Do Not Make Peace with Devil

Utopia is a real or imaginary society, place, state, etc., considered to be perfect or ideal. As a kid Utopia is what we are taught; Utopia is what we grew up believing in. The police officer will always be upright; an engineer will know all the laws of engineering, a relative will always be good to you, politicians are suppose to do good job etc. etc. We are made to believe all is well in the world and we had to simply grow up and go about the usual business where everything would be fair and right.
Then the dreadful thing happens, all of us really grow up and came face to face with reality of life. The things we never thought existed stare us in our face. We now hear things like “life is not a level playing field” “world works in its own ways” “laws of science don’t work in life’ “who told you I will support you” “pay me to get work done” “be careful of everybody”.
Some of us accept the new reality and some of us take time. Finally each of us find a way to cope with it. In many of us it manifests in our behavior “Some of us became gregarious to avoid facing the truth” “Some of us became contemplative” “Some of us just ignored it and got immersed oneself in our lives and , work and family” “Some became activist” etc. etc. We all call it being focused and trying to achieve something in life, may be that is not that bad, though at the same time we forgot that most of us are making compromises. .

The World has both God and Devil holds true. Pick any religion, philosopher, writer or even simple rationalist, all will agree with this. The actual words can be, “different shades of grey”, “two sides of a coin” or as simple as “good and bad in the world. Though all would agree and believe that world has two faces to it, and I prefer to call it GOD and DEVIL.

Most of us are introduced to God very early in life, and all about him is taught to us, though we are kept away from devil by all well meaning elders. We are suppose to believe in God and act as per God’s will and not the Devil’s However the challenge is that when we move away from our support system, we face the devil, and worse we are left alone to deal with him when, nobody has ever told / taught us how to? Then one day it dawns upon us that the world is made of good and evil and then we make peace with devil. We understand that for the good to exist, evil will be lurking behind, for god to prevail, devil will be present.

When we make peace with devil, we are called grown up? We now know how to manage the world? We know how to handle situations? In the context of devil, where we face the devil i.e. corruption, bullying or just plain simple lying, we still learn to live with it. That is also called coming to age. Though making peace with devil is the worst thing that happens to a human being. That is when a human being dies. When we become living corpses? Look at corporate world full of living corpses, the flawed goal of life is to get next promotion; spirituality is a good word to write essay on, physical fitness is required to manage the rigors of the world hence patience required for yoga isn’t possible. Corporate world was an example; even worse kinds we find may be in government where most don’t even have a goal, not even a flawed one like next promotion, as well businessmen chasing the goal of making money? These all are way of camouflaging our inability to subdue devil. In all this we camouflage our peace with devil in the name of I have do it for family? I have to show my parents or somebody that I am can achieve something?
This peace with devil by each one of us makes us a bit of devil ourselves, it makes devil stronger. Since devil like god also stays within us. The small parts of devils in all of us in summation create the bigger devil in society and system. What this devil does to society and system, we all know and have felt at some time or other in smaller or greater degree.
So may be at some point, we need a little education about devil during growing up. A small amount of sensitivity to know how to manage this devil, and little amount of training how not to fall for devil with in us.
In a sense to tell us “How not to grow up, by not making peace with devil, and how not to fall for devil within, make us understand that its small devils inside which make of bigger devil of society? How to grow up by following God within us and subduing/ minimizing/ nullifying devil within?

In a sense to understand there is devil out there though don’t make peace with it, since that only feeds it, and makes it even more dangerous for me, for you, for my family, for your family and for society.

Media Double Edged / Security Forces Sandwiched

Media – Irresponsible though a necessity

Most of us remember Amitabh Bachann’s coin with tail on both sides from Sholay. Its an interesting parallel with Indian media. They play with a coin having tail on both sides. Media can never be wrong, so if 26/11 happens they have the right to question the police/ army why action was not swift enough. Than incident like in Bangalore happens where unfortunately 19 year old gets killed because Army is swift, media goes on overdrive to ask why army was so swift.
We have reels of papers infact complete two pages only on this story in Times of India, the second paper I buy is Deccan Herald and that also seems to contain atleast full one page on this, and tone is as army is on fault.
Take the case of this boy, he is running from the police. So despite police asking to stop he didn’t. He runs into army compound, hides himself on the roof of the top army brass in the state and hides himself. He is confronted by none other than army, now he runs again. What is army/police suppose to do at 1.00 AM in night.
If he runs away in night, the newspaper will be intruder (or better terrorist) ran away from army / police despite state being on high alert.
So here media is playing with a coin that has tails on both ends and media knows it very well.
Few questions by media
1. Can’t they over power him?
2. Can’t they shoot him in his legs?
3. He was unarmed?
4. Didn’t they hear him talking to his family on phone?
Answers
1. at 1.00 AM a man running next in army compound? Overpower him where and how, by first going close and checking out whether he shoots or blows himself up and kills few army jawans with himself. May be media is just too unhappy since they wanted exactly that, what a juicy news and great trps.
2. Try shooting a running man late night at 1.00 am, I am sure the person who asked this question has great brains though decided not to use them before asking the question.
3. How sentry does know he is unarmed? May be he should have put his life in danger and if killed like six police man on train station in Mumbai, than may be by God’s grace his other friends would have caught him. Again great news and photo opportunity for media, grieving family of a slain soldier is great news, as well his picture with garland on it makes great emotional picture.
4. Now this one for sure is intellectual question. Army should have gadgets to listen that its mom on other side, how do security guy knows that he isn’t talking to his contacts in Karachi, give me a break guys.

Some simple questions I know most of the families ask the young kids
1. If you are 19, what are you doing out of house after 10.00 PM, for God’s grace it was 1.00 AM, and family was not even trying to find out where is he. Not my call to make how a family should keep there young. Though if you take such risks of not knowing where your 19 year old is is at midnight, you run the risk of losing him out, unfortunately.
2. Unfortunately freedom doesn’t come free and we Indians will be well off realizing it as soon as we can. Sorry we can’t be doing free wheeling on MG Road when it’s prohibited. Sorry once you break a law, and you get police asking you to stop you don’t run away. Sorry you don’t jump in army compound without telling at midnight. Sorry you need to know difference between areas of security forces and civilian area, Sorry once you are in security area and challenged by none other than army, you don’t run. Sorry if you do this all you may lose your life.

Very unfortunate, sad and heart almost bleeds seeing a 19 year old go down like this. Though if anybody is responsible for this death. It’s his parents/ family relatives, who taught him
• You are breaking the law by free wheeling.
• You can run from police
• You can be out of house at 1.00 AM without intimation.
• You can run from army and still blame them.

If any body is crying on an age of 19 years, just as a reminder, the only terrorist caught after Mumbai terror carnage is Kasab, and his age is 19 years.

In nutshell our security forces are under pressure of democratically elected government and its compulsions. Don’t question them when they seem to have acted in right manner the way they should have acted. It’s fortunate that it was just a boy who have been brought up with wrong groundings, and unfortunately shot dead.
I shudder to think had it been another Kasab with two other accomplices in other parts of army campus, and army would have acted the way media is asking them to, trying to overpower him. A dead brigadier and his family in middle of an army camp under siege would have made great news, and would have almost assured a full scale war.
My advice to army please please do act exactly the way you acted this time, when you see a unidentified man running in your campus, I don’t want another Mumbai or Kasab running alive on our land.