Newspaper reading

Heaveno,

One Sunday morning, I picked up the newspaper and as I had no other plans for the next two hours, I decided to devote this time to it and suddenly it dawned on me that I should utilize the 4-5 rupees which I invest on it thoroughly and I started reading each and every inch of the newspaper. But I was soon exasperated by the monotonous political articles by intelligentsia criticizing the government or the opposition or demonstrating their prowess as the great psephologists. After all the match fixing controversies came to light, I started to gradually lose interest in cricket (the only sport I followed) and so the sports page was also out of question. I had serious doubts about my economics and business acumen and so the business page got a mere glance from me. Then I  glanced through the entertainment page and felt ridiculous when I read the news of a potboiler hindi film setting precedents in terms of earnings. The world is too big to be understood so the international news page was turned over within no time as I was least interested that day to find out which bill was passed by the Chinese legislators. Then, there were two pages dedicated to the news from the city and nearby areas which had the same morbid news scattered over these pages about robberies, thefts, sexual assaults and homicides. I skipped those pages and I was back on the front page (I read the newspaper from behind).So the whole newspaper fiasco ended with me reading nothing substantial (as if there was something substantial for me to read!).

I put the newspaper on the table and lazed on the chair. The tranquil morning breeze felt great so I decided to close my eyes in order to savour the serenity in the atmosphere. After all, the best things in life are for free.

I somehow felt the frivolity of the newspaper reading exercise and something within me said why should I care when 20 people died in a bus crash  near Mumbai or a bomb explosion killed 200 people in Baghdad? Then suddenly I went into a pensive mood and I thought ‘has death became just a statistic for us? What about their near and dear ones whose families were destroyed. There are mortality statistics but are there any mathematical models to measure the emotional trauma that the families of the deceased go through? Why is it that we don’t care anymore? Is it because we have matured spiritually and imbibed the lessons of Bhagwad Gita that the soul is indestructible and the body is like a piece of clothing and the soul abandons the old clothes and takes up new ones?’

I don’t think we have matured. Death, like yesterday, is today too the greatest bogeyman of which everyone is afraid . It is the only eternal truth in the universe and still we run away from it and some of us are so scared of death that this fear translates into psychological problems caused by continuously drowning the mind in morbid thoughts.

Then what is it that has made us so accustomed to death of fellow beings that we treat such losses of precious human lives as mere statistics? It is because we have grown accustomed to all the violence, riots and murders that it has become a part of our lives  and we don’t feel deeply sad about it anymore. At most we utter a painful sounding Ohh!! And then we move on.

Accidents may not be averted all the time but at least we can strive for a world where no man kills another fellow being and which is more peaceful than the previous day. One must not take away from a fellow human, the chance of accomplishing his task in this world for which he was sent for, by murdering him.Lord Mahavira,the epitome of non violence wanted to lead a renounced life from a long time but at the same time didn't want to cause an emotional trauma to his parents.So he left his house to be a monk only after their death.This is the highest form of non violence.This sounds utopian but is implementable if we decide to practice non violence at an individual level.All that we can practically achieve is to be a little more tolerant and modest. Let us leave a more peaceful world for our future generation where there are less reasons to cry and more excuses to smile. And next time when we see any more ‘statistics’ lets spare a second to pray for the departed souls...

May the force be with you...