Pathetic Apathy

"TRRRRRRRRRRING"

I snooze my alarm clock for the 10th time, and look at the clock

9:30 am

I say to myself, 

"Chalo aaj thoda jaldi uthinge"

After breakfast, I sit on the sofa, like a Nawab would and read the newspaper sipping tea.

The booring poilitics crap, on the front page, as I move on, I read that Hawaii had a blackout, and Obama was in the dark. Interesting news, as I feel sympathy for the poor black man in the blackout.

Well, we Indians are used to blackouts, I wonder if that makes us superior.

I begin to wonder if we can today live without electricity, for a day?

Or maybe a week, a month? a year?

I wonder how the hospitals would run then?

Shall we make it more challenging? 

Let's cut out the medical supplies too,

cut out the food, fuel, water everything.

Is that enough.........

Well, let's also close any escape routes, lock the gates of the confinement. And keep the people like that for a year.

Then, let's bomb the place

Am I being gruesome?

No, that's not me.

Imagine, not knowing when your next meal will be, 

Imagine, going to bed, after wishing your parents and wondering if you will ever see them again

Imagine looking at yourself in the mirror and wonder if you would look the same tomorrow? would you have the same hands, legs

Imagine not knowing if the next hour could be your last

I am talking about something that has actually happened and is still continuing. 

Where is it happening?

No, not in Guantanamo, not to any terrorist suspects, not to any war criminals.

But, that's what has been happening in Gaza.

GAZA!!!

What's that?

I hear someone say.

Not surprising, but Gaza, Palestine, Bosnia, Chechnya are always out of the news and if they are in the news, they will be so only for the wrong reasons. 

For the last year (one entire year), 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were held captive, in a siege by Israel. (Such tactics were used in medieval times against fortresses. )

Not allowing human beings freedom of movement is bad enough, but denying them to obtain essential things for living will reduce them to desperation.

 And the world looked on, with no worries about what Israel has been doing to the innocent people of Gaza (guilty of voting for Hamas? guilty of existing, actually.)

Now, to bomb the living daylights out of these people who have suffered every kind of torture that Israel and the world has decided to make them go through, is criminal. And, you mention that it was done when children were in the streets is almost beyond criminal, if that is possible, it is absolutely evil. 

Among the targets was a compound where a police graduating ceremony was in progress, pictures of mutilated bodies of young men in uniform, pictures of school children lying on the ground, a university campus bombed!!

School children waiting at a bus stop bombed.

The onslaught was unleashed just after the Christian world celebrated the birthday of Jesus Christ and Pope Benedict XVI called for peace in the Middle East in his Christmas address. 
Gaza has been turned into an open-air prison, a giant concentration camp where Palestinian women and children are being denied food and medicine in their own homeland. And now the illegitimate usurper regime has launched a merciless attack on the Palestinians of Gaza, but no one is calling for Israeli officials to be brought to the Intentional Criminal Court to stand trial for their crimes, which is itself a crime against humanity.

The Israeli military claims that it is taking surgical strikes at the Hamas and is minimizing civilian loss. When it comes to Gaza, said to be one of the most densely-populated areas of the world, there is no such thing as a surgical strike. Moreover, over half of Gaza’s population are children under 18. Even the smartest smart bombs could not cherry-pick between resistance fighters and innocents in such a packed environment.

I am sure Israel will, and very soon come to US Congress and the new Obama administration and ask for replenishment of the weapons and ammunition it used to murder so many innocent people. When Jews and Israelis die it is terrorism and all are innocent including the soldiers who shoot and kill, the pilots who drops the 1000 lb.bombs. When Palestinian die, they are collateral damage and are guilty as charge of simply being a Palestinian. 

There has not been a single day in the past 60 years where there was not at least one Israeli gun pointed at a Palestinian, whether at the checkpoints that lace the West Bank, or on the battle field during Israel's frequent ground incursions into West Bank cities, or from the air as Israel drops bombs on Gaza. If that is what an aspiration for peace looks like, God save us from seeing an Israeli aspiration for war. And as we hear Olmert says that this is only the beginning of war.

Whatever one thinks of Hamas and it ideology, it was elected to office in free and internationally-monitored elections that were forced upon the Palestinian people by Washington as part of the Bush administration’s quest to democratize the Middle East. Then, after congratulating the Palestinians on their new democracy, the US-led international community promptly condemned the new leadership as terrorist and threw its support behind Fatah, which was “ordered” to turn against Hamas. This divisive strategy worked to the extent Hamas was driven to Gaza where it has since struggled against all odds to provide its citizens with the barest minimum required to sustain life. 

Contrary to popular belief, it wasn't the Hamas which broke the ceasefire, but Israel had assassinated a few leaders of Hamas, in November, during the ceasefire, and had not suspended aid blockage as promised.

But like its Washington master (or is it the other way around?) Israel is not constrained by international law or the Geneva Conventions that also require an occupying nation to provide for the well being of people under its occupation and to respect their dignity. As the willful killing continues, Israel merrily ignores pleas from France, Russia, the UN, the EU and Britain to end the violence. Why should it do otherwise when it has proved time and time again that it is a law unto itself and immune from international punishment?

Unsurprisingly, the only message from the US to Israel is “try to avoid civilian casualties”, which is nothing more than lip service to international humanitarian sensitivities. In effect, the Bush administration has blessed this, by many accounts, long planned operation, cynically timed to begin during a political vacuum in Washington.

But there is another angle, and that is the upcoming Israeli election. It is not novel for incumbent Israeli governments to carry out atrocities against Palestinians to garner domestic support, and with the Likud expected to win the next elections, this is definitely a power play by the embattled ruling party, Kadima.

The Arab world will protest for a few days, condemn the acts, call them barbaric, agree to send millions of $ of aid which will be blocked by Israel That's all they will do. 

The GCC, OIC will only condemn the attacks, then even these voices will become quiet and with them, perhaps Gaza will forever become quiet as life is sucked out of it. 

As a former Israeli ambassador to the UN Gillerman just said

"We haven't seen dramatic condemnations [from world leaders], only the expected and generic calls for calm and cease-fire," 

"Even in the UN I didn't see anyone happy to condemn us," he added. "Unless something very dramatic happens, such as a blundered hit that kills large numbers of civilians, then we will have enough time to do what we need to do."

When the world leaders don't act, it's the desperate people who take things into their hands, this is where and how extremists are born.

This week saw/will see the rest of the world celebrate three festivals,

1) Christmas

2) The Islamic Hijri New Year

3) The English New Year

When one hears firecrackers on New Year's Eve, let him remember that the Palestinians hear bombs exploding all around them. 

As we usher in a New Year let those of us who care, pray for peace and happiness for all mankind ( Palestinians and Israelis included). 

The rest of us may only read the headlines somewhere in the corner of the newspaper 

"300 killed in Palestine"

and without blinking an eye, turn the pages to find out something interesting such as, which theater Ghajini is running in.

(Dedicated to the old Palestinian and his family ( refer blog 2),

Sir, you are only physically blind, whereas the world is truely blind. 

Our apathy is pathetic.

"Unfortunately sir, I still don't have tears in my eyes, " )

In-retrospect or Re-introspect

Time to introspect, or is it called retrospect? Anyways, I leave that to the english gurus. ( I am a bit poor in english as you can see)

Intospect means to reflect on one's own thoughts and feelings

Retrospect means to look or refer back to; to reflect on

 So, I will now look back and refer to my thoughts and feelings.

Let's call it in-retrospect shall we

or maybe re-introspect .

 (Cut the english crap)

 Last week was pretty eventful, it saw Mr. Bush bid farewell to Iraq, and show his quick reflexes, which should put our Indian cricketers to shame. I wonder if he got an image boost.

Btw, our cricket team was on a high last week too. 

 Last week also saw me turn 21 

(Yes, 21 yrs. To all my friends who missed it, 

A big……

Thankyou!

Four of my friends did wish me though, and I am glad that there were only four. Makes me feel younger)

Anyways, birthdays don't really hold much significance to me.

I get a lecture from my mom saying, 

"Ab badhe ho gaye, samaghdaari aajana, 

You must be more responsible, ...........

................."

I don't know why, but there is a notion that each birthday is like a milestone you’ve crossed. So, one feels compelled to look back on his life and assess it, as if it was an income tax return. And unless you are someone like Nadal, who won Grand Slams in his teens, or Prince William, who doesn’t need to win anything and, you feel compelled to pose yourself questions such as: what have I achieved in life. And of all the days in your life, it is on your birthday that you are supposed to be having the ‘maximum’ fun. 

Well, I did look back in life, Realised that I have only spent my life studying to pass some exams, (underline studying to pass )

I picked up a piece of paper, a pencil. and decided to figure out, how much time I did devote to perhaps the only seemingly meaningful activity, i.e. Study.

I plotted a graph,  (avg. hours of study vs stages of life) and it didnt really turn out pretty. 

Here's how it was..

(Click to enlarge)

Turns out, I haven't spent time studying at all. Perhaps, my tenure at Narayana Jr Coll is a face save, but thats all there is to show.

The Petronas Towers and the Mariana Trenches in the past 4 years, seem amusing though. You have to be an engineering student to understand those

Life at Saudi was bliss, I am sure nobody is as lucky as I have been, in spending a childhood the way I have.

 I realise that more than 90% of my time is unaccounted for, (I wonder if it resembles the budget of Bangladesh)

Maybe TV, orkut, computer games would make up a major chunk.

 Of course, not to mention if there were a Forbes/TIME magazine list of the laziest and careless persons on the planet, I might well be in the top 50 

(Note:- I didn't mention top 10 cos I am modest, though I very well know I will be in the top 10)

Perhaps, an e.g. of my world will make things clearer.

 An e.g. as to how lazy I am 

The wall calendar in my room shows January 2008. I have been too lazy to even flip it, once a month. And the only reason why it shows 2008, is because my brother bought a new one and put it up a year ago. I trust he will do the same, in 2009 too.

 And an e.g. of how callous I am would be,

I was to attempt (ATTEMPT) an exam called GATE, it starts at 10:00 am and my center was quite far, I woke up at 9:30, looked at the alarm clock, then at the wall clock and then went back to sleep,

another e.g. would be what happened just yesterday for SNAP, reporting time was 1:30, and I was at McDonalds having lunch till 1:40, not to mention I didnt carry a pen to mark the answers with.

I could quote dozens of other such examples, but keeping in line with my humble nature I shall not.

Now, coming back to my re-introspection or was it in-retrospection,  whatver

 I realise that I have spent a life of easiness, peace, bliss and hardly faced any hardships or indecurities. I would like to thank the Almighty for that.

 I also know life can't be a bed of roses forever. It wouldn't be fair considering the hardhips that people around the world suffer, for my life to be a bed of roses forever.

So. I am ready for things to change.

I am ready for my life to shift from a bed of roses to

a bed of lilies, tulips, violets, etc.

 Am i selfish?

Maybe, I am. 

 A bit of serious introspection now,

I am 21 years old, and I still have no idea what I want to do. I am not talking about long term goals, being pretty shortsighted I never think that far. I don't even know what I will do or want to do 6 months from now. Most of my peers are pretty clear on what they want to do after graduation, and what they want to become. They know their interests and are ready to pursue them, even my juniors are oncourse, I on the otherhand have no idea about my interests, neither am I making an effort to know them. So, far I have just been moving with the flow of the stream of life, never making an effort to swim sideways, let alone against the current. 

I might have crossed all limits of callousness, which any creature on the planet was set with.

I realize it's now time to change, if I were in Swaziland or Zimbabwe it would have meant that I have exhausted 2/3 rd of my life. Pretty scary!!

It does seem a long journey though, from weighing 800 grams, 21 years ago, to 65 kg now. That is 81.25 times in 21 years, or an increase by 8025%. 

I fear I might become a dharti pe bhoj like the already 6 billion others

No, I don't mean to sound that I am overweight ( joke) ; it's just that I wonder if I have only grown in size but not any wise.

Now, to rescue my future, I will be coming up with a bailout plan, have a few rough ideas to include, I might post the entire plan as soon as I make it.

1)It would include, a cut on my time spent infront of screens, i.e. onscreen and offscreen, Oops!, no I mean infront of the tv screen and monitor screen.

2)That would mean a cut in orkutting, chatting, pretending to be busy.

3) A cut in daydreaming, I dream during the day more than anyone might at night, all my castles, palaces, in the air would put royals like the Sultan of Brunei to shame.

Now, coming to a few other incidents last week, 

Something that came into picture was the criticsing of the various bureaucracies in the Indian administration, the various approvals that need to be granted for an change to take place. There are the bodies or ministries of finance, judiciary, legislature, etc etc. all these bottle up any new changes.

One thing which crossed my mind, with my turning 21 last week, 

Now, everyone believes 18 years is the most eventful, since one gets to vote, drive, open a bank account and all.

 But, for me turning 21 is important too. Since, now according to Indian law, I can get married.

 I felt things at my Home Ministry, (my home) are pretty analogous to the above quoted bureaucracies , I too have to get past various ministries and their stringent laws/conditions to get things done. Virtually, run form pillar to post. The ministries are those of my dad, my mom and my brother.

Here are what conditions I have to fill if I am to get married, according to the Home Ministry

 1) My dad, he says that I can get married only after I start earning well,  and manage to save a good amount.

2) My mom says, for me to get married it's not me who will choose a girl, but the girl will have to choose me.

3) My elder bro says "Tum kidhar, pehle meri to hone do".

 

Now, according to my plans, points 1 and 3 should be taken care of in 3-4 years.

The only problem seems to be point 2????

 I wonder when that will happen???? Perhaps you might help me answer that.

Anyways, on that light note, I will terminate this post, 

Now, I will go back to what I do best, orkutting, chatting.

Oops! I just made resolutions to cut down on the above

Oh! well, just a little won't hurt.

The resolutions can wait another day

 or perhaps

 

another birthday...

 (I apologise this post was a bore, but then, perhaps I might read it a few years from now and introspect or retrospect or re-introspect.....whatver.

Kindly put in your comments to help me out with my introspection)

 

 

 

Learn from Nature

After the morning prayer, as I walk back home, I see the sun slowly rising. It's rays seem to be filled with energy and cheerfulness in the cold wintry mornings.

That directs my attention towards the sun. a star 150 million kilometers away, giving out solar energy without which, the earth would be a cold lifeless planet.

What drives the sun? Recollecting from school, nuclear fusion drives the sun.

A few more school concepts:-

Fission involves splitting the nucleus of a heavy atom. This yields two or more lighter nuclei and a large amount of energy.

Fusion, on the other hand, is the combination of two nuclei into one nucleus, under conditions of extreme heat and pressure. 

In comparison to fission, fusion releases much more energy per mass that you input.

Moreover, fusion is a much cleaner process compared to fission. The downsides to fission power include both radioactive byproducts and its association with nuclear weapons.

Now, fusion is a process which occurs naturally (as in stars), whereas fission has to be triggered by artificial means.

You might wonder why I am talking about all this nonsense.

The present situation in the country made me mention the above. No, not the 123 deal.

Fusion, the process of uniting has many more advantages than fission, the process of splitting.

The year 1857 marked a historical and critical point in India’s history. Hindus and Muslims joined together to fight against the British. After suppressing this ‘mutiny,’ the British rulers decided that the only way to control and rule India was by applying the policy of divide-and-rule. All the communal riots began after 1857. There is abundant proof that these were, engineered by the British administrators.

In order to stem the Indian revolution, the British tried to divide India, and were successful in creating problems which remain unsolved till today.

Divide and Rule has always been a policy with disastrous consequences, for the victim state.

Afghanistan was split into the Northern Alliance and the Taliban resulting in endless wars between the two. 

In India, one Maharaja was made to fight against the other. The British supported one ruler, promised to share the spoils with him, if they together defeated the other. Often, resulting in the destruction of both kingdoms.

After the World War, the Ottoman Empire was split into dozens of smaller states, resulting in the littered Middle East.

In Palestine too, parties were split into the Fatah and the Hamas. Even after Hamas won the elections, the US invalidated the win, causing chaos. The US supplied aid to Fatah, and made sure the two struggle for leadership. Without a proper leadership, the Palestinians would never be able to regain their lost land.

  In the 1980's when Iran and Iraq had the largest armies in the region, the US supported Iraq against Iran, resulting in destruction of both countries. No, more might in the middle east.

There are dozens of other examples...

It is in the vested interests of few people to keep the world and especially neighbours divided, thwarting every effort of theirs to unite.

Sometimes, we can learn from movies too.

 In the film Main Hoon Na, a group in order to curb the rising friendly relations b/w India and Pakistan takes a school hostage.

Interestingly, in 1954  in order to curb the rising friendly relations between the US and Egypt,  Israeli military intelligence planted bombs in Egyptian, American and British-owned targets in Egypt in the summer of 1954 in the hopes that "the Muslim Brotherhood, would be blamed and would trigger hostilities between the US and Egypt.

The hostage situation in Mumbai last week was no different. By, squarely blaming Pakistan, we are only honoring the terrorists, this is what they wanted. They wanted instability in South Asia, wanted to bring down India, curb it's relationship with Pakistan. To complicate matters, a group known as Deccan Mujahideen surfaces from nowhere. This was done by the terrorists so as to divide India further, by making it look as if the culprits were from India's heart itself.

Our media now hypes it as India's 9/11. Now, they show footage of Indians asking for war. It's strange, since I distinctly recall, 7 years ago the US media showed Americans asking for war.

Haven't we learned from the past. America the superpower went to war against, Afghanistan a country in stone age and is facing the consequences. If we are to go to war against Pakistan, a country almost equal in military might to us, what will the result be? When the Americans are regretting their going to war, why is the media showing Indians saying we want to go to war? Would going for a war, subside the terrorist attacks in our country or would it increase hatred against us? The west is only reaping the seeds of hatred it had sown.

Perhaps it was in a state of anger and frustration which is understandable. But, we better not do anything foolhardy, the media needs to play a mature role, instead of going to the victim's families and asking

" Your son is dead, How do you feel? "

How would he feel, he will say "Go to War." And the media portrays this.

The extremists wanted us to go for war. By doing so, we would be honoring the deaths of the terrorists, instead of honoring our martyrs.

We should follow the Russian line, which had it's own 9/11 a few months ago. It prevented any escalating tensions with the US and followed a mature line, which was praised by many neutral observers.

 When one prays to God for courage, does God give him courage or the opportunity to be courageous. When one prays to God for patience, does God give him patience or the opportunity to be patient. When one prays to God for peace, does God give him peace or the opportunity to have peace. 

This is our opportunity.

As the Muslim World, next week remembers Prophet Ibrahim(PBUH), who was ready to offer his son as a sacrifice for God, Let us also remember the brave soldiers and martyrs who sacrificed themselves for our country.

If 10 youth can unite and shake the county, can not we, the 1 billion unite and show the world.

  "Yes, we can."

So, everyday when a morning dawns upon you, be reminded by the sun, that all of it's useful energy and might comes from the process of unity occurring within it under extreme conditions of pressure.

In these conditions of pressure and darkness, let us all stand united.

Truly, in Nature, God has kept signs for us to learn from.

(well, I am sorry tht it's as long as an editorial. if u got this far do put in your comments)