This world that we live in is a beautiful place. But, there is no denying that it also has equally ugly problems. These problems are of evil, hypocrisy, suffering, and darkness of all forms. I choose to make any effort I can to solve them. One of them being, to discuss them, keeping all sides in mind. Keeping the right amount of emotions and reasoning in mind.
Tragedy or Comedy
In his work ‘Poetics’, the Greek philosopher Aristotle thought highly of tragedy, considering it a greater art form than comedy. Tragedies had depictions of the downfall of the protagonist, who suffers misfortune mainly due to their own flaws. Aristotle deemed it a higher art form than comedy, which, on the other hand, was considered cheap, unserious, and lower-level entertainment for the common masses. The purpose of a tragedy was to purify and enlighten the viewers, done through ‘catharsis’, a point where the audience feels pity for the character and fear of some similar tragedy that might befall them.
To watch and laugh at something is easier. When it comes to thinking, that is where the struggle lies. Struggle is unappealing. When I used to think so, life was fine. But then I realized that the problem with being all “happy and cheerful” isn’t simply being so. It is also that it is the only thing one cares about. This in turn leads to a set of illogical beliefs, unhealthy mindsets, and an unrealistic way of living life, which is not sustainable in this ever-growing world of ours. So, the more people indulge in such mindless, thoughtless content, the more they will keep drowning themselves in mental darkness. It is this issue that is most concerning right now.
Social media nonsense and overly commercial movies are ruling the hearts and minds of people. Influencers and actors are more popular and respected than people who make a difference. There are many who run NGOs for unfortunate beings such as the poor, the old, the forgotton etc are not known to us. Those trying to come up with innovative ways to undo the damage done to the environment get mere encouraging words in the comment sections. Those words have value, but they can only do so much.
But wherever has the time gone? Our minds are being trapped in the narrow lanes of mediocrity through the consumption of useless data, while our eyes take in ten times the amount of blue light from the screens than they take in from the sunlight, which is actually worth something good: our health. This trash is what breeds a diseased society that abandons morality and logic by making flawed ideals and false justifications, such as “Everyone does it.”
Ritualism, fanaticism, mob mentality, and discrimination are only emboldened by such content that we consume. The more people get trapped in it, the more disastrous it will be for everyone. So, advice for those who might not be willing to lead would be to keep your own heads clear, do the most you can to support those who are trying to make a difference, and keep living. It’s not the end of the world. Not yet, anyway. It is said that the world will end after the Kali Yuga ends. But what if we can save it? Isn’t that the type of question that people should focus on answering?
The Way of Flesh
As I observe the human body, I can see how complex and unsettling it is. Even the way it functions normally is hard to imagine at times. So one wouldn’t even want to imagine what it looks like when it is being damaged in any way. To keep it healthy is a challenge in itself. Imagine that someone is dead tired and craves some nice fried chili chicken momos and an ice-cold virgin mojito. But he can’t really go for it because he has to keep his gut health better. It’s the conflict of the ages. Your health or your cravings? Dull and depressing morality or sweet temptation and degradation?
I suppose it is about changing your body chemistry then. Good bacteria is what keeps your body and mind healthy. Bad bacteria is what causes cravings and makes one weak. To suppress cravings, there is hydration, fasting, and good healthy food. It is a battle of control. Health over taste. People don’t pay attention to it and eventually pay the price. How to live and thrive depends on a person. It is the time of a person to understand that a healthy body means a healthy mind, which, in turn, means a healthy soul.
When the body is healthy, the mind will be peaceful. The recipe for a healthy body is good food, exercise, meditation, etc. It falls upon each individual to find what particular one suits their needs according to their body types, health issues, preferences, options, etc., and follow it consistently. Take the first step on that journey of a thousand miles. The journey to a happy and peaceful life.
The World Goes On
I’ve seen the woes of a society, of a civilization, that falters in being civil. What remains of it is the facade of it. The facade of men and women, believing themselves to be noble. Or even pretending to be so. The idea is not to be a human but to appear to be so. They tell their lies, commit their crimes, and justify it through their dogmas. Surely, it’s not about humanity. It’s not about being human. It’s about protecting your faith, traditions, and cultures. No human woman, child, or man is above them. So, go on, burn away, rape away, lynch away. Guess that was the idea the founders of your religions gave. They who avoided the crowds and lived quiet and simple lives, chaste and knowledgeable. Surely, they taught you to gang up, scream, yell, burn each other’s books and treat each other like animals, whose treatment I won’t discuss otherwise this might get way too long. Your own people suffer and endure discrimination and torment, but forget that annoying noise. What fight for someone? Fighting against someone is more fun.
Save your tradition from jokesters. From a couple of kids who mock your traditions. It’s not your arrogance, your hypocrisies and your self-made delusions that will end your culture. It’s just a couple of crass jokes that will. They are the true “‘Hiranyakashapu” of these times, aren’t they? And then, blame the younger generations for abandoning your culture and traditions. It’s not like they have seen the works of so many criminals, illiterates, and witless fanatics to care for it. What are the so-called problems they have that they complain so much? Unemployment, lack of basic facilities or choices, constant harassment by higher powers? But forget it all. Because justice is imperfect, life is unfair, people die, criminals get away, and the world is a complete hellhole. So, let’s just remember all these words. Because the world does. Everyone knows them, which is what helps them go on. Well, what if we can just make small changes? Some justice here, a little more understanding there. Maybe educating more people on what’s right and what actually matters in life. Start from the beginning with stuff like basic etiquettes and hygiene. Because god forbid, I go a whole day without seeing any plastic or paan or something on the ground. Maybe people start thinking before they speak and not shout over every little annoyance. Maybe it might be alright and won’t be that damaging to this great era of darkness. Just food for thought.
My Dreams
I wish I could say that I dream of a better world, where I am happy and content. A world that is free of conflict, hatred, bad opinions, crime, misery, and other stuff. A world where pollution could go away. Population could calm down a bit. Literacy rates could skyrocket. Good sanitation could and civic sense could become trendy. Maybe people will just stop spitting and pissing everywhere. Maybe the sanitation department goes out of its way to keep the damn water running in the public washrooms. Maybe people can calm down with the paan all the time. That delighful source of redness.
Just saying, there is much perfection that I crave in my dreams. Yet, there is nothing that seems achievable in reality. I wake up hating myself for existing in this place. I’ve tried my best to discuss this with people. There is nothing I can do about it, though. The level of rigidness seems to be really ingrained in society now. People seem to have nothing to do but to degrade themselves and their surroundings even more now. A person can be scolding another for speeding and akmost causing an accident, while he himself spits out his paan on the road. A guy can curse others for throwing their trash in front of them, only to dump that thing in the nearby river because there is already a lot of other stuff in that. Classic ‘Broken Window Theory’; if it’s bad, it’s okay to make it worse.
There is no hope for the world until they decide to mend their ways, because they really underestimate themselves when they believe that their ‘small’ actions don’t affect the world. The appreciation for all things good and useful would be a great start so that they don’t spit, piss & draw on them anymore. A promotion of education of all forms would serve as a great initiative. Teaching people the worth and use of the things that they destroy. Maybe drought-affected areas might teach people to respect water. Or some other way of showing them how leaving garbage on the streets will come back to bite them in the behind via disease.
As you sow, so you reap. What goes around, comes around. Let these be the biggest lessons for people to include in those vast but ineffective mounds of knowledge, which they brag about but never actually utilize. This world of ours, in peril, only serves as an example for the need for reality checks. Living in one’s own world of grandeur leaves the real world in ruins. And we are living in the real world. Those drugs don’t last forever either. So, let us reconsider some of choices. Even the smallest change today can help bring a better tommorow.
Motherhood
One may say that being a mother is not that hard at all, that being a mother involves no effort. They may keep saying these as they fill more delusion in their minds. Because they cannot possibly imagine the greatness and toughness of a mother’s job. Motherhood is not a joke; it is not a part-time activity one does all day sitting at home. It is the creation and management of a soul that may lead the world to glory.
It is the act of creation, the work of gods themselves. So, don’t forget now, dear deluded ones, that God couldn’t be everywhere. So he created Mothers. To provide love and care, and to teach and enlighten those who will become great souls. As great as those who gave birth to them.
When the exiled Pandavas condemned themselves to death by drinking water from a lake belonging to a Yaksha without his permission, which was by answering his questions. Yuddhisthir, the wisest and last remaining Pandava, decided to answer the Yaksha’s questions. He asked Yuddhisthir many philosophical questions, all of which he answered with the great wisdom and knowledge he possessed.
One of the questions was “What is heavier than Earth?” And the answer was “Mother.” I didn’t understand that along with many of the other answers, but I do now. A woman who has become a mother has to carry a burden much heavier than even the Earth itself carries. It is a justifiable glorification of the love and care a mother showers on her children that even the entire planet can’t rival.
Yuddhisthir clearly knew the value of a mother’s love. When the pleased Yaksha offered to revive one of his brothers, he chose his half-brother Nakul, the youngest son of Madri. Since his mother, Kunti, already had one son left, he didn’t want Madri to suffer the loss of both her sons by selfishly reviving his brothers, Arjuna and Bhima. This caused the impressed Yaksha to revive all of them and return them to their mothers.
The Mahabharata is an epic that tells of various atrocities and the rise of adharma in the world. But it also teaches how to destroy those evils by following some divine and timeless values, including respect and love for one’s parents. It also acknowledges the value of a mother.
First steps towards the Soul
It’s said that when a human goes beyond what they see, hear, taste, smell, and touch, they enter a state where they can begin a journey to another dimension. It is also a method by which apparently they find ‘oneness with the Eternal.’ This is a concept of which most of us know quite nothing, if I might be so bold as to say that. Because it is the very opposite of what we are. We are matter, bound by the environment around us. The joy, the bliss, the pain, the suffering, those weird dreams where nothing makes sense, and the need to belong to some sect or philosophy, all the while ignoring and denying someone else’s belief. All this is what it means to be human, a simple and yet, sophisticated creation of our invisible puppeteer in the sky. This is what the most basic idea of religion would sound like to people. This is why I felt inclined to write this.
After years of suppression, superstitions, hypocrisy, and violence, we have somewhat become a society that is willing to be more inclusive and understanding and less judgemental. However, there is still much confusion that lies in the path to knowing oneself. There is religious conflict, financial limitations, and just a general lack of interest. From what I have seen so far and struggled to do, the ways to improve are simple. We need to study and educate ourselves. Not just with the basic education that we get but with the religious texts as well. No one has the right to say that they have nothing important to tell us, unless they read them. People become philosophers when asked to read texts, saying, “Why should we read it? What is the purpose of doing so?” or that they don’t “believe in it”. Well, I’d say it’s fine if they don’t believe. I won’t ask anyone to either because I am not talking about what God is or looks like. I don’t care if Brahma made the world or was it Allah or God the Father. I am talking about knowing oneself. I never treated those texts as manifestos for their religions, as many declare them to be. They have knowledge in them and many share the same ideas as well, which you are free to reject once you have read them first. But yes, not everything is about atheism either.
We, as a society, have become confused as to what we should give focus to. And why shouldn’t we? There is just so much stuff to give a damn about. Jobs, happiness, satisfaction, pleasure, etc. are all things that are much needed, and because we struggle at them, we are unable to move beyond all this. I know it’s easier to say such things than to actually do them. But I’d say that while doing your work or job, giving even 15-30 minutes to the most simple translation of a holy text or video can also make the biggest difference. It’s the Kali Yuga. We can’t be followers of Satya Yuga here. But we can still afford to try. Who knows what seemingly conflicting paths might come together to create something new and beautiful? Who knows maybe we can know something we never knew about ourselves. The possibilities are endless. I remember reading the Gita in english while speaking out the Sanskrit text. I still read other texts such as Shrimad Bhagavatam or the life of saints and try my best to imitate them. I read The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas à Kempis and it was a marvellous book that had various points. Some I found basic and others, I found relatable to a T. These are some of the best self-help books I’ve read and found even better than actual self-help books. They have helped me know myself a little each and every day. Perhaps they can help more people if they are willing to try.
No to Rape
‘Rape’ is a word that has shaken the entire nation. It is an act of depravity and degradation that has ruined and ended countless lives and still continues to do so. There are countless cases registered every day around the country. What’s worse is not only how often it occurs but also the fact that no strict action is taken towards the culprits, while the victims, on the other hand, face even more humiliation and stigma at society’s hands even after going through such a horrific ordeal. Rape culture is a real thing, and it is being promoted in various ways.
The first one is obviously by taking little to no action against the rapists. This is because of the flimsiness of the justice system, which has seen many other forms of criminals being released too. Taking examples of the Nirbhaya and the RG Kar incidents, it is clear that the authorities are seriously lagging behind when it comes to women’s safety. The Nirbhaya rapists were sentenced to death after a long period, and one minor was sent to juvenile hall as he “didn’t understand what he was doing.” The RG Kar case is a bigger tragedy than that because atleast in the former, we still got some form of justice. The point being that the government doesn’t care for people’s rights and freedom and only uses their pain for its own benefits, such as during voting. However, to be honest, there is not enough clarity on how much the people want justice either as all the anger, rage and cries for justice dies down quite quicker than it should.
The second way is justifying the horrific acts, such as by questioning the victims character and how it is their “shameless dressing and behavior” that causes rape, while in reality, it is simply a pathetic and illogical way of reasoning. This patriarchal mindset is damaging as it is both degrading men who have no qualities other than wasting time and money and suppressing women, whose limited role in society, is only being made worse. It has corrupted the minds of many youth and those who justify violence against women, which ironically includes other women, who see the victims as indecent and promiscuous and see rape as a punishment for these qualities, rather than seeing it as an actual wrong. If a girl complains of being raped, people will grill her first over what she was wearing and where she was going. Why she went out with male friends and why she came late when she knew the streets were unsafe. There are many such allegations made against the victims, while the victimizers are released from prison in just a matter of days, and that is considering if they are caught or not or if they aren’t immediately let go in the first place. Focusing on the issue of victim blaming, many of the questions and the blame they put on the women seem accurate only to those who are stuck to their stupid morals that existed in ancient times. To a logical-thinking person, none of them make any actual sense.
Firstly, sexual violence is committed against any woman, no matter what she is wearing. A woman in a burqa can get harassed the same way as a woman in a miniskirt. Rapists don’t care for their clothing. For people criticizing young women for their choices, it would be interesting to hear their reactions on the assaults committed on infants and elderly women who are also being subjected to sexual assaults. People assault their own children and parents. We can ask those people for their conclusion on a baby’s and a sickly old woman’s dressing sense. We need to understand that people like these don’t actually care for anyone. Most of them are sick-minded themselves, as they choose to blame innocent women for trying to live life rather than blaming the government and themselves for being a failed society that has made the streets unsafe for women. Secondly, what is the point of blaming women for going out at night, rather than asking why it is unsafe for them to do so in the first place? The problem with the patriarchal thinking is that it sees women as mainly problems, liabilities or inconveniences. For them, women are essentially God’s mistakes that need to be controlled, and when they are not, they’ll either destroy society or be destroyed by society. Sure there are some real examples of such women, but by that logic, there are also twice the amount of men that do the same as well. It’s a problem of morality, not gender. This narrow-minded thinking has not just ruined women’s lives but also men’s, as many men who don’t believe in this cruel thinking have been ostracized by their peers for being ‘impotent’ or lesser men. If being savages is what masculinity stands for, then why not? Well, for those ‘manly geniuses’ and those women who are so devout towards this ‘wonderful’ thinking of their ancestors that they justify killing infant girls and assaulting women, I ask only how any of them are still alive? How were they able to be born when their mothers were supposed to be killed when they were? How come they didn’t kill their own mothers and grandmothers when they were children? They put worth in stupid traditions such as the dowry system and then blame the girls for being a burden to them, while they burden themselves with pleasing the groom’s family. Honestly, the lack of reasoning and double standards just get exhausting over time.
Back to the matter at hand, it is evident that unless this issue is tackled, the country will fall to a level of degradation where no women (be they mothers, sisters, wives, etc.) will be safe. So, focusing on how to handle these issues in court, it is clear that it is a tough matter. Because many things have to be taken into consideration. Firstly, the type of punishment. Rape is a crime that destroys a person’s life. They die inside and are ignored by society. Surely, the rapist deserves a similar fate. But that doesn’t happen. The rapists, in real life, are jailed for a few days and released. As I was told by a friend in the law department, the Indian justice system focuses on mercy and rehabilitation. Killing is either unacceptable for them no matter how many lives the criminal has destroyed or taken or should be avoided as even the culprit has a family or deserves to be repent. Unfortunately, the criminals know this more than anyone, which is why the crimes take place easily. So, rigorous punishment is needed.
The first type of such a punishment one can get is the death penalty, but that has multiple issues too for both men and women. For women, it can pose a threat to their own lives, because a rapist might kill their victims after assaulting them to prevent them from talking. And for men, it is no secret that many men are also falsely accused of rape by women, so innocent men can be killed for no reason. But again, talking about the example of the Nirbhaya case, it can be considered that those who have been proven guilty can be hanged once they confess or their guilt is proved. Though even this can be vague and problematic, as not every situation is the same. But the point is that for someone whose crime has been clearly proven, it makes no sense to argue over it for long. It’s time to take action. Next is focusing on imprisonment. Life imprisonment is appropriate for any person who commits brutal rape and murder, as they are a threat to society and so must be kept away from it, without the possibility of bail. It’s seen how easily many rapists are bailed or let out for good behavior, and they return to commit rape again. So, any hardcore convict must be kept strictly imprisoned so that they don’t hurt anyone ever again. And if an innocent person has been jailed, then they might get a chance to prove their innocence. While there are many things to consider while discussing punishments, atleast we should agree that punishments should be given. Because this is what also allows these crimes to occur and get worse. When we start to think that they aren’t crimes in the first place.
But as the saying goes, “prevention is better than the cure,” and with two cures that are so bitter and ineffective at times, it is better that we go for prevention. The goddess Kali killed the demon Raktabija by drinking his tainted blood that gave birth to more versions of him. The same way we must destroy the corrupt ideals and mindsets that give rise to such rapists. Educating people about women’s empowerment will do so. ‘Being manly’ and ‘harassing women’ should be seen as two different things, rather than the latter being a characteristic of the former. Because we can see the consequences of them being considered the same, it results in a constantly degrading society. A person should know love and love with all their heart those they hold dear instead of losing their mind and morality to lust and illusions of grandeur of their manliness caused by stupid and superficial thinking. Indian goddesses such as Durga, Saraswati, Parvati, Kaali, etc. are all revered for their strength, wisdom, power, beauty, and love for anyone who wishes it. Yet, when it comes to women, society acts like Mahishasura, Raktbija, and the various other demons that were slain by the goddesses. The hypocrisy and corruption are so prevalent that anyone can see them if they try. So, a deep and logical level of thought is required if this issue is to be tackled. This monstrosity has destroyed many lives, be they the victims or their close ones. So, it is for the benefit of humanity that we must put an end to it. Lust and arrogance aren’t great. True love and respect towards one’s fellow man and woman is great. Because it sustains. Sustains good emotions, progress and a better outlook for the world itself. Equality is the soul of liberty; there is, in fact, no liberty without it – Frances Wright. Just felt right to end on a quote.
