Public Memory

There have been many condemning acts put up by ministers concerning the gruesome nature of the blasts but what can you say about a TV grab which showed the CM laughing at the blast site the very next day. Well what really affects them? Loss of innocent lives or an attack on their colleagues? In what seems like today's world and blatant reality, is that after criticising the attack they coolly forget and move on. Hasn't that happened with most politicians? The AP speaker Balayogi for instance, not many remember him today. A stadium was named after him and then his memory promptly obscured. Thats what will happen to those unnamed, unheard of till the blasts occurred. We remember them for an instant, for the unnatural death and for pain they endured in their last moments of life, but what after that? Call it cynicism but it is reality and we, as the unaffected party move on with life, forget and often forgive the demeaning acts of hatred till we, ourselves are subjected to it. Fickle-minded as we are, brotherhood is at its best during such times of need and one wonders where it vanishes in times of communal riots when strife and carnage stare at you in your face. Whatever happened to this putative brotherhood during the time after Rajiv Gandhi's assassination when secularism was at its lowest and religious fanaticism at its apogee? I was way too small to register anything what went on around me, but today when I interact with people who have expounded those days the images described are not pleasant and certainly I couldnt find an iota of brotherhood in them. Well this democracy certainly seems for the people, by the people and of the people; where everything is emulated, condemned, visualized, pondered over and public sympathy lasts only for a day promptly cleaning the slate of memory overnight for a fresh story to be written the next morning.

Blasts And Collapse

The city has become a sentient wilderness shrouded in the darkness of death, surmounting pain and grief embodied with an impervious spirit to bounce back to normalcy. The flyover collapse has been a deja vu for most of us, not in the sense of its occurrence but the events juxtaposed with it. The wailing sirens, stampede, chaos, bloodshed and casualties might be repeated over time and has been ubiquitous but the reality and uncertainty takes time to sink in. For the ones who haven't been affected by the two incidents it is easy to digress from reality in order to move on with life, the only change being a lingering fear of any future untoward incidents. Public outbursts have called for inquiries and justice; but in a country where acquitting criminals and injustice are indigenous of the judicial system it is left to be seen as to how much we can expect and fight for or will it become another classic case of 'justice delayed is justice denied'? The blasts were a grim reminder of the omnipresence of terrorism and the fact that it can rear its grotesque head with precise suddenness and unexpectedness. While the collapse taught us another valuable lesson of life, that nothing is certain, for a city which is still reeling under the aftermath of the blasts, the collapse came as a complete shock taking place exactly fifteen days later with an uncanny sense of time. As Hyderabad is limping back to normal life one can only hope for the rejuvenation of the much damaged spirit of the city.

Short Life

I have heard the oft repeated statement ‘life is like this, take it the way it comes’, but nothing had prepared me for the shock that I got on the afternoon of 30th august. Exams currently being ubiquitous in my life I was so taken in by it that I didn’t stop for a moment to see what was taking place around me, till I received a rude awakening. In college while preparing for the afternoon exam we were informed that one junior had passed away due to fever. What shocked me the most was not the cause of death which otherwise is common place till death reared its ugly head on the poor unsuspecting victim, but the abruptness of life. The unexpectedness of life was too much to handle, the thought that there was so much of uncertainty attached to everything was unnerving. I didn’t know her personally nor do I remember seeing her, but the fact that we shared the same sphere for two years, shared the common joys, sorrows and frustrations attached with college and suddenly her being ripped away from this shared environment was overwhelming. My heart went out to her parents who had nothing more left but to wait for their daughter’s arrival in Kashmir, that too in a state which they would have never expected even in their wildest nightmares. But as they say, ‘this is life’; outsiders will mourn for a day or two and then forget to move on with their lives but the real losers and sufferers are her parents and siblings.
There are many things which we postpone for tomorrow little realizing that tomorrow is uncertain and we don’t know what is going to happen when and where. At such times its not the bigger things but the little things in life which matter the most and among those your family gets top priority. We never realize the times in our life we have ever stopped to tell our parents how much they mean to us, that we love them more than anything in this world and we are grateful for all that they have done to help us survive in this world are few and far placed. We always postpone resolving a quarrel but when something happens we regret not acting on our intuitions. I remember reading a poem somewhere which called for attention to such overlooked aspects of life and also asked the reader to rethink his lifestyle. What are we getting by this mad scramble for life? In this mad rush to be successful we are not enjoying the inner aspects of life. There is hardly anytime spent with family members which is the support system, rather more time is spent trying to acquire ephemera. When I read that poem today I wondered, apart from the family how much time do we give to nature? Rather we spend time trying to destroy it. Think about it, how many times have you stopped to enjoy the rains or the gorgeous weather bestowed along with it rather than cursing the potholes and horrendous traffic jams that accompany it. How many times have you gone for a vacation to the hills for time away from the city but after sometime craved to get back online and to your mobile blissfully stuck to your ear? It has been more frequent than we ever imagine it to be and later in life when we think we have fulfilled all our duties towards our parents and then our children, we sit back and realize that in the mad scramble we never actually enjoyed life. We never enjoyed it in the joys nor sorrows nor in the pain associated with the efforts of achieving everything and in old age there is no use complaining, so enjoy while you have the time or the sheer lack of it.

First Times

There are always first times of doing something in life for everyone, but there are times when enormity of the action or the risk involved in it surprises me. I have always associated tension for a particular situation as being concerned for it and have harbored this attitude towards exams. But today my own actions caused me to rethink everything that I had done so far and the fact that I took it to be the hard & fast rule to continue doing so. Tension being hereditary in my family, I always tend to get hyper during exams and look to finish the syllabus so that Im confident (remotely) for the next day, but over the past few days I have been forced to mug up just an hour before my exam which was unthinkable and Im not even worried that I haven’t studied for the next paper. Well as they say there is always a first time and certain situations make you act in a way which you would have thought unthinkable otherwise.
Today was also the first time that inspite of being under pressure of studying for the ongoing exams, I couldn’t help but look out towards the quadrangle of my college in awe and think in absolute amazement at how I managed to spend two years in one place without paying attention to the smaller aspects and the hidden beauty in the architecture. Nothing very great about the architecture, but when contrasted against a tumultuous grey sky and lovely weather to accompany it, the beauty of the whole setting is visible. For the first time I looked towards the place which has been second home and gave serious thought about the impending future which embodies my departure from that place. I wondered what it would be like, uncertain or otherwise.
The first time I stepped into college I was looking to complete my stipulated three years there and then move on probably to a new destination, and now there being just few months for it to happen I let myself soak in the dreams that I have for myself and constantly work towards making them real. We all have a Utopian dream and set up a city of what I call ‘Eldorado’, so have I, though I wonder what it feels like to gain the first success in moving towards the setting up of this dream city. I eagerly wait for that first time to come…