There was this man in the mid-twentieth century, always dressed like a general, spoke German in a guttural voice; passionately, dramatically and with all the fiery elements of rabble rousing.
Hugely inspired, I rose up, took cudgels to pick the enemy from within. My neighbour, mate at the work place, colleague in the college, fellow member in a cultural group, member of my sports club, any...
A mass fury took over, I became part of it...
Then; annihilation under a well designed, well oiled pogrom...Cleansing...
Many years later...
More men like him stood up on the podiums at various places. Same fiery speeches, same angrily waving of hands at the enemies within, xenophobic invocations, spewing of poison in the name of God at those whose God was different...I, again a willing pupil, a charged follower flashing his sword to avenge imagined wrong. And then blood, ruthless massacres, brutalisation of the weak, crippled and the old, forced eviction of masses from their homes; madness, dance of the satan, cross migration of hundreds of thousands in train loads from one region to another; division, hatred and distrust for million years to come. More brutalisation, more rapes, more merciless killings...
Many decades later, almost at the turn of the century...
They came again; in various robes, sacred embalming of foreheads and array of beads in hands and around the necks. Thunderous speeches to excavate the injustices buried centuries ago, revolutionary tales, messianic oaths to reclaim the lost honour. Air thick with pledge for revenge and retribution. A collective of the saintly and the wise on a missionary insanity. A structure felled, a place of worship downed to dust, amid corporate glee, invocation of hymns and chant of glory to God; a rudderless and despairing God. I rejoiced, celebrated the victory long overdue; a victory as vacuous as it was meaningless and as worthless as it was treacherous...
Yet I was not done...
I had to avenge a questionable arson...It was not just a train that was targeted, it was an onslaught on a faith, an heritage, a superior culture revered by the vast multitude of the tolerant 'majority'; an act of spitting on its sagacious spirituality. A bogey was raised to avenge the blood in the bogies that burnt...One madness to outdo another madness. But I rejoiced being part of it, especially because I saw the blood melting in the eyes of a general like man on the horizon, who was supposed to control the mayhem on the ground littered with death and destruction. And control he did, with a smirk on his bearded face and a nod which was not sly and surreptitious enough to hide the puritanic sense of justice harboured within, as he lead on the self-righteous avengers for settling scores. I was one of them. I plundered, burnt houses, doused humans with petrol to lighten the darkness with moving, crying, shrieking man-flames. I cleansed...
He is coming again, like many others like him to enlighten me to the needs of the time. But I have changed. I am less concerned about the subliminal issues of honour and rectitude. Instead, I am now more earthen, self focused and aspirational. Community still matters to me, but I matter more. He has also changed, having recognized the change in me and the multitude of others. Still the same thundering voice and panther like gait, as he, like a sentinel, strides across the rostrums or sits at the corner tea shops, beckoning me to join in his agenda for development by rooting out the old, rotting and the corrupt disorder that there is, as it was once in Germany, in Italy, in Russia, in Latin America and many more nations of many more continents.
And now, here I am, not beholden to him, but he still has a hold over me. I am no longer an impressionable weakling who will easily come under his spell, but he knows about my unapologetic affair with myself; my focused self-centredness. And, he is offering the earth, the moon and the stars; all in a professed potion for growth and progress, the words that are now music to my ears, just as he did a century ago in another part of the world, and then another, and another...to millions of others. Why these doubts in me on this historic moment of great change, when I can witness for myself a great homogeneity among the huge masses congregating around him, with even his face masked on top of their own...him, him, him all over?
Yes, yes...it just occurred to me. I think it is the mask that I fear...His face a mask on his own, as well as on the faces of many, many, many more...all like him...boisterous, loud, dismissive, divisive, self righteous and un-ashamedly self opinionated. What if tomorrow, I don't concur with him? Will I not get that abusive call on my cell or a midnight knock on my door or the state engineered stalking of me in the name of my security?
The problem is inside me. I have changed much more than I had bargained for. I see parallex error in the 'vision' I am told about. I see Malegaon, I see Samjhauta Express, I see Muzzaffarnagar, when I should see only Ahmadabad, its malls, wide roads, thriving businesses and likewise...
I am yours, as ever a Deseemoron, an underling, but, but...I have now begun asking questions too...
Hugely inspired, I rose up, took cudgels to pick the enemy from within. My neighbour, mate at the work place, colleague in the college, fellow member in a cultural group, member of my sports club, any...
A mass fury took over, I became part of it...
Then; annihilation under a well designed, well oiled pogrom...Cleansing...
Many years later...
More men like him stood up on the podiums at various places. Same fiery speeches, same angrily waving of hands at the enemies within, xenophobic invocations, spewing of poison in the name of God at those whose God was different...I, again a willing pupil, a charged follower flashing his sword to avenge imagined wrong. And then blood, ruthless massacres, brutalisation of the weak, crippled and the old, forced eviction of masses from their homes; madness, dance of the satan, cross migration of hundreds of thousands in train loads from one region to another; division, hatred and distrust for million years to come. More brutalisation, more rapes, more merciless killings...
Many decades later, almost at the turn of the century...
They came again; in various robes, sacred embalming of foreheads and array of beads in hands and around the necks. Thunderous speeches to excavate the injustices buried centuries ago, revolutionary tales, messianic oaths to reclaim the lost honour. Air thick with pledge for revenge and retribution. A collective of the saintly and the wise on a missionary insanity. A structure felled, a place of worship downed to dust, amid corporate glee, invocation of hymns and chant of glory to God; a rudderless and despairing God. I rejoiced, celebrated the victory long overdue; a victory as vacuous as it was meaningless and as worthless as it was treacherous...
Yet I was not done...
I had to avenge a questionable arson...It was not just a train that was targeted, it was an onslaught on a faith, an heritage, a superior culture revered by the vast multitude of the tolerant 'majority'; an act of spitting on its sagacious spirituality. A bogey was raised to avenge the blood in the bogies that burnt...One madness to outdo another madness. But I rejoiced being part of it, especially because I saw the blood melting in the eyes of a general like man on the horizon, who was supposed to control the mayhem on the ground littered with death and destruction. And control he did, with a smirk on his bearded face and a nod which was not sly and surreptitious enough to hide the puritanic sense of justice harboured within, as he lead on the self-righteous avengers for settling scores. I was one of them. I plundered, burnt houses, doused humans with petrol to lighten the darkness with moving, crying, shrieking man-flames. I cleansed...
He is coming again, like many others like him to enlighten me to the needs of the time. But I have changed. I am less concerned about the subliminal issues of honour and rectitude. Instead, I am now more earthen, self focused and aspirational. Community still matters to me, but I matter more. He has also changed, having recognized the change in me and the multitude of others. Still the same thundering voice and panther like gait, as he, like a sentinel, strides across the rostrums or sits at the corner tea shops, beckoning me to join in his agenda for development by rooting out the old, rotting and the corrupt disorder that there is, as it was once in Germany, in Italy, in Russia, in Latin America and many more nations of many more continents.
And now, here I am, not beholden to him, but he still has a hold over me. I am no longer an impressionable weakling who will easily come under his spell, but he knows about my unapologetic affair with myself; my focused self-centredness. And, he is offering the earth, the moon and the stars; all in a professed potion for growth and progress, the words that are now music to my ears, just as he did a century ago in another part of the world, and then another, and another...to millions of others. Why these doubts in me on this historic moment of great change, when I can witness for myself a great homogeneity among the huge masses congregating around him, with even his face masked on top of their own...him, him, him all over?
Yes, yes...it just occurred to me. I think it is the mask that I fear...His face a mask on his own, as well as on the faces of many, many, many more...all like him...boisterous, loud, dismissive, divisive, self righteous and un-ashamedly self opinionated. What if tomorrow, I don't concur with him? Will I not get that abusive call on my cell or a midnight knock on my door or the state engineered stalking of me in the name of my security?
The problem is inside me. I have changed much more than I had bargained for. I see parallex error in the 'vision' I am told about. I see Malegaon, I see Samjhauta Express, I see Muzzaffarnagar, when I should see only Ahmadabad, its malls, wide roads, thriving businesses and likewise...
I am yours, as ever a Deseemoron, an underling, but, but...I have now begun asking questions too...
