Friday 12 August 2011

The riots

Sorry I’m late, I began to lose control of my sensory oars in the river of time while the tide rose high to wash away debris from the troubled, polluted landscape of London and the other cities. Although the riots didn’t happen in my neighbourhood, I got ‘infected’ by the extent of violence created by these youngsters. Fires were burning, buildings were falling, windows were smashed and the looting was taking place. Sitting in my comfortable lounge, watching in awe the whole scene, I really got affected. The image of the 11 years old boy who also took part in the riots still keeps on pestering my mind. It is not long time ago when I was doing an interactive painting workshop with these youngsters in the a city of the Robin Hood in  Nottinghamshire. Robin Hood looted the wealthy kings and landlords to distribute money and food to the down trodden, the poor. I even started to imagine and hoped for a Batman to come and save the Gothic city of London from destruction, and yet it only happens in Hollywood films. Did you get ‘infected’ like me, I suppose although we are all humans and the same red blood runs through our veins, we all have different brains. Some of us do carry troubled brains, just like these youngsters. We can blame the teachers, the society, the vicar, the doctor, the social worker but we all inherit a ‘culture’ right from the time when we are born. I believe a mother teaches the first word to her child. No matter what society we live in, it’s a mother who teaches the language, the culture the behaviour to her children like I did. Of course you can disagree with me and we can have a debate because we live in the land of the ‘freedoms’. We have choices. There are hundreds and thousands choices laid in front of us in this country. Take them and be a good human being or choose to be a bad human. We also form our own identity. I don’t agree with those who tell me that it’s because of their mother or father they have their identities crisis. No, as soon as you have a thinking brain and you are old enough to do what you do, you can mould your own identity. Don’t blame the teachers, the parents, the society!

The type of brutal events we have witnessed during the past weeks cause pain to me, but then again I had been working on my self for years and building a defence mechanism around my soul for not to get ‘hur’t or ‘infected’, but I swear I ain’t any robot I like Will Smith. Let me tell you that I too was taken for a Hell’s Angel’s ride from Victoria Station across London on Tuseday the  9th. Unlike the other times when I travel on this bus from the station, it was almost empty like the streets. A mysterious fog had wrapped the whole city in its grip like a spider traps its victims. The passengers looked frightened and mute. A woman stepped in at a stop and couldn’t find her pass, so the driver had an argument with her and then he sped off so fast that he didn’t even stop at a couples of red lights. I nearly got a heart attack and was about to phone 999 when another passenger came to sit beside me and I calmed down a bit when she started talking to me that she also was frightened. I had to suppress my fear in order to calm her down. I could have got up and told the driver off for his mindless driving when he suddenly slowed down at the site of a police car. Phewwwwwww..... we all sighed in relief to see our protecting guardian, the police. One of the politicians had blamed the police for ‘being slow and not reacting at the rowdy youth, but I feel safe in the police’s company. Maybe because my dad was in the police once and he took me and my little brother to his police station to show us off. Look at my picture! That was a long time ago in India........

Speak to you soon...I promise...


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