Returning after a very long time

I think it's almost a year since I wrote anything. I have just lost the excitement and interest to write and share my thoughts with anyone at all. Right now at 00.24 AM, I am just forcing myself to write whatever is coming to my mind.

I often wonder, what should I write about? But, I get no answer. Maybe it is better to just write whenever something comes to my mind but then those are just fragmented thoughts having no coherency at all.

Maybe, I am writing just because I am a lot disturbed today. And more often than not it's the casteism of this society in which I am forced to live that makes me feel so. Sometimes I feel like a Jew living among Nazis. The same fear of being discovered or asked about your caste. The same fear of persecution and humiliation, of being told every now and then that you are worth nothing.

Whenever I searched for a house for renting, I was fearful that I would be asked about my caste and indeed it was asked. But this time, to get a decent house, I had to circumvent the truth. Instead of lying, I did not say anything and let them assume what they wanted to. I don't know how would they react once they find out.

But it is lying nevertheless, of not being able to live freely without any fear of confronting your identity.

I don't think this country will ever change. These people just want to even deny the fundamental rights to the people of their own country and when the government does something to help through affirmative actions, they say that that is unfair, "Earn your position". Well, guess what you did not even leave them with enough confidence to even believe in themselves that they are also as good as you are but instead since birth told them that they belong to the gutter.

Even then I say let's compete on merit, give up your caste names and ban caste.

Update: In the end, I actually did not take the flat instead found one where the landlord did not care to ask about caste.

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.