Continued… from previous discussion on Conspiracy Theories…
Shongita and I reached home and it was pretty late after a tiring journey and I was glad she didn’t carry on with the topic she had been on for past two hours. We quietly ate our meals and said good night before passing off into a deep sleep…
Next two days she was unreasonably quiet and seemed to watch, not the reels but news and podcasts regarding geopolitics and I was surprised at this change in her… she was trying to understand what I had said and I knew it won’t be long when she resumes the conversation we had paused when the bus had reached our destination. I, in the meantime had time to think of my next story SHADYANTRA 3… This was something which I had intended to do but was running into mind blocks…
“I have tried to see through what we had discussed the other day…” she slowly started veering the conversation to where we had left it on the bus, “I was able to recognize few of the leftist thoughts but I need to concentrate more… could you help me with that?”
“I can try…” I told her truthfully, “however, I can’t guarantee that you will be able to grasp and learn to see through their propaganda. You have been too engrossed in meaningless reels which seem to tickle the funny bones but does nothing… just aimless scrolling in your mobile phone…”
“If you have noticed, I have stopped doing that…” she seemed annoyed at my jibe at her aimless scrolling.
“For last 2 days, I have seen no change in you… you were constantly on your mobile…”
“I was either watching news or views or podcasts of people who seem to be experts on politics and geopolitics. I was trying to understand the views put up by them and then trying to understand if it was a normal view or the leftist view or a rightist. But I find it hard to follow that…”
“Ok… I understand your trouble as a starter in trying to understand these ways of putting things… first of all when you listen to something or someone, don’t react at the words that you hear… take you time to analyse the words as a normal person using your conscience… you would then get the hang of if that person is leaning to left or is an extreme leftist…”
“Please explain in simple words with examples…”
“I will paint two pictures in front of you using words – let’s see first if you are leaning to left or a normal thinker… ready?”
She nodded her head affirmative, her eyes wide in anticipation of what I was going to tell her…
“Imagine a photograph in your mind… a lush green valley engulfed in heavy rains. The water dropping everywhere you see… the far off mountains shrouded with cloudy covers. White waterfalls contrasting the dark green background seemingly starting from the top cloud covers and vanishing into black heavy clouds at some point below and then reappearing from those low blackish clouds below falling magnanimously to into the pool which has gathered below turning into a grand rivulet…”
“I can imagine this it is fresh in my mind…” she seemed excited at her memory, “Remember that trek we experienced from Khandas to Bhimashankar in heaviest of the rains? We had taken the path that normally is used by the buffaloes and I still remember the grandeur on the second climb… the first climb took us over a hill where we thankfully sipped at black tea served by the locals and this was the second climb and we were treading on kind of rivulet climbing up on a gentle but upward climb along the mountain side… I can never forget that scene – Oh! Was it lovely?” she looked into her memory with dreamy eyes, “Remember, we were standing under a massive waterfall and looking at that scenery… it was a kind of C shaped mountains all around and we could see at least 7 waterfalls gurgling down the cliffs then vanishing into clouds and then reappearing from those clouds into the vast greenery below… Oh! What a sight it was, I simply cannot forget that one…” she was dreamy and I smiled at her.
“See – you still are caught up in niceties of nature and life in general… you have to be pessimistic about it to think like a leftist.”
“What? How can you think about grandeur of Mother Nature in a pessimistic way?” she asked almost indignant about what I told her to do…
“Remember a glass partly filled with water can either be half empty or half full…” she wondered at what I said and scratched her head for a moment and looked expectantly at me prodding me to go on with what I wanted to say, “If I have to think in from a pessimistic angle, I will think about the heavy rain and how it was hindering my progress on that trek. I will think about water in my shoes that was making me uncomfortable when I walked. I will not like the fact that I was drenched head to toe in that heavy rain and how cold I was feeling and how I longed for a warm blanket and a cup of hot tea. All the clouds could be gloomy and I will be feeling sad that I have to trek in such conditions…”
“Eeew! What a bad way to think about a fascinating trek?”
“Now you understand how pessimists think?”
“But I don’t think you are pessimistic because I could see the sparkle in your eyes when you beheld the grandeur of Mother Nature.” She countered me.
“Yes dear, I am an optimist however when you are writing a story or spinning a yarn all characters cannot be optimistic or goody goody… else the story will so sweet that it will give diabetes to every reader…” she laughed at the remark and then started thinking again…
“Now I will relate a true story. Listen carefully and let me know what you feel about the happening…” she looked at me and nodded, “This is a true incident even before you were born so most probably you may not have heard of this… this is about the civil war in Sudan. Now you have Sudan and South Sudan as separate countries. The war was at its extreme brutality and to top it up Sudan also was facing a draught which had made living conditions extremely difficult even to survive. There was an ex-soldier from South Africa that was also a difficult nation to survive because of apartheid laws and ways of life…”
“What is apartheid? I have been to South Africa to meet Natasha when she was living there for few years and I didn’t find anything wrong with society there… in fact, local people were hospitable and almost wherever we visited, they used to welcome us with a smile…” she wondered what I meant.
“Sweetheart, that is why I always tell you to read and not waste your time on unproductive and meaningless reels on social media…” she wrinkled her nose at this jab knowing that this was not the last I had chided her about wasting time watching those senseless reels, “Ok… homework for you. Read about the apartheid in South Africa and you will tell me about it in your own words – not read it out from various articles…” she looked at me in horror as she had finished her graduation not even a month ago and listening to the word ‘Homework’ brought the memories back to her…
“This is a true incident of Kevin Carter a photo-journalist. I want you to listen carefully about what I am going to relate to you. This ex-soldier from South Africa during his serving years somewhere around 1983 witnessed a huge bomb blast in Pretoria – yes the same city which made Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi a legend in the world… what he saw moved his heart and he decided to leave the defence services and become a photo-journalist. In 1993, the most difficult situation engulfed Sudan. The country was facing one of the worst famines and to add up the woes of Sudanese people, the civil war in the country was scaling up to new heights making it difficult for people to get proper food and hunger and malnutrition was killing people. I believe the death toll was more than 2 hundred thousand. Millions had fled the country to escape the humanitarian crisis. Finally, UN got some leverage and negotiated with the warring sides and were given permission to send food and aid to Sudan for the civilians who were suffering the most…”
“Oh! Must be horrible…” she tried imagining the situation.
“Then in 26 March 1993, New York Times published a photograph in their edition captioning ‘Girl and the Vulture’… that photo created uproar in the World. It was a photo which he had captured a few meters away from a UN designated aid centre. He saw an undernourished child. The body of that child was so weak that it looked almost like a skeleton with skin on it. The child was so weak that it stopped walking toward the UN aid centre that was few meters away and crouched almost falling down due to weakness. He was watching the child clicking photographs when in a short while a vulture came and sat behind that child waiting for that child to die so that the vulture could satisfy its hunger feeding on that child.” I looked at her and continued “Now I have painted two scenarios… which scene would you like to cherish in your mind? Is it this horrible photo or the grandeur of Mother Nature?”
“Obviously the grandeur of Mother Nature…” she said immediately and then started thinking, “Oh! The poor child… what happened to that child?”
“He stood there waiting for almost 20 minutes to see what happens and then moved off to another location trying to click more photographs without helping that child… imagine that…”
“That’s horrible and inhuman…” she was livid for not helping that child for a few meters where the aid was, “I hope someone else noticed and helped that child…” she said hopefully.
“I really don’t know about that for once I understood that the photographer didn’t help her I stopped reading about the article which was telling a lot about the Sudanese people but not about what happened to that child. Maybe the child was saved by someone who was humane and had values and morals…” I told her truthfully “but the point I was driving towards was… the photographer received one of the grandest awards for that photograph – the coveted ‘Pulitzer Award’ for best photo of the year… beat that and that too knowing that the child was not helped by the person who clicked that photograph… can you think of more sadist occurrence?”
“I can’t believe it… how come people are so insensitive?”
“That my dear is the leftist philosophy – thrive on sufferings of others and derive pleasure and recognition from them… that is why I hate these leftists…”
“I guess you are correct in your feelings towards these leftists, even I now have started to detest them and wonder what kind of mentality will these people possess…” she shook her head sadly.
“I strongly believe that leftism is a mental disability… they are mentally ill and should have a separate treatment centre allocated for them… I am glad that these leftists didn’t have such kind of photographers in India, especially in Mumbai around that time or they would have jumped in joy of the photographs that would have emerged from Mumbai…”
“Why what happened in Mumbai around that time?”
“I don’t blame you for you were not even born then… You have witnessed the opening of the magnanimous Ram Mandir at Ayodhya, correct?”
“Yes – but what has it got to do with Mumbai?”
“The history says that there was Ram Mandir at that designated place which was demolished by Babar, the Mughal who invaded in 14th century and built a mosque over that shrine. Since then there has been efforts to demolish the mosque and rebuild the temple as it was one of the holiest pilgrimage places. It was on the day of 6 December 1992, when it was forcibly demolished by the Kaar Sevaks of Ram Mandir movement. The whole country suffered from instant rioting but the worst hit was Mumbai. The riots had no signs of stopping. Since that day Mumbai was at a standstill because of rioting which was on… almost no records as to how many people died in those riots. It was sheer madness that was personalised. Finally the madness was curbed sometime in February 1993. People who ventured out immediately after the riots which had seemingly stopped have horrible stories to tell to the world… one such person related his travel by a local train. He couldn’t see out from the window where he sat… the sight was heartrending with human bodies and parts of bodies that lay scattered around the tracks with birds perched on them and feeding on those… cut off hands, feet, heads lay there in pools of dried blood. He said that he couldn’t stand such a sight and vomited… such was the gory sight. It was sheer madness for two months. Then came 12 March 1993, a series of bomb blasts, 12 to be precise rocked the city in busiest of the places like the stock exchange, CBD at that time Nariman Point, Worli, etc… That was when people realised that humanity is top priority over anything else and all hate against each other stopped… but you can’t even imagine what had happened then…”
“Oh! I really cannot imagine the situation but can try to imagine from whatever you described. Salute to those people who survived such a riot…” she couldn’t say anymore.
“Now look at the current social and political scenarios… it’s become more dangerous. These leftists know that people who were affected by these riots are now either old or have left this world for abode above… a new generation has come in their place – a generation who doesn’t remember the havoc and pains of such riots or are not at all aware of the pains that happen due to these riots… remember radicals, vested interests, few political parties and some countries who are enemies of India want the riots to happen in India. You have a complete new generation who has not witnessed 1993 and do not know what happens when such riots are engineered…”
“How can you say that?”
“Look at yourself… you were born almost 10 years after these riots happened and maybe you heard that riots had happened somewhere around that time but you don’t know how they had been built up over years especially it took almost a decade to build these riots into happening… people who have witnessed those times say that similar build-up is now in progress and this time it could be more dangerous because AI now assists in the lies one manufactures… these vested interests along with the leftists will stop at nothing with power of AI…”
“What’s AI got to do with engineering riots?”
“With AI you can swap faces in a photograph, you can swap faces in a video, you can also give reference of a political leader or an religious influencer and spread lies and fake videos to stir reactions. China uses a lot of AI for creating fake AI videos to suit their narrative and propaganda. So when I am watching social media and mention of China or a video made in China – I skip that without even bothering to check what it contains… China doesn’t allow these social media platforms in their own country but their propaganda machinery uses these platforms to spread lies and create trouble especially in India. Further people like George Soros and governments of countries fund various Leftists, radicals and vested interests who don’t mind selling their own mothers for money to spread false news and propaganda and many of them use AI generated stuff to spread falsehood… it is absolutely difficult not to believe what you see… the best way is to wait for someone to expose the lies and false propaganda spread by these elements… that is why I don’t believe much of the stuff I see but try to apply my mind which I think is moderate to understand if what I saw or read could be real or is a planted lie… and that is what I preach to anyone who wants to understand…”
“Yes I can now almost see the point you are driving… from now on, I will try and think before I react to anything I see or read.”
“The classic case of leftist ideology that is driving Trump crazy is the want of Nobel Award for Peace – and I am sure he is not going to receive the award in this life time… simple reason is he is not a leftist. So even if he tries to do anything crazy it will simply not work… he has to adopt the leftist stand if he has to bag that award. Look at Obama – he received the Nobel Award for peace and what he did was kill millions and millions of people in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in North Africa in the name of peace which he projected was at risk… see the irony?”
“I think you are correct in your analysis – let me research a bit more on this… I won’t disturb you now on this topic till I understand more about this… carry on with what you are working on…” saying this she picked up her mobile and went back to looking at social media, I don’t know searching for information we discussed or simply back to watching the senseless reels…
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