One wonders what sleeping potions and concoctions are given to the political rulers, so that they can sleep well and not sit all too perturbed seeing the human killings! Can they be called leaders? by Humra Quraishi
I’m curious and also keen to know from the so-called ‘sleep experts’, what sleeping potions and lotions and pills and concoctions and medicines are given to the political rulers, so that they can sleep well and not sit all too perturbed seeing the human killings! Nah, I wouldn’t call these men ‘leaders’ as they are not leading us to anywhere near survival! They are all too blatantly political, hopping from one summit to the next, in their best attires, with those frills all too intact. The in-between gaps fitted with speeches and more of those fairy tale promises! Far, far away from any of the realities as they do not take the trouble of visiting any of the troubled war torn zones or countries.
If one were to focus on the Israeli forces targeting Lebanon, it gets far too obvious that killings and violence are only worsening, going beyond the Palestine borders. Last fortnight, many were killed and many more were wounded as explosions went off in Beirut and in several other parts of Lebanon in an apparent second wave of detonations of electronic devices, walkie-talkies and even solar equipment were targeted a day after hundreds of pagers blew up.
As this new form of warfare gets unleashed by the Israeli forces, the political web and military might seemingly gaining ground, unsettling hundreds of innocents not just in the West Bank and Middle East but far beyond.
Bound to carry huge tragedies. And bigger offshoots. There is, of course, the refugee crisis which has been spilling over to Europe. This crisis is an extended offshoot of the internal strife and civil war instigated by the vested interests of the bigger nations!
We sit all too subdued and meek and mute, wondering: Who is masterminding these killings? Who is behind these organized bombardments? Who are the behind-the-scenes destroyers? Why are the governments and world leaders not speaking out? We don’t even scream or shriek in horror to end this mess, even when news reports come in, day after day, of human disasters!
We are worried about the consequences of speaking out! Even as the civilian population sits terrorized, we sit all too shut. State-fed inputs to terrorism continue to hold sway. No, we are not even inclined to go beyond, and question and query.
Few talk openly and responsibly; even bypass its seriousness by overlooking the political complexities to it, as political powers and fascist forces expand their domain on sheer barbaric tactics.
One of those exceptions to this is Professor V.K. Tripathi, who till his retirement was teaching Physics at IIT Delhi. He has been doing his utmost to unmask those layers, by holding meetings with students and researchers. Several years back, one late evening as I reached the stretch near the Aravali hostel of IIT New Delhi, I was taken aback to see that on that cold December evening Tripathi, sitting on a faded piece of cloth, discussing with his students and research scholars, the political polarization and terrorism in today’s world! Mind you, not talking about terrorism in one of those hyped political or biased terms, but as he’d put across, “ For resisting terror, it is vital that we understand terror in all its forms and take up responsible roles.” And in continuation with that, he went on to explain that Imperialism is the deadliest form of terrorism. He also gave the backgrounders to the start of people’s discontent, build-ups leading to terrorist activity in our country, in Punjab and also in North East and Kashmir.
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What if Mahatma Gandhi was still in our midst. He would have definitely travelled to the Palestinian State and also to Lebanon and met the survivors. He would have spent days or weeks there, amidst the affected. Don’t you recall the fact that whenever communal violence and rioting hit the various regions of our country, Mahatma Gandhi would undertake padyatras and camp at the riot-hit place and see to it that some semblance of peace prevails.
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Kahlil Gibran
I started to re-read Kahlil Gibran, with news reports of Lebanon getting targeted by Israeli forces… Do not overlook the fact that he was from Lebanon. Though he had shifted to America, when his mother and half-brother and two sisters were moving base, his heart was back home, in Lebanon. And though he lived most of the years in New York but couldn’t really ever forget his Lebanese roots. So much so he willed royalties from his books for the people of his hometown, Bsharreh…He was born in 1883, in Lebanon’s mountain town of Bsharreh.
Leaving you with these quotes from Kahlil Gibran’s book ‘The Prophet’.
On love: “When love beckons you, follow him /Though his ways are hard and steep /And when his wings enfold you yield to him /Though the sword hidden among the pinions may wound you /And when he speaks to you, believe in him / Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden…”
On children: “Your children are not your children /They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself /They come through you but not from you /And though they are with you yet they belong not to you …”
On joy and sorrow: “Your joy is your sorrow unmasked/Together they come, and when one sits alone with /you at your board, remember the other is asleep/upon your bed …”
On crime and punishment: “You cannot separate the just from the unjust and the good from the wicked /For they stand together before the face of the sun /even as the black thread and the white are woven together /And when the black threads breaks, the weaver shall look into the whole cloth and he shall examine the loom also …”
Along the same strain of crime and punishment Gibran brings into focus much more: “If any of you would bring to judgement the /unfaithful wife /let him also weigh the heart of her husband in / scales and measure his soul with measurements/And let him who would lash the offender look unto/the spirit of the offended /And if any of you would punish in the name of /righteousness and lay the axe unto the evil tree let /him see to its roots.”
On religion: “Is not religion all deeds and all reflection /And that which is neither deed not reflection, but a /wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul /even while the hands hew the stone or tend the loom …Your daily life is your temple and your religion /whenever you enter into it take with you your all /Take the plough and the forge and the mallet and the lute/ the things you have fashioned in necessity or for delight …“And if you would know God ,be not therefore a /solver of riddles /Rather look about you and you shall see Him /playing with your children /And look into space ;and you shall see Him walking in / the cloud , stretching His arms in the lightening /and descending in rain /You shall see Him smiling in flowers ,then rising /and waving His hands in trees.”
