A Note on Mob!

By Sadho Ram

What is mob? It is probably the scariest place to be in. No matter which part of the world, a mob is what it is – a mob. It, the mob, is the epitome of recklessness, which a huge pile of the humans over humans over mindlessness of nothing signifies. Blind and deaf, foolhardy and arrogant, devoid of ethics and morals, derailed from any logic and reason, it just shoves itself in and against everything whenever it so wishes, whenever it’s provoked, in whatsoever circumstances. It acts on whims. It operates on nothing but whims. And only whims alone in it set its goals.

Image Courtesy Google

A mob is every society’s worst nightmare, representing its hypocritical stature. The purpose of which is to just make noise, the force of which is to just create ruckus. Agreed that oftentimes a mob has thrown a dictator out, but what after that? The very Mob fades away, falls down too. And in manners that it has never been able to rise again, ever. Only ashes remain.

On a personal note, I’ve never seen a mob with a cause worthy of the fury it exhales and the rage in which it becomes a horde of savages. The barbarism with which a mob unleashes itself unto anything and everything that falls within the limit of its reach and ravages the very core of the victims who become subjected to its mindless madness, leaves nothing for the mind to grasp. What remains behind, after the proud march of the mob, remains forever behind rotting and hissing in pain, whether it is a village, a city, a shop, a community or a woman. No one cares after that, no soul bothers to look behind. A mob then fades away into oblivion, only to resurface in some other corner of the earth. Like bubbles bursting in the hot tub of water, a mob bursts at one spot, creates turbulence, sets off and then bursts again at another, never letting the water to remain still.

“And the calm serenity of the water on the surface and beneath is forever disturbed, forever lost.”

Our country today is going through one such turbulence, which threatens to disrupt the otherwise normalcy that surrounds us. In past, there have been numerous mobs, causing innumerable amount of unfathomable damages to the very soul and spirit of the nation. But never before in the history of mobs, have been a mob as moronically arrogant and as childish in its caricaturish behaviour as such that of Old Anna’s. Yes, Anna Hazare is nothing but a mob. Heady in his stance against the Government’s stand on JAN LOKPAL BILL, he has taken the nation by a blind storm, causing baseless uproar for the so-called call for democracy where he himself seems to have transformed into a dictator.

Every man, woman, child and dog following Old Anna in his magnanimous  “August Kranti” march must not forget that such hysterical approaches only yield spineless results, which are born out of an another kind of hysteria. One which justifies nothing, signifies nothing, takes away a lot, giving out nothing. What remains in the platter is so worthless that it matters not anymore, even a bit. And that’s what is going to happen to the proposed JAN LOKPAL BILL, which, since it was first introduced by Shanti Bhushan in 1968, has today turned 43 years old. Since then its 9 consequent versions have been introduced and re-introduced but sadly none of these have ever passed.

And in the scuffle of Anna & Government, where both seems to be happily satisfied by their own self indulgence on the subject, utterly disregarding the constitution, fighting over it, I doubt this BILL too will ever be passed.

“A nation will never rise on the fury of a mob. And where a mob decides the fate of the dawn and dusk of a nation, everything becomes ash and in the distant horizon only thing rising is smoke.”

A Note on Waiting and the Joys and Sorrows of it.

By Sadho Ram

Waiting, for some, is a process of experiencing joy, for some it is merely a process of evolution of the self by acquiring what one is waiting for. But for me waiting has been all sorts of different kind of things. Like others I’ve had joys and while waiting I’ve evolved too. But it somehow has always felt like a slow severe pain in the chest. And yet I’ve waited for everything that I’ve ever wanted in my life, regardless of whether I got or I didn't, whatever was that I had wanted at the different waiting junctures of my life. I’ve waited so much, working my way through to get whatever I want, that at times I've felt I should just give up, that I shouldn’t wait anymore for anything.

But no, I haven’t given up on waiting or waiting, so I’m still waiting; now for a whole new awakening to embark into a journey from where I know that my life will take all those turns which is only going to make it what years and years ago, lying over the vast spread of due laden grass in the fields of my village, beneath the gaze of winter sun on my face, I had dreamt and promised to myself. And now somehow, somewhere down the line, the waiting for me has gradually turned into something else, a sort of different pain, not in the chest anymore, no. But somewhere deep within; it pleasures me now, keeps me going, gives me strength, and provides me with a hope that my waiting will finally yield the result(s) I’m seeking. So I wait, hoping and holding onto whatever that I’ve now with and within me.

It’s a strange phenomenon with waiting. There is always a sense of uncertainty attached to it and yet we wait.

Currently, at this very moment I wait for her. And I’m waiting for my birthday this August.  I’m waiting to hold her in my arms once again, and to feel her warmth once again. For waiting is all I know that I have chosen to do, not because there isn’t any other option but because I’ve  promised to stick to waiting through thick and thin, and work my way through it for that new awakening, no matter how long it takes, no matter how short it lasts, I’m waiting... I’m waiting.

I remember about exactly 11 years ago I had waited with bated breath to get to my village to take one last look at my mother’s pale skinned face, who was lying dead, covered in red, inside her room. That was the time, probably the first in my life, when I experienced the sorrow of waiting. Because when my wait had ended, she hasn’t come back to life, as I foolishly had thought. The sorrow of that waiting was much deeper than I had imagined it to be, or maybe it was just too shallow. Because I remember I didn’t even shade a tear. But at the cost of being honest, it was that I couldn’t shade a tear, I just couldn’t. I had gone silent, partly with sorrow and partly with the realisation of the great loss. It was silence that had engulfed me, and had consumed the basic ability of a child to cry.

Since then a whole decade have passed away, actually more, and life is not what it was back then, so am I. Emotions have evolved, feelings have changed, I’m different too. But the silence of that day is still within, caged somewhere in some corner of my chest. It still breaths, still lives on. Although now that day of my life seems like another lifetime, it’s a whole new life now that I live. For I haven’t given up on waiting or waiting...because I know that the sorrows attached to waiting are gone now, all it now has to offer are the joys of waiting.

She is coming here to see me, to be with me. My woman from west, who have promised a new world to me and to whom I’ve pledged my life and every single joy of it. I’m waiting to experience the world she has promised, and I’m waiting to live up to the pledge I’ve taken in her name. On my this birthday, I will finally experience the joy, the ultimate joy of its kind, when I take her in my arms, tangle my fingers in her tresses, and plant the kiss that I keep playing in continuous loop inside my ever active head time and again. I’m waiting to become one with her.

Just like the sense of uncertainty is attached to the process of waiting, there’s one very distinctive trait attached to it too. It’s the test of the mettle a man is made of. And currently, I’m testing my own mettle.

...because, folks, all I know is that I’m waiting.