A rather black week- 1

Anirudh speaks
Part one

When I was a child I have read various stories that spoke about mighty heroes fending off evil-doers in  highly illutrious battles. It wasn't long before I realized that whatever be the situation the story was set in-be it saving the damsel in distress, claiming one's birthright or winning the throne to rule a mighty empire- the foundation or the basic concept that eventually lead to the battle at the end was the same- Good vs Evil. It was around this time when I realized that this world is balanced by two opposites. It is balanced by two extremes required for the fundamental existence of life on Earth. Stories depitcting mighty weapons of mass destruction meeting their counterparts wielded by the people representing the two opposite sides had one thing in common irrespective of whether the side is good or bad- they all had their own moral rules of conduct and ethics.

I have come across translations of vedas that speak of the very birth of our universe. They even speak about the 'big bang' which is the most plausible theory proposed to date. The vedas tell that the 'big bang' is one violent form of force balanced ultimtely by the force that created the solar system and life as we know it. I realized over time that a balance is necessary to hold this world in place no matter what happens and that if this balance tips over, then all hell breaks loose. Initially, I was astounded at the accuracy at which the vedas were able to describe the birth of our universe. Now, I am shocked at how this very 'balace' is slowly being lost in a rather one-sided battle. Over the past few weeks, I have come across not one, not two, but 6 reports of terrorist attacks all over the world. The world IS being destroyed piece by piece, slowly but in a very scary way. In june 2014, a rather notorious group of jihadist militants formed a group with one mission in their lives. They ultimately made themselves the most feared militant group in the entire world. Though reports suggest that this group was formed in 2014, it is believed by many that they have been working in the backround for the past decade or so, silently, yet very much in the thick of the action (remind yourselves of the various other terrorist groups). 

This newly formed group considered themselves caliphates and their ideology was to unite the world under a one-world government. Sounds simple enough right? True. Their only aim was (and still is) to unite all the people following the religion that they "say" they follow and form a single governement with their people at the top of the rung... always. It is here where I take a slight diversion to explain the reason for stressing upon the word 'say' in the line above -Honestly, in my opinion, Terrorism has no religion.

I should say, the past few months has been one amazing ride for the newspapers. They were bubbling with excitement proudly displaying headlines of the latest terror attack. There is a point in everyone's lives where they begin wondering whats wrong with the world they are in. I suppose I reached mine sooner than I thought. Day after day and week after week of morose-toned news articles describing every moment of the attack and how the attacker managed to pull it off deftly, literally bogged me down. Thoughts of whether the 'balance' will ultimately tip over and whether humanity might reach a point wherein they slowly start to give in to the diabolical scheme of the jihadi militants were floating in my head. But then my curiosity got the better of me. A curiosity to find out a pattern in their attacks, if at all it exists and to my own surprise, I did find two things. One, a rather obvious pattern with one case being an exception and two, a rather startling doubt that I asked myself again and again but failed to come up with an answer. I still haven't come up with one. The first obvious pattern I found was that they seemed to like attacking places that are the most crowded. They seemed to be the lackeys of the phrase- "Hit them where it hurts the most and hit them hard". This seemed way too obvious as mentioned earlier probably because it is a jihadist militant group that is the primary subject here. The second startling (in my opinion) discovery that I made was to doubt if all they wanted was an audience, fame, popularity and stardom for all the wrong reasons so as to quickly climb up the rungs of the 'success' ladder and ultimately achieve their one goal in their lives- a worlwide caliphate. Well, if you ask me, everyone wants to be seen, to be heard. I would just argue that this was another such group with the only difference that they ruthlessly massacred and ushered in their idealogy into this world through sheer violence and blunt force...

(to be continued...)