Ashok Chakra. A Tribute to Mumbai 26/11.

Today, 26/11/2010 marks the 2^nd anniversary of one of the most horrifying incidents of Post-Independence India. Let us salute the brave souls who lost their lives fighting selflessly on the 3 black letter days in Mumbai and also pray for all of the deceased souls.

 

Click here for the full list of the deceased during the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Everyone will have a story to tell about this day, the date. My story of the Mumbai attacks goes on like this. On the night of 26^th Nov, 2008, I was chatting with a friend of mine from Mumbai. So while we were chatting, the news of a terrorist strike broke out and this friend was the one who told me about it. She rushed on to make a couple of phone calls to ensure the safety of her friends. I glanced across several websites to get to know the details and was incidentally relieved to find out it was not a bomb blast, which could really take away lots of lives instantly. Only after a while did I notice that the attack was even more dangerous and serious than a bomb blast. Live terrorists were shooting down innocent lives with machine guns in many crowded and landmark places of one of the most populous cities in the world. While this friend was chatting with me late in the night, she got a call and a moment or two later, returned to say her friend was also shot at the Taj Mahal Palace and went offline before I could offer a word of console.

I’ve always had this belief that the best of anyone comes out when in troubled times. I have fond memories how people unite in face of troubled times. Back in Sainik School while in the 9^th class, we used to be the junior-most in the house, inferior to the 10^th, 11^th & the 12^th guys. So facing the rigorous punishments on a day to day basis, what really happens is that it unites each one of the sufferers into one, one big nutshell. Mumbaikars found the same strength in the troubled times and they showed their courage and determination by going to their respective works from the very next day. By doing so, they had given out a clear message to the perpetuators of the attack that nothing can hinder the spirits of the people of Mumbai and the citizens of India.

Two years have gone and the lone captured terrorist Ajmal Kasab is still alive. Several leads have been found, but no real action has been taken against the real organizers of the crime. Heaven knows what, ‘Dossiers’ have been exchanged between the Indian & Pakistani governments and even the Media doesn’t have a count of it. The country has been spending crores of money to keep Ajmal Kasab alive, on his safety and security, but honestly, does that man deserve all these?

I can’t help myself not to criticize the judicial system of our nation. A person who killed 166 innocent people with machine guns; who as per the court waged war against the country, why in the hell is he alive still? I don’t know if many are aware of this, but SI Tukaram Omble sacrificed his own life while trying to arrest Kasab alive. This is an excerpt from Wikipedia.

Baudankar says that Assistant Sub Inspector Tukaram Omble was hit by the bullets as he was the first to charge towards Kasab and his associate armed with just a stick. "All those who were with Omble survived as he stood like a shield," adds Kadam. "When we saw that Omble was not letting go of the terrorist's gun, we knew we could not let his sacrifice go in vain. He held on and we completed his unfinished task," his colleague Sanjay Govilkar said.

It’s nothing like the news of a death sentence for Kasab makes any change in my life or gives me a high, but it’s that the life and sacrifice of brave men like SI Omble goes down the lane worthless in the present situation. The loop-holes in our Judiciary that keeps him alive even today are almost making fun of the sacrifices of those valiant officers. Lets hope the perpetuators of the attack gets caught, and soon the whole of terrorism gets wiped away from the face of our planet.

26/11 is now a part of history and bullet holes on the walls and the scars in the hearts of Mumbaikars shall remain forever. The least we can do is to be better citizens of this vibrant nation. For a nation which has had to face many unfortunate challenges like the terrorist attacks, cross-border insurgency and interior Naxalism, it’s a shame that our politicians are adding on to the woes by stupid scams and scandals, which becomes bigger & filthier every next time.

The Ashok Chakra is an Indian military decoration awarded for valor, courageous action or self-sacrifice away from the battlefield, during peace time. 15 Police men and 2 NSG commandos lost their lives encountering terrorists. Officers Hemant Karkare, Vijay Salaskar, Ashok Kamte and Tukaram Ombale and 2 NSG commando’s Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan & Havildar Gajendar Singh were awarded Ashok Chakra for their sacrifices. We salute one and all of them.

Image Courtesy - Flickr

Oh God!! But where are you??

Existence of God has been one of the most controversial and debated topics across all over the globe & since the very start of our species. There has been many supporting the fact, that of the presence of god & many opposing it. Here is my take on Existence of God or how I feel about the Ultimate Power.

There has been no practical research work behind any of the things that I speak in this article and everything comes from my thoughts. You might or might not agree to what I have to say, so this one is intended to add another dimension into you already existing idea about God!

2 months ago I was reading this book, “The Goose is out”, an OSHO publication. Since then I have been trying to relate what god is, and how people describe many things as god. Since the existence of intelligent human beings, there has been gods. They found this new belief and found their gods on idols, in the sun, the moon, the earth, the rain, the clouds, the trees, the cow, the stone and the wind. The and at the end of the last sentence doesn’t mean it’s the end of the list, it’s just the beginning and human beings found a god in everything from the mighty sun to a mere stone.

Now think why would they have considered the sun as a god? And why, the wind as a god?

Who according to you now is god? How often would you have said “God Knows” to a question your pal asks you?! Why would you have answered in such a way? Because you may not have an answer to that question, right?!

Similarly, the earlier generations, the medieval people were left open mouthed at the question of who gave them this light and energy from every dawn to dusk. They found that a big ball rose into the sky every day at a particular time, travelled over their heads and disappeared later, taking away with it all the light & brightness. They, for then weren’t able to explain the physics or the chemistry behind the particular happening and for simplicity called the big ball the Sun God and prayed to him. Similar should have been the case with his worship for the trees, the rain, the wind, and the animals and so on.

I am sure every one of us believes that there is some extreme power which controls things, which controls the balance of the matter & the anti-matter, which controlled the birth of this earth, the solar system and the galaxies and the universe, one that controls everything. But the only thing is that we don’t know what is it that is controlling everything and we call it as god. Or we rather name this unknown, unexplained power or principle which controls everything as God! So is it really god or is it just a name, we had given to an unknown principle, the unknown quantity or the unknown powers, just like how the ancient people worshipped sun as god.

You, for once might be worshipping the same sun as a god, but not without knowing that the light and the energy you receive from sun is as a result of those nuclear fissions and fusions that take place at the central core of the star, and not because of someone godly powered, who rises his hands and a ray of light originates from it. So what I tried to mention here is that Sun is just a natural phenomenon, and not a godly one!

You are able to fly in the air, travel to outer spaces and even live there, those things which the earlier generations wouldn’t have thought possible to the human race ever. So by any chance, if they knew this, they might be calling us gods too, because they wouldn’t understand the logics behind the Space shuttles & the airplanes.

So my point still is that, we do attribute many of the present day happenings to be god’s play, not because it was really done by god, but more because we haven’t been really able to explain how it happened, or plainly we haven’t been able to crack down the logic behind it!

So as we move forward, as the human generation advances, we surely will find explanations to more of these unknown questions, which we now wrongly attribute as mere god’s plays!

So, What or who is God?

But i was not really contradicting the presence of god, or even I do believe in god or the extreme or ultimate power! I do go to the temples & I do pray to the god! And I have seen that ultimate power too, ask me where and I shall say through my eyes & in a mirror.

Yes, you read it rightly, and I do believe you yourselves are the gods, me myself is the god. If ever there was to be a god, then it is everyone of us!

We are gods because we have been doing things, once thought to be impossible and un-do-able. It was us, the human race itself who found the answers to all the questions we raised. The so called gods we pray now a days were actually one among us too. Jesus Christ, Gautama Buddha, were all just human beings who understood the meanings of their lives, and in a spiritual man’s words, they were the ones who got enlightenment. I wouldn’t want to take this post much into those streams because; I am equally un-enlightened as many of you and equally un-aware of all these terms as much as you.

So how do you reach to the god in you?

By above thought, that the god resides in yourselves, I am not asking you to quit going to temples or any holy places for that matter. Think what do you do when in a temple? You clean yourselves before entering the temple, you remove your slippers, yours shirts and you keep your bags at counters, but then these are all materialistic behaviors.

What do you really do once in a temple? You pray to the god, you tell him your wishes and your dreams and asks him take care of you and make you pass your class test, interview or that your daughter gets admission in a medical college, and blah blah blah...

Think what really happens here. Aren’t we actually reminding ourselves of the things we have to do, so that you get a bit more charged up to do it? Aren’t we reminding ourselves by praying to the god that, you need to study, since have an exam to do or you have to prepare, since you have an interview to attend or you have to drive carefully to be safely home? So by praying, aren’t you  actually reminding yourselves the things you need to do?

So the next time you travel alone in a bus or roam around by a silent paddy field, think about how your view of god should be? That of a global savior who has an answer to all your questions, one who cannot be seen, cannot be touched and heard. Or have you really understood that image you see in the mirror?

God is nothing but a creation of the people, but then it is sad seeing people being discriminated for the religion they follow, more so at the thought that none of us are following a religion by our choice! Religions do carry with it cultures and traditions, but are peoples happiness and peace secondary to any of these cultures and traditions? So stop discriminating people in the name of god, stop terrorist activities in the name of god, stop all such non-senses happening in the name of god, because they are nothing but mere Satanism.