Skip to main content

Temple Of Equality

All men are not created equal. To call this world unfair would be a gross understatement. Why am I privileged enough to have an opportunity to write a blog post, while somebody else is struggling to make ends meet? A person who never exercises might enjoy long lasting good health, while a young person might fall prey to a deadly disease?

Well, we don't have answers to all these and these things  are not in our control either. But what about the things in our control? We discriminate against each other on every imaginable aspect.
"Oh you belong to this caste?"
"Come on, you have not visited Europe? Not even once? Seriously?"
"You like Justin Bieber?" (trying to keep a straight face)
"Most of the #### language people are generally ####"

We judge. We discriminate. Its inherent to us, ingrained in us. The thing we should aspire for,  is to consciously make an effort to think otherwise.

There is a pani puri shop in the road corner. Suresha is a legend for making the best pani puris in the locality. Ravish, who stays in the same neighborhood , is now a managing director in a big company. He remembers visiting this chaat center regularly with friends during his college days. His work life is so hectic nowadays, he does not remember the last time he ate here. In an impulsive decision which is so unlike him, he parks his brand new SUV, goes over to Suresha and orders for one pani puri, khaara medium. A swanky coffee shop's loss today is Suresha's gain.

At the same time, Nanjappa stops his old auto next to Ravish's SUV. He decides to eat something before going for his night drive. He orders one pani puri, khaara jaasti. Two strangers, who would never meet again in their life, share some silence and pani puri. As they finish their pani puris, they bend slightly and stretch their arms at Suresha with empty plates in hand and ask for some pani.

At that very instant, in some strange way, the world seems a much fairer place!

Comments

world seems much fairer when you intend to see that in "that way" !!
soumia said…
Possibly,one of the best short write up about a subject a fragile as this.I go through my life observing the inequalities but I believe ,life is not about one extreme.if one can see inequality, one can also find instances like Suresh-Ravish .
Bit Hawk said…
@Santhoosh @Soumia
Thanks for the kind words!

Popular posts from this blog

What Exactly Bothered You?

I am amazed by the display of naivete by people, their naivete so deeply conditioned that it ceases to be artificial. These people are very well aware of the reality, but when you show them some proof to confirm that, they are aghast and shocked. What the hell am I ranting about? I am talking about "The curious case of N D Tiwari"! To be honest, when I heard about it, I laughed out loud. Not because there was something funny in his achievements, but the way people reacted to it. So I am trying to understand what exactly bothered them? A Governor was doing 'it' ? ('It' upsets more people than lets say, if he was taking a bribe of crores of rupees from those 3 women) A Governor was doing 'it'? (Come on seriously, are we not taught in schools that politicians work for people and poverty is dropping like Walmart prices?) A Governor was caught doing it? (What is revealed is always only the tip of the iceberg. Just imagine the uncaught! Is it the "env...

Ringtones

Why is it that most people don't keep their mobiles in silent mode, in general and particularly in meetings, movie halls, theaters and concerts? Why is it that people who hate silent mode, don't ever use "Increasing ring" feature? Why do such people use very loud ring tones? Why is it that most people use a very common ring tone and it takes them eternity to pick calls? (Yes, they don't even realize that its their mobile that is ringing!) Why is it that people with the most irritating ring tones are the ones who get calls very regularly? Why is it that most of the ring tones are monotonic? (Don't you think polyphonic ring tones are so less irritating on the ears?) Why is it that people so frequently use the default Nokia monotonic ring tone or a badly played version of Malgudi Days? Why have I never heard a nice polyphonic ring tone of Hotel California or Pulp Fiction theme or something? Why?

Limitations Of Human Imagination

I watched the movie "The Abyss" yesterday. Unadulterated hollywood alien-sci-fi garbage. Pseudo-emotions mixed with american-arrogance, so much crap that it would have given Karan Johar some serious inferiority complex. But, this made me think why so many alien stories are so similar. Lets come to the assumptions in the alien movies: 1) Aliens always love to make contact with the humans (If I were an alien, I would try to make contact with crocodiles - much more interesting, right?) 2) Aliens are generally much more intelligent than humans (Its hard to beat the dumbness of humans - probably aliens don't watch Big Boss! Also, since 'they' contact us by reaching 'our' planet, they must be better than us!) 3) Aliens by default understand or learn English (by intercepting the cerebral signals and interpreting with the aural waves and decoding to hexadecimal system - you will be given some such nonsense by the story writers) If you tell the aliens "howdy...