Thinking- a common activity of our brain. It’s seldom that
we realize what power thinking gives us. The power to have opinions, to agree,
to contradict, to express, to feel. It was only today that I was thinking ( yea,
thinking) about this wonderful thing that our brain does! It helps us have a
view that distinguishes us from the rest of the world, that shapes our
perceptions, that carves out an identity for each one of us in this world.
Thinking is one strange thing. When at night, I am lost deep
in thinking, my mind wanders off to places, to everything, right from this
world, the book I might be reading, to the gravest of issues, like the
conventions of the world, the common occurrences of human behavior, why the people
won’t stop committing heinous crimes, to the patriarchal frame of our society,
to trying to get into other people’s shoes, and get an idea of their plight,
what I never had to face, what I never felt, but just thinking about it makes
all the difference for me, and soon I have to rub my eyes to be able to see.
It’s really weird how people can be so different! Mankind-
it shows just so much of diversity! In that house, I see that woman trying to
make money so that her children can do what she never did- go to school and
break out of the shackles of penury- the only thing they inherited from her,
while there, on that corner, I see that pickpocket, that con, caring not
whether the money he just swindled, was the bonus that man had just received
from his boss- he had wanted to buy his daughter new books- not second hand,
should her friends mock her, he could almost see her smiling inside his head……
I read about women activists, trying to blaze a trail for
women so that a day may come, when they might see a world where a woman gets
the same place that a man does..while at times, I hear about women who
themselves having been through a similar
fate, now running trafficking rackets, pushed down the lane, with an ‘eye for
an eye’ blazing in their head, not realizing even once that the girl they just
sold, had had a whole future before her, and now, her life has been blown away
in a whirlwind of crime and avarice…
There I see a man, walking the streets, supporting the ‘slut
walk’, fighting for and with their female counterparts, and just yesterday,
those men, who started with eve-teasing, raped a girl, who was coming back from
school, with her eyes twinkling with excitement to tell her mother how well her
field trip had been, but now has only tears, and trauma in those bruised eyes…
It’s funny how contrasting people’s characters can be, and
how unexpectedly, they change..some set a trail for others to follow, while
some set it ablaze with their hatred and insensitivity! It really surprises me
to think that some people( and that means most of them) still live surrounded
by the shackles of prejudice, who still believe that a woman be judged by her
clothes and that it was ’her’ fault, who would watch a crime take place and
just add anecdotes to their experience, but won’t try to play their rightful
part, who still believe a homosexual has no right to live in the mainstream,
who still feel love is a crime, while honour
killings aren’t, who still would give their male child everything he
doesn’t even deserve, but won’t spend a penny on their daughter’s education,
who still would ask a girl, ‘if she was sure’, who, inspite of their abilities,
still, wouldn’t let their children, for once, do what they want to, who still
live in the 18th century, for whom the ancient ways preserved is a
world saved, who won’t look beyond their stubborn opinions, …it’s thinking
about the likes of them that I feel terrible anger, and shame, that yes, we
have changed, progressed, but only materialistically, only when it comes to
arenas like ‘technology’ and ‘crime’! Inside, we haven’t let go..we haven’t
moved on..and it’s this shame that fills me with perseverance, that a day will
come, when I shall make a difference and we all will too, when at last we will
look beyond and embrace the changes, not outside, but within us, and it’s that
day when the world will be a different place, and our children will live to
see, that yes, at last, we have MOVED ON!!!!!!..:).:(
