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WonderlandThe place where Lewis Carole’s Alice fell into, and experienced lots of wonders.

Neverland – The place where kids never grow up and remain kids till the world ends. The leader of Neverland is Peter Pan.

Already these two worlds are like opposite poles on earth. So, what happens when a person from Neverland goes to Wonder land?

Since neverland is kid’s world, there are torches lit everywhere in the night so that kids  never loose  their way. These torch lighting is very important responsibility, and the people doing it were considered to be the inevitable VIP neverlanders. Let us call them Lighters.

One such Lighter went to wonderland for a visit.

“Wow!! This is a beautiful place.”

“Wow!! These people are really sweet, this is like  heaven. I could live here forever. After all, who wants to live in the stupid neverland? It has only forests, animals and pirates.”

“Wish neverlanders learnt everything from these people”

“Oops, do you mean to say, that hole had two buildings in it? Impossible!! Who would ever want to destroy Wonderland? It is such a heaven on earth. ”

“I wish I had these wonders in neverland too. But it will never happen :-( Those neverlanders never grow up (I guess, I am growing up after reaching wonderland).”

“Sigh!! Sad that I have to return. Let me collect all the candies and chocolates from here. The food in neverland doesn’t taste good. Once again, I wish I could stay back”

“They poked my bag!! They  poked my bag saying I am a pirate since I am from neverland!! They poked me!! This is the Hell on earth and these people are demons. This is no wonderland!! People of neverland, save me!!”

At Neverland

“They really scared one of us?”

“This is really a shame. Nobody has the right to insult a neverlander”

“We should poke them too. Who are they to judge we are pirates? Get the pokers ready. From today on, we will be poking every wonderlander coming here, till we are satisfied”

“Yes, let us go to Peter Pan and request him to inaugurate it”

Peter Pan

“Whats the matter?”

“Somebody from wonderland poked a neverlander”

“Poked?”

“Err- poked his bag”

“Why?”

“They thought he is a pirate

“Why?”

“Because, his name is Jack. (Similar to Jack Sparrow)”

“Jack Sparrow is not a neverlander. He is pirate of the Caribbian”

“Yea, these wonderlanders could have checked that easily!!”

“So, what do you think we should be doing?”

“Peter Pan, we should poke them back!!”

“Should we really?”

“Don’t you see? They just— They just insulted one of our Lighters!!”

“Okay, Go and poke them back. But one warning: the moment you start doing it, you will grow up and will never be a kid again”

“But—- What— Why–”

“See, you are a neverlander, because you are fair in your judgments. That is how  you maintain  your childhood. The moment you loose the fair judgment, and start acting like a wonderlander, you grow up. You know, growing up is demonizing yourself. Moreover, we have our own threats to deal with, like the Pirates. Let us find ways to deal with them first, which we haven’t.”

“Yes, Peter Pan, you are right”

********

“Nasra, are you sleeping?”

“No, I was blogging. Just completed typing. I will send the link to you right now.”

Oops!! The blog composer still has only the title – “Questioning a Bollywood V.I.P. Named Khan”. Weird!!

**********************

PS : No intention of glorifying one nation or degrading another, simplifying one topic or complicating it. The words came out of the scary thought of being eyed with suspicion, being discriminated, or being alienated at another part of the world. Comics help reduce the fear.

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Yes, you guessed it right. I have not quit writing on the topic, mumbai and its aftermath. I was going through ibnlive.com and the citizen’s comments there under each article. I do post there my opinion occasionally too. Anyhow, the following is one post I came across, which made me think. Posting it for you to read too.

User: abhigyan_dg

Post:

Hi Rajdeep,

I watched Mumbai being shattered by 10 so called ‘motivated’ people. Undoubtedly it was painful, to see a few fanatics holding a 10 billion strong country at ransom! Like most, I blamed the government, the politicians, the administration, the intelligence … et all. Until last evening when I was pondering over the crisis we currently are in. 
And … I blamed myself, a citizen of India, a common ‘urban’ man (I use the term ‘urban’ purely because it is primarily urban India which is under threat from terrorism). Zillions of questions cropped up!

- Vigilant: I scream of in-efficiency of the security forces. How much did I as a common citizen contribute towards keeping at least my neighborhood if not the city or the country safe?

- Co-operation: Airport security, if tightened for some reason, passengers are the first to protest, with arguments that they were ‘harassed’ and ill treated. It is only now, after the recent Mumbai attacks, that we are slowly coming to terms with the extra security measures.

- Votes: I blame the politicians and rightly so, because they have failed in performing their duties. Question is, was I a part of the voting system to start off with? Sadly, the answer is NO! Am I not shying away from my social duties as well? I come up with excuses like, ‘it is a difficult process to ensure the name appear in the voting list’. Tax filing in our country is an equally difficult process. But since I expect gain out of it (refunds), I will go to any extent of this difficult process, without complaining.

- Casual: I have been hearing about the Spirit of Mumbai since the 1993 blasts. It is said that nothing can dampen my spirits, the spirit of a Mumbaikar, the spirit of an Indian. But do high spirits mean putting everything behind me and carrying on with my day-to-day activity from the very next day, as if nothing had happened? The list can go on, but due to paucity of space, I have highlighted just some of the points which I felt needs attention. 
This is purely what I feel about myself. But, I am certain that there will be many like me who will have similar thoughts. Yes, our agitation against terrorism and corruption is completely justified, but along with that, as responsible citizens, we need to sit back and think of ways of becoming a part of the ‘cleaning process’. No country can be sanitized by the police, intelligence, politicians or the armed forces from terrorism, without the contribution of the citizens of that country. Things are changing, India has woken up, authorities are being questioned, but with all of this, let us, as individual citizens, wake up as well and contribute to a safer and cleaner society. Let us not wait for the next eventuality to happen. However little it might seem let us act NOW.

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