"Maybe you are searching among branches for what only
appears in the roots." – Rumi
The quote summed up everything
that I have been thinking of since a long long time!
These days with any social issue
or a problem, my mind keeps thinking about ‘the beyond what eyes can see or the
ears can hear!’
With the latest increase in the
media reporting of crimes against women particularly in our capital city, it makes
me think of how a crime in our society is looked at.
Society!! Together we form a society
I believe…the people, the environment, the birds and every living being on this
planet earth. And movement of any being, happening of any incidence is a result
of settings, contexts, situations co-created by the world around us…the society
we live in!
I wonder then; why and how can a
crime be looked at in isolation?
Hang him to death…imprison her to
life, when we say this for someone who has committed a crime; do we realize that
with every criminal being hanged, a part of society dies… with every criminal
being imprisoned for life, a part of society’s soul is caged!! For some it’s a fair
call, for they might say it was a rotten part which had to meet its destiny
that way. But I ask, was it a bad part from the birth; was there nothing about
that part which was ever good??
My inherent belief in the
goodness was shaken more than once in past six months and I experienced that
every time I walked into a space with a fear in my heart and a doubt in my
mind, the world outside just mirrored my inner space. And right then I had a
choice, to feed into my fear and nurture my doubt or regain my faith! As I still
sometimes struggle in regaining my faith I ask myself, is faith alone going to
be enough?
More often than once when I hear
an incidence of a crime, my mind goes out to the person who has committed it. What
is it that led him/ her to this situation? What must have been his / her life experiences?
How did I as a society influenced his choices?
How is it that we have reached
here…at a place where the society has more of gadgets than human relations,
human beings interacts more with machines than with other human beings, the
families are becoming more and more nuclear in nature and the tree of values turning
frail day after day. How did we come to a day where people are afraid of
passing a smile to a stranger for who knows he might be the next serial killer
or the rapist we see on television?
How did
we fill our hearts with so much insecurity that the hope and the faith are
struggling to find its way in?
It is this negative spirit or
influence that all of us carry at one time or another that influences one among
us, probably the one with the least social and emotional support, someone who
absorbs all the negativity and then channelize it through a crime. That someone
is a product of society as much as you and I are!!
I am not trying to defend that
someone or by no means undermining the intensity of the crime and the gravity
of the issue but I am attempting to connect the dots because after all we are
all connected in this web of life, whether we like it or not!!
So what is the root cause and how
do we address it? Well at least for the active party to the crime i.e the
criminal, there is a legal system in place, which evolves with the society’s
evolution and tries to find deterrents to the crimes. But where is the system
to find such solutions or deterrents for the passive party to the crime…for
you, me, for the society?? I wonder why such a difference in treating two
different criminals??
I have never been a big fan of
revolutions, although there have been some life changing revolutions that both
our country and the planet earth have experienced before; to me they always
create a society of followers!! And this for me is the root cause of any evil
on this land…that we are not thinking or are not ready to think on our own, for
ourselves, to become aware of our choices, of our beliefs, our influences on
others, to take responsibility of it and to have the courage to act and live
with them every day of our life!
I get this strong intuition that
we are headed that way…to a place where every individual is an aware and a conscious,
awaken soul, a place where every individual is a rebel and a society which is
rebellion! And may be this transformation will look beyond branches, at the
roots with naked eyes and courageous hearts, for a society which is truly ONE!!