Vendetta Celebrations!

On this New Year eve, my hours were full of dilemma of what to write for my readers as a New Year gift. My senses were set loose. But they couldn’t trap any expressible idea.

The seven O’clock news in a Malayalam TV channel, at once blotted off my-what-to-do-mentality. The news was about the new occurrences of killings in Kannur and Thalassery. Political murders!

Politics has given Kannur its part, in the New Year colours, the colour of blood! A political riot was broken out and high alert had been proclaimed in many areas.

As per my family’s advice, I remained at home. At about ten O’clock I gave a short visit to the nearby town. The television had filled in me, a vibrant and colourful expectation about the New Year celebrations. My eyes were accustomed to the colourfulness, after long hours of watching the New Year programmes on TV. But my eyes were dejected by the scenes I saw on the streets and town. There were not much people on the streets, and the shops are mostly closed.

If the Malayalam poet Changampuzha were there, he would have written a poem on this bi-sidedness of the world. One side of the world celebrating a new year in happiness and joy, though whatever problems they face. And the other side celebrates their own heinous intentions on the day of the New Year break. Now, you may think that why did I place Kannur on one side and the rest of the world on the other? There are many other places in India and outside, like the poor countries of Africa and Latin America, which are suffering in many ways, like poverty, civil war etc.

I want to ask a question. Our condition was not as worst as Africa or Latin America. Then how did we come to be in their shoes? Who is responsible for this? Of course, there is one and only answer, the people of Kannur.

Generally, it is said that, the people of Kannur are very loving and compassionate. If this statement is true, then the news that we read or our ears devoured will not be true. The media syndicates might be in pursuit to blur our eyes and to prove that Kannur people are all cruel hearted. But those deaths and bloodshed and that deserted street that I myself witnessed on the New Year day, are all real-life scenes. Who can turn their face off from truth?

The truth is that, as seems to me, only a minority of people is there in this place called Kannur who want to live in peace with harmony! The majority wants bloodshed. It is not a block headed comment. During the election time, they will go as pre-programmed robots and simply vote for their political party and come back regardless of the developmental works, that party had undertaken and fulfilled. This party politics is the root cause of most of our problems, not only in Kannur, but also in the whole of India. I will blame the common man. For they are really damp and their dampness itself is giving the politicians the ground to dig in.

I know the people of Kannur would be angry with me for blaming them as a whole, for all that is happening here. But if I had answered “politician” to the question, “Who is responsible for this?” I would have been termed as a “terrorist”, as a person going against India’s favour. They will say politics is the only strategy, which can save India, and politicians are the only people on whom the country can rely on. I am quite sure about this, because I know what had happened when, after the terror strike in Mumbai, people turned against politicians. They were all mocked and abused and called the supporters of terrorists.

In Kannur, both the saffron and the ruddy people are responsible for the bloodshed. And the rest of the political groups can’t ward off from their indirect involvement by keeping their mouth shut and arms closed when hundreds were discarded the right to live…

Any way, I am a little afraid of writing further. After all, I am a Malayalee and a Kannur man!!!