Oh, what a lovely war!

I just read two World War 2 books (The Collaborator and Night Soldiers) back-to-back and realized why I like them so much, apart from the fact that they are gloriously written: It was a time when we could see clearly between good and evil. 

The enemy had a face, not a mask. 

We knew who was fighting the good fight and who we had to rally behind. Love, Integrity, Justice, Brotherhood were words we understood and embraced; the opposite of them were so horrific only madmen like Stalin and Hitler could embrace its darkness while normal humans veered to the light.

 Now, there is so much darkness that we are all stumbling around, careening into each other. On one hand, heroes have turned villains, while villains try to outdo them at every turn. Other grey areas abound.

As we speak, there is a strike in the city I live in. When once my country's strikes were symbols of unity and fights against oppression, now they are vehicles where the lawless have a day of partying; young men feel powerful when otherwise they are helpless against a daily ritual of poverty slash ennui. They roam the streets burning tyres, shouting slogans gleefully and strong-arming shopkeepers who disagree with the idea of a strike that takes away their day's earnings. 

So the strike in 2012 means nothing more than fear, not unity, with businessess and ordinary citizens' lives shutting down for 12 hours.

The issue at stake was our highest judicial authority giving a ruling on sharing our river's waters with a neighbouring State. So with a strike, not only are we thumbing our noses at our highest judicial authority but we're also proving that the idea of “good neighbours” hasn't only been twisted on Desperate Housewives.

Found this on a news site today, a bit intense but the sentiment (except for the Kannadiga comment, some of my best friends are smart Kannadigas!) is spot-on:

“To the twits who think water rights are ENTIRELY owned by the region or territory where the river originates, please spend 10 mins on the Net and you will DISCOVER how the world handles it. By your incredibly stupid reasoning, China can completely deny the waters of the Brahmaputra to us - you all fine with that? Knowing the limited intelligence of the average Kannadiga, I wouldn't be surprised if you answered Yes cause you are not affected by the Brahmaputra and could care less about anything else other than 'what is in it for you' !”