Mr. Anand is unhappy

A vulture took a deep dive in the air, straight in the verandah of one Mr. Anand’s house.It perched on one of the pots with very little water in it. It reached out for the water, but the water was too low. The vulture saw Mr. Anand coming out, he looked agile and in a poignant mood. “Can I get some water”, said the vulture expecting a ‘no’ from Mr. Anand,” I had so much to eat but didn’t find water anywhere, since most of the wells and tanks of water are used up by the fire brigades in extinguishing the blazing buildings in and around the city”.“There”, pointing towards the pot on which the vulture was sitting he said,” Put some stones in it so that the water level rises”.“I don’t have time, I have to take some meat for my children, there are so many freshly dead, men lying around”, said the vulture and took off from there,” please put some stones in the pot while I come back in some time after feeding my children”.Mr.Anand who was deeply merged in thoughts picked up the stones . His thoughts were rocking between one street and the other, between one dead body and the other, between one blazing building and the other.There is no end to it. This will continue as long as our politicians’ attitudes remain lackadaisical, these vultures will keep getting fresh dead bodies as long as our attitudes remain lackadaisical. We will have no option but to put stones in the pots so that at least these vultures live on. The enemy will keep assaulting our security. No, we have to stop it. We have to stop voting to those hackneyed, lazy bastards, who have time, just for empty rhetoric. Mr.Anand was engrossed in these thoughts of reforming the so called action takers when he saw the vulture approaching back to him.The vulture perched on the pot, saw that the water had risen in level. It drank a lot of it.“I am so thankful to you. You seem to be few of those rarest human beings with a gift to be selfless even in your worst times”, continued the vulture,” You have helped me even though you knew that, seeing your dead body would have made me more happy”.Mr. Anand was indifferent to what the vulture had said about him.“You seem to be very distressed at what is happening. Can I be of some help to you?” asked the vulture genuinely in a low tone, even though it would have been happier to talk to a dead Mr.Anand.Annoyed, Mr.Anand said,” Can you solve this problem?”The vulture understood what Mr.Anand meant by ‘problem’.“I have the solution, a long term one, but human minds can’t understand it, they would find it very impractical and absurd, eventhough men claim to have understood far more absurd things, this one is just too absurd for lifetime sighted humans”.“Tell me”, hopelessly asked Mr.anand.“Practice what you preach”, emphasizingly the vulture uttered again,” Practice what you preach”.Mr.Anand couldn’t remotely relate these words to cruelties happening around.“Please explain?” Mr.Anand requested desperately.“You men never practice what you preach. You tell that the religious atrocities taking place are preventable if all of us(mainly pointing to the people who are bombing) could understand that there is only one god, but when your daughters ask you to marry her off to a person from some other religion or community, you become the same extremists, you repace them for the same actions.When it comes to vote, you vote for the people of your place, community, caste and religion seeing a short term security of your community alone, forgetting about others.These leaders are hackneyed, since they take their voters for granted. They know your revolution can outgrow an election or two, but it can never outgrow the class, religion, caste boundaries that you have created around yourselves.You preach your children to be soldiers when you see these attacks and the very next day you ask them to be an IAS, or an engineer instead.You never bargain in a big showroom, but you never forget to bargain with a rickshaw wala, you never forget to mention a poor roadside vendor of his costly ice-cream and still you preach to love the poor. You preach everyone to be alert, but you never care to look around your seats when you travel in a local bus, thinking that it would look embarrassing if you are the only person doing it. You need a company even to be alert.You never forget to preach him to never compare himself to anybody else but you keep comparing your kid to a distant relative living in USA or an IAS officer. You ask your children to be strong, but you never forget to reprimand their friends every time your child has a brawl with them.You preach the militants to show restrain, whereas you kill your brothers from other states for they came to your place for better opportunities.The list of your inconsistencies of ethics can go on. But as I said, it would be difficult for you people to comprehend its real meaning.You won’t understand the fact that you as an individual is completely responsible for what is going on. You preach but you are mean.And as long as you men are mean, I will have to keep coming to you for water”, saying these words the vulture flew away.Mr.Anand turned back and as he was walking to the door, the volume of the news on the television ceaselessly increased.“62 hours of brave battle by our soldiers in the Taj is over. All the militants have been killed and one has been held alive.People have come on the streets. They are asking the government about who is responsible for the attack.
The people are angry”For Mr.Anand, the question, 'who is responsible' was the answer.