Principles in paucity

Principles in paucity
Modern Times, By Abhay Mangaldas

The continuation of the bi-monthly dialogue on modern times between Bhrahm and Vish – two fictitious Ahmedabadi characters, like you and me.
Vish, what is the big ‘C’ word in every aspect of life?
Commitment?
No, compromise! Isn’t that what your well-wishers always tell you, ‘beta, you must learn to compromise.’ Though it is now ingrained in me, I hate the word. Why should I compromise? Why not stick to what I believe in?
Because you don’t always get what you want.
But Vish, that is the biggest misconception that I think most of us have. Do we even know what we want? Reminds me of what Donald Rumsfeld, the Security advisor to President Bush likes to say about the ‘enemy’. "There are things that we know, there are things that we don'’ know and then there are things that we don’t know that we don'’ know!".
You mean unknown unknowns?
I think most of the time we operate at such a superficial level that we are not even aware of what we stand for and therefore we think ‘compromise and move on’. Till one fine day you realise that your life itself has become one. The world gets shrouded in such a gray mist when decisions are taken on the basis of what’s most convenient …, what will avoid conflict…,what will involve least expenditure… and not what you think is correct. The ‘me and mera wala gray’ life.
But it’s natural to want things to be smooth, to flow with the current. What’s wrong with that? Why be a rock and block when you can be a stream and flow!
I have no answer except to know from experience that life without convictions seems superficial, bland… gray…faceless… like when the stream merges into the sea, one big salty mass without an identity. Matters have reached such a level that anyone with strong convictions is labeled as an extremist! If Gandhi were alive today, he would be termed as one! Who but an ‘extremist’ would go on a fast unto death for what he believed in or instigate the masses to burn their foreign possessions in support of Swadeshi!
Or go to meet the Queen of England wearing a Khadi ‘loin cloth’…!
In today’s world, the few who try to stand up in the crowd of fence-sitters, who have strong beliefs and live by them, are either a radicals or an extremists, frowned at by society. The rest of us, who have opinions on everything ranging from cricket to the Kamasutra but neither the guts to stand up to them or the gumption to put ourselves on the line, form the mainstream of a rudderless society.
So what would you call the LTTE and the Palestinian suicide squads…. youths who are willing to give their life for a cause?
Depends on which side you are sitting on!
Bhrahm, they kill innocent women and children!
And the bombs that rain on Iraq and Afghanistan don’t? It’s not so simple and we know it so lets not get swayed by the media and numb our ability to evaluate for ourselves.
Do you mean to say that you favour conviction versus compromise even if it means saving lives and suffering? What about the Dalai Lama who has chosen the path of peaceful protest to confrontation? You would probably call him a spineless moderate who has allowed the Chinese to walk all over his people.
Not true at all. The very fact that he has been consistent in his non-violent preaching all his life, in spite of every provocation, leads me to hold him in the highest regard. He has complete conviction in his method and has kept his flock together all these years … ever heard of a Budhist extremist? But to climb down from these lofty matters to more mundane day to day ones, that involve you and me, the point I was trying to make was that sometimes, the grayness of my existence gets to me.
So why don’t you do something about it?
Because, Vish, first I have to find out what I believe in!