Not a single day this year has gone by without the newspapers reporting on rapes, murders, robberies, scams, political turmoils. It’s always surprising to observe that we still read them despite knowing what is in store for us when we glance at the headlines or turn the page. But then perhaps, we have hardened ourselves over the months and years. The atrocities occurring all around us are simply in black & white…no shades of sorrow and pain.
A child is sacrificed by a priest.
A woman is stoned to death by her village elders.
A man is tied to a tree and left for the wild animals to feed on.
Families live on boiled grass.
Our mind rebels. These incidents cannot be real and true… not in this century. Not in this time of enlightenment. Not when we are told that the Divine is only a step away. Then how big is that step? A giant leap perhaps? For reading about a 3 year old girl’s rape, one cannot imagine God to be just around the corner.
But we must. We just have no choice but to imagine. To hope. To pray. To believe. To have faith. Those lines in b&w are a painful reminder sent to us every day of our lives that so long as we remain oblivious to them the world will remain unchanged. So long as we delude ourselves that a starving farmer is not our concern or a victim of abuse is not our sister, we will be unable to take that much-needed step. So long as we remain unchanged ourselves, we are no closer to embracing the Divine than those who plunder and feed on human misery.
Have we said this before? Of course. Many times. Over many years. And yet, there still remains a need to repeat and remind. Doesn’t that in itself show that there is still much to be done? We have made a tradition of bad news. But traditions like this have no place in the approaching future, in the coming age. Let us strive to do away with it and let ‘Change’ be the mantra for the new year. It all starts with one step. A small one.
