where is the love?

What’s wrong with the world, mama
People livin’ like they ain’t got no mamas
I think the whole world addicted to the drama
Only attracted to things that’ll bring you trauma
Overseas, we try to stop terrorism
But we still got terrorists here livin’
In Bombay, the big P(oliticians)
The Sena and The MNS and the BJP
But if you only have love for your own race
Then you only leave space to discriminate
And to discriminate only generates hate
And when you hate then you’re bound to get irate,
Madness is what you demonstrate
And that’s exactly how anger works and operates
Man, you gotta have love just to set it straight
Take control of your mind and meditate
Let your soul gravitate to the love

People killin’, people dyin’
Children hurt and you hear them cryin’
Can you practice what you preach
And would you turn the other cheek

Father, Father, Father help us
Send some guidance from above
‘Cause people got me, got me questionin’
Where is the love

Well I guess this song by Black Eyed Peas says it all. A stark reality of the grim situation currently prevailing in Bombay.

 All I can pray is “Forgive them O Lord, for they know not what they do”. Amen. 

not so navnirman after all

The recent spate of incidents have left all us Bombayites red-faced. To think that we prided on us being a city that truly embodies the basic pillars of our constitution – democracy and secularism, these attacks are a like a slap on our face. What’s worse is that this hooliganism has been prepetrated by so called ’sons of the soil’ in aid of the so called ‘marathi manoos’. But what they are forgetting is that anyone who stays in Maharashtra and Bombay and puts in their sweat and blood in the city is a marathi manoos. I am a South Indian born and brought up in Bombay and I take great pride in being a Maharashtrian so much so that when I am complimented on being able to speak marathi I take that as an offence. In fact I feel out of place in my native place. I dread to think of a day when I will be attacked for being an ‘outsider’. When the laws of this country allow the ‘bonafide citizens’ to stay and make a living anywhere they choose to, who are these men in white to label anyone as outsiders. One Sena wing justifies attacks on women blaming their sartorial sense, the other Sena wing chooses to attack people wishing to make a living branding them as outsiders. I think MNS has forgotten the contributions of Hemant Kumar, Mohd Rafi, Mahendra Kapoor and many other Bollywood personalities to Marathi cinema. Also not forgetting that it is the marathi mulgi Lata Mangeshkar who is called the ‘Nightingale of India’.  As a proud citizen of this state, I would like answers to the following:

1. What has been done for the farmers of Vidarbha who have been committing suicides thus leaving their families at God’s mercy?
2. Year after year when the rains flood my beloved city, what has BMC (stronghold of Sena) done?
3. Every attack between political rivals leaves the common man poorer and scarred be it burning trains and buses or destroying taxis, ricks and even private vehicles. Who is going to pay for? Am I paying taxes so you can continue your acts?
4. Open spaces and trees are soon becoming a thing of the past. What is being done to protect environment and give children a chance to live their childhood in natural beauty? 
5. People in rural areas of Marathwada and other places have no access to basic amenities like clean drinking water, two-square meals a day, clothes to cover their bare bodies and roof above their heads. What has been done for them?
6. Maharashtra has a high rate of malnutrition. Will giving mid-day meal to children suffice?  

Mr. Raj Thackeray, if you are listening, please do something about the real issues first. Free my Maharashtra from the ailments plaguing it. Act not as a Thackeray nor as an MNS founder nor as Uddhav’s rival, but as a true son of the soil. Don’t ask what ‘outsiders’ have done for Maharashtra…ask what you have done for it.