তোমার টা গুছিয়ে নিতে দেব না (we are not going to let you settle your affairs)
I started this blog some years ago sitting at home during
the dark days of COVID-19 when the city of Kolkata had come together in its unique way to
voluntarily respond to the return of the menace amongst us. The lock down was
not even announced in the March of 2021, but we responded on our own, we shut
our shops, we stopped going out, we hunkered down, and we said to the disease, "we will not be beaten." That is what makes the city so unique - we
do things because we know what the right thing is - most of the time, the
people know. And the people respond. Today, we fight a different disease. Today when we are now trapped in a web of self-interests, greed and the desire for power, I am witnessing
the city respond again. The people matter. In this city. Self-interest is now the disease.
And it is not new. Even at a personal level, the entitled people abandon others
for selfish reasons, and I have seen many such people, for whom we say in
Bangla, "যে যার নিজের টা
গুছিয়ে নিলো (Everyone took care of
their own things)" at the cost of those who they had promised to protect
and nurture. These despicable people exist in all ecosystems, and they can live
with hurting others with no compunctions. And their victims suffer in silence
because the victims are individuals with no recourse and support. But what the
city is witnessing now is institutional self-interest. And we are responding.
When the entire ecosystem is the victim of narrow self-interests, the ecosystem
responds. Individuals can hurt other individuals and get away with it, but the
city is reminding us that it is not possible for the selfish institutional few
to victimize all of us. The nature of the current movement is unique, because it is not
about a despotic system where the hoi polloi eventually storms the Bastille
or throws tea chests in Boston harbor. The battle is not with the traditional despot,
but this struggle is similar to the struggle of an abandoned lover who finally realizes that his selfishness has trumped integrity. It is
realizing that the one she trusted has now walked all over us, leaving us
as the victims, while they are able to settle their homes and affairs at our
cost. My city is responding and the response, at its essence, after one cuts
through all the "viral" videos, is essentially saying, "we
are not going to let you settle your affairs (তোমার
টা গুছিয়ে নিতে দেব না)"
and you will have to pay for the harm you have done. It is similar to the way we together fought the disease of a virus; we are now fighting the
disease brought on us by the self-interested who hope we will forget and move on. But this time
it is different, because like the virus, this disease has killed, it has taken
life, we could lock down then to stop the disease from spreading, now we can do
other things to stop another disease - selfishness. It is what Buffalo Springfield
said in the 60s, "What
a field day for the heat/A thousand people in the street." Like all
diseases, I have a feeling, a cure and a vaccine is imminent.
Comments
In all this mayhem., we the people and citizens of our country are the sufferers. It is now high time that we realised our rights and fight for purging of the system, just like the passionate , dedicated , freedom fighters selflessly flight to extricate our beloved Nation from the auticracu of the British
The time has come for concerted action and change. Remember we get the Government that we deserve !!