Just a couple of months ago, the father of the martyred NSG commando Sandeep Unnikrishnan threw the Kerala CM out of his house.
Now comes the news that the widow of the hyperkinetic crocodile hunter Steve Irwin has refused a dubious honour, that was gratuitously piled on her by a patronising Kerala Government.
Even as we are going nuts about Rehman and Reshul winning the Oscars, do we remember the lone Param Vir Chakra awardee of J&K Captain Bana Singh saying on national television that he was ashamed to be an Indian?
What about the retd Lieutenant General who had to get his name in the paper before he got his ration card?
Whether its the Commies or the BJP, the "most literate state" or the most sensitive state,why is it that we shower our "love" on some and hound and humiliate others and deny them their basic dues?
And why don't we ever learn ? Why are we like this only ?
There is an answer.
And the answer is not just about the Indian condition,the Male condition or the Black condition, but about the human condition.
Its about the psychology,dear one.
Its about how we mistake "various forms of narcissistic neuroses and sado-masochistic tendencies as proof of "true love."
Its about how we have failed to understand that "love, (and justice and democracy), is an "interpersonal creative capacity rather than an emotion."
It is the rare teacher, the rare lawyer or judge or politician who does, or is afforded the space to do love or justice or to learn and exercise that learning.
Usually, they are wasting their lives in domination/submission games or are painfully,miserably out of touch and dangerous. Borderline psychotic.
But it is that rare village that gets together to raise the child, that will have succeeded.
As somebody who believed that the Reverend Jesse Jackson, was just the medicine that America needed, I am, after Obama's sweeping changes speech, becoming just a little hopeful about the USA.
And what about the adolescent Indian mind that "loves" George Bush - and we are all so many George Bushes aren't we? Most of us, judges, lawyers, teachers,IITians, editors, students, journalists, businessman,policeman, politician or clerk - we all find Parliament absurd, our laws irrelevant, our freedom struggle just so much embarrassing dust on the furniture ?
Just who are we people?
We take away the cook and driver from Verghese Kurian simultaneous with our neighbours releasing Dr Strangelove from jail.
The leading English television channel has to package the Mumbai massacre as "India's 9/11"
We are in the first decade of a new century. And probably the only difference is, this one feels a whole lot hotter.
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