This is based on one of my personal
experiences.
And no, this does not include a story
about planning an attack, mounting a resistance, a street fight or
tear gas incident with police or a beaten up story with the army that
I faced myself.
This is about the other side of the
revolutions. This is the post revolution story that not very many
people talk or sometime not even think about.
I was in the university in late 1990s.
So this was after the youth uprising that we had in the south of the
country in the late 1980's.
While I was in the university, one day,
I went to one of my friend's house during a study leave period to
study for the exam. To respect the privacy of my friend's family, I
will not mention the city where they lived those days. We went by
bus. It took couple of hours. The moment I entered the house it
seemed that I was already “known” and “popular” among the
family members of the house. My friend had told his family so many
stories about me. Both his mother and father welcomed me very warmly.
It was already about 7.30 pm when we
reached the house. So I had a wash, and my fried was chatting with
his mother in the mean time. Then we direly went into dinner. It was
after dinner that my friend went for a wash, and his mother and I was
chatting in the living room, while his father was sitting outside in
the veranda.
We started the chat with the usual
stuff. And we were talking about how the stuff going in the
university. Then my friend's mother happened to mention his elder
brother, her eldest son. I did not, she did. She just said “if only he
was there today, he too could have been an engineer or a doctor”
And she paused...
I knew my friends elder brother was
killed in the 89 era. He was taken and never found.
And my friends mother kept on telling
me how it all happened. She explained if only someone told them that
he was taken, her husband could have done something. Both the parents
did some decent government jobs and they could not believe that this
happened to them, with their social status. And more importantly, to their innocent son, who was not really involved with anything at all.
The most sensitive part is not that.
The most sensitive part was that at the time she was explaining the
incident to me, years have passed by, but the whole family was still
struggling to deal with it. And while she did not cry in front of me,
I could feel the sadness. And then father walked into the house and
said, “now it is enough talking about it”. I got the feeling
that, they are not even talking about this with each other, but the
need to talk about it so much that the mother could not keep to
herself. And she felt comfortable talking about it with me, to relive the stress and sadness. And though the father did not talk much, but he also turn to my side and told me, "If only they told me. By the time I went to police, he was not there."
In my life, I usually always have
something to say to anyone in a conversation, no matter what the context is. People who
know me will know what I mean. But at this moment, while my friends
mother was explaining the unfortunate events of life that happened to
them, I was speechless and I had no idea what to say. This is one of
the most memorable moments in my life where I felt the loss of life
and helplessness to the extreme and yet I did not know what to say or
what to do. So I did the best I could, which was to keep quite and listen.
When a war or an uprising or a riot or
a revolution happens, we keep counting the dead (not even the
wounded, we are not at all interested in that number) but how many of us do
really see the real pain of a loss of a life? Do we really see the
lasting scars that these things lave behind? Do we see the human side
of the issues? I do not think we do.
And more importantly, the innocent will
be the victims. Those who did not want a revolution or a war will be
left behind with dead. Thus all those peace loving need to prevent
such at whatever cost.
So, for those who want to fool the
young into revolution, it is good to remind, that:
“It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.” - Luke 17:2
And
if you want a battle, there is one worth considering a fight:
“It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.” ― Gautama Buddha
Comments