HEART 2 HEART BY ETHEL DA COSTA
I dare I can
Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given, than to explore the power they have to change it.
Impossible is not a fact.
It's an opinion.
Impossible is not a declaration.
It's a dare.
Impossible is potential.
Impossible is temporary.
Impossible is nothing.
Dear Bapu,
This is for you. Though half a generation grown up on Coke and Pepsi, play stations and Barbies have forgotten who you are, where you came from and the power that drove you to your destiny. They have forgotten -- `You're not cool enough, man. Simple' - the villages of their grandfathers and the toil of their brows (though they are quick to fight for his land). They cease to care for the exploitation of the weak, the groans of the downtrodden and the anguish of the unfortunate (while ensuring their own safety through crafty lawyers). They have ignored the voices of their hearts to the drone of city living, fast cars, hot babes, the jingle of money in their banks. You're simply not `happening' to them, buddy. You are `ancient.' You are a `has been.' You are `extinct.' A colossal now turned dinosaur.
Where can they fit you in their lives? In their wardrobe of diamonds and chiffons? In their Cruisers and Hondas? Armanis and Valentinos. The India that you built with your blood has gone global. Super fast into cyber age, while farmers in rural India still commit suicide when crops go bad. Leggy and haute on international ramps, while daughters continue to be raped by their fathers and brothers, after a drink or a fancy. Fortunes made or broken at a roll of a dice in casinos and gaming dens, while little girls get sold to brothels, teenagers leeched and groped by perverted men at dance bars. Prostitution and call girl rackets that camouflage, flourish and parasite on the nubile dreams of the gullible in the film, fashion, advertising and media industry.
Go 'swadesh' you urged, living by humble example behind the spin wheel. You should know how the politics of our country has pushed khadi beyond the reach of the poor and into the domain of stiff-collared bureaucrats and pseudo political god men. Not to forget, the fancy price tags!
Bapu, if you were alive today, you would belch in disgust. Not at an India that is growing into a superpower. But at the fate of the country misdirected by greed and sycophancy. Much better if you don't look at Goa. Please. Spare us the humiliation. At the horse-trading and the soul selling through lies and deceit. At the prostitution of our principles by politicians who care only about themselves. They do not even care about the repercussion of their decisions on the future of the populace, the voice of the conscience to do the right thing or the false grandiose they display in clothes, attitude or proclamations.
I wonder if you have spilled your blood in vain, Bapu. We are at the mercy of political tongue-twisters, media manipulators, suave bureaucrats that legalise corruption through loopholes, using college level marketing mumbo-jumbo and campaigns that feed on the ego. They know nothing of sacrifice. They know nothing of serve before self. They know nothing of truth before injustice. They don't even know conscience before conceit. Hell, they secretly think you're a dinosaur too.
For the believers, pray a blessing of dynamism. Pray a blessing of strength. Will power. Higher consciousness. Inner strength and courage. To explore the power within them to change the world. Beginning with themselves.
For someone who continues to be inspired by your humility, you are remembered with reverence, Bapu.
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EVE'S REVENGE "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." MOHANDAS K GANDHI
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