The week was kind of uneventful (for me) and I could not think linearly. Some news left me numb and some were better to forget. M.K. Gandhi’s Jayanti (birthday) passed in last week. I am not a great fan of the man, but I do admire some of his qualities. But, I sometimes seriously wonder what kind of remembrance should we do of people whom we revere so much?
What can be the most fitting way? Observing a nationwide dry day on paper and organizing noise polluting programs in his remembrance? Or National telecasts of corrupt and inefficient politicians paying visits to great people’s Samadhis? We actually do not understand the real thing.
We are becoming like that. We believe in show and we simply ignore the actual thing. We like to do rituals publicly and put up a public show of it, but hardly anyone cares for the human beings. Amitabh Bachchan and some others like him visit different famous temples day in and day out (sometimes I feel like asking-how come he gets easy access to these hugely crowded temples, where common man has to stand for hours in line), these bigwigs, marry their to be daughter-in-law to a banana tree, before marrying her to their son; just to remove Mangal from her Patrika, but the same family wouldn’t pay much heed to paying taxes, or environmental issues. We all do that, why blame them, they just set an example, and since we have evolved from monkeys, we copy. We love to keep it simple; we always want to avoid complications. We would simply walk barefooted to the temple to show our dignity and devotion, but we won’t help an old woman to cross the road. Why bother? We won’t throw the garbage in dustbin, but instead on footpath but we will even go to courts to seek rights for Namaz on same streets. We all will complain for noise pollution when it comes to our doorstep, but we will devotedly listen to the prayers played out on loud speakers at odd hours.
I don’t know where I am coming from nor where I am headed to it’s just what came to my mind. It’s a flow and I am unable to put it in organized way.
Then there is one more thing that comes to my mind. People say we must respect the person who is on his/her own principles. The one who holds on to his own principles in whatever adversity. I agree. But at this point I find a conflict. Imagine this person being the leader of a huge community of people. The decisions he/she takes are the ones that can shape the future of entire community. This person has his set of principles and he adheres to them in all situations. Now, imagine his/her principles are actually at conflict with the apparent well-being of the community. That is, if he goes against his principles for this one time, he/she can actually save many lives and probably he/she may himself/herself feel defeated. But, what shall he/she do? What shall he/she choose? The lives of thousands of people that depend on him or his principles? His internal peace?
I am a man of very small stature probably I won’t ever be in these shoes, but still I feel if I were, I would go against my principles for this one time. I may break in the process, but my principles or my inner self aren’t important than thousands of lives. And I do not have a right to play with them for my whims.
I know everyone is entitled to their opinion. Many of you may have different opinions. I would love to know. But for the above reference, many of you must have made out, about whom I was talking. M.K.Gandhi. Yes, “Mahatma” M.K.Gandhi. You are free to draw conclusions. For me, he is not a Mahatma, he is a great human being. The stress is on human being. The problem with us is that we get emotional and start hero worship. We simply deny to understand that all these great people were indeed human beings. They did great things and mistakes as well. We must accept them as they were and not hide anything. They would actually be proud of us if we do that.