An ocean was raging in his soul and in the silence of the night when the howls of dogs send a woeful presage through the air, Arjuna, the peerless warrior walked towards the playgrounds of Kurukshethra. A passing wind seemed to whisper that the breaking of the dawn will never be same in his life for all his envious skills in archery and taint less fame consummated by years of meditative training will be tested against his kith and kin, against his own masters and preceptors and all the arrows that fly from his bow will hunt for the blood of precious lives he ever valued… “Fare forward voyager, not fare well”, the thundering voice of divine Krishna reverberated in his ears immediately and the power of his wisdom in the furious debate they had that eventful day overpowered Arjuna. He saw a river of blood gushing forth from the west engulfing the serene plain filled with lifeless cadavers whose gaping wounds echoing the most difficult questions of justice and righteousness in life. “Were all my ordeals and penance to become a crafty warrior reserved for this gruesome war to be fought tomorrow when the first rays of Sun arrive to murder my own blood”? "How can I not fare well ignoring the consequences of my actions and just fare forward clutching on my duty to wage war to establish an illusory righteousness?" " Will I be held responsible for all the innocents that will be massacred?" "How cold and unconvincing are the arguments of Krishna?" Awakening from the trance, he walked back to his tent departing from the wisdom of Krishna and entering the threshold of his mind… Robert Oppeinheimer, “the father of the atom bomb”, exclaimed in a frenzy, the words of Krishna when he saw the mushroom cloud ascend with such fury to the heavens during the first test detonation of the bomb in New Mexico, “"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." Subsequently, the “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” wiped out almost the entire populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki a few months later. One exceedingly disturbing photograph shows the “shadow” of a man vaporized by the thermal rays on the steps of Sumitomo Bank in Hiroshima. Oppeinheimer, on his deathbed was awakened in his New Jersey home by an apparition who mumbled incoherently, “I am the shadow. All your Summa Cum Laude intellect was used to develop a weapon that can wipe out the species of mankind. You should have fared well voyager and not fare forward…” Japan emerged from the ashes like a phoenix, faring forward, becoming a highly industrialized nation with a society worthy of emulation although permanents scars of the war and atomic bomb had left an indelible mark on its soul. History is replete with heroic feats of resilience, individual and group after horrendous crimes and injustice meted out by someone who hasn’t fared well. Hitler massacred 6 million Jews, Pol Pot many more of his kindred in Cambodia, Stalin purged an entire Russia, and however the victimized society always fared forward. On the contrary, if governments and tyrants and individuals could have fared well, the world would not have witnessed so many wars and famines and bloodshed and tears... Somewhere in the hinterland of Afghanistan, an elderly father has his head buried in his hands weeping inconsolably at the shattered body of his daughter killed by US drones, somewhere in the heartland of Gaza, a father is burying the headless body of his child killed by an Israeli missile, dozens of innocent civilians are massacred in a car bomb explosion in Iraq, all wishing that somebody had fared well in his actions and thoughts. The consequential analysis remains an enigma. Krishna laughs…and a peel of his laughter races against time to touch accents yet unknown and societies yet unborn…
Posted on: Thu, 08 Aug 2013 16:39:52 +0000
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