A Wake-Up Call

Beep! Beep! It was 7:30 am and I was still not ready to forsake the luxury of my blanket to get ready for work. I did some calculations that were heavily biased towards my blanket and decided to hit the snooze button one more time. A beep rang out again. That was strange. The snooze time was 10 minutes and although time flew when you slept, it couldn't possibly have flown that fast. And then I saw. It was a whatsapp message. Damn early birds! Texting at the crack of dawn! My curiosity got the better of me though and I decided to read it anyway. It was my friend. But no good morning, no hello. There was a single passage. That struck me as even weirder. Here it went.

''Mindnumbing and mindless violence tears the blood-stained fabric of humanity, giving the human race a whole new meaning. The attacks, be it the Nirbhaya tragedy or the barbarian bloodbath in Pakistan are referred to by people as inhuman or beastly. But I strongly disagree. Only the human race is capable of such heinous acts of mass destruction. Only the human race can plumb to such morbid depths of brutality. No beast can sexually assault a girl with a steel rod. No beast can pretend to be army personnel, lure the kids into believing in their safety and then shoot them point blank or incinerate their teachers in front of their eyes. No beast would savour their fellow species being tortured. No beast would hold grudges for ages. No beast would kill in the name of religion, caste, gender and such 'lofty' concepts. It is the human race that is capable of such chilling acts of savagery, of cold-blooded murder, of horrendous unthinkable means of torture. No species on earth is as barbaric, as cunning and as dangerous as the one at the top of the food chain. When we seek revenge for the massacre such as the recent one, we are aping their ideals, we are trying to create an even higher level of annihilation thinking that they ought to be punished, that we are righteous this time. Violence renders moot the concept of right and wrong. I would rather that we be inhuman.'

Phew! That one did wake me up pretty well. I was in a trance for some moments after going through the outburst. I realized that it was so true, so totally true that it was hard to escape it. It is the human race, that wages wars, destructs nature's balance, inflicts torment and causes all sorts of catastrophes that have ever taken place. It is in human nature to boomerang between extremes, to reach the apex of virtue and to descend to the nadir of vice. Humanity assumed a whole new perspective, a whole new meaning. A powerful creature, sharp of intellect, devious in intent, mentally bursting with infinite ideas with an entirely distinct view and perspective. Highly unpredictable and perilous. That might be the definition of our race in some encyclopedia of some alien universe.  

Being ‘human’ doesn't sound so natty now, does it?

#BloggingForPeace