By Robert Clements
Six Billion Missing Spectacles..!
On silver sands on a beachfront a pair of spectacles looked myopically at the sea. They belonged to me. I discovered they were missing only after reaching home. Couldn’t find my spare pair either. I could do everything but read. The morning papers arrived the next day:
“Don’t strain your eyes!” said my wife. I did and smiled, how different was the news.
“Awesome!” I shouted as I read the headlines, “Israel and the Palestinians are going to sit and work things out!”
A little farther I read how North Korea had decided to send their president to South Korea for talks. “Why are they sending Kim to South Korea?” I pondered aloud.
“Maybe to sit with his counterpart and have talks!” said the wife.
“And so it is!” I cried, “Kim is being sent to have talks with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol to work out issues and get things sorted out! This is fantastic!”
I held the newspaper closer to my eyes and eyeballs nearly fell out in sheer astonishment, “China is willing to talk to Taiwan!” I shouted, “They’re willing to have peace talks with Taiwan and discuss the issue threadbare. This will herald peace in the region!” I shouted, waving the newspaper and jumping around the room.
“You better be careful, you’re not wearing your spectacles!” said my wife, “I don’t need broken limbs and a blind husband!”
“Who needs glasses!” I shouted jubilantly, “Peace is round the corner!”
I switched on the television, and watched the prime minister speaking about the constitution of the country, “He says it’s the best constitution in the world, and there’s no need to change a single word.”
“He said that?” asked the wife.
“Yes,” I said, “Even without my glasses I can see his lips saying those words! And he looks sincere without my glasses!”
I walked over to the window and looked out, “Hey,” I cried, “Look at Mr Hussein walking along with Mr Talwar! I wonder where they’re going?”
“Maybe to the friendship club!” said my wife with a yawn, “are you sure you’re seeing right?”
“Never better!” I shouted, “The world is changing!”
The doorbell rang, “Sir,” said a man smiling at the door, “we found these glasses at the beach!”
“Thank you!” I said and put them on, and quickly looked at the newspaper, “Putin bombs Ukraine!”
I ran to the TV, the newscaster had tears as she showed bodies piling up in Palestine and one of the bodies of an Israeli who was kidnapped. I stared at the newspaper again, “Bulldozers raze shops in Mumbai!” read the headlines.I threw the glasses on the floor, then picked them up wearily. “Why didn’t you leave my glasses where you found them?” I cried as reality hit me hard! And then read the news about the bulldozers: A procession by a majority community into a minority neighbourhood, stone pelting by foolish residents, and the next day bulldozer retaliation by authorities, demolishing shops on the same street with the excuse of encroachments, spoiled the otherwise peaceful consecration of the Ram Mandir.
Tit for tat, right? But when the tit is done by an eighty percent majority, it could have been done in a wiser way.
The ‘bulldozer retaliation technique’ did not start in Uttar Pradesh but started in Israel, where the Israelis decided to teach the Palestinians a lesson; every time there was an attack by a Palestinian whether a suicide bombing or firing, bulldozers tore into the Palestinian neighbourhood and tore down buildings.
The Israelis were happy, and only now realise the war they are fighting is against those who resented such bullying, and who are now involving the whole world in their battle.
Yesterday’s bulldozers, today’s missiles, kidnappings, war and death!
Such retaliation techniques send out a wrong message.
From childhood I have been fascinated by history books revealing the story of King Ram of Ayodhya, but what I loved most was the kind of ruler he was, an archetype of the Maryada Purushottam, the perfect follower of rules, honour and traditions. Much of India’s fascination for him and that of the world, stems from their faith in him as the ideal ruler. What does that mean? Ram represents the kind of ruler who puts his people and his nation above everything else.
Which is why, we as a nation, from the day we installed a temple to Ram, need to show the world what it means.
The world, war-torn and weary, is watching us. And if we want to make Ayodhya the capital of what Ram embodied, we need to start practising it right away. Bulldozer retaliation techniques, sloganeering to incite, and other harmful methods, though exciting and uplifting for the majority community, doesn’t serve the Ram Rajya purpose.
Modi’s speech, during the inauguration of the Mandir was tempered well, and came close to what Ram brought about as a ruler. Not our beliefs in Hinduism, nor Christianity, nor Mohammedanism, Sikhism or any ‘ism’ should stand in the way of our ‘desh sarvopari’ or the nation above all else. That should be our slogan. That is what a Ram Rajya is all about, which will lift our country into what Ram created and is revered forever for doing so.
This message is not just for the authorities in Mira- Bhayandar, a suburb of Mumbai who used bulldozers to teach a lesson, but for all of us who belong to this beautiful land, whatever religion we follow, that we need to stop giving a wrong message, because a war-torn, weary world is searching for the right one!
Wearily I turn to my nation and say, “Take off these glasses that you are wearing! Spectacles that have made you blind as you don’t notice atrocities around us, and all over the world. Throw those glasses away, and suddenly we will see…South Korea and North Korea talking, Putin going home to Russia, and the law being used and not bulldozers.
I dreamt that on a beach somewhere in the world, six billion spectacles lay lost and the world got back its sight and sanity..!
The Author conducts an Online Writers and Speakers Course. For more details send a thumbs-up to him on WhatsApp 9892572883.