Life, or something close to it.

"Our people are good people; our people are kind people. Pray God some day kind people won't be all poor. Pray some day a kid can eat." - John Steinbeck (The Grapes Of Wrath)
It was unusually cool for a June evening in Dhaka. An indication perhaps of the approaching monsoon but most definitely a welcome respite from the cruelty of the sun and the heartlessness of the humidity, that Dhaka is cursed with. A breeze, cool and calm, gently blew and whispered a reminder of how wonderful Dhaka can be. But Suman wasn’t listening. His biggest problems with his city wasn’t the heat or the humidity (though it wouldn’t be bad if Dhaka was this way always), and a breeze, no matter how wonderful or amazing it was, wouldn’t even come close to making Suman forgive this merciless land he was unfortunately born in. Though, there were times when his anger wasn’t just because he was born in a unforgiving land but because he was born at all.
She is cruel. She is unforgiving. She is a city of segregation. A city of chasms. A city where the rich are ridiculously prosperous and the poor staggeringly abject. She is unjust. And for all her cruelty, her deceptions, her betrayals, and her discriminations she offers a breeze as an apology? No, that will not do. Suman, would never forgive her. He was the forgotten son. He hated her. And as he walked, in this cool calming breeze, he looked at the lights the lit up the night. Not stars but wedding decorations, fluorescent declarations of the rich peoples’ opulence. Thousands after thousands spent on useless light bulbs while people like him struggled to survive on hundreds and tens. A lot more than what they need for some, a lot less than what they need for many. She is diabolical, this little speck of a city. Heartless and spiteful. She doesn’t deserve forgiveness. But perhaps she doesn’t even care.
Suman needed his walk. This was his respite from the arguments that inevitably happened every night. The same story every night, the same reason every night. Money. Money for food, for clothes, for electricity. Money for survival. Everything depended on money now. Happiness, love, life… everything. And he didn’t have enough. That was why it was strange that when he found a thousand taka note lying in the streets he didn’t just pick it up and walk away, but instead looked ahead at the rich bastard who’d dropped it. He didn’t walk up and give to him right away. What good would that have done? He would’ve taken it, uttered a simple thank you and then spent it on something extravagant, something useless. No, Suman waited. He waited to let the whirlwind of thoughts in his head to settle down.
A thousand taka was a lot of money to him. It was disposable income to the rich man. What would he do with it? Spend it on a single meal in some high priced restaurant; buy himself something he didn’t really need, lose it in a game of cards? No he didn’t need it but Suman did. He could do a lot with that single piece of paper. A hungry child waited at home. A sick wife, an old mother. He needed it bad. But it wasn’t his. Would it be right to just take away someone else’s money and keep it as his own? Ah, conscience. When Dhaka was taking away his fortune, his happiness, his everything couldn’t she have taken away this unwanted ‘quality’ that plagued his heart. If only he didn’t have to hear the nagging voice that told him to do the right thing. But what was the right thing? Was it right to let his family starve just so that he could have the satisfaction of being an honest poor man? Was it not right that he would willingly carry the burden of knowledge of his misdeeds, that he would forget the boundaries of his ethics and risk being scarred forever just to see his family happy for a few days? Suman knew what was right. The conventional teachings that have been drilled into our souls from the day we were born are very hard to ignore. All of this was just an attempt to deceive himself.
So, if he were to return the thousand bucks and feel good on having done the right thing, but with full knowledge that his wife and kid in home are miserable didn’t that also make him selfish? Conscience didn’t care. There were no grey areas for conscience, everything was black and white. You either do right or you do wrong. It never was and never would be of any help.
He wondered if the problem lay in the magnitude of the crime. Because every crime in the world is judged in magnitude. Steal ten bucks, nobody cares, steal a million its unforgivable. It all depends on how it affects the victim. Kill a man, you’re a murderer, kill a bad man you’re a hero, kill a monster you’re a God. Nobody cares that fundamentally these are all murders. Every crime has a criteria, an unspoken guideline on which one could judge if it was right or wrong. A crime wasn’t automatically immoral, its immorality awaited analysis. Therefore had it been little, he wouldn’t have thought twice about what to do with it. He would have given or he would’ve kept it, either way it wouldn’t have bothered him much. Had it been a lot more, he would have immediately walked up and handed it over. Yes, that’s what he would have done. That is exactly what he would have done. But a thousand taka note lay right in the middle of the two. It wasn’t small enough that it would do nothing to change his fortune and it wasn’t great enough that it would make the rich man notice twice.
He wondered if his indecisiveness was religious, that whether this was a test from God. If God wanted to see whether his son would follow what he had always been taught through his many messengers on earth. Or, if this was finally God’s way of saying that he hadn’t forgotten him. That even if he was poor and insignificant in everybody else’s eyes, God remembered him and that God loved him. And this thousand taka note was just a small gesture to help ease his sorrows. Even Suman didn’t believe that though he desperately wanted to. It would’ve made everything easier. But God wasn’t merciful and God wasn’t helpful when you needed him. He wouldn’t suddenly send a reminder of his love. He had had plenty of opportunities in the past to do something. He hadn’t. He’d refused every single time. When his daughter was dying of pneumonia, when his child had to go hungry for three days, when his wife had to wear the same dress for seven months, he’d kept quiet and put forward every difficult scenario as a test. God wasn’t kind. If this turn of events was God’s doing, it was definitely a test. And the only way to pass was to walk to the rich man and hand the money over. Suman, wondered if God ever tested the rich men. Why were they so fortuitous, why didn’t God need to see if they were fulfilling his orders? It couldn’t be that all the rich men were impeccable in their religious duties. So why was it they received all the happiness in the world. Why was it that they kept getting richer? Why was it that they dropped thousand taka notes on the streets and not even notice it? Why wasn’t there the just world reflecting the image of our just God? Why God? Why?
The thoughts wouldn’t stop. He needed a cigarette. He started walking. A small shop lay ahead and standing beside the shop was the rich man. He didn’t know what he was about to do. His conscience was screaming out loud for him to do the right thing. He bought a cigarette turned towards the rich man and asked him for a light. With the cigarette tightly held in his right hand and his left hand in his pocket playing with the thousand taka note he walked off into the cool Dhaka night. The poor can’t afford to have a conscience.

The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty, and all forms of human life. – John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Along the boisterous streets of central Dhaka, on a footpath vexed with potholes, every evening at five-five thirty, Shakib, a twenty six year old student of Dhaka University opens his small tea shop. It’s more of a tea stall than a shop, just the same as hundreds of others littered in every corner of this metropolitan. His working hours stretch till nine, sometimes ten in the night. He then heads home, freshens up and begins his studies. He studies for three hours every night, just the three hours even if an important exam awaits the next morning. He’s not lazy, he just can’t afford any more time for academic excursions. The next day he attends his classes at midday and after his school day ends, his workday begins. And the same story repeats the next day and the day after that and the day after that, a never ending cycle of a life born in the lap of poverty. There is no time for a luxurious night out. There is no time for a relaxing evening at home. There’s no New Year’s Eve celebration. There is no time even for a disease. He can’t afford to get sick, not under these harsh times. He is shunned by more than half of his class mates because he is a second class citizen not worthy of friendship. He looks upon his ‘friends’ not with envy but with amazement that two people who study in the same University, who look the same, follow the same God, can have such contrasting realities. While others come to school in their fuel consuming, air conditioned, loud motor vehicles, he has to squabble every day over two rupees with an equally poor rickshaw puller. He future plans include complete abandonment of education and venture into foreign lands to find any semblance of a life worth fighting for, a life worth living. How much youth have our nations lost because the people high above do not care about the people down below? We are either rich or poor first and only then, after said division, we are human beings together.
“Had I know this would be my life, I would have refused to be born.” he says.
“That is a horrible thing to say. Your life is just as important as the lives of your rich class mates. In fact they are exploiting the financial prowess of their fathers while you are working for your life. If looked upon with an objective eye, you are a better man than any of them.” I say.
He smiles. The world doesn’t understand such philosophy. The world doesn’t care about who the better person is. It’s easy to say such things. A working man has to account for every paisa spent, he has to keep track of every rupee increase in the price of rice, he has to think and rethink about every taka he wastes on a cigarette, he has to look upon every tear in his clothes as a major catastrophe, every utensil broken is a calamity. He puts me to shame. The world doesn’t care about justice. Our society, our civilization is a sham. A society is supposed to care for its members, a brotherhood is supposed to ensure equality. Where can Shakib find fairness in any aspect of his life? This collection of unevenly blessed individuals is a deviously set up organization to help the rich get richer while the poor, well who cares about the poor? Some people risk their survival, venture into unknown lands for years on end without any news from home, while others enjoy video calls on their new 3G cellular phones. It’s shameful to hide under the refuge of the phrase that the world has been made this way, that life is unfair. If the world is this way, then it is us who made it so. If life’s unfair it is because we do nothing to ensure justice. How can we be proud of this society which makes young individuals choose between education and survival? Shouldn’t our warm luxurious jackets feel unbearably heavy when we see a fellow man shivering while he fights the cruel winter wind? Shouldn’t our extravagant meals become nauseating when we see an old lady emaciated and begging for a few bucks to buy a basic meal? Equality, brotherhood, justice have become words without consequence. What we are is prejudiced, greedy, exploitive. Animals base their lives on survival of the fittest. How are we any different? Our civilization is based on the strength of money. And in this society Shakib is undeservingly unfortunate to have been born in a poor household. What future does he have to look forward to? Where can he look for progress? His environment has rendered him powerless to get the academic qualification the big people of the world demand. He is condemned to follow what our society decides he should. He’s just an insignificant member in a crowd of uncountable unfortunates.
And after all this injustice, the one thing he feels he can be proud of, he says, is that he is a Bangladeshi.

It may seem preposterous and presumptuous to attempt to write about a diverse a city as Kolkata having spent less than a month with her. I was no more than a guest, the kind she receives in hundreds and thousands every day, maybe a little more than a tourist. But she holds in her arms, friends from my memorable past. Friends who helped me discover a small part of this wonderful city. And she, even in that very small portion, holds enough charm to captivate me and make me write this shameful love letter, a confession my hopeless adoration.
She is not perfect, not by a long way. It’s hotter in mid-October than how hot it is in mid-July back home. The city is crowded in the morning. The city is crowded in the afternoon. The city is crowded in the night. The wrath of the traffic Gods can extend a twenty minute long journey by infinity. She is beset by all the ailments a modern city has to endure, an off-shoot of urbanization. But the way she perseveres through, finding a balance between confusion that is prevalent and the order that is necessary is admirable. She thrives in this chaotic harmony.
She is a picture of diversity, a symbol of variety. She is an amalgam of every nuance of human emotion. She is not without fault, she is not without virtues. She is a rainbow, painted in the colors of the lives of her children. Her children who each in their way offer a short musical verse, which when heard unaccompanied seems rather misplaced, but when put together (sometimes asynchronously) the song of passion that ensues renders Kolkata vibrant and she comes alive. She is a symphony. She is a Goddess.
And when my friend says, that this picture that I have fooled myself into believing is a sham, that I haven’t seen how horrible she can really be, he is right. Someday, I would like to meet her again and suffer the cruelty of her wrath, if that’s what it takes to know her better. But now, when I think of her it’s with nothing but fondness. The times I spent with her were rapturous. The memories I have are all filled with joy and radiance. And when I reminisce, it’s of days that overflowed with an imperfect bliss. That is, until I remember the morning I had to leave her. That day all I felt was the bitter pain of departure, the heartbreak of a good-bye. And as I bid her a plaintive farewell, I couldn’t help but resent all of those who would continue to receive her love tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that, while I had to hopelessly accept that this goodbye meant the end to our affair. A goodbye I had hoped, wished, willed and even almost prayed would stay away. But there were none to listen. An abrupt goodbye that was unfair, unjust and unkind. A goodbye that was unavoidable.

A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless, to resist. -Stewart Alsop

The open door offered Amrit an invitation he couldn’t refuse. But as soon as he had seen what was inside his parents’ bedroom he wished he hadn’t. The room was dark, the curtains were drawn, his mother was sitting on an unmade bed and his father was talking on the phone. It was untidy, it was unkempt, it was not the way it should be. By this time in the day, the curtains were supposed to be drawn, the bed was supposed to be made, his mother was supposed to be in the kitchen preparing break-fast, his father was supposed to be getting ready to put on a nice suit. But nothing was like the way it was ever since that night two weeks ago when the blazing lights of the ambulance of lit up the whole neighborhood and took his grandmother away. Since then everything had changed. The cheer that seemed infectious once, had almost completely disappeared. Now it was dull, the air seemed leaden with sorrow, the musty rooms were desolate and his home which was once alive with colours now seemed to be a house painted in black and white. Even his misdemeanors seemed unimportant. The previous night he had stayed up almost an hour past his bed time. An act which would have provoked a very harsh rebuke a few weeks back, now only managed a disgruntled murmur of ‘shouldn’t you be in bed by now?’. His father never seemed to take any interest in any of the games they played together. Everything was different and everything was worse. He couldn’t understand why it was so? His every question was was brushed aside with an involuntary smile. He felt alone. He wished things would go back to the way they were, even if it meant getting a scolding now and then. He couldn’t help blaming his grandmother for all that had happened.
His father was talking to his mother about taking him to see grandma. His mother was not sure if that was a good idea. They were on the verge of an argument when his mother noticed him in the door. She told him to come in.
‘Would you like to go visit grandma?’ she asked.
He wasn’t sure what the right answer was. Truth was he didn’t really miss her. She didn’t form a big part of his life. She used to sit all day in the chair in the garden looking at some flowers and when she did talk it was always a sermon about studies and respect. It was boring. He kept hearing his friends talk about their grandmothers with great fondness. But all she did was take up his play time with her lectures on God and religion. He wantd to say no but he felt he didn’t really have a choice, he knew both of them were expecting him to say yes. So, he nodded.
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The hospital had an awful smell. Everyone seemed to be in a rush to get somewhere. There were people crying, people laughing, people bleeding, people bandaged, doctors walking with an entourage of students, doctors alone talking to a patient, nurses attending to a disgruntled guardian, nurses huddled in a corner occupied in a conversation, workers sweeping, workers wiping the floor. It was chaotic and yet everyone seemed to know their role in the chaos. There were no clashes, no obstructions and everything somehow progressed smoothly. His grandmother was in big room with lots of beds. None of the beds were occupied except hers. There was big board that said ‘Nephrology Ward’ on the door.
When he was brought in he was unsure of what to expect. The last time he had seen his grandmother she was stout, her eyes were hidden beneath her big glasses and she was ready to shout at anyone who disturbed her whole day of idly sitting and doing nothing. She was lazy but strong. Now she seemed helpless, weak and tired. She lay in her bed, taking deep breaths from a mask attached to a tube supplied by a big black cylinder. She looked fragile and sick. Very sick. Even just to open her eyes and gesture him to come closer seemed extremely difficult.
Amrit was afraid. He didn’t want to go near. But his father pushed him towards the bed and told him to greet grandma. He went by her side and kept quite. He didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t even sure if she could talk through the mask in between her deep breaths. She tried.
‘Amrit…… how are you doing son?........ how is school?....’
It was horrible. He didn’t want to be here. Why wasn’t someone doing anything about this? There was a doctor on the far corner of the room, surrounded by students. He was pointing towards his grandma and saying something. The students were paying close attention but he couldn’t detect a trace of sympathy in any of their faces. And suddenly all of them broke into laughter. What could possibly be funny? His mother completely unaware of this improper outburst broke into tears. His father held her and started consoling her. Amrit couldn’t quite understand what was going on. Grandma started breathing more heavily. He wished he’d never come.
‘Um, I’m fine grandma. School is going well. How are you?’
‘…I’m fine… just a little…sick. The doctors …… here say…’ and then she couldn’t speak any more. Her breaths became deeper and louder. The doctor teaching the callous students rushed towards us and asked a nurse to make us step out. Grandma’s breath kept breathing louder. It seemed to Amrit he couldn’t hear anything except those deep sounds of pain and suffering. He wished he could do something to help her. Just like she had done a few months back.
He had broken his mother’s vase. The whole day he had waited in his room waiting his for his mother to call him so she could shout at him for being so careless. But the call never came. He went to the living room and overheard his grandmother telling his mother she had broken the vase by accident. He wasn’t sure why she had done it. He hadn’t even thanked her for it. But now seeing her in so much pain, made him wish he could do something. He wanted to help her. To do something, anything, except all he could was sit in this suffocating hallway waiting for what he did not know. He felt helpless. He felt powerless. The sound of grandma’s deep breath kept ringing his ears. The same sound over and over again mocking him, challenging him to do something alleviate the pain, reminding him there was nothing he could do to help the helpless old woman and making him realize that she will suffer more and more with every passing day. It was suffocating, the small hallway, the unholy sounds, his mother’s tears, the doctors’ white coats, the nurses’ white dress, the pungent smell of medicine, the sterile environment. It was all a bit too much. He asked his parents if they could go home.
He cried at the funeral. He thanked her and bid her good bye.

“My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight” – Robert Frost

Ah, childhood. The time when studies was divisible between class work and homework and was just a irksome hindrance to play time, when math was merely 7 * 5 = 35 without brackets and without signs that I am unable to find on the keyboard, when all plants had were roots, stems, leaves and flowers and what went on within these things were their business alone, when fairy tales hadn’t lost their charm and when the darkness demanded unexplained fear. When the panorama of your future was painted with every color of the rainbow and the possibilities of what you may become was countless. When being a driver, lost in the heavenly orbit of the steering wheel was just as good as a becoming a disease fighting doctor. When ignorance truly was bliss but we were too ignorant to realize what bliss meant. And as the earth kept revolving around the sun, round and round again, slowly we shed our innocence, embraced knowledge, lost our ignorance and grew few hints of cynicism. Cynicism perhaps, is the unwanted but unavoidable offshoot of growth. Innocence and knowledge never agree on their philosophies, innocence lives within its protective shell of unanalyzed and unquestioned delight, knowledge reveals a face of the world smothered with shades of grey, shows every entity inevitably has a good side and a bad side. Perhaps the one who achieves absolute knowledge will either be a self-sacrificing philanthropist or a miserable and lonesome misanthrope.
But then we were neither, our journey though a decade or so old, was still fresh. Changes were a rife though. Science somehow was divided into three different versions of personal nightmares. Plants started having a food factory in their leaves, numbers started having small annoying dots in between them, orbits became elliptical and not oval, history changed from ‘once upon a time’ to 6th December 1988 and ‘thou’ was no longer a misspelled word. The thickness of our books, which kept on increasing became ‘inversely proportional’ to our marks. The rain lost its grandeur and even became a nuisance. The adults couldn’t decide on our maturity level, we were either too young to be performing such profound deeds or too old to be doing such childish misdemeanors. And we found out we could no longer waste our future lives on useless jobs that included driving someone else’s car while they enjoyed the luxurious cushions of the back seat. No, now we wanted to buy cars in the future, not be employed to drive them. We lost our first few options of what we would become. This loss however would be nothing compared to what growth would do to us next.
Our education system decided to make us choose between murdering our scientific ambitions or our artistic inclinations or our commercial brilliance. They asked “Do you want to become a scientist, a businessman or an artist?”, and we had to answer. The possibility of becoming a great businessman cum painter cum engineer no longer existed. We had to decide. The system demanded sacrifices and we were obliged to offer our dreams. We chose. If were a student of arts we were unaware of what happened in the business section of education. Our knowledge started taking a single minded course. We became aware of the way an acid reacts with a base to produce salt but about how gracefully color flows off a brush and onto a canvas we knew nothing. Our window of options of future lifestyles diminished to a few choices. And then we were divided even further.
Now we had to choose again. And we lost another arm of possibilities. If we had decided on science, we had to choose between a pursuit of physics or biology or chemistry, or perhaps a medical degree or a degree in engineering. Every choice we made the future grew smaller. We plunged deeper and deeper chasing a singular purpose and lost so many other offers life had once presented. We kept losing the colors of variety from our lives. But what could we have done? This was the primary criteria of growth. Life always offers choices; it is either this or that and every time we chose ‘this’ we lost ‘that’. Why is it that growth requires such sacrifices? When the world has so much to offer, why is it necessary that we confine ourselves to a singular path? Of course there are a few who pursue all that their heart desires and defy what the world demands, but we are normal people. We follow. We choose and we devote ourselves to our choices.
Up till now we’ve been asked to make a lot of choices and we’ve done all that was required. Now when we look back and take a moment review our choices and ask ourselves, were they correct? What would our answers be? Maybe they were right, maybe they weren’t. A few among us brave/stupid enough may even decide to go back and start all over again, which is commendable/condemnable. For the rest of us, we hope that even if it may not appear now, perhaps in the future we’ll come to the conclusion that life was lived right, that all those choices that we made were justified, all those options we left behind were excusable and the life we are living is the life we always wanted to live. The future still awaits with fresh options, demanding more sacrifices. And we will offer those sacrifices, we have to, it’s the price we must all pay to be called a ‘grown up’. Life, we realize, is a journey from “you can become whatever you want to be” to choosing a single paying job to sustain our way of existence. And when asked why it is this way, an infuriating answer awaits: This is the way of the world. And since we are a part of this accepted society, we must do as it says.
A bitter regret does sting my heart, I do not wish to go back and change my choices, I have made peace with my decisions, I just wish I had the knowledge I have now when I was making my choice between becoming a driver or a doctor.

If your gonna screw up, do it while you're young. Older you get, the harder it is to bounce back.”- Winston Groom

‘A revolution is an idea which has found its bayonets’ -Napoleon Bonaparte.


How far astray can someone wander before he is deemed unsalvageable?
There is supposed to be a fire in our soul that rages with great fury whenever a situation calls for a revolution, an uneasy feeling that gets stronger and keeps getting stronger till we have found the courage to stand up for what we believe in. But somehow I am unable to find anything in mine, there are no enraged flames, no stirring of soul. I have become a docile pet to society, my soul has become obedient and calm. I can see that a change is needed and yet somehow I am able to dig out excuses to not be a part of that change. I can complain, that I do very well, but how is it that my heart is not furious, that my blood doesn’t boil when I see what I see around me? All I can muster is a sense of disappointment and a few words of pity. And yet the books I read want to help me free my mind and songs I hear want to help me strengthen my heart. How wrong is it that I do not follow what I know is right? Were it not for acceptable hypocrisy, perhaps I wouldn’t even read or listen, because if I am to be honest I know I am doing great injustice to those who write what needs to be written. A writer wants his ideas to be understood and acted upon. What good is a life changing book if you don’t change your life after reading it? What good is a revolutionary song if it doesn’t strengthen your rebellious intentions after you hear it? Is it fair to the writer, that I appreciate what he writes and yet do nothing what he says?
Che Guevara was a great man, to me the greatest. His thoughts were profound and his actions courageous. What he wished I wish the same. What his thoughts were, so are mine. But what he did I never have. I have wishes and thoughts but no actions. And actions are the most important. If I do not act on what I’ve read am I more than a punk who thinks his duty is done if he puts on a Che Guevara t-shirt or gets a Che Guevara tattoo? That was not what he wanted. He wanted to inspire revolutions, not marks of the decadence of our materialistic civilization.
When he said, “I don't care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting.” he understood that he was no more than a soldier and the revolution was bigger than him. It should not end with his death. If such a time should come in my life will I be able to give up my life for a higher cause. Will my selfish self even let me believe that there is such a cause? Will I be able to pick up a pen to write when it is imperative that I write? Will I be able to pick up a gun when it is imperative that I kill? Right now as I sit in my cushioned chair, with a warm cup of coffee to my left and a cellular phone to my right, I would have to say no. I will not. I am a product of my society, my civilization. I worry not about the blisters that I will get on my foot if I walk too much. Such savage days are behind me. I am now accustomed to the backseat of a four wheel drive. I now worry about the air condition in my new car. The injuries I am afraid of are not a torn muscle or a fractured bone because of a hard day’s work. I am no longer a barbarian toiling under the harsh sun. I am now diseased with asthma and numerous other allergies, the allergens to which I helped create and branded it a side effect of development. What is it that I’m becoming? A slave to technology, a placid example of a good citizen, a follower of everything that I am supposed to follow? I know that a burning desire to do what must be done isn’t enough. One can’t dive in headfirst into an enterprise on the whims of a wronged soul. But to begin such an action that will lead to profound reformations there has to be that immense want to say “Something needs to be done and it is I who will do it.”
It is bad to be a conformist. To accept everything without asking a question, to compromise whenever faced with adversity, to accept weakness, to be an indifferent passenger waiting for someone else to create the changes and ready to accept such changes even before they are a faction of reality, to not have opinions and ideas, to easily accept self-imprisonment. But what is worse is to be a renegade in soul but a conformist in body. To understand what must be done and yet not do anything about it, to vehemently oppose every wrong policy in our hearts and yet obey all they tell us with insignificant murmurs of dissatisfaction, to know what is wrong and yet do nothing to right it, to know the taste of freedom and yet accept the prison of slavery and be disgruntled about it and to accept such blasphemies under the excuse that it’s the way everyone else does it. What good is being an educated student only to later become an impotent annoyed citizen?
But what reason can there be for me to be writing all of this? Shouldn’t I be doing what I say everyone must do? The books I have read apparently aren’t enough to raise in me such actions of great revolutions. I still have many books to read, many thoughts to sort out, many lives to understand. And all that I have read and understood till now compel to me write this small article just to realize that these thoughts are circling in my head, that I know what needs to be done, that I cannot plead ignorance anymore. But to you its different. You can use this insignificant little piece of writing anyway you want to. You can mock my hypocrisy, you can just go through it and not give it a second thought, it could be your first step towards becoming the liberator your soul has been waiting for or it could be that final push that sends you over the edge into the immense possibilities of unknown freedom. It can be whatever you want it to be. And I leave it incomplete in a hope that if I have a conclusion that ends in failure, may it not be the same for you. May one of us have a triumphant end that brings back things to the way we know it should’ve always been. May there be an absolute victory. A victory for you and me. A victory for our unborn revolution.
Che said, ‘Hasta la Victoria siempre, (forever onwards until victory).’ May it be so with us.

“I am not a liberator. Liberators don’t exist. The people liberate themselves.” Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara de la Serna.(1928-1967)

A hundred years since the sun went down,
Yet still I wait for the ray of light
That’ll save me from this cold darkness,
A glimmer to help me pass the night.

I walked, I was pushed, cajoled, enticed.
Now I hate where I have come.
I still don’t know where I am going
I wish I didn’t know where I am from.

The black dogs bark and they growl,
They know the smell of a defeated prey.
My body feels weak and my legs tired,
I think I’ll let the black dogs take me away.

Yes let the smoke of my torture rise,
Let the darkness smother me whole,
Let the cold dark night be my truth
And let my misery drown my soul.

For I see my happiness beyond the horizon
And hope is just a shameful lie.
Just a small doubt keeps me breathing,
Maybe living in misery is slightly better than to die.

So I’ll continue to preserve this wasted existence
And from the abhorrent I’ll myself restrain.
Till freedom is returned to my soul
Or till my fragile mind goes insane.

If only I could escape my hatred
From this town filled with soulless ghosts.
But where do I go to leave myself behind?
For it’s the man in the mirror I hate the most.

Now I see a flutter against the fluorescent glow
And my thought makes me question my birth.
Was I born to live this life
Where I have begun to envy a moth?