I'm offended!

Taking offense is our national sport and pastime. Like weddings. And cricket. [As a side note, thanks to Sushil, Yogeshwar, Saina and Mary Kom for reminding us that there are other sports in the World]. Someone should suggest adding the event of 'taking offense' to the Olympic games. It could entail 7 people sitting around a table trying to prove everyone else an ostrich with their head stuck in cemented ground. I'm sure we have a prize reserved in that. Unless someone beats us to it.

We can find reasons to get offended in space in the midst of the vacuum, or at the bottom of the sea. At any given point in time, you can pick up any newspaper and find someone seeking apology from someone because they said or did something which offended them, or their fishes. Maybe their cantaloupe. There is no dearth of people waiting to pound on you just because in some super freaking vaguely awesome way, you hurt their personal, religious or political beliefs, regardless of however outdated or senseless they might have been. Or because you stopped them from drinking drainage water thinking it was coming straight from God.

It is because of this zeal of excelling at our national sport that we are constantly looking for things to get agitated about. The whole situation makes me feel as if we're in a classroom full of juvenile kids pulling each others' legs, or ears. Just that, we are ready to go ahead and kill people and burn buses for the same reasons now.

With every passing day, my belief is reinforced that sense of humor and common sense are both super powers. Bigotry is not only counter productive, it is also a bit old-school, maybe off by a few centuries. I feel that we are creating more boundaries, instead of removing them as should be the result of globalization. My this belief might have been triggered due to information travelling faster than ever before, and us getting to know a lot more about what is happening in the world (including the places that didn't exist in our information map) than we did in the past. Although some people just don't want to come out of the 6th Century, or so it seems. I wouldn't say anything more, for the fear of offending them.

As lawmakers and policymakers, the governments could do things to improve situations; although I don't see that happening. And how could it, when the people who are sitting in the Parliament don't 'get it'. All they seem to be interested in, are their vote banks. Anyway, lets not go there. Its a whole other thing. But it would have been really helpful if there were some sensible people handling the issue instead of what seem to be novices with barely any competence with technology.

Thought: If we really need to invent more issues to bother ourselves with, it is probably a sign of persistence blindness.

[image courtesy: Facebook]