The wailing continues

The wailing continues

Passing on from the year gone by to the New is normally a joyous event. The mistakes committed during the past year, the turbulence, the adversity, the pain all gets forgotten in the shrill of the ensuing New Year. There is a renewed hope a happiness that comes out of such hope.

The music the exuberance, the cockiness, the blinds help as pain killers; we forget the pain of the past and welcome the unknown. The frenzy and glitz that accompanies the midnight strike of the gong helps to bury the known amidst the uncertainty attached to the unknown.

The world and its people have been pained, wronged, assaulted, marauded, gnawed, throttled, crushed, stamped, flattened, whipped, beheaded, and stripped of its rights, its right to a peaceful existence.

Every time we think that enough is enough; the powers that be, unleash an avalanche of physical and verbal abuses on us which cannot be ignored, nor condoned. Many of us who normally wouldn’t get provoked due to the fact that we believe in a peaceful atmosphere are smoked out of our living spaces and forced to retaliate through protests, and marches all over the world.

Why does this happen, why do the masters who lord over us whether politicians, bosses, landowners, keepers of the law, protectors of the law, not see the bodies stamped beneath their crushing weight; of measures adopted that puts the common man and woman to a life of strife?

Why do they have to proclaim that which is inconvenient to the masses. Why are they not instead goading us to move ahead, to progress, and to enjoy the seasons under the sun? Why are we not partakers in the progress of various societies? Why do the masters think that that what they say matters and the ordinary folks ought to be content with the paltry blessing that are given on the side like crumbs that fall off the masters dining table? Why do lone wolf attacks occur in advanced countries?

Look at Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, The Kurds in north east Syria, Lebanon, Hongkong, Uighirs in China, the Rohingyas of Myanmar, the minorities in Pakistan, the Dalai Lama’s Tibetans, the Taiwanese resistance, the poor Palestinians, the Tamils in Sri Lanka, the North Korean onemanship, the Military dictatorship in Egypt, the high handedness in Turkey.

The various religious Denominations fighting to have control in various lands including Kerala in India, the Tunisians, the Libyans, The Sudanese, the Nigerians, the central African states- my God I have almost circled the globe and hear the wail of the ordinary. The ordinary who just wanted an easy existence, an existence that was peaceful, the morrow positive and the wailing that promised to end.

Instead, we see the oppressors of today entrenching themselves into their fortified trenches and vowing to continue with their agenda and the immense hardship that it brings on its people. . Revolutionary Poets and their lines are debated for and against, forgetting the context and the imagery. Faiz Ahmed Fiaz’s “Hum Dhekenge” being debated as essentially Muslim. For them what matters is only religion not the mass of flesh and blood or the emotions that humans are made of.  They do not consider the suffering of the ordinary as their own.

Those who come from humble backgrounds forget the past and their nostalgic paths on tasting power. What matters thereafter is the will of the mighty, the educated, the entrenched, the handful of power mongers who deem it their sacred duty to dust the dust of the bodies of the lowly and march forward.

They continue to make us fight our friends, neighbours, those who advocate a different view point. Societies, that was so well orchestrated in the past in terms of social well being and love towards one another suddenly seems split down the middle. The taunts, the interpretations, the logic, the one sided viewpoints keep polarizing us, we forget the past, the bonhomie, the hugs, the gratitude, the common existence, friends suddenly turn foes.

When will be able to live in peace in lands that our forefathers tilled, when will be able to lie under the shade of the trees, plough our own fields, tends to our own animals, participate in each other’s happiness and sorrows? When will we be able to derive comfort from the bhajans, soulful music that flows out of churches, the piercing heart bound poetry that flows seamlessly and ceaselessly from poets with the imagery of the times?

The wailing continues, the thuds of breast beating subdued by the beats of the DJ, the music reverberating into the open, the prayers falling woefully short, the hankering for prestige and space elbowing out the lowly from their abode, can you see the discomfort, can you hear the sound of running feet, can you see the malnourished, the ones staying in detentions centers, refugee camps, their rights trampled by the cruel acts of a few. Can you hear their wailing?

4th January 2020