This piece I wrote last week but didn’t put on Blog. Publishing is a bit late.
Yesterday was a holiday in office and it didn’t start well for me. I had gone to sleep the previous night after watching the repeated bulletins on YSR, Y. S. Rajashekhara Reddy- the charismatic Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, disappearance and fanatic searches that followed for the whole day.
I was shocked and hoped that he was fine somewhere in the jungles. As have been my nature for last some months, I put myself in officials’ shoes and tried to argue if I could have done better in this operation. Heart and mind,in unison, said ‘No’. Officials were doing great given the whether, terrain and resources, till the centre joined hands with more force and technical support.
One of my roommates was distressed and kept bombarding me with his ideas on what more could have been done , why Sukhoi is the best, how the officials have not been doing their job and everything that he might had read on Wikipedia/Google or watched on television. I kept quite, submerged in my own thoughts. I will accept that I have got a tool that helps me in having empathy for everything happening around me. The tool is to keep yourself in other’s shoes to gauge why did he do that and had you done any better. Believe me…most of the time I find myself doing the same if I had been in their place. That helps in having respect for others, than being merely an armchair critic criticizing everything happening around me. This time also I had no complains.
Coming back to YSR, morning bulletin announced his demise. Ohhh..he too is gone. I flashed back upon past and came the names of Rajesh Pilot, MadhavRao Sciendia, Pramod Mahajan, Kumarmangalam, GMC Balayogi, Sahib Singh Verma, Murasoli Maran etc. who have lost their promising life unfinished. May their soul rest in peace. I would be lying if I say I was an admirer of YSR. I liked Chandrababu Naidu. I am not an Andharaite who is aware of the ground realities and being employed in IT industry, Chandrababu was more attractive. But YSR turned the tide in last 6 years of his rule and I must admit I had started admiring him and secretly followed his popular programs just to follow, in case if ever I get a chance.
YSR demise made me revisit those notions that I had after my grandfather’s death.
“Why to fight all through life just to lose everything in a whiff?”..this feeling makes us pure for a while…..but again we are back to our normal self, fighting for small laurels, running in rat races, making in irregular fields for when all is going to be lost someday, sooner or later. Then why do we keep on doing it?………..for whom????.........why???........ why???.....I don’t know.
