Reality check

A little late in the day when I sit to write this post for the day. Its just day 2 of my vow not to write on the Mumbai carnage and its fallout and already I feel a sense of impatience. For some reason, this time around, there seems to be an out and out, in-your-face and all-around-you approach to the after effects of that terrible episode. So call me weak willed if you choose, but here I go again. The media is rife with that campaign against terror. Everywhere you have reports on peace marches, smses, bloggers on a manic spree, talk shows, reams of newspaper all filled with the same thing - how can India unite? How can we move ahead of the biases that primarily rule the Indian psyche and stand united?

Prominent Muslim personalities are coming out in full force to condemn the attacks and to assure their non-Muslim brethren that those that perpertrate the crimes are not considered brothers in the same faith. What surprised me when I was watching one such talk show was that it had never occurred to me that the personalities I was so used are actually Muslim. To me they were just human beings, like me, who had lady luck shining on them perhaps a bit stronger (hence them being on the brighter side of the camera). Not until it was pointed out in the show that they were Muslim did the thought actually dawn on. I am sure that there are similar sentiments in our country when we look closer at the clusters of homes that are invariably formed. Do you really care if your dhobiwala is Muslim or Hindu? Would it really matter is your paediatrician was Christian or Sikh? Would it really bother you if the auto driver who ferried you to work or your child to school was a Buddhist married to a follower of Kabbala? Would the religions they follow actual make your life any different from what you deem it to be?

When a Muslim died in the Mumbai seige - he did have a sizable number of non-Muslims who mourned his death, as did the Hindu or the Christian soul. For that matter, even an atheist would have had someone mourning for him. Death is an inevitable truth. In death we belong to no religion. It is our bodies that may go through the mandatory rituals and thats' about it. The body counts we notch up as terrorists or the millions we make in kickbacks as politicians or even the mundane life that we lead all come to naught in death. If we believe that a supreme power has infused life into each and every one of us (something that science is yet to fathom), then we better believe that the very same power is also keeping tabs on how we are leading that life. And I must say I don't think he/she (am yet to master the art of being politically correct) is very happy about what his creation is doing. And like all religions profess - he who gave life, can also take it away.