Sumit Kumar

For a long time, I have been thinking over the role of spirituality in our lives and have tried to ascertain my own spiritual path. Religion has always occurred to me nothing more than just a way of life, wherein a certain set of rules are followed which might vary from one another. It is not these rules over which I have pondered, but over the ultimate goal which these lead to. Some religious scriptures and leaders might define those set of rules, but not the goal. People following the same religion can have widely different purposes for following it. At the same time, people following different religions can have a similar purpose. In this way, I have always felt that spirituality for a person is not a matter of his or her religion, but very much a matter of his or her own self.

I spent my childhood in Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya, Narendrapur, a school which prided itself in following some well-defined religious tenets. We had a half-an hour prayer session every morning and evening. Huge expenditures were made on commemorating the birth anniversaries of the religious leaders with whom the institution is associated. This is just an example of how religion has dominated the minds of people over the ages and over the places. Particularly in a country like India, where there is an overt paucity of basic resources of life for the people, the expenditures carried out in the name of religion are bound to raise questions.

The obvious question kept coming in my mind over the pertinence of these principles. Whom are we trying to satisfy by praying day and night? And through all these ostentations, are we gaining anything as an individual or as a society? At times I really feel sorry for the poor people who don’t have enough resources to get two meals a day still spend some money seeking the blessings of some deities. And raising these questions by no means is a badge of atheism.

All this questions have so far been a part of my quest for divinity. I have realized that irrespective of the path undertaken, the ambition is to attain a certain sense of peace and happiness. And this has to be achieved staying within the realm of all the worldliness. It is neither pragmatic nor logical to go into this quest through asceticism. There are various other responsibilities which need to be taken care of at the same time.

Somewhere inside we all have that glowing light, which has a certain meaning when looked upon with regards to what life is and to what role we are destined to play in this world. We often fail to realize this and go after certain ideals which we believe will lead us to a certain supreme being. It is more rational to seek that supremacy which lies very much within us.

When terrorists attack the US, the world changes. 9/11 becomes a worldwide phenomenon, not just American. It has far-reaching impacts worldwide both politically and economically. When London gets bombed on 7 July 2005, the world’s top leaders including the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh present a combined face against these terrorist attacks at the G-8 summit. This was when just two days ago, there had been a terrorist intrusion in the very hallmark of India’s religion – Ayodhya. An incident which largely went unnoticed at the international stage.

Apart from these two incidents, the US and the UK have hardly seen any major terrorist activity in the recent times. During the same period, India has seen umpteen number of terrorist attacks. The attack on the Parliament was within 3 months of the New York attacks. Attack on the Akshardham temple. Serial blasts in Mumbai local trains. Every major city has been through the wrath and hatred of terrorists – Hyderabad, Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Delhi and many others. And now the lowest of all the lows – terrorist attacks inside the top hotels of Mumbai. Beyond doubt one of the biggest blobs in the face of the Indian intelligentsia (if one exists at all) and of course in the face of the government.

Whatever the roots of these terrorist acts be, the striking dissimilitude between the attacks in India and those in the US or the UK has been the failure of India to garner international support in its favor. When the US was attacked, it projected its “War Against Terrorism” as if it was liberating the whole world from the clutches of terrorism. How much they succeeded, is altogether a different question to answer but the attack on the US suddenly began to be perceived as an attack on the whole world. While presenting a unified stand against terrorism is all right, it was by and large a problem of the US. Why did the whole world have to change because of it? Was it that the world woke up to terrorism only after the New York and London attacks? What about the numerous terrorist activities which have been going on ever since in India? While the London subway bombings became a worldwide issue, what amount of attention was paid to the series of blasts in the Mumbai local trains which had left dead many more people than London?

It is true that the Indian intelligentsia has never succeeded in presaging such attacks, which is just baffling because such organized attacks are never possible without the involvement and support of the locals. But the handling of the aftermath of these incidents has been even more listless and sluggish. Who really cares for these ghastly acts of inhumanity? The Home Minister is busy flaunting his apparels and the only justification of his being on this post remains his allegiance to Sonia Gandhi. All the other leaders are trying to gain the maximum political mileage. The news channels consider a bigger achievement in bringing those “live pictures to your home” than anything else. That the pictures are of streets and building burning and the civilians dying isn’t a concern for them.

The police and the army try their best no doubt, but even their hands are tied by the rigid bureaucracy above. And sometimes when they do succeed in finishing off these criminals, they are condemned with dealing with them in an “inhuman” way. As if the killings of hundreds of people by these terrorists was not inhuman enough. The perpetrators of the crime are rarely caught and even when they are, they are hardly put to justice. Not just because the system of justice is slow in India, but mainly because the government is unable to take a tough stand. It fears that bringing tough laws against terrorists would project them as “anti-secular”. That these terrorists are responsible for such heinous acts is not a matter of solicitude. Since these terrorists are Muslims, politicians fear losing the Muslim vote-bank if tough actions are taken against them. Ridiculous to say the least.

At the end of it all who are the sufferers? None, but the common man. Not the politicians, not the bureaucrats and not the religious leaders. They will keep on delivering their sermons and in way further perpetuating these crimes. But the one who will keep dying in the streets, markets and trains would be none but the common man.

What was supposed to be a hassle free straight journey turned to out be a nightmare. I had booked tickets well in advance to ensure the shortest and most comfortable route. It was as simple as Charlotte-Philadelphia-Frankfurt-Kolkata. As I set off according to my plans, I came to know at the airport that the Philadelphia flight had been canceled. The US Airways agent tried hard to get me to Philadelphia and all she could manage was to get me into a flight to Washington which was taking off in 10 minutes. I somehow checked in my luggage and got through security check and kept running across the airport right inside the plane and it took off just as I took my seat! The next connecting flight to Philadelphia took just another 45 minutes. And as per my schedule, I was on time for the Frankfurt flight.

Getting one flight canceled in a journey is an unfortunate thing enough to happen. But just imagine your plight when you get to know that after all the running because of the earlier flight getting canceled, the next flight, this time an international one is going to be canceled too. Never thought that these big airlines also had to suffer through the strikes by their employees. But Lufthansa’s reputation of one of the best service providers in the world is going to suffer a serious jolt now after this. The US Airways people at Philadelphia didn’t allow me to board the Frankfurt flight – the reason being given that I didn’t have the German VISA and in case my flight from Frankfurt to Kolkata gets canceled, I could not stay for long in Germany. They said that the best they could offer was to re-route my journey. After a lot of searching, finally they could manage seats for me in the Philadelphia-London US Airways flight and the London-Kolkata British Airways flight.

Everything went off fine hence, except for the fact that when I reached Kolkata, I could not locate my luggage. Although it had been re-routed along with me, perhaps it might have gone somewhere else, Frankfurt probably. Filing a complaint was all I could do then and leave for Kgp. Hadn’t it been for the luggage drama, I would have managed to take Ispat Express to Kgp. But that was not to be. Then I found a new train called Digha Express standing at the platform and the wretched ticket issuing guy told me that it would go via Kgp. So I took the train. But when I crossed Mecheda, I found that we were moving on a rather unfamiliar route. It was then I realised that the train was going to Digha and that was not via Kgp. I jumped down at the next stoppage, a station called Tamluk. From there I walked down the street to the local bus stop. Well, then I was thinking that perhaps it was good that I didn’t have my 50 kgs of luggage with me! I took a bus back to Mecheda station and after waiting there for abot two hours, I finally got a local train to Kgp. When I reacjed Kgp, I was well over 15 hours behind my actual schedule.

P.S. Today, the next day after my arrival, I got a call from British Airways that my baggage has arrived at the Kolkata airport and they are going to deliver it to me in Kgp tomorrow.

At first sight, with his well pressed black uniform and stars over them on his shoulders, he appeared to be a cop. When he saw us, he gave a smile and quipped, “So, you are from Bombay, huh?” It is not hard to recognize Indians from their face. He told later that one of his friends had been to Mumbai and apparently he had also taught him a word or two about Hinduism as he was beaming with excitement when he chanted “Hare Rama Hare Krishna” in front of us. I had to explain him how India extends beyond the city Mumbai and how its culture extends beyond Hinduism.

All this took place as I was waiting for the train at an underground Metro station in Atlanta last Saturday. The guy then went on to ask me whether I felt away from home in America and was the land too foreign to me? Then he went on to speak about his own cult, the black population of USA. The African-American population is considerably high in Atlanta. He began to say that how America has never accepted them as their own and how the black themselves have forgotten about their own roots. He expressed his anguish over the fact that none of the blacks today knew their ancestral African language. He also lambasted the ladies who were attempting to follow the whites in terms of fashion and mannerisms. He was particularly annoyed by the fact that it was not long ago that the white women used to get transplants in their different body parts, mostly as a provocation from the figures of the black women. But nowadays it was the other way round with the black women imitating the whites in fashion.

As the man was going through his discourse, I noticed a logo over his shirt pocket which read “All Blacks Panther Party.” The next thing I noticed was that I was sitting in the midst of a lot of black people around me. It was then that I realized that his lecture was in no way a means an attempt at acquainting a foreigner to the American history that has seen the blacks suffer a lot through the ages. (By the way, I already had come to learn a lot about their struggle after my visit to the High Museum of Art and the Martin Luther King Memorial site earlier in the day.) Evidently, he was just trying to inspire the black community, which he clearly felt hasn’t got its due even after the Civil War and King’s revolution of the 60s. After the train came, I saw him continuing with his speech, directed at the blacks once again.

Its insteresting and strange at the same time that a developed nation like America too is not free from the racial inequity. But perhaps the only big difference of this with the much maligned caste system of India is that when its the nation to the call, all rise up equally. Anyway, the American government has done all it can to bring them at par with the whites in the social structure. And that doesn’t mean reserving seats for them in top educational institutions and government jobs. In India, the different castes have been used brilliantly by the politicians for their survival and some have gained benefits just because of the virtue of their being at the lower ladder of the caste structure. Very much unlike the fact that Barrack Obama is knocking at the door of White House not because of some partisan politics that has paved his way all through. He has achieved all this through his individual brilliance and hard work. He didn’t need any reservation in Columbia University and Harward Law School or to get a Presidential nomination for that matter.

So I am here. Outside the country for the first time. America it is! No wonderland! Just another part of the world. So far, I have met mostly the Indians. So it is all the more familiar.

The journey was a long one but not very exhausting. The major part went in sleeping and the rest in watching the videos and watching down to the earth. Lufthansa had better services to offer as compared to the US Airways. Frankfurt Airport is no doubt one of the modern wonders, considering its expanse and the frequency with which International flights take off from or land here. Contrary to my belief there were no “air-hostesses” in both the flights but rather Flight Attendants who were not all female and not all very young! The food was satisfying though. The guy sitting beside me in Lufthansa ordered a Scotch and I did not know that they offered it for free. So, in the US Airways flight I decided to order it myself. The attendant happily brought it, only that this time he asked me for $5 as the cost of it! (He eventually forgot to take it from me though!)

The professor had sent some of his graduate students to pick me up at the airport. They took me to my apartment, which is indeed a wonderful place to live in. It is centrally air-conditioned, has a refrigerator, microwave, kitchen with quite an excessive number of utensils, a TV, radio, telephone and internet connection. And as of now, there is no one to share the place with me. So, I am living there kingsize!

The apartments here have a peculiar problem though. They get locked automatically on bolting from outside. My room got locked yesterday this way with my keys inside! My all stuff were lying inside and I couldn’t figure out what to do. Luckily (for me ), there was a fire alarm in the floor above which brought in some police personnel to whom I accounted my foolishness. The people here are quite helpful though. They called up the required department and within a short while, the lady who takes care of the residential facilities came up with the spare keys.

So far, I haven’t had to cook myself with the Indian graduate students and my Professor taking care of my lunch and dinner. Hopefully, I’ll get to do, or rather need to do some cooking tonight.