Khel rahein hain jee jaan se

I woke up this morning searching for just one image in the papers. I got the news from a friend yesterday that a 19-year-old was caught in the crossfire between the student wings of two political parties. The people last evening was so blinded by rage that they were hurling bricks aimlessly, one of which hit this teen accidentally. Accidents can be forgive, true, but someone's life has been almost ruined forever. His eye has been smashed and it's needless to say, he's been handicapped for life.

This brings the reason for the protest to the forefront. What was it? Some students from a so-called reputed college on Kolkata wanted to enter Mamata Banerjee's house. Why? I hope they knew the reason themselves. No, the boy with the smashed eye didn't want to know. I hope the guy who was responsible for hurling that particular ill-fated brick knew so he can live his life justifying his action to himself.

When I was watching Khelein hum jee jaan sey two weeks back, a thought kept echoing in my mind. For 200 years, all the illuminaries of our country tried to awaken the masses against the atrocities of the British. 63 years later, the firebrand hasn't died down. It keeps burning like the eternal fire the Zoroastrians worship. We're so used to screaming and shouting and protesting, we've become blind and we've literally blinded everyone else by hurling bricks at them too. The result? Like kids who sometimes cry for no reason, we cry and fight and burn down places, following diligently in our forefathers' footsteps and hurl bricks. So blind are we, that we can't see the reason. We just fight because the images looked so glamorous to us. A poor chap set fire to himself sometime in the 90's for the world to see how far he can go for a cause. He just died and remains forgotten.