A Wake Up Call- #time to change

A friend of mine told me this, "Fight terror with terror."

And the Father of the Nation taught me this, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

So where do we go from here? Do we helplessly continue to watch the teeming number of innocent civilians be slaughtered mercilessly at the hands of a bunch of 'God'-seeking terrorists? Or do we fight back?

Change is good. It is what we need. We need a different system prevailing here. We need people ruling over us who actually care, who don't seek votes, who are willing to die for the common man. We need people to rule over us who do more than just condemn such attacks and offer condolences and compensations. We need a Prophet to save and help us when we need it the most.

They say that religion would save us.. But just look what it gave us- all this unjustified and indiscriminate killing and blood shedding. We need a Savior. Cometh the hour, cometh the man. We need peace. We need humanity to step up for the cause of billions. We want these barbaric acts to play the role of a wakeup call to stop such terror attacks in the future. This stung us hard, right in the very heart of Mumbai and left many of us devastated.

A rather easy situation to suggest would be to just form a new government to remove Terrorism. But the battle between the prevention and complete eradication of Terrorism in all totality is a highly debatable situation. I'd say that Democracy is too weak to fight Terrorism. One goes, another comes. Corruption in Politics cannot be removed. And this might be a clichéd sentence, but at the end of the day, it's we ourselves who have chosen them. Writing notes here and there and commenting on them don't really lead us anywhere. It might arouse the consciousness of a couple of users on these social-networking sites, it might move ourselves to self-pity, it might end up melting us and mourning for them now and then, but then..

DOES OUR MESSAGE REACH THE MASSES?

And the self-evident answer is that the notes are going to be left to rot in sometime. It'll be forgotten in no time at all. Another nefarious and heinous act would shift our focus soon enough. The 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts were bad enough! Did we think a similar situation would occur again? No, we didn't. We felt that it was time for the calm after the storm to prevail. But oh well, then comes the Gujarat riots in 2001, the Twin Towers' travesty in the USA in 2001, the serial train bombs in 2006, the myriad number of serial blasts in Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Delhi, Assam, and god knows where else!! These blasts will then be long forgotten. No one's going to think twice in the future! The case of the 1993 bomb blasts were solved just a few months back! What quick justice! We ourselves forget the intensity of the barbarity we experienced at the hands of these fiends.

Now let me ask you, HOW MANY OF YOU ARE GOING TO STEP UP INTO A WORLD TO CHANGE THE SOCIETY? Most of us are going to enter the Engineering and Medical and IT and Science and Marketing and Animation fields and all. How many of you are going to enter Politics? How many of you are going to enter Law? How many of you are going to enter Journalism? The answer is NONE!

None of us are going to choose the graver self-etched path. NONE! And that might pretty much explain the sad situation of our nation. *sigh* A friend of mine told me that I just don't care for the torture MY city is undergoing. That really hit me hard, because I do care. I might not make it seem evident, but I do care. I do shed tears of sorrow in the literal sense. If we can bring about the change, then we can be the change as well..!

Gandhiji had rightly remarked, "We must be the change we wish to see in the world."

For this very reason, I wish to pursue a career in  Journalism. To change, to do good, to make a difference. And most importantly, to be the Voice Of The Nation. Though the efforts of just one journalist may seem very small for any amount of significant change, I firmly believe in the saying that "Drops of water make a sea"!

Thus, I wish to be that one drop of water in this sea of misery and cleanse the country of all its difficulties and hardships! I sincerely believe I can change the world and I shall always strive forward to achieve this goal that I have set for myself!

I am a staunch believer in justice and I respect the freedom of each human being as an individual. Though the India of today is indeed an independent nation, the freedom fighters could however not restore freedom to each and every individual Indian citizen. Ever since we got freedom, India has been ravaged by various social, religious, political and economic evils. Corruption is at its peak and it has become a sin to do well in this nation. Everywhere, corruption is at its prominent best! The police-men, ministers, traders, businessmen and even the various authorities are very corrupt. This has made it impossible for any innocent to seek justice in the name of Law. Politics is synonymous with Corruption. It really is.

We are a sad bunch of people living in a sad world which is going from bad to worse. It's high time we make a move. This is the moment. It's now or never. We must be more than just a face in the crowd. We got to stand up for our city, for our country, for the world, and for humanity at large..!! India now doesn't need a prescription; it needs a surgery! And YOU are the doctor! So get up and get going!

In another 4 years from now, a similar incident shouldn't be a surprise for us! Mind you, this note of mine is not to force one into rushing to the Taj Hotel or the Oberoi Hotel or the Nariman House or anywhere with a gun in hand and saying 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai'. It's my personal opinion only to make you think over for once. Our move for the future. How we introspect the situation and move into the future with a better hope.

Mumbai is portrayed as the glittering Manhattan of the East, as a place where movers and shakers party, as a place where everyone gets on with the job. 

It has always been more than easy for Mumbai to forget the people who die in such carnages. And it’s even easier when we go on our self-congratulatory spree, with everyone talking about how brave we are. It’s as if we are embarrassed to acknowledge the fact that terrorism has taken its toll on us. Just as we were embarrassed to admit that the rain could bring the city to its knees. There’s a difference between bravery and foolishness, between courage and helplessness. Those who run the city have now concluded that you and I are incapable of punishing them. So they watch amused as we sit around congratulating ourselves. Mumbai is intimidated. Just bravado and tall talk cannot save a city from cunning, ruthless, efficient criminals who know that our systems are vulnerable and compromised. Every city has its qualities, true and Mumbai may be special in many ways. But it’s silly to boast about 98% attendance at work, the day after a series of bomb blasts. It shows as much callousness as courage. Those who forget a tragedy so easily, become immune to it and immunity breeds fatalism. In any case, given the conditions in which most Mumbaikars live and work, it’s not possible to take a day off. It’s not about bravery; it’s more about livelihood. Mumbai doesn’t give you a second chance. It’s too tough a city. Every city tries to learn from their experience so it can cope better. They don’t gloss over the tragedy and pretend as if nothing happened. 

Our crisis system has not improved one iota since 1993. Public hospitals are still as hopelessly inadequate as they always were. All we get is tall talk and glib lectures about Mumbai’s undying spirit. We pay more taxes than any other city. We contribute more to the nation’s growth and progress than all other cities put together. Yet nothing improves, nothing changes. 

It is time we stopped allowing ourselves to be taken for granted. It is time we got really angry and stopped taking systemic failure for granted. It is time we demanded more from those we pay to keep in office. It is time we stopped allowing them to monkey around with our emotions by talking about how brave, how noble, how wonderful we are. Just because we bounce back, doesn’t mean we can be beaten down every time.

Because if we don’t, we are going to be nothing more than a pedigreed punching bag." 

I hope my honest views help me pave our path into this world and etch out a living to help the society. Change the system. 

My motto is my goal: "... And Justice For All".

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This post has been submitted for the Time to Change contest on Indiblogger.