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This dear judge wants to forget
all, here's why
WSN Network
MUMBAI/CHANDIGARH:
How even the best, the intellectuals, the brilliant fail to learn
the right lessons and escape the process of applying mind to better
matters even when jolted with something as significant as near
certain death is clear from some of the accounts that emerged from
the Mumbai strikes.
Take the case of
much respected Justice S. S. Sodhi, retired, now a trustee of The
Tribune newspaper. He was caught in the terror-hit hotel in Mumbai,
was closetted in a toilet for long hours and was rescued with five
others from the Corporate Club of Taj hotel, after 11 hours of
shelter there.
He said at one
stage, within an hour of checking in the elite Taj at 9.30 p.m., he
was virtually face to face with one of the terrorists, who in his
early 20s, fired a shot from his gun at one of the shops connecting
main lobby with one of the restaurants of the hotel. And next 11
hours, including six hours in the WC rest room, at the hotel till
his rescue at 9.25 in the morning were marked by not only anxiety,
suspense and horror but also had him and five other guests packed
like sardines in a small toilet with gunshots and grenade blasts
immediate outside.
One would think
that an ordeal like this, and with a mind like that of an engaged
socially, politically and culturally aware person, you would get
some insights when he finally chose to speak. Some may think such an
experience makes you unravel even some of the meta-physical
questions that a human faces.
But here is the
judge merely saying that he would like to forget as quickly as he
can whatever happened. He said he cannot believe that it all
happened at all. "I could never imagine such a thing would happen in
Mumbai,” said Justice Sodhi, the man who presumably has heard of
Operation Bluestar but must have believed that it could only happen
with the Sikhs and not with India's elite.
And then said it
is all a bad dream for him.
If India's best
and brilliant approach something like this with this sort of
casualness, one can only understand the anger and rage among those
pushed to the margins of the society. One can only guess what
sensitivities did these people develop as they sat in judicial
chairs for decades, delivering justice?
Not once did
Justice Sodhi say whether his faith, whether his belief in Sikhism,
whether the higher core values of Sikhism came to his aid, how he
engaged with the possibility of death, what went through his mind
about questions of life and the point of deathly attacks. Instead,
he merely mouthed what even a class 5 dropout would have said: "I
was so afraid..I thought it all to be a bad dream...I want to forget
it all."
Of course,
please do forget it. This is not the only thing that those coopted
by the system forget. You have to forget a lot in order to be a part
of the system that has enough space for the forgetful but not for
those who chose to remember, who care to articulate what they
remember.
3
December 2008
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