Dead men walking

June 20: What would you like to call a place with ten million people all but dead resting not six feet below but crawling on the surface? The best I can give it, even though it partially fulfills the objective, is, ‘Land of lame-ducks.’

Our’s is a society devoid of such intrinsic human faculties and drives as chivalry, valour, boldness, perseverance and rationale. Our perseverance, if that be called so, is however restricted in a rather strict sense to our forbearance to continued and prolonged humiliation at the hands of a race which, though explicitly, I consider as the descendents of barbarian herds. I don’t consider predecessors because they are more secure in history books and I literally believe that faculties like I mentioned are not inherited but earned. Those who do earn are men, men of honour. We are nothing more than a handful of invalids.

Consider this at the first place - do we have an ideology of our own? No, we do not. We are good at borrowing ideas as long as they serve certain values which most of the times constitute only extrinsic notions. We hire so that we speak movie lingo, are dressed like Hollywood craps, have metropolis post modern tastes and believe me when we curse or say something spiteful that too we hire. “Shit is cool.” It is but when we don’t mean it literally. Now these are things which I believe must not bother us for the time being for we have gone so far in our humble quest that our precedence should be living and not the way we live. Fashion and socio political fashion means a penny and a pound. Concepts and ideas like democracy, sovereignty, state, elections, franchise, common rights, community services, social mores are embedded but not imbibed. We read about Marx, Hegel, Engel, Durkheim, Spencer, Mill, and Rousseau and hell I know Bonaparte and Hitler, not to mention Lenin and Stalin but we fail to understand their manifesto, their work. Here, in this part of the world, people love to talk more about such scholars, reformists … rather their contributions, the real purpose behind their works. This indifference is unreservedly resolved for it is proved that we are good imitators, be it a dress code, slang or an ideology. We lack indigenous identity. That is why I said that we do not have our own ideology. We like to call ourselves as leftist but we don’t know who a leftist is, we never come to realize it. I would refer Dostoevsky’s words which tend to reflect a character, a state not different from that we observe. “From that time forth I dropped BOASTING of being illegitimate.” When will we stop boasting and start to contemplate a little?

And then again we are cowards who know or at least have a gut feeling of the conspicuous faces in our society that are exploiting all of us, and still we do nothing. I put it in clear and lucid words, “Politicians, be it Separatists or Main Stream are real culprits.” They are the rising class, the Bourgeoisie body snatchers who erect empires from our blood and bread. In their own game they prove more efficient than lawyers for they can make things extend to their full, prove any damn thing as legal or illegal and when it comes to action part they will do it as if they are not doing it for money or profession. ‘Justice to Self’ is one line they all follow. Power corrupts them even before they can practice it. That is what makes things personal to them. There is no accountability for accountability itself is corrupted, law and order is out of order, social problems increasing like population in the country, there is no transparency in almost every arena for they provide artificial clouds these days. What is going on we don’t know but we do know the consequences like who is profiting. Democracy means representative government and all proof, if it resides and terminates with those voting machines then to hell with democracy. Now there are so many of them that we hardly understand their concept of representation like we don’t know how many represent us. A, G…Y, Z, they all represent us because… Even if they are true representatives then again they charge too much these days. They are guilty and should be persecuted. But who will stand against these oligarchs? “Dead men walking, dead men walking.” Yes, that is us. “And there was this man who made it to his office because I had the shoes the day when my vote reckoned and now I have to stand and wait, an hour or so, so that he may pass. Curse my boots.”

We have seen all of them – hypocrites – who start with a big bang and end with two buck fire crackers. Social and political institutions offer a sound industry to these good for nothing entrepreneurs. These fool hardies in their zenith, for which we all are responsible, consider themselves as god Zeus. They are vile unholy parasites who left a very bad example for all generations to come. And I personally would love to give them their credits and more, be it currency or title of celebrity if only they would switch their noble jobs to a little subsidiary one like prostitution. Now some folks won’t agree and I foresee their countenance once they come across these lines. But then, what about the cry of the harlot? She makes advances and all for capital. “They all sell their conscience. Body is not any big deal. ”

Can we escape from the miserable conditions in which we find ourselves caught, caught like a fly in a cobweb – waiting to be included in the menu list of these ugly, malevolent hannibals? We can but then you must hear me and I must hear you. You try to reach me for I am not far from you. You will always find me in a bus, at the stop or any canteen. Together, we can make some good changes. We can at least try as it is one of those things they say is worth living for, worth dying for. Courage is not the absence of fear. It is the presence of fear yet the will to go on. Let us rise for one day and reinstate our dreams with real life experiences, let us cry for we are not dumb, let us rise from our death beds so that history witnesses our resurrection. We are free, free to decide and judge whatever is good for us and we are much more than all of them put together.