hmm....

my 9-year old cousin recently was in the presence of a conversation i was having with my father about some war or another, think it must have been the palestine/israel conflict. and she asked me "anandhi, what is war like, really?" the ultimate symbol of peace remains as simple as a child's incomprehension of the concept of war - and how inspiring that is.

can't imagine children her age in sri lanka feel the same way.... sigh. the tamil tigers are at it yet again, this time bombing an airport. judging against their previous little honey drops, this particular blast is actually quite docile... mustve lost the pin or something.

this war, waged between two groups of people both claiming ownership, has gone on for so long... i am idealistic enough to believe that there is a solution out there somewhere, but where and how long they take to find it is still a lot to think about.

all the tamils want is their own land, all the sinhala's want is for them to shut up - both with valid requests, yet so hard to compromise on and grant. the land they live on has attained such an emotional value, to the point no one wants to give it up for the better good of the majority of the people who live on it. just like the israelis i suppose, who will forever be fighting with palestine over land they both think they have a right to.

at this juncture i wonder - historically, nehru has always been criticised for agreeing with mountbatten in giving jinnah pakistan, resulting in million dying as they traversed to a fake semblance of home so many never even reached. maybe all those years of censure were valid, after all, jinnah is known to have told his foreign minister he made a big mistake. if he had been given to rule the whole of india like gandhi suggested, it would have yanked the carpet from under his feet......

the analogy works on both sides' favour, and im not about to preach anything here... but the war has caused yet another disturbing issue - buddhism, the predominant religion in sri lanka, has always preached peace and harmony. yet the clergymen there are the ones inciting quite a bit of the action.

what the hell is going on???

the picture of love

i dont boast to be a big theologist or anything, but in my little knowledge i HAVE discovered that the basic tenets of religion remain the same, and that our forefathers were all lazy and recycled a hell of a lot. by this i mean particular instances and examples of roles that individual gods and prophets are meant to play.

i found this picture on someone's friendster and it was really quite quite brilliant, as both Krishna and Jesus are said to have ascended to earth from the heavens for the same reason.



amazing, isnt it? at least we know the illustrationists among us
see the similarities.....

power trip

i seem to do this so often now... i seem to chance upon the oddest human characteristcs, at the most unusual places.

is the ability to exclude a power to behold? not ever being the power hungry sort myself (much to my father's regret, he had me pinned as the next hillary clinton) its never occured to me to look at it that way. but the realities of being able to exclude someone is that its empowering. the simplest of words, tones and gestures collects a crowd and deliberately leaves one out.

its a power thing.

but whats also a power thing is surviving that exclusion. its also powerful to walk away and refuses to be left out, by simply belonging elsewhere. or better still, not needing to belong at all.

i dont know why some people see an innate need to exert their perceived sense of upmanship over others. although it draws its own need from a insecurity of some kind, its also is the core of cruelty - pure and simple. the inability to accept others on their own terms is already an inadequacy, but the need to alienate them completely is something else altogether