The 14th of February, 2019 : While the whole world was celebrating this beautiful day of love, India was bleeding red in the wee hours of the morning at Pulwama, Kashmir. I woke up, read about this ghastly incident, felt numb, gathered bits and pieces of my mind and penned down a post on ‘Love Yourself’ to give some sanity to my agitated mind. Yes, I did that, to divert my mind towards some sort of instant optimism maybe.
Neither is this post a social media gimmick nor is this a claim to free publicity. I just feel the need to express my anguish as an Indian. I still get goosebumps while I type this today.
The valiant soldiers of the country were martyred in a terror ambush – perhaps one of the worst terror attacks in Indian history.
More than a thousand reports have been flashing since yesterday – the gory details of the terror attack, the list of names of the martyred paramilitary forces, video release by terror outfits proudly claiming responsibility, tweets by politicians and celebrities condemning the act, social media outcry, international politics, cash rewards announced for the bereaved families, and even ironically, the biodata details of the terrorist! HONESTLY, I don’t want to know.
I don’t want to know about these faceless outfits and their beliefs beyond humanity. I don’t want to create a celebrity of a spineless man who got brainwashed into committing this dastardly act. I don’t want to know about who said what. I don’t really want to know about how much compensation money you’re paying the bereaved families. Will anything ever compensate the loss of a precious life?
How would you feel if a car loaded with explosives, rammed into the school bus with your child? Will that make it personal enough?
I just want to know, if people can still connect to their core essence of humanity. Does this incident hurt you? Or should this dastardly crime happen in our own backyard, to make it hurtful enough? Because, unless we genuinely feel, we have no right to react.
There might be innumerable political reasons, a different side of every story and what not! But does anything give a right to take away another’s life? Any act of taking someone’s life is a crime and is bound to be condemned. This can never be justified. This is so wrong.
No matter how extensively these phrases – ‘martyrdom’, ‘valour’, ‘respect’, ‘immortal’, ‘RIP’ etc etc – are used, they’ll eventually die down and some other story will grab the front page headline. The reality is that the brave soldiers of this country were brutally killed and we could do nothing to save them.
I just feel deeply saddened, disturbed and perturbed. Those precious lives did not deserve this end. And yes, THIS IS PERSONAL.
