Distanced from reality

“… its not only the war that’s disturbing, our freedom is curbed in that flea ridden place”, my uncle retorted when I asked him how his stay in Bangladesh had been. He had a far away look in his eyes when he thought back on his 6yrs tenure there. The stories he told shook me up, the two leading candidates contesting the election have criminal records to boast, and they are both ladies, the army has taken over from the government, the whole country is engulfed in a political turmoil, with fourtneen different heads of government and alteast four military coups. Woo! I sat spelbound listening to all this, the army has banned all private TV stations and the national media is under censorship, shucks!so much for freedom. A couple of days back Bharghav had written this blog, which gave us an insight into the terrible times we live in. India is sure trampling on troubled waters with nobody to steer us clear of all the hullabaloo happening around. For starters we have the whole nation fighting over the existence or non-existence of a blessed bridge, then we have the media and ahmm junta fighting over whether jail is the place to be for a guy who gave the world the term gandhigiri. Sheesh, our nation is a story of how far from reality we have truly come. We need to open our eyes wider, open it wider to take in the situation happening around us. So as a nation are we really screwed up? I don’t think so.

Nestled between the two mighty oceans we have a country which was once called ‘pearl of the indian ocean’, the pearl is tarnished beyond repair. After years of peace, Sri Lanka has again plunged into a conflict between the government and the Tamil tigers popularly known as the LTTE. Peace remains plagued in this war torn country which has witnessed ceasefire followed by killing without impunity and an economy which is still coming to terms with the upheaval.

Thousand of inocent monks in their orange robes were mercilessly shot to death. I watched with sympathy the horrors unraveling on the streets on Burma these last few weeks. When Aung Kyi (she is so breathtakingly beautiful!) won the last election there was much joy, but it was short lived cos the military took over entirely- the govt has been invisible since then. Half the population is in some kinda forced labour and reports say AIDS is ravishing the country ferociously. Denying human rights, killing, and using rape as a war against minorities is wht Burma/Myanmar fights everyday thanks to the military regime.

This place boasts of eight of the world’s ten highest peaks but at the apex of it all is a constitutional monarchy that is very close to becoming a Maoist state. The aristocratic king has lost all his power as head of state and army thanks to Maoist rebels and new political leaders who want to completely overthrow the monarchy.If the Maoist seize power then the kiling, kidnapping, torturnin and bombing happening now will look pale in comparison.God forbid something like this happens !

China is one of the worlds oldest civilization but its economic progress the last couple of years is almost scary! This rapid urbanization has resulted in over 50million farmers(yeah u read the figures right,no wonder they are the most populous in the world!) loosing their farmlands. We might be sharing their problems of population and corruption but here we atleast have the freedom of gathering up a group of like minded ppl and walking down the streets hurling abuses at the government !

This country is a piece of cake. Musharaff said “lets have a general election and elect our leader”, sure enough an election was held and a general was elected! Military dictatorship statred 10 yrs back, parlimant was disbanded, constitution was suspended and the country plunged into a monetary debt from which it has still not recovered. An ex-prime minister who was ousted in a coup detat and a woman ex-prime minister who is contesting the election have both been in exile. What pakistan needs is an end of the military regime for it to gain ground from the bombing and killings that has plagued it for over a decade.

We are not so screwed afterall. Am I happy? Oh hell yes!