A Game of Hope

(Part-II of Angels Who Cry)

The horizon is always rosy at dawn and dusk. A lamp burns at its brightest just as it’s lit and just before it goes out. What can you offer a lamp that hasn’t been lit or that has gone out? What can you offer a man trapped in darkness, left with no hope?

The cell he was in looked forbidding. He was in the enemy’s lair, deep within the bowels of the enemy fortress where there was absolutely no hope. He knew his friends wouldn’t come for him, there was no contest about it. The best he could hope was, his body feeling some fresh air out in the open than the stale air of these endless labyrinths. After what felt like endless centuries trapped in those passages along with his tormenters who always were innovative about methods of torture to make him spill his friends secrets, he was pleasantly surprised to see his friends walk up to him one day. He was trying to lose himself in his nightmares before the real one began again, only to be rudely awoken by a loud noise. It then turned to music as his friends and allies trooped in only to see him and lead him to freedom from the jaws of the enemy. His silence earned him respect, medals and a rank.

A decade later and at a highly respected position he received a piece of news that shattered his world. His son, one whom he loved from the moment he opened his eyes to the moment the enemy closed them would no longer stand by his side but rather rest to eternity in the warm earth, enclosed by the cold embrace of death. He used every piece of influence and fury he had in him to find out the reason as to how his dear little one had passed on. The answer was simple, there was a traitor in the midst. The traitor then paid the price for his betrayal but since left him with a very bad taste for traitors and a very strong sense of duty towards weeding them out. That zeal is what made him opt for his current job and what made him a ruthless expert in it.

He prided himself on his ability to pick out traitors and do what was needed to get what they wanted to know about the enemy and to plug the gaps they might have created in his army’s amour. As he walked, every once a while to that room that was kept pristine until his arrival, he would hold his head high and walk with pride. Once inside, his demeanor changed. From a proud soldier, he transformed into a a soulless, heartless and a ruthless interrogator who stopped at nothing. People who knew his reputation trembled just from the mention of his name and the fact that he was interrogating them. And as a professional responsibility he took care that almost everyone in his army knew his name.

This time it was a sniper, someone who was trusted to watch over his fellow buddies and warn them in advance was accused of shooting his troops and causing losses. The others in his battalion suspected that he was passing information to the enemy and then shooting the respective people in a specific area allowing the enemy to make advances. This was a serious problem and he was here to solve that.

The soldiers in the room was normal looking. He apparently had a family and yet he seemed to have betrayed his country. This was something he never understood. A man either stood for principles or for his family or at least for himself. This one fell in the middle category and yet he seemed to support the enemy, knowing the atrocities he was committing. This worried him. He concluded that this man was someone who had lost hope. He didn’t trust that his own comrades could win the war and therefore had succumbed to the enemy to try and gain asylum for his family and himself. He never thought about what would happen if he got caught. Disgusting brat he was. Walking into the room he saw the confusion in his eyes that he classified as feigned, but the terror, once he realized who was interrogating him was real. The start that he displayed when he asked questions was real but the answers he were giving were lies. He was telling me that he hadn’t colluded with the enemy and that he in fact didn’t know about what he was being interrogated. He heaved a sigh of exasperation at the lies everyone told at the start.  He asked him nicely one more time. Then he began what he did best.

After four grueling hours he came back to a small room he formally called office, disturbed. He hadn’t seen a case like this. The man was put through everything he knew. By the time he was done with him even he wasn’t sure if the man he had interrogated would survive or not. The thing that nagged him was that he stuck to his story. There wasn’t an instance anyone had ever done that. He had broken the best of soldiers, people so highly trained that they were touted as unbreakable. Even they sang like canaries in a coal mine after two hours with him. This man however hadn’t changed his version. He was pretty sure he wasn’t highly trained and that left just one horrifying thought. He was actually innocent and that the actual traitor has him captured to have a bit more free reign for a little longer. However another logical conclusion from this was, the spy was playing a dangerous game. He knew he’d be found out, the fact that he was risking discovery by using such a tactic only spelt that he was delaying for time. Time that he had unwittingly granted.

He had tortured a man who was probably innocent, granted and enemy time to do exactly as he wanted and had now grown a conscience who didn’t feel like leaving him alone for the near future. Who was the real traitor, what could he do with this innocent man and what would be the fate of the plan they were devising. Too many questions and no answers. Thinking of all this he loaded the man who had come into interrogation onto an ambulance. Looking at his form he felt a sense of responsibility and got into the ambulance. It was a whim, a fancy. The ambulance pulled away from his building and was checking out when a gigantic explosion took out the building behind him. All hope seemed lost but the enemy had moved the first pawn in a long game of speed chess.

Of Angels who Cry

The tales of combat are long told as the legends and lore we hear to the war stories that fascinate us as children. They teach us honor integrity values and the difference between right and wrong through these stories. Yet when the time comes not one of us honors our knowledge, not one of us has the integrity to do what’s right than to survive and no one differentiates between the right and the wrong when the sword is at his own neck.

In a sandy battlefield a lone soldier stood, watching the enemy through his scope wondering where his comrades were. The very same comrades who were supposed to have arrived here two hours ago, the comrades who were supposed to back him up, who were supposed to have given him a cold drink and a soft bed by now. Where were they? The enemy was getting closer and they were nowhere in sight. The land was getting harsher and the sun was in his eyes, the wind was blowing into his face and the sand was getting into his eyes and in that he didn’t hear any sound save that of his own breathing. Not even the sound of the two people who crawled behind him and knocked him out cold.

Where was he? What was the time? Who were the people who snatched him? All these questions were buzzing in his mind along with a very bad head splitting headache. A couple of bulbs lit the room brightly and brought every detail into sharp focus as his eyes regained focus. He saw one door and walls of concrete informing his that escape was almost a physical impossibility. He was tied to a chair both arms and legs locked back and inter connected. The wait was long. He had no idea how long he was left that way. No sense of day and night, minutes nor hours. He began wondering after a while if anyone missed him. If his comrades who said they would back him up had arrived to find him one and thought he deserted.. He wondered if the thought of him being abducted had even crossed their mind. He wondered if his comrades might talk the worst of him for h=not being there. He wondered if there would even be an attempt to find out what happened to him. He wondered how his family would feel when they were informed that their son had deserted. How society would treat them. Then an even more horrifying thought crossed his mind. What if his comrades couldn’t come because they were dead. What if they had been killed by the very men who they were trying to kill? Or rather what if his comrades were to die while searching from him after they realized that he had been taken? Would their deaths be on hands, would their lives be lost because of him? What would happen to their families? Where is all this going to end? We were only trying to protect the city behind us that contained our nearest and dearest. What would happen if all of them fell chasing just after him? Or what if they already had perished? The city would be in chaos, everyone in it in mortal danger if not headed for something worse. His dearest and the younger children would be put through horrors not even describable. The elders killed and the rest put to hard work and shot later. This was to live. They were hunting us down and killing us just because they thought they were superior and we didn’t follow their way of thought? Whatever happened to freedom? We took up arms so that we could protect our people and our homes. We wanted to be the guardian angels that protected them but now because of our resistance they would face even more horrors at the hands of their tormenters should we fail and I have filed. I have failed to protect the very people I swore to protect and I will either have failed miserably or be assumed to be a coward and be disgraced. Either way I have failed or I am no longer a guardian angel but a man who is just a coward waiting for what is to come.

The guard who was watching the soldier from the other side of the door notices that the soldier was crying and goes to inform his superior that the prisoner is ready for interrogation and that all the conditions that he was ordered to monitor have been met.

TALES OF PAIN AND AGONY

There is a limit to everything. Every feeling every emotion, even every action has a limit where it has to stop. The threshold of how far we can go and how much we can endure is what differentiates the strong from the weak.

A lot of people face pain of really high magnitude. The fact that one has been dumped by someone else is what is generally assumed to be the highest form of pain. However that is a cowards pain.. It will pain when a person you loved doesn’t love you back and leaves you but that isn’t the worst kind of pain. True pain is when you a have a lot of people you like and love and are close to but almost all of them are extremely successful at ignoring you The feeling of having everyone in the world and yet no one for you is the worst thing ever. The feeling just leaves you empty and wanting to help you fill that void with something. It happens when the girl you love ignores everything. She still loves you but is soo angry at you that that ove seems to be hate and none of that love ever shows. It literally makes you think that the other person has no love for you even though you know that they still love you. Anger from that quarter can sometimes overshadow love and cause you more pain than you can imagine. What would you do when a two people love each other but one of them ignores you because they are angry. You can convince an enemy that you are not a bad guy but how will you convince someone who loves you that her anger though justified is causing you pain because that person truly believes that because they love that their anger is justified. The fact they love us actually justifies their anger but that anger also hurt the other partner a lot. The feeling of having someone really close but they themselves ignoring you makes you wish sometimes that it was better without any of that. The second way that this can come up is when your parents start ignoring you. The same mother who raised you from when you were a I’d, who fed you while you sat in her lap listening to stories, at whose side you slept at night while she crooned lullabies. When that very mother tells you, that you are useless and walks away from you and goes and sleeps, that is not a feeling that even I have words for. Accepted I am not an excellent writer but that situation is just indescribable. The mother herself abandoning the baby is not a characteristic usually seen in mammals and being highly evolved mammals that behavior is rarely seen in humans. However if your own mother says such stuff and walks away from you that pain it causes just makes your existence worthless. Pain of the worst kind comes from someone who raised you and now doesn’t even care. That can only cause you agony heart wrenching gut tearing agony and you can’t even doubt the pureness of the emotion. The lady bore you for nine months and enormous amount of labor pain. How much should’ve happened to her normally or because of you for her to leave you. Going back, the same reason someone who has agreed to share everything with you when that person ignores you it gives you the same feeling. The two closest people who always be there for us are the ones that cause us the largest amount of pain and that pain is intolerable

Dying Passion Or Dying For Passion?

There is saying in this country born out of the youngsters wisdom on the state of affairs here “In India, you become an engineer first and then you figure out what you want to do”

For a country that gave the world her zero her algebra, the Raman effect and a genius like Ramanujan we now have to lament in the fact that people leave a profession for another and do the same again in a year as soon as contractual obligations are complete is a cause for worry and also a reason for introspection.

People searching for what they are meant for is a rare case in this country however where people have become so bent on adjusting that we hardly notice what we are doing anymore. The dreamers are either able to succeed due to some miracle or they simple are leaving our shores for better markets and are realizing their dreams elsewhere. When you ask about what makes people leave the jobs they are doing and search for new jobs, we can have a lot of answers. The first and most obvious one is job satisfaction. I know people think and believe why a person is not satisfied by a job but believe me when I say no person is so simple that we can fathom out his true reasons. That being said however the most major reasons that this is happening can be classified into a few major subheadings or sub-reasons.

Majority of people in India admire and look for the word job security. Gone were the days when only a government job meant job security, nowadays a guy with a job out of campus placements is someone with job security. The first job in someone’s life is supposed to hold special meaning to him or her but unfortunately this term has pretty much forced quite a few youngsters in this country to take the first job they are offered in their campus recruitment. They give their best for the job out of uncertainty if they will be able to qualify in the future for other jobs. Supposing that they get it they become lax in their future efforts out of the confidence that they have got a job and that they don’t need another one or a few people get overconfident and go screw up their chances. These two cases result in one thing: you have a job, but it most likely is not the job you wanted or dreamed yourself doing. What happens later is that you hate yourself, kick yourself and try to get out of that job and try for your dream job later on. Some lucky ones succeed, for others well your just out of plain luck mate.

The second category of people, dream big. Indians following out Ex-President His Excellency Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam’s words “Dream, Dream, till your dreams are transformed to reality” and the second set of words “Dreams should not be something that you see when you sleep but something that shouldn't let you sleep”. I believe that the wise Dr.Kalam meant was that everyone should work exceptionally hard to achieve what they want. However these people being somewhat intelligent dream that them reaching or obtaining their dream job as a dream. They forget that getting the job is the easy part, keeping is harder. They give their everything to get their dream job but aren't prepared for the hard wok that comes after. After all dream jobs aren't easy otherwise everyone would have one. These kind of people are the high spirited dreamers who once n the job get cold feet because of the responsibilities and the work load. They start shorting out and unable to cope with the load just walk out of their jobs one day. They are simple lay people with high dreams and higher expectations of themselves and contribute a large amount of the deserters in any army.

The third kind are the people who might get a couple of offers but accept most likely the highest paying one because of a host of reasons such as societal pressure, parental pressure or financial affairs. The thought of what x’s mother’s y^th aunt might tin kiss a big factor in India and it causes undue pressure on someone looking for a job. These people though are declining in the current scenario still contribute a bit. They feel self pity/loathing depending on other factors. They usually are more worried about what others think and often take undue and un-needed stress upon themselves. A few bear up to it. A few put on bravado for some time and tuck tail and run away at the first sign of trouble or at the first opportunity available. These weak willed weasels can never get anywhere and will probably keep shifting jobs to more important looking and sounding titles for all of eternity. They just aren’t satisfied with what they got but neither are they strong enough to bear up with the bigger tasks. The other kind s parental pressure. Similar in circumstances but the major difference being that the influence of parents reduces as one grows older/marries/parents dying. This causes this kind to get out of the emotional turmoil perhaps with some support or perhaps due to lack of guidance from other sources(like constant parental advice). The degree of freedom will help them settle somewhere instead o being jumping jacks.

The last case is of the people in financial trouble. These people are the diligent handworkers. They are the people who take a job because they have to and the only reason they’d jump ship was if they were offered a job closer to their dreams (if not their dream job) while the pay was equal at least or better. They will work hard in any job but they will work with passion on their dream job. However a small problem with this kind of people is that they will only switch when they are young. Though getting older should make men wise it doesn't seem to be the case with these people. They get comfortable and averse to switching jobs later on even if it their dream job. Job security comes into play once they are settled.

Overall the more alarming thing is the fact that inspite of all the jumping around that people do trying to find their dream job India is hardly the place to support it. Most of all the system is to blame for turning the people this way. We are a country that votes by caste, votes for money or alcohol  and yet complains that no development takes place. We are a country that crushes the young people’s dreams and make enigmatic statements like “if one Abraham Lincoln was born in America then 100 Abraham Lincolns should be born in India”. Dear sirs and madams if you crush the dream of every childhood Abraham Lincoln then he will remain stitching slippers or writing code for another company instead of becoming the president or prime minister. For a country known for its It coding prowess we haven’t created one coding language or built one plane on our own. The innovation of the ancients is all but gone in the current country. Those with intelligence and resources are leaving the country and those without resources are jumping around trying to find “dream” jobs. While the rest are either trying to maintain status quo or doing their best to spoil what name is left of the country. Only a few intelligent fools are trying to maintain the balance by staying back and trying to repair all the damage. It is yet to be seen which way the outcome will sway.

This article was originally written and featured in www.pandaartworks.com

WHY A FAILED STATE??

August 14^th 2014: Pakistan’s Independence Day

The leader of the Pakistan Thereek-e Insaf (translated: movement for justice) party announces the Azadi march to rid the country of the current government that he claims was elected because of electoral rigging committed by them. More importantly he demands for electoral reforms and for eliminating corruption.

August 16^th 2014: The Azadi march reaches Islamabad

September 1 2014: Clashes reach a peak in Islamabad and protestors even enter the secretariat and the government channels PTV’s premises and cause destruction.

September 12^th 2014: Many PTI workers involved in the attacks and arrested and the protests in Islamabad wind down but the movement in overall is moderately alive

December 1^st 2014: PTI chief threatens to shut down the country on 16^th December since no action was taken on his demands for a better democracy. Many people of influence criticize him for trying to hijack pakistan’s black day. Imaran Khan changes the dates to accommodate this sentiment.

December 16^th 2014: Tehrek-e Taliban (Pakistan) terrorists attack an army school in Peshawar and kill a 133 innocent children, Injure a lot many more of them and also end up killing 9 adults who were with the children as their teachers and caretakers.
Prime Minister Nawaz Shrrif says that there is no good or bad Taliban and a day of reckoning would arrive for them.

December 17^th 2014: The dreaded terrorist  Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi is granted bail by a court in Rawalpindi.
Imran Khan announces an end to the protests (temporarily)

The confusion about the two events being mentioned continuously is baffling generally. The link is as such that it is capable of explaining why Pakistan is called a failed state and how it keeps proving that over and over.

Terrorism and Pakistan go hand in hand. The Pakistani establishment has for long used the terrorists to first oppose the USSR in Afghanistan and then to wage a long and deadly proxy war against India. The words of the Pakistani Prime Minister are noteworthy. He never said there were good terrorists and bad terrorists. He only stated that there is no good Taliban and bad Taliban. For all the people who claim I see ghosts where there are none and his statement should be interpreted as applying to all terrorists please answer his. While the whole nation was in shock and mourning the next day morning a court in Rawalpindi goes ahead and releases a man marked as a terrorist by the rest of the world except Pakistan. Pakistan doesn’t consider anyone who attacks India as a good terrorist and anyone who dares attack Pakistan as the Taliban. Gentlemen you people fail to realize that the very same snake that is biting you now was one you and the USA raised together with British help to help counter the Soviets while they were in Russia. They very same Taliban that you helped come to power later in Afghanistan. The very same Taliban that you evacuated under the cover of your citizens through the kunduz airlift and the very same Taliban whose leader you provided with shelter very close to your garrison. As a state Pakistan was ruled by its military more than anyone else. Its people still believe that India portioned Pakistan into Pakistan and Bangladesh into two for our own interests and that the reason Pakistan lost the war according to their own president was because the armed forces didn’t fight properly. Their own commission told them otherwise and the rulers fearing backlash classified the report and quashed it. The military always ran the country with what you can say was an India-fear centric approach. The Political rulers to say haven’t fared much better owing to the enormous influence of the armed forces and the intelligence and also the entrenched belief among the people of Pakistan about India wanting to conquer them. Also for the politicians in Pakistan, India is a way topic to divert matter just as caste and religion are for the politicians in India.

The terrorist being anyone killed 133 souls who had never wronged them even in thought. They created 133 coffins of unbearable weight just because they wanted to. I don’t condemn fighting in principle but if you want to fight, kill go fight with the people who are willing to fight you, go fight and kill the soldiers if you can. What have you achieved n killing so many young souls some of whom might have saved Pakistan for the better in the future. There are no words to describe a parents loss. Even in the words of one of them, he says “They finished in minutes what I had lived my whole life for”.  The military which holds so much sway in the country and attacks other countries couldn’t  even protect the life of a few of its children. No use having such a military in place, much less having one with so much influence.

The failure of Pakistan lies in the fact that it refuses to learn from its past mistakes, instead it chooses to lie to its citizens and keep them living in a dream. The soviets tried doing that some time back and we all know what resulted from that. One man who tried changing at least a bit of the country too seems to have given up now(though he says its temporary, It will be some time before he starts it back and the movement in all likelihood will never regain the momentum it had earlier because half the people are disheartened and the other half are afraid). The movement for change in Pakistan has lost its steam, its children lie six feet under, their parents destroyed lacking the will to even live, Their women afraid of going out and their citizens afraid of death more than they concentrate on living and all that it took was one big attack. Does the world need any more proof before calling Pakistan a failed state.

Terrorism and its evolution from Religion

The concept of terrorism from religion isn't something that is new in this world or it isn't something that surprised the various armies all around. The fact is that its been existing since the middle ages but it was confined to only middle Asia and some part of Europe especially the ones where the crusades were fought.

The concept of killing people of the opposite religion because you think they were trying to destroy your religion is an old concept which started with the crusades. During the crusades the church and the mosques constantly fought with each other for domination. The Christians formed The Knights of Christ to attack the holy cities and to take control of them for fear that expanding Islam would deny them even visiting rights to the places. the Soldiers of Islam meanwhile only fought what they too considered to be holy land against the Christian aggression. The war on both sides became about the holy land and hence was called Holy war in English or Jihad in Arabic.

The word of Jihad or holy war thus originated initially died down after crusades ended sometime in the mid 13th century but the recurrence of it is a rather interesting phenomenon. As all of us know the soviets invaded Afghanistan in the 1960's. It is generally known that everyone even a peasant would consider the country his mother and hence holy to him. the war for protecting one's motherland which was considered holy once again brought up the concept of jihad.This jihad was augmented by the Americans who fed and fueled the fire. Since not everyone understood the patriotism or the reason for fighting ni the remote places of such a country. The shrewd leaders there used the one thing that they could to unite their country to fight. THEIR COMMON RELIGION. This lead to the concept of common people believing that their religion was being desecrated and that they should fight against those desecrating. This caused further tensions to escalate even in other places simultaneously. Once their purpose was served the Americans withdrew and the people there started to grow and support other similar causes both against the USSR and the USA. The arrogance from winning a war gave them the confidence to operate form anywhere. The riches and the boredom of the Saudi oil sheikhs gave them their finances. The tree of religious terrorism slowly spread its poisonous roots all throught the world. They started acting at and against anything they considered was against their religion. From the concept which was used to unite a country against foreign aggressors the concept became wildly twisted and now plagues the world. They blow up civilians in a country which they believe has offended their Muslims even if that country does everything in their power to protect the very Muslims it contains. They try to kill people just for speaking their thoughts denying them the basic fundamental rights in any country on this planet. Their clout has grown so wide now that they command entire areas on this planet openly and threaten other peace loving democracies around the world just because they aren't following the path that the terrorist are. This concept and philosophy is not isolated to Islam alone, even a few Hindu's in India tried this and a few radical Christians from Europe and america tried it. The blame majorly rests on Islam for majority of the terrorists now present are from it. But personally Islam prohibits violence in all forms, especially against civilians, women and children in specific. Alas i guess the terrorists missed all the beautiful stuff Islam has to offer and caught on to only what they wanted. Misinterpreting it and causing untold mayhem throught the world.

PS: i may be wrong in my opinions
please fell free to voice you'r opinions out in the comments

The Meaning of Our Indian National Anthem

There are a lots of pages where you can find the literal translation of the Indian National Anthem, but few of what we find are as meaningful and as useful as the video here. This video is not new news as is normally posted here, but it is important news and above all it is something that not only gives the users something meaningful too see but also helps another noble cause

The blogger doesn't have any personal affiliations to the organisation but is amazed and awed by the message in it Wishing you all A Very Happy Independence Day and hoping for an even brighter future for our country.

Jai Hind