quite a few people had said the experience of being nude in public was “liberating”.

Liberating?!

What was liberating? Encouraging the exhibitionist mentality of a photographer? Taking off clothes in public? Exhibiting body for a photo? Or did they mean that liberation comes from throwing off traditions, cultures, politics and all other feelings like ones clothes in your bedroom?

May be! May be liberation is accepting the truth, that all our traditions or cultures have for some reason covered us from seeing something beyond them.

Coming early to my office today, I was wondering if there was anyway we could sue the municipality, (that too in consumer courts) for laying bad roads. All this because I felt a tinge of pain in my back, while driving. Then I saw this man walking (whom I could overtake in a minute).

Looking from behind, I could see two sticks tied to his shoulder. The sticks were proudly bearing the Indian tricolors, flying over his head. Also to his back was this bag, which you would easily associate with a mountain climber. Tied to the flagsticks, there was this big banner which read something in Hindi.

Having seen him at the first glimpse near a temple, I thought he was selling some toys.

Anyways, I over took him and then I saw him. A man, his face all wrinkled, his back bent forward showing signs of bearing the weight of flags and his baggage. A tired man, bearing Indian flag.

I tried to read what was on the banner. It was all in Hindi and unfortunately my reading ability in Hindi needed constant gaze, but that was impossible as he walked on an uneven road. But I could gather that he has been walking for a distance which is a world record.

As this man came towards me, another man asked him if he needed water. Until then it didn’t strike me that this man was sweating, and no body has asked him if he wanted something. Yet everybody was staring at him. I asked him if he wanted food, he said a no, with his expression, a silent one (an expression that is going to remain in my life for quite sometime).

That was when I had heard some noise…sorry music. It was a marriage party, moving towards the temple. They were walking slowly savoring the attention that was paid to them, and yet not even enjoying the music.

A marriage required attention, a walk didn’t. I still wonder why we spend a few hundred thousand on something as stupid as marriage, rather than on people who need it. No I’m not asking to give it as alms to the poor, just wondering, why do something just because others consider it, a politically correct thing to do rather than the right thing to do.

This man had water, and went his way. I came back to practicality, just like the marriage party. I went to office, though I wanted to talk to this man, asking him why he started walking. I wanted to smoke badly, after a long long time, which I didn’t. I just carried on driving, wondering how long I’m going to walk on like this…walking to be politically correct.