War and such games are a farce on the face of human beings. A disgusting lie uttered with not even a blink of the eyelids. Something I do not like. I hate the fact that innocent cute babies do not see the light of my tomorrow and even if they do, they cannot walk on both legs because some goddamn landmine just blew away his leg along with his dreams of becoming a football player.
How the powerful like their own position and are relentless in their pursuit of richer higher lands, lands which give way to black streams of oils and gasoline and the likes, when dug in deep. I wish I were a Superhero who could save the poor from the atrocities of the rich. But I guess to survive in such a unipolarized world is job enough for any superhero. Superman would not be able to fly in and rescue a little kite-flyer from a scud missile. Even Spiderman would arrive late on his sticky trail to see the kite go down, floating like an angel and the boy being seared by the heat of the missile. I do not know how many young lives will be scorched to death in a chase for money and power. Keep counting; numbers that we know won’t suffice the actual toll.
A couple of weeks ago, when the war started I was asked to write an opinion report on the War just begun. I could not muster up enough words to spill out my feelings about this gutless display of gore and hypocrisy. At that time I was busy in the world cup; India had performed well. On the cricket field at least. Off it, we have always been standoffish and neutral. So I was dumbfounded when I was asked to write my opinion. I was not clear about the implications of the war then. Even now I am not very clear about them. Of course my fellow humans in Baghdad do not know of a world beyond their own four walls; let alone the game of cricket and the world cup and us getting fanatic over a victory. How small do we think? The biggest spectacle for the Iraqis would be the odd drops of peace, which also get their way through the falling debris of lives and dreams. I always wondered what idea they had in mind when they bombed the daylights out of Baghdad. My friend, a very good friend, said that lives of individuals are more important than any big idea those bombers had. So I thought how correct he was, for a few seconds he inspired awe in me. An idea can change your life - an ad-line says.
I want to see the rainfall. It makes me forget all the pain and the misery as I smell the first of those heavenly drops falling on my lawn, very much like the small drops of dew on my lawn every morning. But, it is very much unlike the acrid and rusty smell of blood smeared floors. House walls painted in deep dried up maroon paste of blood. Skin-pieces just floating about in thin air like moths in a dusty bedroom. I resent the kind of feeling I get when I see those men and women, young and old, beautiful, crying for their loved ones; either killed by the landowner or the claimant to the land. Leave those poor people alone. Their lives have been painted in blood and blackened by settling soot already. Do not try to wash them all u will clear out is layers of skin not meant to be touched in the first place. I beg of such perpetrators to stay away from my own people in my mother’s home, or by the weight of all the vows I have made to this precious land I will kill each S-o-B like the blood suc*ing mosquitoes that they are. All this despise has been focused on one person alone, the creator of havoc and not on those who unknowingly back them up. We have killed enough already. We are cannibals. We may not eat flesh of another man but we do like to see the flesh grow cold in our refrigerated minds.
So where are we as a race heading? Towards the exit door, from where we can see new generation of zombies leading their patrons into this world. A new look outfit with programmed minds; much like the androids which we see today in fiction movies. How ironic would it be when see that fiction of today will be a natural way of life tomorrow?
A barrel full of questions just lies in my room as we head into a new dawn. The new dawn may not after all bring in the light we are yearning for, it may lead us into yet another day full of darkness. A day full of darkness, how ironic? Look at the future, see if it is good? If there is any future for us to look at that is. Look there it goes. Bombed by the scuds.
Love, peace and Godspeed. Ladies and gentlemen.
© Nikhil Subramaniam 2003