CAN TERROR BE KILLED?

A terrorist is dead. Ok, the world’s most famous and hated terrorist is dead. Justice has been served – the taker of innocent lives has had his own life taken from him. But it doesn’t mean that the world is any safer or that we can sleep any easier.

Osama Bin Laden and other leaders of terror are merely the sparks that ignite a long line of kindling to the final fire. The sparks can be banned and eliminated but as long as there is kindling the possibility of fire remains. And no one can be safe.

Franz Kafka said “So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being.” What is simple is true. It is hunger and want and need that drives one man to hate another. We become our destructive best when we feel we have nothing left to lose. When we have no homes to protect, no means to educate or feed our children, no voice that can be heard....what options are left?

Options. Do terrorists have any? We ask terrorists many things – we question their humanity & sanity rhetorically through media and probe details of operations and agendas more physically through torture. But does anyone ask the other pertinent questions – what were his options? Did he have alternative means of providing for himself and his family? If he did, what prevented him from resorting to them?

Why would a 12 year old boy become a suicide bomber? Is it the hunger in his stomach that craves such a final satisfaction? Or are there multiple stomachs that will only be fed with the price of his blood? Or is it the intense propaganda of those who have known deprivation intimately and are skilled in exploiting it?

We can kill terrorists. We cannot kill terror. It comes from the fire of hatred that is perpetually burning in different corners of the world. It is fuelled by prejudice, discrimination, exploitation, greed, revenge, ignorance, manipulation, differences of attitude & lifestyle....but the kindling is always the same – poverty.

CRICKET MANIA OR SANITY

After 28 years, the World Cup has come home to India and all who witnessed this great triumph will remember it forever! Even people like me, who fall in the tiny niche that doesn’t really follow the game. Nothing unites India & her people better than this colonial game – not religion nor language nor culture nor intellect and definitely not politics.

In fact, politics has sought to divide our incredibly diverse country further & further on real and imagined differences in religion, caste, communities, etc. Cricket can overcome even this delusion as portrayed by this SMS, which has been circulating since the match –

"Dear Raj Thackeray,
A Chandigarh lad, a Jharkhand captain and a Delhi boy won the world cup for us and dedicated it to a Marathi legend.
Your regional hatred has failed.
Jai Ho!!"

And apart from obvious nationalistic pride, there was so much that inspired in the last few moments of the match and the ultimate victory. The stress-free attitude of captain Dhoni, the faith & teamwork of the entire team, their willingness to share the credit & glory....the sheer joy that was instantly felt by 1.2 billion people. Equally inspiring was the grace with which the Sri Lankan team accepted the defeat despite their brilliant performance in the match and indeed, the whole tournament.



While many deplore ‘cricket mania’ on the subcontinent and try to steer us towards more serious issues, I wish we could hold onto the unity & team spirit engendered by the world cup in addressing them. Our problem may be easily resolved – my or your problem may never be. And if the sport makes for better attitudes and inspires us to unite & forget petty differences, cricket ki jai ho!

PUBLIC VERSUS PRIVATE

In the Internet age, anyone can be an instant celebrity. With a thousand friends on Facebook and a million followers on Twitter, a person can broadcast every thought, deed and opinion. And celebrities get to use the same media to appear more accessible and interactive with their fans. The gap between ordinary & extraordinary is blurring....so-called ordinary people may display extraordinary talent or perspectives and at the same time the celebrities we brand extraordinary can share personal details that tell us that they can be ordinary too.

Social equalisation is on in full swing and regular people are discovering the secrets of image management just as celebrities (and “their people”) are discovering what it really means to get real. The narrowing of this gap has meant that no one knows any more where to draw the line between private and public.

Miley Cyrus has used her experience with Twitter to create this video. As she said to David Letterman on his show, “You can’t complain, about like ‘Oh I don’t have a private life and I’m so upset – paparazzi are following me everywhere’ if you’re going to tell them where you’re going.”



Sharing a personal movie review, photographs from a glamorous event, updates on the latest antic of a child or pet all seems innocent enough. But we’ve all heard the stories of people getting fired for Facebook posts or celebrities caught in a controversy over their Twitter updates. And of cyber-bullying, where anything you share could make you a possible target. It’s exciting to get instant responses & to have made a favourable impression but it’s also stressful & painful to be ignored or ridiculed just like in the offline world.

People who have no qualms about ignoring people in the offline world are suddenly beset by fears of appearing rude online! It seems that social media is the latest balm for achingly lonely people everywhere – if you wake up in the middle of the night needing to talk, you may fear to wake your spouse or call a friend at an awkward time. Or if you want to ‘share anonymously’ the things you can’t in person, there’s always the stranger online who can help you feel less alone.

We’re all in the same boat, craving attention and connection but afraid to put it all out there. What we cannot say face to face to one person, we are broadcasting to millions online in the hope that someone may understand. Hiding behind a computer makes it feel easy but ultimately, we are making ourselves more vulnerable than ever before. What’s personal may not be private anymore.

LIMITED FREEDOM

If we go by popular media, Americans love to say “It’s a free country.” They express pride in their freedom but as the rest of the world knows to its peril, American freedom does not always allow for the freedom of other nations. In fact, it usually comes at the expense of some other nation’s freedom.

Wikileaks should be applauded for living up to a quintessentially American ideal – the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press. Instead, the USA is persecuting it, appearing to put far more effort into this than they have into nabbing any terrorist group. President Obama, who was the source of hope and inspiration to many around the world, now seems to be no less imperialist than any of his predecessors. It is unfortunate that he may feel compelled to defend a war he did not start but one cannot feel too sorry for him when there is evidence of innocent lives being recklessly taken by US soldiers with the same careless abandon they might use while playing a video game.



Shocking yet true. While there is outrageous uproar on ‘security concerns’ and ‘treason’, there is no denial of the facts. What is even more distressing is that the debate is centred on whether or not Wikileaks has any moral right to do what it did rather than on whether the US war policies & practices are moral or not!

For all the rhetoric around US soldiers risking their lives to protect ‘freedom’, the real heroes are the whistle-blowers who have the courage to stand up for what really matters. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan – those who still believe in the good intentions of the USA waging war on foreign soil are either hopelessly naive or themselves malicious warmongers.

And to be fair, the USA is not the only government and military keeping secrets from its citizens. This is probably why few countries are offering Wikileaks tacit support in the terms of non-prosecution. Indeed, most governments are probably hoping that the US will deal with Wikileaks before it becomes their problem.

As ordinary citizens, we reserve the right to know. But do we really want to know? If we criticise and condemn, do we not have to make things right? That takes some hard work. First, accepting that a mistake has been made in our name, then that we are now responsible for correcting the situation – for holding accountable the people we have chosen to represent us.

As an Indian, I do realize how difficult this is to do. As comedian Vir Das put it, when we were struggling for freedom, we had politicians who went to jail but were not criminals and today we have politicians who are criminals but don’t go to jail.

The definitions of ‘freedom’ have always been flexible – it’s up to us to decide whether we feel safe with the limited freedom our governments want us to have or if we have the courage to fight & stand for unrestricted freedom, which involves having to deal with unpalatable truths. And please let’s not use patriotism or any other ‘ism’ as an excuse for our reluctance to face up to true criticism. True freedom, like everything else worth having, comes at a price.

RIGHTS AND RESTRAINT

Nothing makes me feel more violent than driving in Mumbai. I may try to meditate and be calm, serene beforehand, but put me behind the wheel and it all evaporates. I believe that the Mumbai traffic could provoke even the most non-violent people into turning psychotic! Lane-cutting at the last minute, turning left from the right-most lane, going the wrong way on a one-way road…one might expect this sort of behaviour from taxi drivers since they seldom have formal driving lessons & are limited by outdated cars without the grace of power-steering. But what is the justification of the men & women who are presumably more privileged – did they take driving lessons from a taxi driver?

My latest discovery is that stopping at a red light is suddenly out of fashion. And I’m not talking about Sundays or late nights when laziness or sleep-deprivation overwhelms reasonable action but even at rush hour on weekdays! When did this become acceptable? We may be infamous for our disregard for our own lives but when did we become so supremely indifferent to the safety of others? And since when did it become acceptable to berate with much shouting & honking the rare driver who does stop at a red light?

Yes, I know that living in a democracy gives us certain rights. It may be a long time since my last Civics exam but I’m pretty sure that the right to endanger ourselves and others is not one of them! My question then is – shouldn’t ‘restraint’ be as important as ‘rights’? They are two sides of the same coin. If I don’t show restraint, I cannot respect the rights of others. My rights cannot be respected without the exercise of restraint by the people who would violate them. It seems strange that in a place where we are so cognizant of our rights, few of us ever choose to exercise restraint!

The road is not the only place where another’s right of way is abused.

We seem fundamentally incapable of respecting order in queues. So many strategies to replace the patience we have never developed. There’s the ‘innocent’ who acts surprised when accused of infiltration – ‘is there a queue?’ There’s the ‘heavyweight’ who relies on intimidation by size, elbowing lesser mortals out of the way. The ‘sneak’ who slips in when someone else’s attention wanders. The ‘fool’ who acts so stupid that it seems easier to let him get away with it than have to explain his wrongdoing to him.

Most absurd of all is the rush to get out of an airplane when it lands. Is there a fire or is it collective claustrophobia that prompts the mad dash? Getting out first doesn’t ensure anything – you still have to rush to be first on and then off the terminal bus. And how can you be sure that you’ll be the first out of the airport? The first in and out of the restroom? How can you be the first to collect your luggage, which everyone knows is in the hands of providence!

I’m reminded so often of George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ – all animals are equal but some are more equal. By pretending life is an F1 race where one winner takes it all, how does lack of restraint make us the first among equals?

Think of all the great people who command your respect and then think of all the pretenders whom you can’t stand. What separates the two? What are the qualities of the genuinely great that cannot be faked? Is it the sense of entitlement that comes from knowing one’s own rights or the exercise of restraint from infringing on the rights of others?

Which will you emulate? Will you stop at the red light or will you honk at the person who does?

TAAL MEIL COMPETITION

I recently attended a classical music concert and was very moved by the ‘jugalbandi’ of sarod maestro Ustad Amjad Ali Khan and the maestro who accompanied him on the tabla. Initially, there were gestures of coordination, then compliments on a particularly difficult movement and then it evolved into a competition, where each challenged the other further and further – and the music just got better and better.

It occurred to me then that the word ‘competition’ has contradictory connotations.

Some people react to competition superficially – it’s a bad thing. If there was no competition, we would get the recognition we think is rightfully ours! Competing against others engenders bad feelings – of rivalry and hatred. We hate our rivals for the very qualities that make us feel so good about ourselves.

Then there is the other reaction, the one that produces champions. Competition is a good thing because it challenges us to greater heights. We might not know how far we can go if we did not have rivals to excel us and push us still further. We respect them and their qualities for the power they have in helping us develop our own.

Ustad Amjad Ali Khan and his partner illustrated this – each delighting in the other’s performance and using it to spur his own talent further yet. To the delight of the audience!

One might argue that this is easier for musicians performing together. But think of the original iconic ‘mile sur mera tumhara’ when sports, arts & Bollywood celebrities came together for national unity. Think of the last time you shared a moment of camaraderie with your colleagues at work. Think of your last family gathering, where sibling rivalry made way for shared laughter.

Try to think of competition not as competing to succeed alone but as competing to succeed together.

FOOLISH WISDOM

“A fool is a man who believes he knows everything, a wise man is one who knows he knows nothing.”

What then divides the foolish from the wise? Is it the everything-nothing division or the difference between ‘believing’ and ‘knowing’ or perhaps, a bit of both?

The ‘everything’ is the realm of science – founded on the belief that knowledge is finite, that with persistence and perseverance, it is possible to know everything there may be to know. In fact, the best of scientists are working towards achieving the TOE – Theory of Everything. The framework that can explain everything in the known Universe and hopefully, accommodate the ‘unknown’ as it becomes the ‘known’.

The ‘nothing’ is the realm of philosophy – founded on the belief that knowledge is infinite, that no matter how much we are able to know, there will always be more that we do not know. The essence then of the philosopher is to understand ‘nothing’, to accept his own insignificance and pursue true wisdom with the knowledge that he may never quite reach it, no matter how far his progress.

The ‘everything’ has a ‘destination’; the ‘nothing’ has but a ‘journey’. Focus on a destination requires ‘believing’ for who could aspire to what he does not believe exists. Focus on a journey requires ‘knowing’ for who could learn from the road if he didn’t know where to look.

The wise are patient and pay attention to the details in their journey, not concerned with where they are being led. The foolish are impatient and their attention is claimed by the horizon, but who is to tell how far they might lead.

While the words ‘wise’ and ‘foolish’ imply that one is better than the other, the choice is not so simple. The Tarot deck gives the ‘fool’ his due – he does not know his limitations or acknowledge all the obstacles in his path, so he has the potential to overcome them with his belief and reach further than the ’wise’ who will notice all obstacles and perhaps, even allow his journey to move in another direction.

So, which is the path to choose? Is one better than the other?

Each has its challenges and rewards but in the end knowledge is not the province of one man but of mankind. The foolish and wise, both contribute to what we know and what we cannot know. We may choose to be wise or foolish but ignoring the ‘other’ leaves us incomplete.