"There's a way to be good again..."

I just watched "The Kite Runner" based on that amazing book by the same name by Khaled Hosseini and contrary to opinions that I have heard about the movie - I liked it. Yes, it doesn't stick to the book all the time, but I thought that in fact it did stick to the book more often than not. You have to consider that when you make a movie from a book, you cannot show everything. If you haven't read the book - well, you must.

Anyway, while watching the movie I was reminded of the horrors of having rulers who offer you no choice - be it the communist regime of Russia or the Taliban or the Nazis. No self-appointed government does anything good for the people. Their ideals eventually only serve their own purpose. (Remember 'Animal Farm' by George Orwell?)

Living in Bombay in these times is interesting. Anger is apparent and there are in this city now three types of people:
-- Those who are cynical and believe that no matter what we do, things like the attacks on 26/11 will keep happening.
-- Those who are completely ignorant of the seriousness of the matter and dismiss it with the wave of a hand or saying things like, "Areh, ha, woh shooting vooting hua, nah?"
-- Those who are filled with a fire and dying to do something.

Everyone has their reasons to be in whatever category they wish to be in and I am not judging. I like to think that I am in the last category but I am also terrified of the fact that I am dangerously close to the first category and not sure how long this fire to do something will continue to rage within me and whether I can actually do anything constructive with it...

On Wednesday, I went (with Antu and Gauri) for a... HUGE gathering of people near the Gateway of India and in and around Colaba. It was supposed to be a "Peace March" but I'm not calling it that because it was far from being peaceful. Honestly, it was utter chaos which was to be expected (but I didn't expect it) because there were THOUSANDS of people there and it was actually quite spontaneous - the word spread around thanks to Social Networking Sites and SMS - and it was between 6-9pm which is when people are heading back home from office so the roads were jam-packed with traffic trying to head home and people walking in the opposite direction, snaking between the cars. There was no security and a mass of that number gathering is in fact a massive security threat. And the most disappointing part was that there were hoards of people screaming anti-Pakistan slogans one minute and singing Vande Mataram the next (you can't be the greater person, while pointing the finger at your neighbour). There were people who were angry and screaming against Politcians with slogans like "No Votes, No Taxes", etc.

So, I was not impressed. But, I don't regret having gone either, because just sitting around complaining, blaming and analyzing amongst ourselves is not exactly a better option than doing nothing at all. The fact is that all the people there were middle-class Indians who for the first time (finally) actually felt a need to come onto the streets and say enough is enough! Yes, a third of those people had no clue of what they were saying (do they know what will be the consequences of declaring war on Pakistan!?!), the other third just wanted to be on TV/see celebrities ("maine suna, Juhi Chawla bhi ayi hain, yaar!") but the other third just want change and want to be an active part of that change..."No More Blame, We want Change!"

India's most apathetic lot - the middle class, educated lot - are out on the streets, would you believe it?Where were we after the train blasts in 2006? Where were we a few months ago when Christians were being slaughtered in Orissa? And would we really have come out of hibernating if this very same thing happened in oh, I dunno, Dharavi and not Taj/Oberoi/Marine Drive/Colaba areas? (I admit, that I am a part of this lot and I wish I hadn't been sleeping for so long)

Yesterday, we had a "Inter-Faith Public Meeting" at the Bhabha Hall in college. Sister Anila Varghese (Historian and the Dean of our college), Rahul Bose, Shabana Azmi, Gerson Da Cunha (Founder of an NGO called Agni)talked to us and gave us their opinions on what we can DO and Roopkumar Rathod with his wife (singers) sang a beautiful song for us as well leading us in singing the national anthem at the end. There were many other things in the programme too including reciting of two poems written by a young 15-yr-old, reading from the Bible, Koran, and Upanishads.

All in all, the programme was brilliant and constructive (I think). Rahul Bose and Shabana Azmi besides being brilliant actors (who don't always do brilliant movies, but nevertheless) are both social activists and great speakers so it didn't at all seem trivial for them to speak to us about the terror attacks. Gerson Da Cunha reminded us (and shamed me, personally) about the importance of voting, making your vote count and generally being an active citizen of this country - not just taking, but giving too.

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I'm sorry if this post is seeming very scattered. I haven't had personal access to internet for several days now (virus issues) and there's been so much to say and so much that has gone on, I'm not really sure how to put it all down. And now, I've forgotten my point...

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I think the point is still that we should not forget and go back to being sleeping citizens of India - because if we do, we don't really have a right to complain about anything... It's been barely a week since the attacks, we've had several talks, walks, TV shows, articles about the issue but come one more week, one month, will the fire still be there? More importantly, will it turn into constructive ACTION??