Friday, December 21, 2012

The anger within..


It started with the Sandy Hook shooting - the turmoil inside. It was like it was fine up to the mantle but the core was on fire. My mind drifted into the thoughts of those little angels, my arms hugged my children a little too often, and my heart reassured myself “Such things are not frequent.” And now with the New Delhi case it starts all over again. How many times can you calm the anger within? How many times can you tell yourself the world is still a safe place? As someone (originally hoaxed as Morgan Freeman’s words) said on FB – “An elementary school! What’s next – the maternity ward?” When someone tells me a Kindergartner saved herself by playing dead when the shooter fired, before I laud her for her instinct I wonder how she thought of that. Should I be teaching this to my little ones too? How? I can’t.

If we are telling ourselves “Not just rape, what they did after that was monstrous,” have we reached a point where ‘just’ rape is ok? My mind cooks up a hundred different ways to punish the 6, but the judicial system offers little solace - "Police to seek 'maximum' punishment - life imprisonment for the accused." Should I feel good about it - thank God that I come from a country where the rape victim was not flogged?

It’s ironic when we call the shooter or the rape accused an animal. I can’t think of another animal that hurts or kills a member of his own species for reasons other than territory or his own safety.  There have been times when the reasons were psychological; the person committing the crime was a maniac – now here we are with an honor student, fruit sellers and bus drivers – all normal people – fully aware of what they are doing. Aren't these people human?

Maybe the Mayans were right. Maybe it’s not the end of the world as we thought it to be. Maybe it’s the end of humanity! But overcoming the wraths of nature (Pompeii, Harappa and others), the genocides of World War II, the terrorist acts, the shootings, the rapes and murders, the human race has survived and will continue to do so. But as Mr. Natwarlal once said “Are yeh jeena bhi koi jeena hain lallu? Haiin?

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