Friday 18 January 2008

Post a madness - revelation time!!!


finally back to being my old urbane self after a month of wandering....
i can't say i saw too many places...neither did i experience a lot...
but what i found was a distinct contrast...one magnified by an amount unimagined in my mind...

poverty and development are the new buzz words at ACJ...to be sensitive is to seek stories...relate tales of under-development, violence, caste politics
do i seek to differentiate myself from this....i don't think s
o...i am a part of the system...the system is a part of me...i have chosen to be this...supposedly the power of the press lies in the narration of the tale...but does not exceed beyond that....

eastern maharastra is a land plagued by multiple evils....whether it is the state..or the naxals..or the health system...or the education system...or the under-development...
it seems as distant from the prosperous west [where i spent my new yea
rs] as earth from mars..
a land once owned by its people, who now live in constant fear....

so did i think that i was there on a quest?was i there to liberate the pe
ople from their pains?
not at all...
yet all the pre-conceived notions that existed in our minds fell apart...all the lectures seemed pointless when we confronted the situation first hand...


it's a beautiful land....filled with trees of every kind....where once man and animal lived in harmony...now there is a constant game of cops and robbers being played in these forests...
land mines....AK's...RPG's...
to get your limb chopped off is passe....the new de
al is to be hacked......to death

i have seen this kind of violence before...back home...never has it been so upclose...
i realized the real bastards are never on the ground....they are safe...locked away in their safehouses...in distant forests or in concrete offices....
while the people of the land die daily....

so...
am i a changed man post the 'deprivation' trip?
i don't think so...i am not apologetic about the fact that i love the luxuries of an urban setting...
i just think how easy it is for us to debate about other people's lives and consider them to be plain facts...