All of us at our home like to pick a spot right in front of our Television (see this is one thing that I'd never shared with anyone) Everyone does a variety of tricks to get that place, my Dad and Anjali included. No one can step out even for a minute. You will soon find someone happily occupying that spot and smiling. Its just an exception that the children (a sport started by my son Aditya and faithfully followed by my daughter Anjali too) would always sit on my shoulder if they find me sitting in the favorite spot. All of us enjoy doing this.
Anyways, you could now imagine what would have happened when Aditya came and joined me to watch the news. Seeing me in the favorite spot, he decided to jump right on my shoulder and held my (whatever left over) hair in a zipper. He was curious to know about the Ayodhya issue. I narrated the issue as a short story and simply said "there was a Masjit built by Babar which was demolished by Hindu's claiming that there was a Ram temple below that. There were many people killed because of the violence that erupted after that. Now, the left-over piece of land is claimed by both Hindus and Muslims and there is a big fight going on. The court is yet to decide about who the land would belong to and this case is going on since a very long time"
Aditya in a surprising tone asked "Very long time? for such a small issue? these things shouldn't take so long Appa!!"
I replied "No son, there are lot of legal things around this. Two large communities are involved, lot of sentiments around this issue and troubles were anticipated for kind of resolution that might come up. Many people tried proposing several resolutions in the past and none worked in the past"
Aditya bent down and pulled my chin upwards and said "Why can't they just split 50-50, the way you split whenever Anjali and I have a fight for anything"
I was silent for a while.
WOW!!! what a simple and brilliant solution. I was so thrilled to hear this response from an eight year old boy who just came across the short version of a complicated history a little while ago. He could also come up with a very simple solution on that day.
Ultimately, few weeks later the high court represented by a panel of judges had passed a similar judgement to split the land between Hindus and Muslims to see an amicable end to this conflict. Its awful to realize that this conflict also had seen several innocents being killed and many walls built between the two communities over the past several years.
The little response from my son also made me think a lot about many things happening around us in this so called modern world. I don't think no adult can answer the questions that I have in my mind convincingly. All of us were children at one point of time and we always had simple solutions to any problem that we faced. All the problems had a simple solution. None of us would remember the nasty fight we had with our dearest buddy or a little girl from the next street or even with the little one who came on a vacation to our colony from another state. It didn't matter whether the we tore the shirt of a Hindu boy or broke the bangles of a Muslim girl or lost the wooden plank used for playing cricket belonged to the dark eyed slum boy next door. We never designed and planned any fight against anyone brown, pink or beautiful. The next day, as children we happily played cricket or hide and seek with each other without being bothered about anything that happened the day before.
As adults, Why are we so troubled to believe in such simple solutions and accept to share when it comes to land, property, any of our belongings; or even giving up a petty fight with our neighbors, friends and colleagues. We develop ego, turn very possessive and develop strong political, religious and secular believes. We wage war against resourceful countries and fight with our neighbors. We fight because of greed and always see to that we 'Win' at the end. Where is the end to all these things? How many more Hindu and Muslim conflicts we and our future generations are going to witness? How many more wars that we are going to see? How much more money and energy all of us are going to spend on Nuclear bomb's, fighter jets, bullets and modern warfare to kill each other? Who has created the divide between a once united country 'India' into pieces like Pakistan and Bangladesh? When did our teachers or our parents teach us all these things?
For the first time, I really hated Adults....me included.