Saturday, May 21, 2016

Intralogue -1



As I turn right into Kingsbury tube station, routinely collect a Metro and walk down the stairs… walking into a wave of thoughts that keep bombarding at random, while I (like the rest of the millions of daily commuters) mechanically enter the tube, look for a seat (which is generally available even during peak hours since I start on the 3rd station on the line) read the news, opinions, try solve the Sudoku & Easy Crossword until I hear on the PA “the next station is London Bridge, change here for Northern Line and National Rail Services”. Unless there is a huge distraction like a loud mouthed commuter giving lecture to his co-traveller how to troubleshoot world’s problem or an extreme showstopper magnet. I am generally immersed into my Metro and my thoughts, most of these as I said are at random when you try connect the dots, it probably leads you to a story. Here is a one among them:
There was a news clip I watched on Indian regional television about how an elderly couple in their 70s on their evening walk were mugged by a couple of chain snatchers leaving them injured and flee with the gold ornaments on the elderly lady. The oldman tried his best to protect her while the heartless miscreants were obviously stronger and prevailed victorious on their mission for probably a booze party. “Heinous crime”, “what ethics do these guys have?” my soul reacted like a normal person.
The other day a scammer calls me in his fake English accent pretending to be from UK Home Office, trying to extort me for a crime (which he cannot disclose… LOL) I am supposed to have committed and can be washed off with a handsome amount transferred to his personal account by wire money transfer. Pathetic are these guys, when I heard they are extremely successful in imbibing fear into innocent and mostly educated migrants and extort money; although 99% of them knew they cannot even imagine what wrong they could have done and why does government ask for dodgy money transfer, probably fear overcomes the logic.
The third one was about what I read on the social media on hikes that got announced on corporate network, under challenging times while maintaining extremely difficult margins the corporate leader was flamboyant in his delivery to announce a decent percentage of increase to everyone and all glee and happy appreciating with tags and hash tags. Huh! A relief from negativity I sighed, while the first two seem to be legitimately connected and involve key words like robbing, innocent people, unethical and the third one was seemingly good… a pause and then I realised it was just “seemingly good” and it was not by the end it, the parity between the percentages what the top management cashes out versus what they spill over to the rest of band wagon. Well, I am not experienced enough or worthy enough to talk about whether it is just or unjust but definitely can relate to something I studied while at school.
So here is the story that connected my dots, this is about a legendary king from Jataka tales, Shibi; who is known for his compassionate behaviour towards his subjects and how he was tested for humility and humanity by two gods disguised as falcon and dove, I will try keep it short. A dove chased by a falcon seeks refugee at the King Shibi’s court to save it, the king renowned for his charitable nature grants it without a second thought. On learning this, furious falcon accuses the king for being ignorant of laws of the nature (modern equivalent of survival of the fittest theory / Darwinism). Shibi then promises the falcon to match dove’s weight with his own flesh. This was taught to us to be kind and compassionate to the world and especially to someone deemed to be weak and show the difference of being human. Well, the first two instances are typical dove and falcon situation where the mighty one is trying to overpower the weak and there is no Shibi to protect them; but the 3rd one is a bit tricky where supposedly the king (or the aristocratic bureaucracy) is donning the role of falcon.
I leave it there, just think over it! More to come!!

1 comment:

bishu said...

Lucky to find a post i can read... I could connect to a lot but the most nostalgic part was the dynamics in the tube and the PA part...