A Sunday...

(This post was originally published on Sunday, 4th March, 2012 when I was at site.)

I

Sunday was supposed to be spent sleeping and doing nothing but I ended up working and if not exhausted, was certainly tired out at the end of the day. Nevertheless, I think it was a day well spent rather than doing something futile.

In the office, cautiously opened my mailbox with a fear that there might be a response to the mail that I had sent a day before. And lo! There was one. “Can we develop a sketch incorporating all the above?”, the reply mail said. And that’s how I was set to work. There are days when I do not feel like doing anything and then there are when I feel addicted to work, fortunately it turned out to be latter of those. So, to my relief, I enjoyed working.

Once upon a time or should I say that once of those many times, someone asked me my caste. And, as is my usual policy, I told that person also, "I do not know, but what do you think?". Now to say something like that can only be considered a blatant lie. And so he said that it is not possible and turned his face away with a countenance that suggested, “He is not telling me because he must be from a lower caste”. Was he right or should his right or wrong even matter? Because the point of discussion cannot be what caste but it is much more than that. It raises some fundamental questions, which needs to be considered before we decide if an answer is even applicable, such as what is caste, why and how it was conceived, what were the benefits because of which this system was preferred over others and is the present practice adheres to those rules, if it does then has those benefits being realized and if not then what has led to this degradation (may be some other day).

II

I do not know why people fail to understand a simple fact that everyone is just a human being composed of same flesh and bones, having same sort of desires and wants, and if these customs of caste, religion, nationalities are not artificial and prone to error as well as subjected to rectification, then what are they? Caste system, in its purest form had it existed of that of division of labor, I believe, and not division of laborers, would have certainly been fruitful but it has now become a dreadful system which serves no purpose but flagrantly promotes hate and even being an intelligent set of species, it is beyond the ambit of my understanding, why can’t we get rid of it. Where all the rationality, intelligence of men does fade away like wisps of smoke when they discriminate with their own kind on the basis of religion, caste, color, creed, etc instead of treating everyone equally.