On August 27, 2006, a professor in an Ujjain college was beaten to death by his students because he and his colleagues cancelled student elections. That's the worth of a life - it can be traded for a student election. Five or six decades of a life spent learning, loving, teaching, being a father, a son, a sibling, a professor, a friend - all snuffed out for what? A student election. What does it say for us that we can kill - KILL - a man who teaches us? This is the land where "gurus" are worshipped.
The police stood in plain public and TV camera view and WATCHED as one "student" threatened his professors, then abused them, and manhandled them. The professor who collapsed and later died had undergone a bypass surgery a few days before this incident. Life is that cheap. TV makes it even cheaper. The professor died in front of TV cameras. Millions of people saw him take his last gasping death.
What, I wonder, went through that poor man's mind as he watched his wards morph into beasts; his heart obviously couldn't take it.
Incidents like these that revolt people like me also happen because of people like me - we the silent self-righteous "dignified" majority who blog but will leave it to others "less dignified" to take to the streets and protest and bay for the beasts' blood and keep baying till we see it. Unless we stop accepting these atrocities collectively, ordinary men will continue to kill other ordinary men.
That's scary for all of us - the thought that not a bomb, not a terrorist, not a murder, but your next door neighbour can snuff your life out if you simply disagree with him. It can happen to me...and to you.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Sunday, August 13, 2006
The Joke's on You
The 1 p.m. News Comedy Show
Kofi Annan on air announcing a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah effective - get this! - tomorrow August 14, 2006, at GMT something. Not a ceasefire effective immediately, but tomorrow. Today, Israel and Lebanon can reduce each other to rubble and tomorrow - they even have a GMT - they can shake hands and go back to the crumbling remains of their lives.
George Bush warns his nation that they still face a threat from "Islamic fascists" - the one-foot-in-grave-the-other-in-mouth syndrome continues to rage with the President who just signed another death warrant for his people with that typically insensitive Bush remark.
The anchor tells us how India is celebrating her freedom on Independence Day, August 15th - with massive security, scared out of our wits, red alerts of impending terrorist strikes, not stirring out of our homes, avoiding all public places, no theatres, no malls, no public gatherings but a HUGE parade in the capital with more police than people - Jai Hind! We're free!
Kofi Annan on air announcing a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah effective - get this! - tomorrow August 14, 2006, at GMT something. Not a ceasefire effective immediately, but tomorrow. Today, Israel and Lebanon can reduce each other to rubble and tomorrow - they even have a GMT - they can shake hands and go back to the crumbling remains of their lives.
George Bush warns his nation that they still face a threat from "Islamic fascists" - the one-foot-in-grave-the-other-in-mouth syndrome continues to rage with the President who just signed another death warrant for his people with that typically insensitive Bush remark.
The anchor tells us how India is celebrating her freedom on Independence Day, August 15th - with massive security, scared out of our wits, red alerts of impending terrorist strikes, not stirring out of our homes, avoiding all public places, no theatres, no malls, no public gatherings but a HUGE parade in the capital with more police than people - Jai Hind! We're free!
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