Humans, Religion and Animals
We are in the 21st century and we work about 40 hours per week to earn our living and pleasures. Although, humans in the stone age worked(mainly hunting and collecting food) for about 20 hours for their living. What have we achieved in all these years?
Some of us point to the pleasures acquired, knowledge acquired, comfort of living, technology and etc etc. Even with all these advancements, the amount of time that a woman spends in the kitchen hasn't reduced from the 18th century. What really have we acquired?
Recently, one of my friends said "We are humans, we can't give up", referring to a debate we were having. Probably, thats what made me write this article. Being on my toes from a long time to write this article, i usually kept it under wraps.
Before i get into depth, i would like everyone to understand that i am not referring to any particular individual, race, religion or caste. This article is about us (myself included), who have been termed as "Humans".
Wikipedia describes human as so, "Humans, or human beings, are bipedal primates belonging to the mammalian species Homo sapiens (Latin: "wise man" or "knowing man") in the family Hominidae (the great apes). Humans have a highly developed brain capable of abstract reasoning, language, and introspection."
The words "abstract reasoning", "language", "introspection" are very interesting. I am using all those three when i am writing this article. This is really hilarious....
Thousands of years of human civilization and what we have discovered are tools to keep human beings seperate. The best of them is "Religion".
I don't know, how religion actually originated. Every religion has its own version of the story. But, the most interesting fact is that, none of the religion has come out and dominated the whole world. Today we have hundreds of religions and as many castes. And the best thing is, humans use this word "religion" to show all their hate for a class of humans.
About three months back, i was having lunch with a friend. My friend suddenly posed a question to me "Are you brahmin?". I was so surprised to hear such a question ... because, i did not expect such a question from such an individual. I said "i am a human" (i never even thought, what i was saying). But the answer did not please my friend. And, i had to admit that i was not a "Brahmin". To be noted here is the fact that i assumed that the person can never ask such a question. The reason being that the person attended a lot of courses and was very intellectual (at that time, i would have described the person as "super human").
I hear religion and caste related talk every day in my life. I am an individual of one such religion and caste. As much as i deny that fact, its always been a part of me. Knowingly or unknowingly.
As i grew up in my life, i never really cared about those factors. I had heard of people killing one another in the name of religion and region. But, it was never something that affected me too much. Probably, i should have always been like that. But, being a human, i couldn't stop the "reasoning" process.
Religion became a very important factor of my life about two years back. I was hit with the weapon of religion and caste. ouchhh!!! it still hurts. Things went very wrong at that period of time. Only then, i started realizing the real impact of religion in our lives. Is that impact good? I can talk in both the ways ... In favor of it and against it. But, whatever be my argument, one thing can never be hidden. we created these tools to hurt each other. And even in this so called 21st century, people all around the world are bleeding becoz of this "Religion". Blood that is red in color and tears that are colorless, flows like the river across all the lands.
I encounter people each and every day, who are brutaliy affected by religion in their lives. But, we still continue, trying to mar those experiences. Very recently, i saw a matrimonial ad that specified a partular subcaste in a caste in a religion. The ad clearly mentioned that only persons of those sub-sub-caste can apply. To me, this looked quite hilarious .. but, what else is happening with everyone else? may be the branches of sub-castes are a bit less, but it is nonetheless there.
I remember, a long time back I watched a kannada film (i can't remember the title). This was in my school years. The movie was based on a tribe of people in the jungle. The government wants to put up a dam across the river and the tribe's place would be submerged due to it. The movie was about the richness, the heritage, the purity and the struggle of the tribal people. The tribal people's opposition comes to an end when one of their own betrays them. When i watched it, i was moved beyond words. This was based on a real story that happened in malnad quite a long time back. When i think back about it now, was it really necessary for the heritage and richness of the culture to be destroyed? Every religion breeds culture, heritage, traditions and so many other things. These things make our lives more colourful, more vast, more rich.
But, is the cost worth paying?
----> to be continued.