MUNICH AND GANDHIJI

Off late, my wife and I have become movie addicts... Blame it on the (late) winter or anything else, but off late we have been seeing a lot (by our standards) of movies... We just wait for a new Hindi movie to be released in the nearby (which is 30 miles away) theater... We wait for a new set of Hindi movies to be opened ON-DEMAND... Not to mention the innumerable movies rented from the local grocery shops... And we do see other movies too... We have been clearing the backlog of English movies too... And did I mention that we have a good collection of Marathi and Kannada movies at our place and when we are bored by Hindi and English movies, we also venture into "mother-tongue" movies...

And in this penchant of seeing movies, we saw MUNICH... I wanted to see it from a long time... It was indeed a very nice movie...

But, this blog is not abt our new movie addiction or nor abt Steven Spielberg's "historical fiction", though, MUNICH provides the trigger to this blog, the thoughts were lingering in my mind for some time now...

Eric Bana says in Munich -- we follow violence in search of peace knowing that every bullet fired in this quest is taking us away from the destination... How true... Today Israel and Palestine are fighting each other (and have been doing since decades) to have a country of their own, a HOME, where they can stay in PEACE... I dont know who is right here and who is wrong... but as the saying goes "In a war, no one is right... only 1 is left"...

Look at so many other countries and regions... Afghanistan... Iraq... Nepal... Numerous African countries... Chechnya... so many such countries... And not to forget, India and Pakistan are doing the same in Kashmir... Some (or most) countries have lost generations to these wars and there seems to be no end to it...

So, what am I trying to tell here...

Today, India (atleast a greater part of it) is a peaceful country... Today, when I open the newspaper, I get to see the figures of growth in GDP and not the growth in casualties in the war... Today, when I call my parents back home, we discuss about growth and prosperity and not about destruction and death...

When Indian parliament was attacked in 2001, India and Pakistan were almost at the verge of war... Tactical diplomacy (and lot of other things) averted a war but the general public sentiment was inclined to "teach-em-a-lesson"... And Yes, I was one of them... Late Pramod Mahajan was addressing a press conference at that time and he was asked this Q... "India was better placed to attack, why didnt we do it?" His reply changed my perception immediately... He said -- During peace, a adult son lits the pyre of a old father... During war, an old father lits the pyre of young son or a kid boy lits the pyre of a young father... How many of u in this room would want your fathers or kid sons to lit your pyres?...

That sentence said it all... During many discussions after that incidents, i used to be against any military or armed aggression between India and Pakistan... Almost every time, I was on the receiving end of the flak... And to "practice what I preach", I too practiced non-violence (verbal) during those discussions... And even today, I am firm on my stance...

No, here I am not saying that we should not defend ourselves... According to me, the saying, offense is the best form of defense, doesnt apply to foreign relations... No, not at the cost of a generation...

How many of us want to call up home everyday just to make sure that our parents are alive? How many of us want to login to a website to check the names of the friends and relatives who have died in attacks in the last week or month or year... How many of us want our kids to play with guns and bombs instead of computers and bats? How many of us want our generation to ride Tanks instead of Marutis and Mercedes?

Today, I am grateful to Gandhiji that he preached non-violence... I even shudder to see India be something similar to Iraq and Afghanistan... By this, no way do I disregard BhagatSingh and Chandrashekhar Azad or Netaji Bose... What they did is equally important... But, by preaching non-violence, Gandhiji did a favor which only the people suffering in the countries mentioned above can appreciate...

And, then I pause and I bow to the man on this day when he was killed... 30th January...

And as Gandhiji says in the movie Lage Raho Munnabhai -- though I was killed -- no one has erected any statue of the assasin... No holiday has been declared for the assasin... No currency note carried the photo of the assasin... This shows who the clear winner is...

Please see this ad and feel how powerful it is... No wonder this ad emerged the best at one of the advertising awards function...

http://www.epica-awards.org/assets/epica/2004/winners/film/flv/11071.htm#