[Reader-list] Indian Frogs in a Well

indiaonedge wordpress indiaonedge at gmail.com
Wed Dec 3 12:19:17 IST 2008


Indian Frogs in a Well

The show of single minded unity that for a rare moment gripped this
vast country was only fleeting. The debate forums are back to
rehearsed arguments over their easy binary distinctions, the
politicians are back to passing the buck around while kicking up
enough dust to make it seem like action, the media is flying off on
tangents and has all but lost the plot, and the rest of us got back to
our everyday selves, feeding our children and our hidden pyres of fear
and loathing.

With an incident of this magnitude, widely described as one that would
'change India forever' , what is this great inner force that pits us
terribly against each other, that relentlessly churns this mass of
people around in a sickening cesspool? Why is the story of the Indian
frogs in a well so accurate and so damning?

Like most big problems, the answers are mostly within, hidden deeply
in our selves and not so much a creation of external forces. The
fundamental reason, that causes me to desperately claw out at a fellow
Indian who's views, ideas, attitudes, principles, personality, image,
affiliations may be contradictory, or challenging to me is because I
identify so strongly with that other person. It is like having a part
of my own self that I see acting unlike what I know myself to be. Of
going against my very grain - an errant mental strain that is trying
to be something else - higher, different, opposite - to what i am. And
the frustration I feel at this charade, this complete disregard for my
own 'true' self is something that causes me to lash out with such
violence. It is a violence against myself - of an inability to
reconcile parts of myself that refuse to obey me.

We would not get into impassioned debates and absolutely personal
arguments and attacks of the kind we are so used to, with a person
whom we do not identify with. Our oneness is the biggest cause for our
divisiveness. And time and again, history shows this that there is no
shortage of willing opportunists that would exploit this to their own
benefit. The squabbling meanwhile, continues.

http://indiaonedge.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/indian-frogs-in-a-well/


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