Amit Saha
(The author is an Assistant Professor of St. Xavier's University, Kolkata and can be contacted at amittsahaindia@gmail.com)
Our country is known for its unity amidst widespread diversity. Since ages people belonging to different racial groups and beliefs have survived in these lands spreading across the mountains to the plains and the massive islands. The geographical spread may have diminished over time, but the diversity is still intact. Language, food and festivals have intermingled and formed the greater community that we take pride in. This acceptability that is infused in our blood from time immemorial is the cause of this greatness. If we look at the world today, we are surrounded by the multiplicity of styles and preferences, habits and beliefs and mindsets. The advancement of technology has contributed significantly in this mass awareness and we are well aware of people living even many thousands of miles away. But with this increasing awareness, the acceptability has seen a decline. When distance has been made short by technology, minds have gone afar. The point of view is ignored time and again as we tend to unify one and all in a common line and weigh all using a common scale; but water can hardly be measured in kilograms. We are getting so much inclined to our own belief that we hardly feel that there could be another perspective too.
The world has always battled perspectives; the right and the wrong, but there was never an absolute right or an absolute wrong. There was only a matter of time when someone had wronged and that wrong needed to be punished as our mythological stories would tell. If we depict someone as the Ravaan we must also ensure that we are the Ram or it would be a battle between two Ravaans fighting for supremacy. Times had never been simple, complexities only changed its form but the intensity has always remained the same. Our mythologies are great books which tell us that perspectives exist and that is why even a villain has been gloried because nobody is absolute bad. It is time we understood what these stories had always been trying to tell us: perspectives. This world needs empathy. Hardcore ideologists would only bring in great damage due to the increasing differences in mindsets. Unless and until we understand that there is another side of the story too, the world would be nothing but a sorry state of affairs.
Every Dusshera we burn the Raavan and celebrate the victory of righteousness over evil, but nobody aspires to be the mythological Ram. The burden is too heavy. The path to righteous is tough. Today's world is getting filled with Ravaans who are materialistic, egoistic and proud of their wealth, knowledge and power. But the same Ravaan would be happy to burn the mythological Ravaan and celebrate the goodness without even realizing that they themselves are characteristically the same. Now we mustn't think that these lakhs of people who are trying to find happiness in every bit of materialistic pleasure are evil because with change in times this has become the way of life. Money is the determinant of quality of life and materialistic requirements are sources of survival. But who decides how much is enough? Where does necessity turn into obsession? This undefined line brings in differences in opinion and we start portraying the evil and the righteous. Today, every country aspires to be the mythological Lanka, but that doesn't put them on the evil side of history. There can be Ram-Rajya (Utopia) only if there is country like Swarna Lanka; there can be development and growth only through resources.
These stories or historical accounts have always been telling us these two different aspects of life: good and evil and the manner of perspectives. The need to understand them has increased immensely at present before we condemn something and join a bandwagon only to realize later that we are in wrong company. The pinnacle of perspectives presented by Ram and Ravaan is the perfect example of life and its multiple dimensions which make anything and everything an illusion or a reality in a matter of seconds. Decisions are tough as there is high degree of interferences to our mind today, but if we at least consider different perspectives before making a choice, we can walk towards a better world.