My mom finished matriculation and went for Malayalam (The Language Used by the Keralites) Vidhuan (Scholarly Studies)! However, she didn't complete it. She got married to my dad, who was working in Bombay at that time! Then, I was born, in Vile Parle, Bombay! We were a middle class family. As years went on, my father got a fantastic job in one of the gulf countries, and we were sent packing to the state, where my parents were born. When we settled down in Kerala, somehow my mom picked up fights with one of our new neighbours! We had, from our other neighbours, vilified stories about this particular neighbour, who according to them, even worshiped the evil spirit (Kutti Chathan or Chota Chathan!)
They told she even was an enchantress who seduced males by the help of the evil spirits she worshiped! She had a magical powder with her that would be used in the food stuff she offered to others including the neighbours, that she could control them and make them do whatever she wished, we were told in whispers! And, we had our ears full of stories in which she defeated males in fist fights & guerrilla fighting methods, where she attacked unsuspecting males from behind with sticks and knives, in nights, when these poor fellows were returning home after their daily work! Hence, it so happened that whenever a problem surfaced anywhere near & far my mom blamed it on this Evil Worshiper! She was blamed day & night for the evil deeds she continuously did! Other neighbours, who too were the "Poor Victims" of her evil works, supported my mom, in the furtherance of the pieces of information about this evil worshipper, who did anything to satisfy her evil mind! Iran-Iraq war, Saddam's Invasion of Kuwait, Global Warming, The Price Rise in the Commodity Market, The Failure of the Indian Hockey Team in the Olympics & a lot of other things were blamed on her & her evil works! My mom and company even painstakingly traced the Hiroshima Bombing to the evil wishes & evil doings of my evil neighbour!
I laughed for hours, almost every day, because of these kind of inventions made by my mom & co, on a daily basis! It was so funny to watch all my neighbours in the leadership of my mom excavate the Indus Valley Civilisation Sites to find out whether the evil neighbour of ours had any hand in the destruction of the Indus Valley Civilisation, thousands of years back! All the years I laughed, they continued their work dutifully and perseveringly to find out something more, something better, something longstanding to prove their points to the coming generations or should we say posterity?! I laughed all my way to adulthood and continued laughing to this day thinking about all those Truth Finders & Archaeologists, led my dear mom, who spent most of their time and even life to give the coming generations with a clear idea of the Evil Neighbour that they live peacefully, ever after!
It is quite funny thinking of all those simple & good old days! All of our neighbours, including the evil one, were simple people who lived a day to day life, with no pretentions to the highest & powerful places. They were ordinary citizens of a very ordinary India. They didn't spent hours discussing All Those Larger Than Life Things & Happenings! They just simply lived their life, that’s all! But, when The Powers That Be & Media trumpet the name of an Impoverished, Backward & Inefficient Country Pakistan in every nook & corner of India, every second of the day & night for all the problems India faces, I find myself in a dilemma, not knowing whether to laugh or cry?! I often ask the question "What is there in Pakistan?" which makes it a destination to look at. I think, "Why should we look at Pakistan, always?!" Is it a country worth watching this much curiously, consuming time and closely?! I don’t understand why in each and everything we compete, think about, compare, discuss, accuse, take stand against, write volumes about, prepare counter methods, blast rhetoric against and do whatever we can do against this extremely impoverished, backward & pathetically underdeveloped country!
Agreed that Pakistan has unlawfully grabbed Indian land in J&K; and they have been waging a ghost/phantom war against India, for decades, buying weapons from all the possible sources! If this is the reason for our grouse, then, China has not grabbed less land from our country, unlawfully & shamelessly! It too has grabbed thousands of acres of land from our mother country. And, if this is not sufficient cause, it is in the best interest of all the Indians to know that it is this same good old "Bai Bai China" which is supplying Poor Pakistan with innumerable weapons -even nuclear things- that they Survive Somehow & fight their Phantom Battles! I don’t understand why should India look always backward (to Pakistan) when it can look forward with very little effort?! There are other neighbouring nations like Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan etc. that we can talk of and print in the fourth estate than packaging the fourth estate & media with the insignificant and stupid news-like-things of an utterly poor, fundamentalist-infested, pathetically backward country Pakistan!
Here, 'what we Indians can do for India other than what Pakistan did for India!' comes into the forefront. If we qualitatively think & do whatever is to be done and only think of the solid and positive aspects that is to done (Implementation of these good & positive things is also to be made a pre requisite) we will see an everlasting qualitative change in the Indian outlook. We should also learn a few and simple things like "Prevention is better than cure", "Don’t trust your enemies", "Learn from your (past) mistakes", "A stitch in time saves nine", "Strong words must be followed by strong deeds", "It’s only a fool will fall in the same trap a million times" etc. If &When we stop the rhetoric and start converting quality thoughts into action, and start to implement WHAT IS NEEDED, I think, there won’t be enough room in the media, press, political circles and most importantly in the minds of Indians to place the insignificant & unwanted (From a Quality Perspective) truck loads of the news-like-things about a backward, extremely impoverished & pathetically underdeveloped country Pakistan!
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