FAR FROM THE MADDENING CROWD
Rush and long cues every where, that’s what you encounter where ever you go in India.
Be it for traveling in public transport or in your own mode you are always at risk because you hardly have space enough to be feeling relaxed. Be it for schooling, one is never sure of getting a seat in 90 percent schools around your residence. Be it for a job, you are always competing with thousands and millions and on most occasions for most people it is huge disappointment. Be it for a movie you never can be at ease, as there are again thousands before you. The heading above is the only positive thought that one can think of when you are far from the maddening crowd. Thomas Hardy also must have felt the same suffocation and as a result came out with a Novel titled ‘Far from the madding’, or is it ‘maddening crowd’?
For a person who values his time alone or if he wish to have his privacy, it just can not be even imagined when you are leading a family life, for there are so many of your duties to be attended to as an husband, as a father, as a son as an employee etc . Time alone to be in harmony with himself and the nature, it is highly improbable that one actually can have such a time in his lifetime. Even if you manage such precious moments luckily, one rarely realizes the importance of our own space and time during those times also as there again, we are preoccupied with thoughts of our problems of the past or the probable problems we may encounter in the future.
Life and times in India, a great country in its own ways, is hardly seeing a favorable phase, as there are havoc in most nook and corners of our great nation. Petty politics and selfish leaders have made things worse for our countrymen who have suffered during the last thousands of years due to the never ending incursions from greedier races from around the globe, for all of them came with the only ambition of looting and cheating our most tolerant people over centuries. They all came looking for the treasures and richness, in culture and materials for which India was famous from time immemorial dating back to almost 5000 to 20000 years.
While Europeans, were living in Stone Age and mostly were barbarians with tribes’ culture for thousands of years. Their growth if one may call it so has been the result of copying from our land and culture. The very fact that their majority religion in it self is only 2000 years old proves their lack of culture prior to the birth of Jesus Christ.
Now at last when we sighed with relief that we have managed to throw all those undesirable and greedy lot out of our country, we still have not achieved the peace and tranquility India was known for centuries before the arrival of foreign forces. They took advantage of our laid back and tolerant life styles. Now the time has come for us to sit back and wonder where we are heading to. What are the pit holes on our forward journey? History has taught us the risk of not being prepared for a full scale war, when we least expect, from the most unlikely foe, all have tricked our peace loving people and actually managed to rule us for centuries, at times crushing those lone warriors who showed enough guts to stand up to their enemies.
More than all the material loss and suppression we experienced, that legacy of a foreign administrative style and function has hurt the most our unique culture, we had the best management ethics and most competent and unique administrative rules and lessons but sadly , those trained and educated in western countries blindly started following their way of functioning and for instance the ruling mantra of ‘split and rule’ is still relevant, for our populace have been divided always by caste, religion, state wise, and education wise too. Which religion and culture preaches to split the people for suppressive ruling. What does such a formula aims to achieve and for what reasons, ultimately man is only a visitor and never can own or take away anything than his own soul, which also is corrupted the moment one kills for looting and cheating, such souls only reaches hell instead of heaven according to any of the existing religions in the world.
The Rajas’ and queens’ of the past were the best in terms of civility, especially the ones born to sensitive parents who wish and treat all the citizens equally without any bias and results in lineage with sensitive hearts and intentions only for the good of all and sundry ,how can one inflict pain on others. If one enjoys seeing the pain of others then he is surely sick in mind and needs treatment, and to my mind, the best alternate way of governing instead of democracy, communists and the most dangerous military dictators of today, who at times are ruthless and sadists and have committed more crimes than any cruel animal can ever imagine, is to have a king or queen who is good in heart and soul.
Coming back to our country of today is one of heavy rush and panic stricken than at any time in our history. There are hardly any space left for people, leave alone the fate of those creatures, animals and birds as the forests have been encroached upon by human habitation and wilderness is a word now connected to those wild people and not the wilderness of yester years meaning those thick and wild forest dwellings.
The ultimate inevitable and nightmarish fight of the fittest, who only can survive is now changing to worse situations, wherein the luckiest few only may survive a holocaust or a nuclear leakage, which again is highly possible, considering the number of such mass destructive weapons stocked by so many countries that one has lost count and still does not know who are all in possession of such weapons and the number of stock each may hold, is told to be enough to destroy the world for hundreds of times over and over again.
May god save our country, while I pray and look for a place far from all the crowd, sound and pollution of the so called modern developed countries? I might get lucky to find such a tranquil place in some remote part of Africa or in the poles or perhaps may have to wait till we manage to get our neighbor planets livable with oxygen and water.
By,
Balakrishnan Mechakat, 16a 3rd layout, Meena Estate, Sowripalayam Road, Coimbatore 641028, T N, INDIA. Res. Phone. 0422 2310637 Cell. 9894474174
