Mukund’s adventures

Reporters go a long way to get you stories of people. They understand situations far more rationally than politicians, and are the first to criticize their evil ways. Good reporters often empathize with the hardships faced by people, and represent them. It is stupidity to put a reporter through the trauma of a kidnap. The BBC has a petition for Alan Johnston’s release on the net that you can sign, which hopefully his kidnappers will see.

Today I am 28 years old. The past year had been particularly hard and I’d been thinking about it all of yesterday, and about all the good things that are part of my life.

I am still a child in many ways. I’ve been programming since I was 12 and my love for computation has made me learn many things. While I got good at programming, I never really grew up to handle everything else in life. I don’t regret it, but sometimes I pause and wonder. It is a world of tigers and dragons.

The last year was rough and in hindsight, the changes it forced were good and I am on much better ground than where I was in years. I am close to mum, and I’m close to my friends who are really friends, who really like me, who won’t stab me in the back to further their own interests. And I am gainfully employed at a good company.

Have you ever seen an inchworm reach out from the safety of a leaf into air to see what else it could climb on to, and then fall to the ground? If you think you are on shaky ground and are scared of exiting your situation for fear of falling, I say fall but do reach out. If you fall, atleast when you land you’ll be on flat ground and you’ll have something new to explore.

28 is a perfect number. I have learned some new things about life.

Those who speak know nothing
And find out to their cost
Like those who curse their luck in too many places
And those who fear are lost

I know that the spades are the swords of a soldier
I know that the clubs are weapons of war
I know that diamonds mean money for this art
But that's not the shape of my heart

Taken sometime around 2001 in my home in Hyderabad, India.. a real “screenshot” . The computer is 90s hardware.

I love my country as most Indians do. We are very patriotic
people, as our independence struggle is a very prominent topic one learns when growing up. The British used the divide-and-rule strategy to divide us and get control over us, but it was because we got united in our aim to get the British to quit India, that we could achieve independence. The partition of the sub-continent into India and Pakistan was something which needn’t have happened (Mahatma Gandhi was very very upset), but then before the British came to India there were several kingdoms.

The Kashmir issue is not very well understood by most people, both in India and Pakistan. They just take sides due to their patriotism. Both countries officially have their point-of-views on the matter. India’s point of view was very nicely stated in Krishna Menon’s address to the UN in 1957 (although it’s a bit verbose to read—apparently this was an 8-hour speech to the UN, the longest ever), and you can read about the documented abuses of people that happened during the time of partition.

I was absolutely angry (because of how patriotic I was) when I grew up and read on the Internet (before the Kargil conflict) that about half of Kashmir had been taken up by Pakistan, and another large chunk of it is under China’s control. No I didn’t know this. I mean, we always knew there was conflict about Kashmir—there were regular terrorist attacks and I’d wake up and find the newspaper on the porch with almost daily headlines of deaths. But we always thought we had the state completely.

Why didn’t I learn about this in school? Because to this day, geography textbooks in India show all of the original Kashmir province under India’s control. There’s no Line of Control, no nothing. We learn about the partitioning of
India, but not about the Kashmir issue. This must be official Indian government policy. I am told by my friends that similar things are taught to students in Pakistan too (I don’t know this for sure). But what does it solve? Why not teach us the truth of the situation as it exists on the ground, so we grow up knowing what the truth is? Perhaps both sides would learn to be more tolerant. Wouldn’t learning the harsh truth be worse when you find out anyway?

It’s absolutely amazing how much we divide ourselves up. Religion, caste, sub-sects in religion, color of your skin, what country you’re from, even what state you’re from. My mother tongue is Tamil (my parents are from Tamil Nadu) and I had joined a school in the state of Andhra Pradesh, and this state’s language is Telugu. Now both Andra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu were one state at one time. So we learn about some sort of “freedom struggle”.. one state fighting for freedom from the larger opressing state. Ouch? Isn’t it simply sad? But don’t take my words for it, because there are others who feel patriotic that they’re Telugu and dislike Tamilians. Such is life on Earth. The only place where you are truly accepted is your home country, your home state, your home town, your home property. A large number of people are tolerant, in that they put up with others. But how many really emphathize?

At my work place in London, UK, I found this globe on a desk and spun it around.. someone had purchased it from a local shop. Upon inspection, I didn’t find Israel on it. Only Palestine. Guess who made it?

You know, during the Kargil conflict, the Indian Air Force had some of its aircraft shot down.. MiGs. Other soldiers who were captured bore torture marks when their bodies were returned. Soon after the conflict, a spy-plane of Pakistan veered into Indian territory near Kori Creek. Now this is contested.. the wreckage was recovered on both sides of the disputed border (oh yeah it was shot down after being warned). The Indian feeling was of joy.. don’t get me wrong, Indians are good people. This’s what happens when you think you’re fighting an enemy. There’s supposed to be a winner and a loser. But one photo which really bugged me was this one:

These were the pilots who had scored one more kill. Except 16 people on that spy plane died. But why are they laughing like this, as if it were a game? I now realise that in the armed forces, it is a game. Don’t for one second think that I dislike these guys. I love these guys to bits, because they are the ones who risk their lives to protect my freedom and my way of life from an enemy.

But what enemy are we fighting? These were the same guys we lived with for so many centuries. Our brothers and sisters. Sure they may have a different religion and a different way of life..

I read all these silly discussions of how foreign policy is wrong. It is wrong, but the solutions to problems don’t lie there. America is selfish for its people.. their people need oil, and it needs to control oil reserves. Their people need security, so it needs to pre-emptively attack and take action against countries it believes are threats. People complain because they’re opressed, but the ironic thing is that if they had control instead, they would not be very charitable about it either. Such is life. If Lebanon had Israel’s capabilities, and Israel was as meek as Lebanon and were infested by terrorists who attacked Lebanon, the same things would have more or less happened with the roles reversed. Those in control like to stay in control. Many times the decisions they make are foolish however.

It’s also impossible to bring about democracy in the Middle East, or just about any other kind of lasting change unless the people want it. This can be observed in Iraq.

How about starting the democracy and freedom festival in Saudi Arabia, which is a dictatorship with disregard for human rights? Bush forgot about this country in the Middle East. But why do you think he did that? Because people are selfish. They look at what’s best for them. This is life.

The Mayor of London Ken Livingstone was one of the most prominent people to note that it was western double standards towards the world which incubates terrorist culture (for lack of a better word). But why do people become terrorists? I mean, we read about double standards too, but we don’t go out with a gun and start shooting people do we? We think about what we’re gonna code next, what movie to watch next, where we’re gonna eat next, etc. So how are the terrorists different from us?

Firstly, it’s insanity which causes one to take the life of another. Someone must be totally brainwashed to do that, to really believe in what they’re doing so much that they’re willing to take others’ lives without judgement, or rather they judge that it’s correct to do so. How do they reach that level of insanity? How do they get brainwashed?

Imagine growing up in a camp, where people around you get shot before you for absolutely no reason. Where there’s very high crime. Where you have very little money all the time. Where you have almost no employment opportunities to put your mind to work. Where things are taken away from you without explanation. Such places exist. Even in western countries, these conditions exist.. poverty, strife and illiteracy is everywhere. This is not about Israelis vs. Palestinians. This is about people valuing their lives, wanting to do good, wanting to accomplish something every day when they wake up. An idle mind is a devil’s workshop. Children who grow up in stressful environments, where you don’t have a page out of the IKEA catalogue for a child’s bedroom, but what you see in your nightmares… when the child grows up, they are emotionally vulnerable. They seek a purpose in life, to do something which will give them a sense of achievement. They are perfect candidates for a brain-wash. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

Israeli and Palestinian people both deserve a home on this planet, where they can live without fear, with a purpose to do good. The economy there should be helped, not stifled. Children should have schools to go to. Grown ups should have employment opportunities to keep busy with. I remember a powerful poem by Rabindranath Tagore, one of the greatest minds to have ever graced the earth:

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake