6th December

This is a day that I can never forget or rather allow to slip out of the consciousness of my mind. Some 16 years back something happened on this day which fortunately or unfortunately did not touch me at the superficial level in any way back then  ....but years later when i tried to understand it, revisit the facts and let go of myself in the emotions surrounding it.....it changed me in more ways than one...

As an attempt to revisit that time, that thought and the pain that goes hand in hand with it i watched two films today. Saw ''Raam ke Naam'' for the second time,  a documentary by Anand Patwardhan, trailing the kar sewaks as they were collected for the mass uprising and the demolition of the Babri Masjid....a film where L K Adwani and other top wrung BJP leaders are shown openly gives inflammatory speeches inciting the Hindus... thus bringing about the mayhem....it also talks about the how the whole thing was brought about, how the secular people who had anything to do with ayodhaya at that point of time were done away with inspite of the 'religion' they belonged to.....it also speaks of the common man of those times who stood in the background watching with horror all that was happening silently saying that it hardly makes a difference whether there stands a temple or a mosque or both of them.

The next film ''Ye Mera India'' is a relatively newer flick and speaks about the differences that plague us at the current moment...i would not say that it tells us something that we have never heard before but it does say it in a manner that moves you and now and then you do associate with one or the other character and dare i say it does bring a few stray tears here and there....i will tell you what i am talking home from the movie...other than the unity bit and how neither all muslims are terrorists nor all terrorists are muslims....i take home a lesson that i knew and practiced but somewhere down the line had unknowingly dropped along the way.... prejudices have vicious cycles where their thrive and if you are a part of one prejudice then other prejudices are not far behind be it by you or against you.

I often wonder if I should be happy that I am a part of a secular state or sit down and debate how pseudo secular we are. Hindus here feel they are not the preferred lot, Muslims complain they are not allowed to feel at home... the national language Hindi has not many takers down south and far east agitation for a seperate state is a psynonym for the way of life there. We can't say that the agitation for a seperate Khalistan is over as yet. The law and order in certain states puts human existence to shame.

The Masjid was demolishes long back but the rubble both real time and in terns of our collective future still lies in the way of anything productive that we might want to do. Back in school when I was a little girl my teachers told me ''we are a developing nation, we are gonna be a superpower very soon''. The same thing i am sure is still taught to the tiny tots in schools till date. We were developing, we remain and dare i say we will...the statistics might have changed...the per capita income might have the GDP might have...we are still a bunch of unhappy people....unhappy with the illiteracy, corruption, population explosion, inflation, unsafe streets, lack of streelights, lack of light, unemployment and a score of other things.

And why not...our political parties have amazing manifestos and agendas...they wanted votes back then on religious and caste based lines...they still do...they appease based on caste and creed not talent and qualification...once in power they promise the first thing to construct a temple.the common man is no better..they sing saare jahan se accha and one of our most pronounced wish is to have the greencard approved or at least a foreign trip.

So much so say...so much bitterness...so convoluted and not as if I will let you on to a secret you don't already know....just that the anguish is so so much...just one last thing before i sign off....you know what makes me most angry...when I meet contemporaries..people below 25 who unabashedly ask me my religion cast and other details...not in a passing manner but in a manner that will help them to reach something definitive. The way they have stereotypes fixed firmly in their heads along with pre-conceived notions with half baked dangerous information. The readiness to belittle another and praise oneself.... and the urge and tendency to stand up and get violent about things and choices that are not even theirs in the first place...that takes away from me all hopes that I have harboured of a  future far distant from the history I have read in books. I did not choose my family...my religion or my caste and though I have a responsibility towards them all but nowhere in the purview of this responsibility falls the right to call another kind smaller or insignificant....how can one sing paeans of something that they are not a conscious part of. To be proud of your legacy, lineage and posterity is entirely one thing while the things people have been doing in the name of religion putting theirs versus that of another just makes no sense....

It almost makes me say...we dont need a temple...not even a mosque..we already have too many of them...and when it is a dark dark night and I am all alone...all by myself...there is no temple in sight...not a gleam do I get from the brightest one you constructed....and at times like these I just turn to the God who resides in my heart....he is the one who keeps tabs of all that I have been up to even since I came into existence and he has forever been my best friend, and no conditions attached to that one....don't promise me that temple or mosque... help me love, respect and hold on not just the God that resides within me but also the one that lives in almost everyone who breathes....

Don't give me a temple and a mosque and instead take away my God....it is too lousy  a bargain.....