Amen
Indian child activist Kailash
Satyarthi and Pakistani school girl activist Malala Yousufzai have just been
declared joint winners of the Nobel Peace Prize 2014. At a time when India and
Pakistan are exchanging mortars and missiles across the border, this comes
across as a welcome break from the monotonous routine of war mongering by both
sides who can now share the much delayed Dusherra and Eid sweets.
As I watched the news about their
exploits, I set off day dreaming visualizing the two hand in hand praising
their God for the bounties received. I even envisaged the two of them kneeling
together and offering their individual prayers to the almighty. Although they
were offering individual thanksgiving their prayer sounded similar and I
listened attentively to hear the words offered in prayer and this is how it
sounded to me.
“Are you listening Lord? Thanks
for the Noble peace prize that we share. You know lord this thanks is not for
getting us the Nobel peace prize, but this is for the number of times you
interfered and intervened to keep us alive, so that children doomed to a life
of hopelessness and slavery could be offered a thin line to raise their hopes
on”.
“Remember the time Lord, when I
was walking to school with my friends and the Taliban warned me to stay put at
home while threatening me with dire consequences. I was almost forced to give
it all up on that day Lord, but for you, when you told me to follow my dreams.
I still remember the conversation with my father when he for a moment seemed unsure,
though he was the one who always advocated blossoming of the girl child, for a
moment I could see traces of sadness on his face, but wow! How he recovered to
reassure me that I must keep going. I was so pleased lord for your intervention
when I set off for school the next morning unmindful and totally forgetful of
the Taliban threats of the previous evening”.
“What a blessed life I had lord,
when you bestowed me with the grace to go to school and learn in a manner that
was alien to my fellow children who had to work in mica mines and plough the
field in place of the ox. I finished high school and went throw university
attaining an engineering degree and became an engineer, yet the poor child
ploughing the field along with his father refused to go out of my mind. I
remember the time lord, when I sneaked in my bellbottoms with my college
notebook rolled into my pant pocket wanting to talk to the child who I had seen
ploughing the fields”.
“I was taken aback Lord, by what
the father of the child told me that they were destined to slavery, education
was a far-fetched dream only for people like me who were destined to go to
school, university and work in corporate places at good salaries, but for them
the plough was a permanent feature in their lives, only the human under the
plough changed with time”.
“Thank you Lord, for prodding me
to churn this thought in my mind – How could I be privileged and the other
child doomed by birth? Why can’t the rights of the child be restored? Why does
he have to suffer this criminal act of society? No Lord, I must do something
about it, I must exercise my good fortune to turn the tide of misfortune of
these under privileged children, they must be set free from the yoke of tyranny,
the back breaking ills of slavery, they must be set free, they must be at par
with others, with me, so that their aspirations can be met too, the world can experience
the good in them, make use of their talents”.
“As I walked to school Lord, that
morning I was mentally recuperating the activities that I had planned to get
girls of my age and the younger and older ones into class rooms, to be able to
explain to them and their parents that each individual had the right to dream,
everyone had the freedom to fly unbound by the chains of human selfishness and
societal and culturally skewed and backward thought process”.
“But I must admit Lord, that you
sometimes took your eyes off me, let me roam unprotected, almost lost my life
Lord, to those merciless gun totting Taliban’s. Remember those people who took
advantage of your laxity to pump bullets into my head, remember Lord, I was
left for dead, my dreams and those of my wards shattered like the bones in my
skull, a village full of dreams silenced by the deafening sound of bullets and
the motionless bodies of my friends who lay dead beside me. Ah! That was not
good lord, Come on, you should have taken better care Lord, think of all those
innocent souls lost to a barbarian mind, a brain that had been washed clear of
all humanity and logic”.
“When I turned activist Lord,
after spurring a well-paid job, remember Lord, those thugs hired by corporates
and rich landlords, mine owners who beat me black and blue leaving me half dead
convinced they had reformed me enough, never to rise up against their age old
practices. Remember Lord, those threats and tirades which kept up a steady
stream? Now, you could have- but you choose to look the other way when they
came down mercilessly on me threatening to snuff out my life, I still feel Lord
that you should have kicked those marauding idiots away and let me ride
triumphantly into town with my freed foot soldiers”.
“Well sometimes it seems that you
almost sided with them during our pain and suffering while we went about trying
to uplift your creations. Why did we have to get shot and be brutalized by
people who perceive us as their enemies? Surely, you could have waved your
magic wand and eliminated all forms of suffering, why in fact you could have
made
us your perfect messengers without the dust and toil of everyday life,
without the strain of opposition forces”.
“But that’s all right Lord, when
we think off how far we have reached, how much we have been able to highlight
our activities in society and around the world, because we have been shot at
and brutalized in the most brutal and
inhuman manner. It is because we suffered the pain that we understand the
intensity of our activities. It is because we have traversed those paths that
we are able to explain to the world the pitfalls, and it is because we were
able to successfully muster the determination and courage to traverse those
paths that we have found recognition”.
“Thank you Lord, for this recognition
and for making the majority realise that the thought process in our families,
neighbourhood, society and country must change. This is a recognition Lord,
that our efforts are finding favour with the right thinking people, it is
recognition Lord, that finally help is at hand, and that society and
organisations the world over will extend their support in our fight to help the
children, especially the Girl child live their dreams”.
“Thank you Lord, a million times
and more for your interference, interventions and support, thank you Lord for
your unflinching support. Don’t mind those ungrateful words uttered in between
Lord, you know very well the importance of your benevolence on this world, we
beseech you to keep it up Lord, for the sake of this human race. For the moment
allow us to go out and face this world with its challenges and bestow on us the
humility, wisdom and grace to prod others to this noble task of letting your
young ones throughout the world dream-Amen”.
10th October 2014
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