Saturday, January 3, 2015

An open letter in a season of open letters.


Dear Hafiz Saeed (and other birds of similar feather),

It is the new year- 2015. I could wish you like I wish all my friends, but somehow wishing you well in the New Year isn’t something my heart is warming up to. I am sure you will understand why.  I do however, in the spirit of the season, wish to offer you some free advice.  To use it wisely or not is up to you.

First off I want to tell you what you are doing wrong.  You are waging a losing battle. You have targeted India time and again and have nothing to show for it.  In corporate terms you are an abysmal failure. If I were your CEO I would have sacked you for incompetence long ago.  Your aims are unclear and what goals you wish to achieve through your threats of violence seem muddled at best.  For the record all your attempts so far have yielded nothing. Diddlysquat!

Sure you killed a few hundred Indians, but that isn’t even a drop in this vast ocean. To give you a perspective, ten people die everyday in Mumbai alone while crossing the railway tracks. That’s well over three thousand people in a year. Our papers don’t even report it unless it’s a really slow news day. We still haven’t learned to be scared of the railway tracks or to stop crossing them while dodging trains. Coming back your attempts; we are still here; united and disunited to different degrees, and we intend to stay. Not because we are courageous or have great tenacity but because we simply have nowhere else to go.  You see we are too many to kill or drive away.  And frankly we are just too busy with our little lives to be scared either. Your impact is limited to a day or two at best.  After which we simply get on with our life. Which is pretty pathetic for all the effort you put in don’t you think? I mean have you ever heard of the concept of ROI? We spend far more time worrying about Bipasha Basu’s next horrorex film than we do about you.  

Please realize that it is not very easy to drive a wedge between us, if that is your intent, as hundreds of riots and communal tensions in our past could teach you if you were inclined to learn a little about us.  Once again it’s not because we are resilient or more evolved or any such great attribute. We simply don’t care enough. Life is shitty around these parts, is it any better in your part of the world, and concerns about malaria and dengue far outweigh any concerns about any religious polarization you might achieve. It is my submission that every human has only so much mind space s/he can devote to worry. The average Indian’s concerns about inflation, bad roads and the dry water tap at home take up too much of his time. Sadly you are somewhere near the bottom of the worry pile. An autorickshaw ride back from work terrorizes us far more than you would ever be able to achieve.  Come to think of it, most of our politicians do a much better job than you are doing.  Maybe you should be learning from them rather than from your friends in the ISI. Have you seen them stalling our parliament or pulling each other down like little crabs? That’s a far more effective way to break us up than by sending in a handful of armed idiots every now and again.

To conclude; find a different hobby, something that satisfies the inner animal in you. I am sure there are smaller more easily achievable nastinesses that you could indulge in.  Have you tried killing flies? Or mosquitoes? Do you have some of those in your part of the world? It can be a very pleasurable pursuit, I promise you. Especially if you’ve been bitten all night and you find the little blighters hovering around in the morning wanting more.  Or if this is too little for you, you could fight some virus afflicting your people. Killing viruses can be quite pleasurable I’ve been told.  I hear polio is still a problem in Pakistan. Instead of sending your gunmen to us you could instead send them out to help protect the workers dispensing polio drops in the far-flung areas of your country. You know it may still be possible to redeem yourself by channeling your rage. I say this as a concerned citizen of this world. The way you are going you may not amount to anything at all.

Best,


An ordinary Indian.