Wednesday, May 27, 2009

I wish

His right hand fondled the left pocket of his loosely hung shirt with collars akin to an elephant’s ears. There it was, lying in the pocket at the bottom corner. Its mere touch sent a 100 watt smile across his face and his legs swung into action. Murmuring the poem, the one that has got his palms unpeeled, he dance walked, high in the air, towards the only tar road near his village. The time was right too, mid afternoon, teachers would still be at school and parents in the farm. The murmuring got louder and joyous as he thought about his new possession. He took out a polished rock, of the size and shape of a pebble, and started tossing it in the face of the sun, as if tossing his legs and murmuring the poem were not actions enough to justify his happiness. The rock became even brighter in the face of the sun making it possible for him to see it only once it landed in his hands ready for another toss.
The place where he reached was where he enjoyed the most. The people the buses carried in them were amusing. It sort of titillated him when he saw their inability to punish him on seeing him doing all sorts of mischief. He teased buses after buses. He won the arguments and the battles here which he couldn’t manage in his home and the school. And today he had the lucky coin too.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

My Country, My Religion

Men of religion have become less tolerant. In fact, they always were and they always will be. Religion was a bright idea, which was meant to propagate universal brotherhood by the prophets of religion, like a country which limited the concept of brotherhood to its own land, on a smaller scale.
Thousands of wars were fought by men to either expand the boundaries of their religion or to save it from shrinking or extinction, just like men of countries did.
Could the prophets have fought wars to save or to expand their idea of oneness? No, is the only answer. Then why have the followers of religion waged wars?
As the followers they are and the followers are they, did the duty of fencing the ideas of their prophet by laying down the rules in the form of books and became proud of their religion and thus intolerant of anyone who overlooked or affronted it, just like the men of countries did.
The men of countries inherit a frog’s view and so do the followers of a religion. These men from generation to generation have taught their children to be proud of their country or their religion and to follow it just like a follower does.
Why do we men forget to see the real message and act blind? Why do we always love to be a follower and not a prophet himself? Why do we not become the prophets of oneness, which was what a prophet wanted us to be? Why do we become frogs when we are offered amendments?