source, courtesy: https://www.dailynews.com/2014/05/15/editorial-cartoon-of-the-day-2/
We will continue to have our cake and eat it - doing the armchair sympathising for the poor, with the coffee and *bonda* by the side..
(pl take your pick, from the messy mix of metaphors - cake of the west, or the bonda-coffee of our own - or even both, representing today's zealously americanising indian..! 😅😬)
(for those who are not familiar with what a *bonda* is - it is a south-indian delicacy snack - done in two variants; one with only batter in fist-full dollops fried to a golden crisp outside and yummy cooked innards, called the "mysore bonda"; and the other, even more mouth-watering variant, with a spicy potato stuffing ball inside and fried, called "potato bonda" in south india, and "batata vada" by the ever-delighting mumbaikar - all of them about a tennis ball or snooker ball sized - all served piping hot,..! :)
show me one instance of how all our incestuous whatsapps and FB postings back and forth between ourselves in the family and friends making one whit of a difference out there, to that guy walking 1800 kilometers in the 40 degree centigrade sun, with his child around his neck and a 10kg bag hanging from the shoulder - as a rule??
Out there to all the people who are the ones to suffer from all that we have been pointing out so piously and vehemently in every time of some societal challenge - like demonetisation, like covid19, like tsunami, like floods, like deep colds like delhi winters, and so on..?
not to forget, and declare at this point in this piece - the *haves* cause the misery, directly and indirectly; the *have-nots* suffer them.
As to influencing the ordinary people with our discernment - are you, me, we, willing and ready to pay the prices for doing such a thing? for, these do not come free to the doer too. No, I do not think so - we have too much to lose that are too good to give up; and too cowardly to face the price... It is an old, old, one of the oldest, things in human history - this dilemma, this pusillanimity, to act on what one’s intellect knows to be not right, to be called out, to be protested to, to be acted on; this fine intellectual parlez-vous leading to nothing, retiring to the safe anonymity after the fiery debates - the tragedy being, the more intellectual, usually the more so.. Those few that did, paid usually too dearly - with their near and dear, their happiness, and with their own life - like Socrates, like Gandhi, like Mandela, like Martin Luther King, and the countless unknown faces that you would see in the sepia documentaries, that took to the street and suffered. the list is endless.
The rest, like us, do it as pass-time (how dare you call it a pass-time, i am sincere, dead in earnest?!) of a 'higher-order'; (there you are, happy?)
and then it’s time for that steaming bonda-coffee...
as you reach here, reading, you are asking, "so whats new? i know it! others have written this. i myself have said or written it sometime or the other in the past. so why are you saying this to me and make me feel bad now, when i am looking forward to a cheery sunday ahead, with so much to do and feel good..?!"
yes, there is nothing new.
and, in fact, we know that the mind resents it especially when it cannot do anything about it.
and worse, pointing out like this statistically elicits *less* action than otherwise..
so why am i doing it???
is it my own *sly* (smartass, in american) variant of the same bonda-coffee routine??!
my own dopamine trip?
i think it's time for me to take some rest - and feel good on this post, with that hot cuppa..😋
Not able to convince ourselves...