Worried at many layers

Personal level -- EMIs have started. And so has the panic. This is the first loan we've taken in our lives, and I feel the effects of having a huge liability. I am hoping I will get used to it and tide over it.

Family -- Dad is not keeping well. He is under a reel of a bad cough spell. I am hoping it nothing major. Added to that he is worrying himself over things he cannot change and I am quite unsure of how to stop him from doing that :(

Then the world beyond.

I see riots in the name of religion. People seem to be getting more and more polarized. I am not sure, I never saw this when I was a kid. Maybe they were always there, the poles, maybe they've just surfaced now. Not sure. But it makes me sad. And increasingly, talking about Hinduism or taking a stand as a Hindu seems to be getting one the tag of being fundamentalist or extremist. Why is it so wrong for me to respect my religion just because the religion happens to be Hinduism? I believe that Hinduism is an extremely mature religion, and that all its rites and rituals always have a logic and (even better) a science behind them. Yeah, it has been the butt of abuse for the past how-many-ever centuries, but that doesn't make the religion bad. If I take pride in being Hindu, why must I be labeled an extremist. Only if I silently allow for extermination of my religion and its beliefs will I be even considered for the "intellectual" tag. And its immensely sad and disturbing. And the worst part is that I just cannot figure out what the hell to do about it. I went to a Christian Missionary run school. I know enough about Christianity than probably even the Christians do. I've always co-existed peacefully with my Christian friends. I never had any problems with my Muslim friends either. When I make friends, I don't make them looking at if they are Hindu or not. So just because I happen to be a Hindu who is passionate about Hinduism doesn't make me extremist, thank you. And I grew up believing that the rest of the country was full of people like me. Who took pride in what they are without deriding what others believed in. It is possible you know. Yet, I see and hear disturbing things and I wonder. Is it that the people of this country have changed or is it just the god-damned media and an even more damnable-political-fabric of the country.

I see people who really work hard to earn a living. Like this man in his forties maybe, looking very respectable, smartly dressed, trying to eke a living out of selling ball-point pens at a traffic light. There is a lot of self-respect and yet there is innate hardship. I see him and a lot of uncomfortable feelings arise. I feel guilty for sitting inside an air-conditioned car while a man much older than me has to walk the streets to earn a living. I feel sad, thinking about how much he can make and how he will sustain his family. Yet, I am filled also, with pride and wonder. For the sheer resilience of the Indian fabric. Like I wrote earlier, all kinds of people live and survive and what is more, manage to be happy here. If I were someone from one of these omnipresent and annoying media-channels/newspapers, I would write about the sorry state of this country and its poverty and its wretchedness. But I am a blogger, so I will look at the better side of things. After all I believe this country is not a lost cause. I believe in its greatness to heal itself and move on in spite of taking in alarming amounts of abuse from inside and out. And I pray we will become truly "sujalam and suphalam" some day. Once again.