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layout: post
title: "Bulldozed Emotions"
date: 2011-10-24 04:56
comments: true
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You told me to observe and learn from everything that happened around me. That way you said I would grow up to be an intelligent man. But of late it feels I have seen enough. Every new thing is not exactly new. Every event differs from its predecessor in the mode in which it occurs. The underlying sentiments somehow seem to be the same everywhere. I want to share something with you.

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Just next to my hostel, in college, there is a small playground. It’s not actually that large to be called a playground, just a small stretch of underutilized land. At one end of this stretch there are a few residential quarters, allotted to the mess workers. Twenty steps from these quarters is a small Shiv temple. From the bathroom of the floor I live in, one gets a clear view of the temple and the quarters. So every time I went to brush my teeth in the mornings or to take a bath, I would come across their life, their style of living. Basic stuff they did in the morning. Men of the household sipping tea, reading the newspaper while the women used to cut vegetables sitting by, preparing breakfast. Watching them do all this stuff became a routine for me as well. Nothing of that was much of my interest, except for one thing. Every day the old lady of the house would walk with the youngest kid to the Shiv temple and offer her prayers. The kid absolutely oblivious of what his grandmother was chanting would just close his eyes and bowed his head down. This scene reminded me vividly of how I as a kid used to travel to the nearby temple with grandmother. This thought made me happy and somehow it felt as if the day had begun well.

All of this happened before I went home for the holidays.

The house does not stand anymore.

When I came back all that I could see was rubble. At first it reminded me of the destruction I saw during the Bhuj earthquake. But my hostel and all other buildings in the locality still stood tall, so it could not have been an earthquake. So was it a U.S drone attack? You see it’s not my fault entirely. These days any kind of destruction or war instantly reminds one of the U.S. I was eager to find out what actually had happened.

On further inquiry I came to know that the housings had been demolished to create space for a community center, a state of art community center. I personally feel that it’s ironic that homes have to be demolished to create a place for the community. I somehow feel really bad about things that have transpired.

Now let’s talk about another episode. You know pretty well how farmers, villagers, commoners all across the country have been agitating and fighting to protect their land. At some places there is a threat of a SEZ, at other places it may be due to the construction of a nuclear power plant. This particular issue of land acquisition has been dominating the political discussions of late.

To me both the issues seem intricately connected. Maybe I have not grown up to be as intelligent as you expect me to be. Both the cases are examples of somebody trying to trade emotions with money or facility. Let’s say ours is a honest society and every dislocated family is reimbursed fairly. Is it still fair?

How many of these people would actually leave their homes for the same money, in case they were not subjected to the pressures of development. Development is important but it has become costly. We are paying too much of a cost for it. Governments at best can provide a better house but what about the home? How can strong and sturdy concrete structures replace the web of emotions? We as a society are so busy improving the standards of our LIVING that we have ceased paying importance to LIFE itself.

I don’t know the best way to handle this situation; maybe an intelligent man does. I know one thing for sure I would miss seeing the grandmother with the kid.

<strong>From</strong>
Abhishek Pandey
III Year, Meta
