HEY, THEY COULD NOT TAKE ANYTHING...
A week ago, it was the plane crash in Mangalore. Today, it is the massacre of the innocent passengers by the Naxals. The TV channels show us the gruesome pictures, round the clock…; the newspapers bring us the same gory news just as we wake up.
But, then, all this will be forgotten in a matter of a few days. Then, that doesn’t interest us, any more. It is stale news. Something else comes… something more gruesome… interesting!
That is life, they say. And, life goes on! Public memory is too short… No one remembers for too long about any one, any thing. Hiroshima is history; Holocaust is history; Partition of India is history; the Vietnam War is history; Delhi Massacre of Sikhs is history; the Twin Towers is history; the pounding of Iraq and Afghanistan is history; the dirty spat between Shashi Taroor and Lalit Modi is history…
And, history is dead meat. No one likes to beat it. For, they know the dead meat doesn’t come back to life! Yes, howmuchever you beat it.
What about our ‘private memory’? Do we forget the pain and the loss, anger and the hurts so easily and so quickly?
Last week, I had to attend two funerals. Incidentally, both of them died in their late eighties. Both of them spent a significant part of their life trying to accumulate wealth, remaining stubborn and arrogant all the while with almost every one around, including their own children. One of them spent his last two years, like a vegetable, on the bed… unable to eat, move, see, talk, hear or remember. When he died, he was like a hard stick – just the skeleton! The other, spent months and months in the hospital, where his children – who never lived with him all this time - spent a substantial sum from his accumulation. Whatever is left behind, will be fought over!
The two gentlemen could not take anything with them. Nothing.
Our ‘private memory’ is not all that short. We hold on to our old hurts; we old hold on to our possessions… We remain arrogant and adamant. Yes, even though we know how fast the curtain is going to fall, and even though we know we may have to leave back, here, everything that we so cruelly sought all the while.
But, the TV channels are not interested in telling us about the two old men. Nor the newspapers.
GERALD D'CUNHA
But, then, all this will be forgotten in a matter of a few days. Then, that doesn’t interest us, any more. It is stale news. Something else comes… something more gruesome… interesting!
That is life, they say. And, life goes on! Public memory is too short… No one remembers for too long about any one, any thing. Hiroshima is history; Holocaust is history; Partition of India is history; the Vietnam War is history; Delhi Massacre of Sikhs is history; the Twin Towers is history; the pounding of Iraq and Afghanistan is history; the dirty spat between Shashi Taroor and Lalit Modi is history…
And, history is dead meat. No one likes to beat it. For, they know the dead meat doesn’t come back to life! Yes, howmuchever you beat it.
What about our ‘private memory’? Do we forget the pain and the loss, anger and the hurts so easily and so quickly?
Last week, I had to attend two funerals. Incidentally, both of them died in their late eighties. Both of them spent a significant part of their life trying to accumulate wealth, remaining stubborn and arrogant all the while with almost every one around, including their own children. One of them spent his last two years, like a vegetable, on the bed… unable to eat, move, see, talk, hear or remember. When he died, he was like a hard stick – just the skeleton! The other, spent months and months in the hospital, where his children – who never lived with him all this time - spent a substantial sum from his accumulation. Whatever is left behind, will be fought over!
The two gentlemen could not take anything with them. Nothing.
Our ‘private memory’ is not all that short. We hold on to our old hurts; we old hold on to our possessions… We remain arrogant and adamant. Yes, even though we know how fast the curtain is going to fall, and even though we know we may have to leave back, here, everything that we so cruelly sought all the while.
But, the TV channels are not interested in telling us about the two old men. Nor the newspapers.
GERALD D'CUNHA
Comments
Even though we know we cannot take any thing when we go, we still remain busy thill the last breath accumulating... We still think we can take, somehow!
Then, suddenly we go, leaving all that we piled up so desperately!
Bon Voyage!
Love,
GERRY