Saturday, November 29, 2008

A Terrorist Vs A Citizen not scared anymore I

If 20 people can hold 500 lives on the edge, imagine what a billion people can do in return


Anger can be sharper and more fatal than grenades.
All of us across India have seen and felt it alive in our hearts this weekend.
What has happened is sad but in some way, some way, it can be the watershed that might change India, for better.
And forget about anything else, if only, if only, we can keep this anger that's boiling in our veins right now, if only ....we can keep this anger breathing past the usual few weeks, India can be redefined historically.
How?
We get scared,
A country of about a billion people, a country with one of the finest Armed forces in the world, a country that is now leaving its footsteps around the Moon, a country with the most talented-dollar-paid-and sought-after IT brains, a country of martyrs, a country of heroic grandpas who still recount as bed-time stories the grace and valour with which they drove away a colonial power of 200 years...yes the same country....kneels down when 20 barbaric minds swim across our shores and attack our best insignia.
So what do we do?
Get angry for some time till our TV channels switch over to the quotidian, non-sensical 'breaking-stories' all over again?
Or choose to preserve and stock this anger and use it in positive and yet some conclusive ways that only a citizen has the power and dignity to apply.

Extreme situations call for extreme steps...I just heard this in one very nice and violent corporate debate on a News Channel.
It was wonderful to see how angry, disillusioned and disappointed CXOs are choosing to react in the aftermath.
And it turns out that there are many weapons a peace-loving citizen can fire to ensure that another Terror siege doesn't catches a city pants-down.

Imagine, what happens when ...
A citizen refuses to vote for incompetent power-vultures.
A citizen wakes up and demands answers.
A citizen refuses to pay taxes.
A citizen gets oneself trained enough to defend and give back when a life comes face-to-face with a terror situation.
A citizen won't lose a second to slap back (if not in action, in equally reverberating words) whenever any narrow-menial-mean tongue starts talking or instigating our society into division of any kind...be it religious, regional, professional, linguistic, ethinc, any kind.
A citizen has the guts and the time to say 'Shut-up' when people use serious issues as water-cooler or coffee-table gossip meat that only sidelines sections of our society based on pre-historic-era questions like where they hail from, what language they speak, which God they worship, which domicile they use, which profession they follow .....refuse to listen...or better still, tell them with a stern-eye and a firm-tongue...Shut-up.

When, a citizen stops wasting time and energy on waiting and demanding from Government..and takes the dire scenario today in his hands...do as much as he/she can..by not only fighting terrorism with vigilance, hawk-eyed alertness, the same do-or-die instinct that motivates a terrorist, and help to security forces whenever possible...but also by ensuring that the roots of terrorism are attacked everyday...by taking care of issues like rumour-mongering, by fighting panic as bravely as possible and by beheading the very causes that are able to motivate a 21 year-young lad to believe and act on the command of 'kill as many as you can till your last breath'.
We may hoodwink ourselves into believing that our enemy nations are breeding terrorists, but it's time we have the nerve to realise that we do it everyday, in our normal lives whenever we disrespect a human or participate in gossips that alienate fellow-humans.

And when a citizen has the spine to stand up for his/her neighbour, be it in a train, a colony, an airplane, an office or a five-star hotel.

20 People-Not-Afraid Vs 500!
Imagine.... One Billion People-Not-Afraid against the Same 20!
Just look back at the incredible human-and-soldier spirit that bravehearts from the NSG Commandos and the Indian media people have showed between Nov 26 and 29, 2008, and we know that the word 'Imagine' is hardly needed.
One billion people-not-afraid against 20!
Let's wake up....to our own power!

Or

No comments: