TOLERANCE AND INDULGENCE

M K Gandhi's birth anniversary this year was a day of extreme emotions for me.I should mention here that my friends who read my blogs,patiently tolerating my grossly amateur efforts at composing non-fiction literature,and send me fond words of encouragement(words that I have literally begun to treasure digitally),should not err to conclude that yours truly,who seem to swear by Gandhi and shout 'Empathy' at the drop of a hat or rather an incident,passionately follow the philosophy of the great man in intent and action.I am no saint or budding social reformer and there remain to take place a million evolutionary changes in my consciousness before I reach anywhere near being so.The grossly impulsive man that I am,I still shoot off my lips,words of intolerant anger(at times fuelled by true hatred) when I confront situations dominated by these very emotions.(I sincerely hope I haven't passed on this deplorable trait to my daughter who seems to be an ever-smiling,all-forgiving little lady,at least till now).
 

An old friend of mine,(right from my school-days),a dedicated member of the country's Defense Services,got kidnapped and killed(a bit brutally)by 'militants for a cause' in Jammu & Kashmir on 2nd.October,2009. The mild-mannered gentleman that he was,I shall remain indebted to him forever for all the days of innocence and unbound joy that we have shared,and for drilling the wisdom of music into my spirit at a very early age.
 I do not know how sad the poet was by the tragic death of a musician,but right now I deeply feel to mean every word as I write:
 "I don't know if I cried,
 When I saw his widowed bride,
 But something touched me deep inside,
The day the Music died."

 His widowed bride(who was incidentally in Mumbai when the devastating news came) is my friend too since we all were 4 years old.
 After the empathetic(and sympathetic)words of condolence that I stammered out with a choked heart as the bereaved lady wept silently,the immediate emotions that engulfed my senses were Anger and,surprisingly(I confess in an effort to come clean),Hateful Vengeance.

Trying to retire to silent privacy amidst the condolent crowd,I ran through a series of images.Flashes of childhood in worn out colour now fading fast,musical moments a many that always gave me goosebumps escorting me to altered states of bliss,images of an awkwardly happy couple in adolescent love - sweet and tender,the graceful radiance lighting up a mother's face as she looked down at her newly-born baby..it all run through the darkness behind my closed,wet eyes like a kaliedoscopic slide-show randomly arranged.And it all ended in recoiling pain,as I tried to visualise the death that had been,as graphic images of brutality flooded my senses as I knew by now that the happy face that I loved so much had been systematically mutilated.The death had been a sadistically planned and prolonged one,as a message left behind by flagbearers of 'The Holy War'.

 I had shot off angry letters to two friends(who hold fond but different positions of relevance in my heart by the beautiful minds that they are),begging answers to some crazy questions that immediately arose in my mind.Speaking with poetic audacity,I was following thoughts born out of John Keats' Spontaneous Emotion.Gratefully for me,prompt replies of sincere and tender empathy reached me,softly trying to coax me to a state of much needed tolerance.But one of them that had crossed the seven seas had the glaring question,"But what

 is the way forward ? we are tolerant and should continue to be.Satyameva Jayate.."

 Later on,when I was numbly meditating upon the entire episode,through Wordsworthian Emotions Recollected in Tranquility,I asked myself about the practical limit of consistent tolerance that I should be preaching and practising as a responsible Indian.
Satyameva Jayate.Let Truth Prevail to win the war against The Holy War that has its seeds in a religion distorted by fanatic fundamentalism,that is leaving my beloved country more and more grievously wounded each day.
Yet I shall end today,still contemplating if our tolerance is turning to indulgence,and whether certain practices is truely indulging in an ever-growing fanaticism,giving a respected religion a bad name.Taking into account the Hurt it may cause,I cannot refrain from writing-allowing the audacity to proclaim via loudspeakers right on the face of the spiritual space of secular India,5 times a day that there is no other God except the Chosen One mentioned in the religious books of the flagbearers of The Holy War,doesn't exactly make our India a secular country.Praying is fine.But praying through loudspeakers to force everybody around to listen Five times a day to an audacious declaration regarding the nature of God is NOT JUST ACCEPTABLE.

 

There was a time not so long ago when I used to bathe in the mystique melody of the early morning prayer.It belonged to me,it belonged to India.But after 9/11 and 26/11,the entire practice has gained a unhealthy(unfortunately so)relevance.While we shall continue to be tolerant,if the tolerance is percieved as Weakness,my brothers under the same umbrella that is being used as a hiding place by their Holy Warriors,have got a significant responsibility.They better act now.