Why? Why? Why?

Chingkheinganba Thangjam *

The scene of the accident at RK Puram South Delhi on 8th May, 2013

Is it because we are all stupid? Is it because we are all sick with a chronic form of mental disorder? Is it the time? Or is it the age? Is it the doing of some malevolent agents who are out to massacre our society, our people - the entire human race? What is going on? What in heaven's name is wrong with us?

Responding to a question put forward by Bill Maher, Professor Richard Dawkins once said, "Yes. There is a lot of variation in brain power - all the way from Albert Einstein on one end to Sarah Palin on the other." I pray he's wrong. If he's right, I'll have to sit down and cry loudly right now; if Manipur has more Sarah Palins than Einsteins, I see no point in continuing with this write-up. But I'll continue nonetheless because, although I'm not Einstein, I have hope, and trust in ourselves. We may not be able to prove Prof. Dawkins wrong and it's impossible to shake something that is literally cast in stone like the Theory of Evolution but we definitely can stop being too fatally stupid. That's the whole purpose of my writing and posting this article really. I wouldn't want all of us to become Einsteins and at the same time, I wouldn't want to see any Palins either.

"A Manipuri woman died in a road accident. New Delhi, May 09, 2012." This was a piece of news published on E-Pao and subsequently on E-Pao's Facebook page. I was aghast seeing what became of the autorickshaw in which the deceased woman was travelling. I shuddered and felt traumatised imagining a bus speeding up from behind and smashing the driver and the five passengers in it. The image in my mind was so gory that I couldn't breathe for a long while and it was only minutes later that I slowly managed to gather myself up a little and started to feel deeply sorry for the victims' families.

And when I say families here, mind you, I mean every victim's family - including and most importantly the auto driver's. I know what I'm saying as I have friends who feed themselves and their families with a meagre income that they earn out of driving an autorickshaw. Trust me it's not fun especially when they are the only source of income for the family. And as for the woman who died, she lost her life - a precious human life, and that is not a nice thing at all.

Also, all or some of the others who were injured may not be able to resume normal life even after they recover. Accident victims, whether they recuperate physically or not, always spend the remainder of their lives with fearsome flashbacks every so often and the pain will continue to haunt them. Think about it. Imagine it.

Having traveled to and even lived in almost all cities in this country in the last eight years or so, I've had the pleasure - displeasure actually - of using public transport as a lowly commuter to an extent where I can now more or less accurately comment on how dangerous and embarrassingly distasteful the whole ordeal can get. However, that isn't what I'd like to talk about today.

Like I said earlier, as a human being, I felt deeply hurt when I read the news article and saw a photograph of the mangled vehicle – a heap of metal, wood and plastic. After composing myself, I thought I should write a few words of condolence in the comments section under the Facebook post. Yes, I wrote something along the lines of "I'm sorry to hear about this and may her soul rest in peace" but I never posted it. I simply couldn't post it. No, it wasn't a technical problem that prevented me from posting it; it was something else.

I was deeply affected psychologically and ethically by a few other comments posted by people from Manipur. I was so saddened and embarrassed I started questioning my own existence and position in this world as a member of the human race.

Here's the scenario. You are on the Internet browsing around and you suddenly see a news article reporting a massive road accident involving a huge bus crushing an autorickshaw. A woman dies and five other people get seriously injured. Assuming that you are a mentally stable, sane human being let me ask you this: what would be your first thought? Of course, yes, you'd instantly feel sorry for the victims and their families!

And what would be your next thought? Naturally, you'd start to wonder what happened and how it happened. You then use your intellect to explain the cause of the accident logically using information available to you - using the knowledge you've so far gathered through the span of life that you've so far lived. As a part of your thought process, you'd feel indirectly responsible for what happened and also feel a need to do something to help prevent such accidents from happening.

Now, here's the real question: does the act of a woman travelling with four men have anything - ANYTHING AT ALL - to do with why and how the fatal accident occurred?

One particular individual's comment really angered me. Translated into English his post (which he deleted later after I wrote him a reply) went something like this: Why was she travelling with four men in an autorickshaw at such late hours? And that was not all, I saw another person saying the deceased was probably a woman of loose character. Then, he went on to say the others she was travelling with weren't even her relatives and they didn't even belong to the same community. I think the second person deleted his comment as well but I remember every word very clearly, especially the part where he said the men all belonged to a tribal group. I cannot forgive him for saying that!

So, I ask this: WHY? What's happening to people? What's so wrong with us?

Is it really, really, really difficult to see and understand the bigger picture? Why is it so painfully hard to understand that the passengers' gender, skin colour, place of origin or whatever had nothing to do with what happened?

Today, I will courageously stand and without a hint of inhibition say this: As long as we stay blinded by ignorance and continue remaining in total oblivion about how the bigger picture looks like, Manipur will never develop - not in a million years!

It is crystal clear from the example we saw above that we do not know how to define a problem, let alone solving it. Why did the accident occur? It occurred because of reckless driving. It's as simple as that and the process of solution development should start from there. It did not occur because a Meitei woman travelled with four tribal men in an autorickshaw which was heading towards the New Delhi Railway Station driven by a man possibly from Bihar or Uttar Pradesh or Haryana. We do not even know how to ask the right questions! Forget about answers! Actually, we don't even know what the problem is. Well, no, really, we have no idea when there's a real problem! We only know how to create problems without knowing how we created them in the first place. I can proudly say I have described the current condition of Manipur with mathematical precision here.

At the core of it all is ignorance – total and absolute ignorance.

How can we expect people not to discriminate us when, in reality, it's us discriminating ourselves?

How can we expect people to respect us when we can't even respect ourselves?

How can we expect people to solve our problems when we don't actually know what our problems really are?

How can we expect people to treat us as human beings while we continue treating each other like thoughtless beasts based on non-existent communal and religious difference?

How can we expect to live in peace when we don't even know how to define the word peace?

Ignorance is self-induced really. If we don't want to open ourselves up to the world around us, no force, internal or external, man-made or divine, can help us. It takes a fair amount of inspiration too, and that inspiration comes from the willingness to feel inspired. And where does the willingness come from? It comes from education – real, proper, meaningful, resourceful and purposeful education, not the kind we commonly get from schools and colleges now-a-days where they only prepare us for examinations.

On more than one occasion I've been asked why I don't join any organization or group to help bring forward the change we all want to see. I say, there is absolutely no need to form or join organisations to foster positive changes. It's a total waste of time and other valuable resources. All that is needed is for the individual to change. Organisations can do nothing if individuals refuse to understand what's going on. I feel individuals should influence individuals. That makes more sense. I believe in representation rather than organization.

So, please, we can't be Einsteins but let's at least learn to appreciate life, forget about petty differences, open up our minds a bit and experience the world. Let us read more, see more, feel more and understand more. Let us be humble. Let us be tolerant. Let us be respectful. Let us be civilized human beings. The year is 2013! Wake up and smell the coffee! It's a beautiful sunny morning.

(Please don't think I enjoyed writing this article.)