8th of May

     Seventy years ago this day, among millions of dead and dying, as iron crosses glimmered on adolescents’ chests, with piles of those who had been living corpses being discovered, with thousands still fighting for their divine Emperor, with two cities oblivious to what is going to hit them in three months’ time, with half a continent being placed on the dinner platter of communism, peace was declared.

     In the beginning of the twentieth century, after decades of unrest, a wrong turn of the car plunged Europe into a ‘necessary war’ pulling most of the known world into it. Peace was declared at the end of it too. Peace in the midst of humiliation and punishment for some, retribution for others but for a very many people it was when rape, confiscation, torture and murder were still fresh in their memories. The ‘Peace time’ that would follow the Great War would produce the boots, the tanks and the boats that would yet again strike unimaginable terror on human life. Peace time prepared and wartime consumed.

     It wouldn't be the first time a particular group of people was targeted to kill out of hatred. And it wouldn't be the last time. For once a human, always a human.

     Remember, that lady pushed into the box-cart was pregnant, that man lining up at the chimney was a lonely widower, that child taken to the gallows was nine and the man guarding them was a father. No one was immune, no one exempted. A late twentieth century reincarnation of Shakespeare would write, ‘All the world’s a battlefield and all men are either the hunters or the hunted’

     Is it just me or does History actually repeat itself? A land in ruin, cities in rubble and toppled regimes do not always end up like the European Union which quite aptly was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the year 2012. You never know who is lurking in the forest or the wilderness waiting for the right time to take over the country. And the right time always seems to be after a generous bombing of the land, whatever the reasons for it may be. Bombing of North Vietnam forces in Cambodia was the bloody red carpet for Pol Pot. The invasion and counter invasion of Afghanistan was almost like telling the Taliban, “What are you waiting for?” The I.S. did not start off in a peaceful country. After Fascism, Communism, Terrorism, Radicalism, I do not know what to expect the next time a country goes to war. May be I should check with History.

     Where is the world headed? From the beginning it has been on a path to ruin but why do I feel that process is accelerated? It gives me a dark excitement to think of a time when there might be tanks patrolling the streets of Bangalore or Hyderabad. It also terrifies me to think that there might be an axe or a machete with my name on it. How I wish it was a bullet!!

-Sam.