The hateful world

Yesterday, I was rejoicing over the dominance of India in the recent one day series, plainly flattering myself by reading and re-reading the articles describing the victory of India over England in the one day series. As I was doing that, I came across a article saying that there was a gang war occurring in Mumbai. I dismissed it and did not read more and also treating it with a level of apathy. How many reports had I come across like that throughout my lifetime? I closed the system and went to the laboratory to start my work.

I was still rejoicing when I entered the laboratory, when a friend told me with slight ridicule in her voice, that Mumbai was under attack. I reopened the news sites and looked through. Even then, it did not occur to me the height of the disaster. I did not even think about the people I personally knew who were in Mumbai. It just was another terrorist bombing: how many have I seen those during my lifetime, more specifically, how many have I seen those during this year itself? What was so new about it?

Why was I so apathetic? It was pathetic to be filled with so much apathy. I had no clue then. I was more worried about the project I was doing and still rejoicing in India's victory. I just did not have the strength to face up to the facts that were becoming clearer to me in my subconscious.

All my life, I have always believed in humanity. For a human to actually indulge in grotesque acts requires a very powerful motive. I have also read and seen terrorist attacks and bombings all through my life of 0ne and twenty. I had always sympathised with not just the victims but with the terrorists themselves. While their acts were brutal and unforgiving, I had always felt that if they were caught they ought to be given a chance to redeem themselves. There was this Gandhian ideal inside me that prompted me not to hate. I had always felt love conquers all.

Always, until now.

The past two years I have seen a sudden surge in the number of attacks including two brutal bombings in my hometown, Hyderabad, aiming to scare people and divide them. There has been no motive or demand mentioned by the culprits, whoever they claim to be. The basic aim has been to kill. How simple is that! Just simply kill. What do you do to stop something that seeks to simply kill? For a year, I have had challenges to my faith, to my belief that violence should not beget violence. The events unfolding in Mumbai confirm the dent in that particular belief.

The terrorists have succeeded. It is time to face that. They have taught me to hate as well.

The defining moment was when I saw blood splattered on the road, and saw the account of a journalist describing her horror when she was stranded on the road in the midst of heavy firing by a policeman who had been offering words of solace but cried and ran when he realized he was the only policeman alive on that road. For the first time, my blood was boiling. This is war and I have finally realized the nature of war.

I have to have a new belief ingrained now: Evil is evil anywhere and it has to be eradicated by any means possible. There is no two sides of the same coin here, as is with the case with these terrorists whose aim has been to simply kill, the counter-terrorist's aim has to be to simply eradicate.

This is a time when things like sporting events have to take a back-seat, it is time to be worried. We are living in a world of hate. To survive, we have to learn to hate the extremist forces. We have to make the world a better place, a more secure place.

Hate the people who have done this, hate the people who brought our country down to the knees, hate the people who have been the sole cause to have killed so many people none less important than any other the past two decades, hate the people who have tried to destroy the world we are striving to build and rebuild, hate the people who talk of their religion being greater than the other, hate the people who try to invade other religions and cultures, hate the fanatics, hate the people who destroy famous Buddhist relics from the past, hate the people who bring down famous mosques, hate the people who bring down famous temples, hate the people who strive to create tensions between different religions, countries, cultures, and finally hate the people who oppose humanity.

Hate now to promote love later.