So I was done preaching through my blogs. It doesn’t really
work. Some people like it, some think I am weird. Others simply look at such
things as a good piece of writing or something of the sort.
But now I am done listening to the word Tolerance, or its
opposite or its verb form or its adjective form or some other form. The word
has lost all meaning thanks to sheer repetition. I am sick of the word
and as much as I would like to think of other things, it keeps ringing in my
head or coming in front of me. And I can’t keep this down anymore.
We have got stop being just tolerant now! Just stop it! And
start opening our minds for real. A broad, open mind does not have to be
tolerant. It does not find the need to digest an opinion, view point or choice
different from its own and then permit its existence. Nope! No need of all that
work. Because an open mind just doesn’t care if other minds don’t work like it.
It is jubilantly carefree of the choices or opinions of others and still has a
firm and self-respecting one of its own.
There is no damn debate about whether India is tolerant or
not. I love my country. I think it is a lovely, lively place with the
heartiest people in the world. But even the best people have flaws. And when
the flaws become their habits and get better of them, it becomes highly
difficult to love them. And the flaws of pushing down our opinions on others
and punishing them for not sharing ours and wasting precious time and newspaper
and internet space on fighting over who is right and wrong, good and bad,
Indian or Pakistani, RSS or AAPtard, and so on and so forth has become our
habit and got better of us.
What happened man?
India is a tolerant country. It is a simple sentence we used
in conclusion to History textbooks. India a rapidly developing country is what
we find in conclusions of Economics and Politics texts.
It’s all true. We tolerate bribes, unjust references and out
of the line admissions - left, right and center. We tolerate the fact that a lot
lot more than just a half of the population is Male and thinks that the rest is
always better at making a sandwich than driving a car. We tolerate sham schools
and pseudo syllabi that give us useless degrees and rejoice at the apparent
belief that we are educated. We tolerate gossip. We tolerate some people
screwing other peoples’ lives for the most selfish reasons, we tolerate crime and
fight tooth and nail for tolerance towards criminals. We tolerate the sham
democracy we are becoming and we tolerate, no, we elect and support the very
butts that make us one.
We love eating a Sub and talking about some random social
issue like it is the government’s problem alone. We’re a bunch of confused
idiots who think they are doing their bit by working for the country or running
a social organization, but the moment we get a chance at some overseas opportunity
or a well-paying job, we’re moving on. We’re a bunch of sloppy young people who
constantly want to click selfies and spend a major part of the day in
self-obsessed oblivion but when something serious happens, we make sure to take
the two minutes off our schedule and post on facebook about the event in a
socially likable and ‘comment’able manner.
Truth is, what is happening in the world isn’t changing our
lives drastically. It is only a blessed few who lose their sleep over the fear
of rising tolerance to intolerance or waiting for a really explosive situation
to take place only to shake up everyone, each and every one of us enough to
really open our minds.
We just need to stop tolerating crap.
We need to stop tolerating the idiots who think our unity
can be compromised a well orated religious rant. We need to stop tolerating the
press and mass media who instead of doing an objective and unbiased job is hell
bent of shoving its own opinion down our throats. We need to stop tolerating
injustice for real, every single day of our lives. We need to stop tolerating
dirt and slums and half naked children on streets. We need to stop tolerating
people our age who do not have better things to do than get you a joint. We need
to stop tolerating a healthcare system that makes us wish people rather died at
times. We need to stop tolerating idiots who make a big deal out of a sentence
popping out of an actor when actually we should be turning to ourselves and
figuring out if there is anything even slightly wrong with us that contributes
to all that is going wrong around. We need to stop tolerating anyone who thinks
they can influence our choice to be ourselves. We need to stop tolerating all
this bullshit and get down to what’s real, useful, meaningful and rational.
Stop tolerating. Start working.
