The elephant in nobody's room

I must not be alone in wondering what happened to the old India. The India we have heard of in our history lessons. One with vibrant and prosperous cities. The India that Columbus decided to sail dangerous seas to find. The land of spices, science, philosophy and flourishing trade. The magical place that had an awesome reputation for itself all around the world. They say the islamic invaders from the north-west destroyed most of it. Then there was the British colonising spree that left almost nothing in its wake. We could probably research about how exactly these things happened, but, at the end of the day, we are left with not a single relatable aspect of early India. Also, we are very skeptical about the authenticity of every ancient facet brought back to life. So much so that we treat it almost like an abominable ghost. Ayurveda is such a good example. The doubts are not entirely on whether the ancient practices of Ayurveda best or match up to currently accepted medicine but rather on the credibility of the person/s who claim to have resurrected them magically from thin air. Con-men galore in the brave new India, I’m afraid. Be what it may, we can all agree on the wealth of knowledge, which must have taken hundreds, if not thousands, of years to gather, now lost to us. Yoga, however, seems to have seeped through somehow. Probably because the western world fancied an interest in it. 

The end result, thus, is that we don’t get to bask in the reflected-glory of our forefathers. We are not in a position to expect much respect anywhere in the world just based on our nationality. In reality, foreigners might find more reasons to ridicule us; courtesy, for example, our friendly neighbourhood rapists. Like it or not, we have been handed down a legacy that seems to have been handpicked to make us feel ashamed. Irresponsible government, mindless customs, casteism, racism, sexism, age-ism (bade hai tho sahi hai - if an elder said it, it must be right), homophobia, xenophobia, etc. Thankfully though, all-out war is not one of the things that we have inherited. A fairly good constitution and the privilege of democracy are other things we are rarely thankful for. The negatives often overwhelm us way too much to appreciate the potential of the positives. A little thought can lead to the realisation that these few good things we have left are all we need to seize the future. The democracy we so casually mock everyday and the peace that we take for granted are instruments so powerful that they can completely wipe-out injustice and misery from our nation. If our generation could find within ourselves one-hundredth of the patriotism that our great-grandfathers displayed through their fearless struggle for freedom; we could write a brighter new future for our successors like they did. 

The question remains as to what we actually intend to do. New doors have opened all around us. One could pick a door and never look back. Those who do not have the privilege to walk through can loathe their lives away in jealousy. One could stay and make a respectable livelihood instead, with a front-row seat to the tamasha (comedy). Or, craziest of all, gear-up, get involved and own up to the consequences. Whatever the choice may be, a strange sense of pride always lingers. I, for one, would never ever fake my country of birth.

Anger ( == | != ) bad ???

There can't be any counter argument when it comes to anger being bad; or is there?

Let’s break it down a bit, to better understand the intricacies.

Anger is as natural as joy. 

Pretty much a strange bit of chemistry and hormonal biology happening somewhere deep in the brain. 

It is hurtful.

A pleasant experience for neither the people around you nor yourself, after you’ve calmed down and discovered how unbecoming you had been.

It is harmful. 

Nothing like a little blood pressure and stress to cut you innings down, right from under your nose.

It can cause headaches, anxiety, depression, strokes, insomnia, digestive problems, etc. A definite health risk if you are generally hot-headed.

It solves nothing.

Getting angry is just a vent of frustration and not really a magical way to solve the problem at hand.

It could lead to unfavourable outcomes.

Black-eyes or broken ribs from fights, for example; in case the person/s you get mad at have an equally bad, or worse, tendency to get riled up and things get nasty. In general, people might hesitate to socialise with you, to say the least.

Weighing the pros and cons leaves us with a straight-forward conclusion. Anger is bad. Then why do even the best of us exhibit this behaviour? Why do we enjoy the hyper-glamourised, anger-driven action sequences in our movies and TV shows? Why does it seem normal when politicians get visibly angry on national television, activists shout out their anger on streets, sports persons get angry on the field, spouses get angry on their cheating partners, etc. ? Why is nobody running a campaign to eradicate anger from our everyday lives altogether? Let’s investigate.

Extreme anger is usually termed ‘animosity’ and that gives us a good clue as to where to start looking. In the animal kingdom, we observe anger as a tool to exhibit defensiveness and/or dominance. A Lion king gets angry and attacks any contender who lays claim to his supremacy and position in the pride. A monkey screeches in anger to scare away predators. A cobra raises its hood and hisses menacingly at you till you get the hell out of its perimeter. Do these examples lend us an insight into what’s happening to us when we snap? A little, maybe, but not much.

Getting back to civilisation, we pretty much have a good idea why we sometimes blow a fuse over simple things. Our expectations are not met and we get so disappointed that we don’t seem to get a handle on ourselves. Or, we feel our rights have been violated and it is conceptually so  unacceptable that we flip out. However, this is just another example of how certain actions/events in life don’t meet our expectations. The anger is greater when this happens where/while we least expect it. 

So, we have that figured out. 

But, this doesn’t explain why we still let the idea of ‘getting angry’ live on in our modern societies. Shouldn’t it be discarded completely by the entire population? 

Well, I believe I might have a possible answer why we continue to ‘celebrate’ (if I may say so) anger.

The key is an essential concept at the core of it, namely ‘righteousness’. It turns a detestable human reaction to a glorified one. And rightly so, if I may add. Anger, in its righteous form, is the force that has turned the gears of change across the world. It had caused revolutions and reforms that have been instrumental in ensuring a more just and fair society in the future. Whichever country we are from, there have been brave people in our history who have raged against injustice and inequality to forge new customs. They questioned the norm and were hated for it. If they didn’t have the righteous anger inside them that fuelled them on, they would have abandoned their quest and disappeared into oblivion leaving things as they were. How's that for a counter argument?!

So is anger altogether bad? Certainly not. 

The trick is to perform a ‘righteousness test’ before you decide to run with your anger. Hard to do in a split second, but with enough practice and a positive attitude, things can only get better. 

P.S.  (Personal rant)

In an Indian context, especially Tamil Nadu, we are constantly taught to kill our anger from a very early age onward. Whole generations have been turned bovine and voiceless when it comes to blatant everyday blasphemies in administration, politics, media and the private sector. Ginormous capitation fees, rampant corruption, conceited MLAs, bullying policemen, bigoted news persons, presumptuous customer-service agents, inconsiderate bosses etc. are all welcome to stay as long as they please in our state. Why? Because we are too logically sound to overlook the ill effects of anger, whether righteous or not. Basically we just want to be respectful and respectable, ‘nice’ people!