Am I A Traitor?

"…I'd like to reach a point where I no longer bullshit myself. I think that's the natural human condition - to lie to yourself. Because the truth is painful."
-Dustin Hoffman

I have been witnessing all these candle peace rallies...which have become such a fashion after every terrorist attack and are projected by electronic media as if it's going to change everything. And if people like me refuse to be part of it we are made to feel like "traitors". My only logic for not joining such a rally was that in a tense situation such rallies put extra pressure on the police forces to provide additional security when their men are trying to concentrate on investigation. But anyways thousands of people still gathered on evening of 3^rd December near the Gate Way on India to show "their anger" and "unity" (I don't exactly know though who were they showing this off to and why?)…but how serious they were was seen in the way everyone was laughing, joking, walking casually and clicking snaps of the places where people had died few days back. And not very far from this place, at CST, a five kg bomb was recovered same day…what if it had gone up? These same people would have again blamed the police. Finally, Mumbai police had to put a ban on such rallies for next two weeks for security reasons. Then, I wonder who are these people who had gathered there as I could still see trains crowded with same old faces of the Aam Aadmis. Autowalas and taxiwalas were complaining about traffic jams due to these rallies and common man in hurry to reach home after a hard day at work also looked unhappy with all this. If one looks at these rallies carefully he/she will find that large part of this crowd us of people belonging to elite class (according to an autowala "people who have no serious work to do"), NGOs, celebrities and youth (may be same youth who gets caught in parties taking drugs, who drinks and drives and runs his car over people, who beats up policemen…and whose general knowledge about this nation is below average and who has seen Rang De Basanti for than couple of times but has missed the real message). And looking at the planks they are holding clearly suggest no one has any idea what exactly they expect from these rallies…if one of it read "We want Peace" other said "Go for War"…I am very sure whoever was holding that "Go for War" plank has no one in his/her family who is in arm forces. Anyways believing they have done something revolutionary they all went back home. What were left behind were all those banners and planks dirtying the roads and lot of melted wax. No news camera covers what is left behind…because hard truth doesn't sell. They want us to believe we have won because we have killed ten terrorists so what if we lost 200 innocent lives plus now we have shown our anger and unity. They want us to believe that smsing that "we want change" and lighting up a candle will change this country. They want us to blame politician, police and every agency possible because selling such anger is easy. What they will never tell us that we are part of the system, we are the system and we all have failed completely, that first we have to be an aware, responsible and honest citizen and then ask questions to others. I don't even know how long this anger in people will last. And as soon as some peace returns everyone will go back to their normal lives and these news channels will return to same old criminal and superstitious shows. Actually on star news second most important news after the Mumbai attack was that MS Dhoni didn't go for his graduation exam. I don't even find it funny now.

We want change but are we ready for change? It's a war like situation, we need harder rules and laws but I wonder we will follow them when we find it hard to follow simple rules and laws. We don't co-operate police in anyways, we don't have respect for policemen and we want them to stand for us. We think all the politicians are corrupt but we don't want to be part of the politics. Forget about being part of it, we don't even follow what's happening in politics. I have always believed that this country doesn't need revolution to change but it's time for self realization for every individual and to ask how responsible I am myself.

PS-I am 25 years old and I am not very proud of the fact that we are the youngest country in world as I see that my generation has clearly lost the way. The Generation before us brought this country so far, I don't know where we are taking it. As somebody told me "We are losing "EAST" and we don't have "WEST". I believe India has a "magic" about it which no other nation has but if we loose it I don't know what identity I will have as an Indian after few years. I am angry, frustrated but I still want to rise up and walk and try to change whatever I can by being little more responsible and little more aware and wish everyone does the same…am I asking too much…am I a traitor?