Secularism the Falsie

Again its nice to be back and writing something, though i miss blogging a lot i have been left with not much choice [Office people have denied me access to Internet especially blogs :) ].Last week on Saturday as usual I left from office in a very happy and excited mood as I was about to travel back home, in order to get to the Bus Stand I usually get into a taxi from one place, it is quiet a busy and famous chowk in that area.

This incidence in a real sense not really shocked me but it moved me and it touched down my beliefs, my faith in our system and the trust I have for the people of our country. It is a incidence and I'm trying my best not to get biased but this small incidence can be called as trailer of the movie which we all know is released but we want to be happy that it is not been released and anything like this is not existing at all.

As usual I was waiting at the signal in order to get a taxi, along with me there were few other people also standing there for the same, which included a group of Women in burkas and some kids, after waiting there for 10-15 mins. one taxi came to the place where we all were standing, I stopped the taxi, the taxiwala stopped looked at me and straight away went to the group of women in burkas and he asked them where did they want to go? I'm not sure what was the name of the place they told him but certainly he did not want to go there so again he called me and said Sahab kaha chalna hai? I told him where i wanted to go and he said chalo, i got in taxi; he as usual started the meter and my journey started.

I couldn't stop my self from asking and I asked him "Chacha taxi to maine pehale roki thi to aap waha kyon gaye" he very coldly replied "Sahab woh humare log the to socha agar ho sake to unhe pehle chod doon" I wanted to ask him how do u know I'm not from you people? Just because I'm wearing jeans and t and I'm clean shaven makes me someone not from you? I wanted to get further into this conversation but somehow I stopped myself.

I think this incidence may be one of those bitter experiences but it made me think.. we really talk of secularism, we have governments coming and going on the issue of secularism but have we really tried to close the gap between our own people? Everyone of us have bias and prejudices for the other person.We are still taking forward the age old disputes between us, we still doubt about the intentions of other people though we belong to one nation.

When I was a practicing lawyer, I had witnessed this "humare log funda" very closely, as most of the people want "someone from them" to be their lawyer so many times whenever they visit their would be lawyer they ask for his full name and place of his origin and all that so that they can judge to which community/cast he belongs to and whether he is someone amongst them. In our Court this division of lawyers and their repective clients is very clearly visible. Even then I wondered why these people give importance to these bullshit things which are not really gonna matter in their case. Later on I realised, they feel more secure if the lawyer belonged to them as they thought he might give some special attention to them, which will eventually provide relief to them. Furthermore, I observed that they felt insecure to handover their case to any other lawyer as they though they will not get the desired attention and believe me this thing really made me sick.This old memory of mental divide between our own people got refreshed because of this Taxiwala incident and again it made me sick.

Political parties who call them seculars are trying to highlight and protect the vested interests of one group while the so-called non-secular parties are trying to cash in the unprotected vested interests of the other group and we the "Janta" is just being a silent spectator and watching this tamasha with our eyes wide open.

We need to take some efforts to close in the gaps between the minds of our own people, because a nation where the minds and hearts of people are not together can not stand for its well being and safety. We need to know the people more closely and off course we need to be more open to other people.

Then only we will be to achieve the true secularism.

This awesome picture is been taken from Google and I would like to thank the unkonwn photographer....thanks brother you made it easy for me...