goldenboy

Another day at work and my manager tells me that we need to engage a Public Relations company for an upcoming corporate event. In recent days, I have found passion in multiple areas at work- be it marketing, writing scripts for dramas for the Institute, and such other R & D like the task handed out to me by the manager the other day.

I search for PR firms. In the leisure then, when inspiration tugs your heart and in every other thought you look for a solution, the moment ripened to bring to me a thought that could help!

I look restlessly through my mobile diary to find the name of a person I had spoken to earlier, some 6 months ago. He is a PR guy, from what I remember.

And then the call. This guy, V, who happens to be a guy referred to me by another friend, speaks in a voice that seems to attract me. Something about V’s voice, though I cannot point out what, makes me wonder how long it has been since I have tried to connect outside on the gay circuit in the city. I express my desire to meet. He offers to meet me when he is free midweek.

After the call, I call up my old friend and ask him about V. I come to know that he is no longer friends with V anymore. 15 years of friendship to know about a person as so bad a human being to give him up, he says!

I am surprised and try to dig more. He asks me what were the books V mentioned he was reading. I recollect then… an autobiography of some Nazi general whose book V said he was reading for ideological reasons!

I ask my friend if V is a Nazi admirer? “He is worse”, comes the answer. “But since you seem to have developed some interest in him, I will let you find out about him”.

In all honesty I express that I am very curious to meet V, whatever his ideologies. I wonder if he is handsome. “Devil is always devastatingly handsome”, my friend says.

I thank him for cautioning me. After I keep the phone, I feel my heart alive at some level. Something within me seems to have felt excited. I ask my heart if I would meet somebody who could advocate killing of the old and the infirm, who could be an admirer of Hitler, who would be fanatical and thus miles away from the feeling of compassion.

And even though I try to get back to my work, something within my heart tugs at me, drawing my attention to the fact that I still don’t seem to be convinced about boycotting that person. It seems quite natural that I meet him, regardless of his ideologies.

At my institute, I have always drawn my students’ attention to the rise to power of Hitler in the 40s. I have told them how mass hatred can fan a fanatic’s ire toward a particular section of the society and wreak havoc on the lives of innocents! Hitler, for me has been one of those who could never be forgiven for what he did, the massacre of Jews, Gays, old and infirm people in the name of Aryan Superiority and the Final Solution!

And with all this, now I wonder how simple it seems to meet this guy and if chances work out well, even fall in love with him regardless of his ideologies.

Perhaps, this is what happens to lonely people, the god of judgement within me, decrees.

But if I were to be totally non-judgemental and embrace people for the very fact that they are human beings, and not judge them on the basis of their ideologies, if I were even to fall in love with Hitler or the Devil himself, not because my heart would endorse any of their ideologies but because of the very fact that my heart flutters with love for them for no reason at all… would that be a crime?

Would it be a crime to thus feel love for a child-molestor, a criminal, a rapist, a murderer…if my heart wants to reserve a part of its feelings for such a person?

Ultimately, in the course of this journey aren’t we all just the Lost children of God?

Perhaps in searching my heart for feelings for “bad guys” like these, my heart now wants me to learn a lesson in forgiveness, to love myself completely… for whatever I might have accused myself for in this lifetime… to purge myself of all guilt, in order to make it capable of self-love, to be able to love others, without judgement. And I am willing…

I recently wrote to a friend’s group my recent realization that I am very judgemental towards other people. And somehow it has to do with my own puritanical conditioning. I judge myself most of the times, and I go on trips of self-guilt feeling miserable or scared.

That makes me very reactive to other people’s shortcomings when they don’t match up to my high-ideals etc.

Recently in my classroom, when a student wanted to speak on the recent politics in Maharashtra, another student objected, because he belonged to the party that was about to be criticized. And even though I allowed views to be expressed from both sides, the student party-member would just not allow his classmate to speak. The trigger that set me off was when he tried to gag the entire classroom, by trying to call some high-profile party member on his mobile to send across people to the Institute!

That trigger set me off. And I challenged him if this land was anybody’s “Jaagir”. I told spoke with deep conviction about the Right to express oneself, and the need to allow students to discuss the political conditions in the region (which anyways also affected them).

With a rage that came out of the repulsion against gagging up of masses in the name of politics, I questioned the Party’s stand on attacking common immigrant people instead of the bungalow of the Chief Minister of that state who spent unnecessary vast amounts of money on her mentor’s birthday when she should have been developing her State for the people.

 Later, though the student saw his mistake and apologized to the whole class, today another student who belonged to the party belonging to another State’s Chief Minister, and who was absent yesterday landed up at the institute sorting clarifications from me!

And though my whole motive has been to let them know the values of democracy and they have understood me, I wonder what the future has in store for me- as I criticize everyone – the Mullahs and Imams from the Mosques, the Gujarat Chief Minister, the Maharashtra Politicians etc.

 
My only purpose is to wake up this generation of adolescent youth to critical thinking for a better tomorrow.

And who killed Jesus?
Were it the Jews,
The Romans, or Judas?
Was it the kiss or the Cross?

What is it that kills me??
What was it that killed Jesus?
Was it his wounds, or his words?
Was it the kiss or the Cross?
-suresh