Wishful thinking

Khaleej Times (LIFE) / 4 January 2013

 

I lost two chunks of my heart in December, as the year drew to an unceremonious close. They were prised out of my chest by a maverick 20-year-old in Connecticut and a group of bestial elements in Delhi.

It wasn’t for the first time that I was feeling the rupture at the centre of my existence. It has happened many times before, and it will happen again whenever evil strikes. But strangely, this time, I didn’t feel the usual numbing pain. There was only a fleeting sense of Déjà vu, which induced an initial feeling of nausea, soon settled into the void created by the lost pieces of heart.

I mutely watched the world up in arms against unhindered use of guns, demanding lasting solutions and an entire sub-continent baying for the blood of half a dozen savage creatures, and feverishly discussing means and methods to stop these acts of evil.

It was a coincidence that I had shared little thoughts of a theological nature with my pupils only the other day. They were small, yet significant dialogues, on the existence of evil as an inexcusable, yet all pervading element, in the world. Even as I explained to them that vice existed as a complimentary to virtue, and it was the way nature chose to find its balance, I was looking within me for answers to more compelling questions about the nature of evil and its resolution.

Stepping aside from the surrounding din, I quietly descended into a space that was beyond the uproar and distress that had built up in the wake of the twin events. I watched from my little log cabin the helplessness and misery of a human race lost in the wilderness of its own insensitivity. For once, I knew that that answers lay not in legislations. No civil code, no matter how severe, can tackle the issue of impulsive wickedness and immorality. Fear of retribution can be a deterrent only to a sane, rational mind. It can produce no effect on an insensitive, dehumanised being that has no ethical bearings. If you or I don’t indulge in an evil act, it is predominantly because of our inner sensibilities. Fear of law is only a supplementary binder. Instances of abject inhumaness are fallouts of the combined absence of this instinct to abstain from offence and restraint by law.

So, who in the end is to blame? And when will we find a solution? Does the buck stop with regime controls, or is it an incurable malaise of a doomed society that has lost sense of what’s good, bad and ugly? It is easy to proclaim that the social fabric is in tatters and it needs mending, but pray, can we put things in order with just platitudes on moral behavior and poor upbringing? It is so simple to speak about the other man’s faults, which we tactlessly separate from our own. To us, it is always the government, the justice system and the society (that excludes us) that are flawed. We hunt for punching bags, as if the onus of working out solutions lay outside of us - he, she, they…

Aggression is an inherent quality that hibernates when the soul is in place, and takes evil forms when it goes astray. It is this missing soul that we need to recover to bring succor to a battered humanity. Now, more than ever, we need apostles who can help mankind tap its innate goodness.  We need a genuine miracle that will restore human conscience, and plant our race in a realm of godliness. We need salvation from our own spiteful vein.

As grief and anger coagulated across the US and India over the gruesome incidents, it was for this miracle that I prayed – silently and ardently. It was an inward journey towards finding lasting hope, peace and faith.