Optimism and Pessimism

I had two accidents today. One was truly not any body's fault. An electronic component caught fire. The other was completely my fault - I left milk on the stove and absentmindedly went off to the terrace. I watered plants and brought in all the clothes that had been drying there only to find the vessel on the stove smoking and the house filling with a horrible stink.

What had kept me preoccupied was, a piece of news I heard that people belonging to a particular religion were creating havoc in Agra. Thousands of tourists come to Agra to see the Taj Mahal everyday. Their lives are still in danger as mobs killed one person and injured a few policemen. The reason - that four people who had been taking part in a religious procession had been killed by a speeding lorry.

Now anyone who lives in this part of the world would know that hit-and-run accidents happen all the time. We have famous actors, sons of multi-millionaires and popular politicians involved in these accidents. Drunken driving is a way of life for the notorious lorry drivers here and accidents on the highway happen every hour, in fact.

Accidents happen to people all the time. Time, location and especially the religious beliefs of people do not play a role in deciding who is hurt when and where and how. I still do not believe that people can actually go out and vent their frustration on other innocent people. I completely understand the grief that they must be experiencing for the dead loved ones. But riots for what? Against whom? Why are they doing this?

While people celebrate 60 years of Independence and economic growth, we remain so backward in our ways of thinking, in expression of emotion. We want to tell women what to wear and what not to and where to go and where not. We ill-treat children. We exhibit our worst behaviour to anyone who seems inferior to us. And worse, we go and take out our anger on people in these violent ways. How can the lives lost be got back or can it ever be avenged?

People have told me that I am very pessimistic about everything. I disagree. I am actually optimistic to the extent of being impractical. I see all these things happening everyday and still I go back to believing that the world can be changed and made better... Even though I hear of these dreadful things...