Take a walk with me...

Take a walk with me on these dusty lanes and be gracious enough to listen to the perverted music of my heartbeats. Perverted, yes, that’s how it has been described by many people for years and I have learnt to accept that description just because I’ve understood that I don’t belong to these lanes. But have you ever noticed that those who claim that they are evil are usually no worse than you? Has it ever occurred to you that most evils are perpetrated by people who claim to be good?

Look at all those people who carry guns in hands and venom in hearts and persuade us to believe that they plunder and rape and kill for the sake of the greater common good. They have been doing it for centuries. It might have been the bow and the arrow instead of the gun in those good old days. It might have been the burning stakes or the gleaming swords.

This evening when our shadows rise to meet us, you see terror in a handful of dust lying on this very same lane that we walk on. The lane has seen much, endured much, and longed to weep much.

Listen. Listen to the sorrow of the dust. It is trying to tell us something. Is it trying to tell us that the world is a dangerous place not because of the people who are evil but because of the people who don’t do anything about it?

Is there room for hope anymore? From the time of the Buddha who placed one good deed above a thousand hollow words, through the man who died on the cross hoping to redeem humanity from ritualistic creeds, to the Mahatma who was shot dead by the hate-filled fanatic, haven’t we seen enough of hope?

Ah, it’s getting dark and we need to return to the safety of our homes. The lanes are dangerous. Let us keep hoping that light will descend on them some time.

PS. Written for