The incomprehensible

The news making headlines for the past two days is another mindless act of terrorism. The loss of young lives, exuberant and hopeful, whose thoughts are farthest from any form of fundamentalism, is the grossest kind of victimization. The picture of the sorrowing mother who lost a son and a daughter to a bomb blast was to say the least unnerving. What does existence mean? What price the dreams of the parents who are now left with nothing but numbing grief. Who achieved anything from this? One wonders what the person achieved who carried the bomb to the eatery in an innocuous looking bag and left it there. Has he lost relatives as a result of similar mindless acts? Did he receive a fat sum of money to quiet his conscience? Does he have a conscience? What was it that became more important to him than basic humanity?

I cannot help but think about the parents who took so much pain to raise two capable children. I cringe at the destroyed possibilities. These two young people must also have had so many aspirations. They might have loved someone, dreamt of a good future. Their innocence is undoubted. They had nothing to do with the growing terrorism in the world. I am sure they had no intolerance toward any particular religion. But they are the ones who lost their lives.

And that brings me to the question of this motiveless malignity that makes some people think that they can deter the human spirit with such acts of violence. Nothing changes because of these acts. No one gets stronger or weaker. Fear does not grow and grasp our souls making us inactive or passive. We stop for some time, we fear for our loved ones and then we carry on. That is life. It flows on and on. We fear temporarily the many things that threaten life and then we carry on the business of life. We miss and we lose, but we carry on.

Such is the force of life. So why do people think they have the power or strength to curb it or deviate it from its predestined path?

Or is that what they are trying to do at all? What are they trying to do? Who can explain their motives. Quite frankly I fail to understand these cruel acts. Does anybody understand? Do they who are up to all this understand? Anything that is so irrational must be beyond all human comprehension.

I can only see the pain in the eyes of the mother who lost her children to the Pune bomb blast, and a bewildered incomprehension. She has only one child now, still living. She will spend the rest of her life fearing for this offspring. She will clutch on to him like the last straw and their lives will never be the same. They will live in the shadow of fear. But they will continue to believe in the God they always believed in to fight this fear. They will not change their ideas of life or living. They will not think about what’s bothering nations and their statesmen. They will only try to stay alive. Such is the force of life.