Death is Permanent, Life is momentary. Live it or Leave it

An average day of study. I am yet to complete finishing the geography part, but now its late(9:00 pm) and making back the journey to home by train.


I am a habitual to the train, to the platform and to the surroundings at Virar Platform No 7 at this time of day (or night). Its all same since past 6 months. The 9:00 pm MEMU is almost empty with exception of few heads. On the platform, there are few families dining, chatting, cosying up each other. An ordinary day. As usual, I got my daily window seat and digged my head to finish off geography.

A few moments lapsed, I heard low wails of a woman crying. I searched for the source and found it to be a woman on platform. A lone woman amongst the 10-15 families residing there was crying. Initially I thought of some domestic issues involved and ignored it. But the pitch of the sound increased and this time an another woman joined in, partly crying and partly consoling. I curiously looked around and I saw person lying beside the crying woman, across the railway beam. On a closer look, it was clear that the person was dead and was a relative of the woman. The person died probably by an illness. Strange but true, that the emotions are same everywhere and they surpass class, religion,region or lingual boundaries. The loss felt by the dear ones is always the same and the void left behind cannot be filled by anyone whether it be a beggar or be an emperor. Time can only heal the wound and lower its pain.

True to its character, Death is a great leveller. It catches everyone irrespective of his caste,creed,status or position. For most of us, it comes unannounced. Even the fear for death is same in everyone's heart and no one wants to die. Ironically everyone wants to go to heaven! After death every person is treated with respect, irrespective of his 'karma'. Probably, we humans are more fearful of the reprisal from the ghosts rather than believing on old Sanskrit saying"Marnanti vairani" (Death ends all enmities). A human in his life tries to get the same rrespect from the fellow brethren, but he hardly gets one if he does not have money or power except after his death. True , death has its own rules and it devours none, whether it be Shri Krishna, Lord Jesus or Prophet Mohammad.

In the meantime my train has moved , the body still lays there, resting in eternal silence. The woman's wail have been converted to sobs, she might have prepared herself with thought of living the rest of life without the person she was crying for.


 A few lines by my friend reverbate in my mind....

   Zindagi main do minute mere koi pass na baitha,aaj sab mere pass baithe ja rahe hai;
   Koi tohfa na mila aaj tak mujhe, aaj phool hi phool diye ja rahe hai;
   Taras gaye the mere haath kisike diye ek kapde ko, aaj naye kapde odhaye ja rahe the;
   Do kadam saath chalne ko naa taiyaar tha koi, aaj kaafilaa banakar chale ja rahe hai;
   Aaj Pata chala 'maut' itni hasin hoti hai, kambakht hum toh yuhin jiye ja rahe the.

   (No one gave me company even for two minutes, today all are sitting besides me;
   Never had I received any gift from anyone, today I am receiving flowers and flowers;
   I pleaded (but never got) for a piece of cloth, today I am adorned by news clothes;
   Nobody ever followed me for even two steps,today I am being followed as a leader;
   Today I understood how beautiful (and bountiful) death is, and I unnecessarily struggled to live.)
by

IDEAS and REVOLUTION

"The sword of revolution is sharpened on the whetting stone of ideas"

The above words said by Shaheed Bhagat Singh are true, for there generation, and for generations to come. This reality is especially true or is especially reminded in the backlight of the anti-corruption agitation which happened in 2012.

Many parallels and antithesis can be drawn between then and now. The agitation too is having the conspicuous absence of intellectuals and thinkers. Thinkers play an very important role in any society. They are the compass which guide the society rationally. The French revolution (1789) happened because of pivotal role played by thinkers like Rousseau, Voltaire and others. No doubt that when anti-revolution forces come in power they first try to suppress intellectuals and thinkers, whether it be Stalin's Russia, MaoZedongs's China or Z A Bhutto's erstwhile East Pakistan.

If there are absence of ideas, the poor people do what they can best do on individual stage, that is, fight against the system. Normally people prefer to fight through non violence, because they knew the ramifications of violence and care more for safety of near and dear ones rather than own. But government rarely heeds to demand and then some youngsters want to overthrow the system itself. If they are able to get the arms, the struggle becomes an armed one just like the Maoist menace in Indian states of West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Andhra, Maharashtra, Bihar, Jharkhand.

Thus the main difference between the anti-corruption agitation and Maoist is that one wants to reform the system while the other wants to replace the system. Intact, Arvind Kejriwal is now the Chief Minister of Delhi. However both the movements lack ideas whrich can actually guide the movement and sustain it for long. Though some readers might point that the Maoist movement is active since 1972, it should be noted that the movement is active because of the power of gun and some short sightedness of local politician for short term personal gains. The maoist still rely on the same literature used by initially Russians and later Chinese.

With these outdated ideas and beliefs, there is no doubt that the movements are going to whither away within a matter of time. No movement and agitation can be sustained on basis of mere rhetoric as the people gets tire of the rhetoric and stops giving any damn. The people are more interested in actions and for actions its is a compulsion to have ideas, which we unfortunately do not have. Probably the education in schools forbids independent thinking and that's the reason we don't have likes of Bell, Microsoft, Google,etc which are identities of a generation. Instead we have Tata's, Birlas , Ambanis which are nothing but dynasties. Even our political parties too are full of sycophants and dynasties. No doubt, that we have hordes of stereotype graduates in all fields who are unemployable because of lack of skill sets.