Standing up for all the wrong things…

Sitting lazily on a Friday afternoon in office, it is not surprising that your mind wanders, and that too much faster than your watch. Today, I was immersed in thinking of what all values I was taught when I was a kid, what all I used to love and feel passionate about, and what among those would I teach my child.

As I have covered my views on religion in my previous blogs, I am not going to drag that over here again. At least till my child reaches an age where he can think independently, he/she will be brought up as an atheist, or at least an agnostic. I would like him/her to know and understand that life is not fair, rather than polluting his thoughts with “everything happens for good”, and that there is someone with a remote “up there” controlling your life. I would probably teach him/her that truth will hurt, and suck, but it will never make you regret in life.

There was a time when I was passionate about being an Indian, probably even for being a Keralite. I would keep on bragging whenever possible about all these. But, then someday you realize that you being born or brought up in a place, has nothing to do with you, and that it is not something that you deserved or earned. Now, when I think of it, I find it completely wrong and shallow when a person talks so. Patriotism is only a false emotion, triggered in you by your surroundings, to infuse a difference, to make you think that you are better off/worse than people living in some other geographic location. Even our history text books do not help us here, other than portraying some as heroes, and the rest as zeroes!

I loved the Indian cricket team, and probably more than that, I hated the Pakistan team. In between, somewhere, I realized that Afridi and co. are not responsible for the Partition of India, the Kargil War, or the 26^th November attacks. I realized that Gary Kirsten and co. did not treat native Africans as slaves. I comprehended the fact that Vaughan and co. did not enforce divide and rule in India. I am sad that I had to learn it the difficult way, and it was too late. 

By the time I started realizing all this, I seem to be beyond change. Now when I consciously try to root for a team like Pakistan (who need a win to boost their economy, to make other countries play in Pakistan), I see that I just cannot do that. For sure, I do not hate Pakistan now, but when it comes to Pakistan vs India, I always side with India. I hope time can make me mature enough or at least old enough to forget all the hatred instilled in me, so that I can plainly think of everyone as humans, even if they are portrayed as Pakistanis or Africans or Americans.

Being patriotic, even if in the most righteous sense of the word, creates differences. I think only people who sacrifice their life for the country can be called patriotic, and no one else. I hope for the day when governments across the world will think of armies as a dispensable unit, and patriotism as evil.

Now, when I think of it, being a human itself has nothing to be proud of. In fact, I think they are the sickest possible animal that one can ever be. We think ourselves as the most intelligent species that inhabited earth. It is an irony that we have medicines for the deadliest diseases, but yet many starve to death. When we think that we live in an “advanced technological” world, somewhere else, people commit suicide because they fail to feed their young ones. It is a surprise that people living in some air conditioned room can order a war to kill helpless millions. It intrigues me that we continue to make nuclear weapons powerful enough to wipe out our fellow beings. At least, the law of jungle is to kill for food! We, humans, are the most insecure beings ever to have surfaced the earth, that we have reached a stage where we get satisfied and happy, only when we see others’ miseries.

My wife often tells me that I am highly optimistic. For once, I hope my optimism pays off, so that I can tell my child something other than “You are born as the sickest animal, the world is going to be annihilated soon, and you should neither have faith nor be passionate about anything!”