HELP

  

  

 

“Helping others is the way we help ourselves”

Oprah Winfrey

  

 

HELP

 

Velayudham entered the small kitchen-cum-dining room and saw what he had always seen. The tables with 4 seats were all taken up. He went to an unoccupied table and sat down for his lunch. No one invited him to join. No one made an attempt to pull the table and chair to expand the table to house 6 instead of 4. No one took a peek into what was in his lunch box, nor did they offer what they had brought in their lunch boxes. The ostracization was never blatant. There were the usual “hi”s and the acknowledgments through a nod or a simple eye contact. Velayudham was used to this cold treatment by now. Familiarity by itself does not reduce the hurt. His place of employment can be loosely labeled as “IT industry”. It is a small firm. Highly successful, driven by the relentless energy and the entrepreneurial spirit of its founder, Sarangapani, the CEO. It has eleven employees, including the CEO; Ten men, and one woman. All of them brahmins. Velayudham is the only employee who belongs to the Scheduled Tribe, a member of the Irular community, hailing from a village whose name would not even register  with most people.

It was the same in his school. He sat alone or among his tribe. It was unwritten but understood by all. Solitude became his constant companion, and he had grown accustomed to it. Most rules he followed in his village were never written down but were clear. There was a temple that he was never allowed to visit. Not that he ever wanted to. Poverty and social injustice make you an atheist faster than books and discussions. On the rare occasions a friend invited him home, he spent the time on the “Dhinnai” ( a space outside every home, under a slanting extended roof, but outside the main door); either playing with him or studying together. The grandmother never thought it insensitive to splash the dhinnai with a bucketful of water even before he left the premises. Early on in his life, Velayudham learned the lesson that knowledge gained through acquaintance was Teflon coated to stay immune to caste pollution.

Sarangapani never came to the common dining area and did not know about the discrimination that was blatantly being followed in his firm. Velayudham is now used to eating alone. Either the rest distributed themselves with no space for him to join, or someone came in, had a look, and suddenly remembered that they had something else to finish and went back when they saw that they would need to go to another table and sit alone or share the table with Velayudham. Left alone at your dining table is the smallest of the insults that Velayudham was exposed to all his life. Discrimination followed him like a faithful shadow throughout his conscious life. When he was young, he foolishly believed that money would solve all his problems. He did not know that the amount of money needed to make it happen would be at Bill Gates and Jeff Bozos level. True, money came and made his life easy. But the recognition and acceptance that he expected to follow from society never happened. He was always the “paraiyan” (a derogatory Tamil word that encompassed all untouchables into a single term) who made it.

“We are the new SC and ST,” said his friends who belonged to the upper caste when he entered the engineering college. Centuries of oppression, and years of privileges in the past were all irrelevant to these boys who believed in a distorted version of history that suited them. “You and your clan can get into the engineering stream with only 65% while “our people” are left out even after scoring 85%” was one grandiose statement used regularly. A few attempts to explain the background, the logic of empowerment, years of oppression, equality, the need for upliftment, and the requirement for seamless integration were all meaningless. “You can lecture all this and more. After all, you have access to gain these insights, thanks to the education that you gain now, at the expense of a more deserving Brahmin boy who sacrificed his future for you.” Some rabid ones made it even more gruesome with a flair for imagery. “At some point in your life, you will look back on the road you traveled. The bloodstains you will notice are from the Brahmin boys who bled so that you could walk”. The victim game was played out endlessly in various disguises. One thing was certain. There was not a single day when he was not reminded that he was enjoying a privilege that was not rightfully his: but plucked from a more deserving candidate. “You hit the birth lottery” was one unkindest cut of them all. He was so stunned that he did not even know how to react to everything so wrong in such a short statement. Solitude that was a shadow became a lover in these years.

It was his birthday. His wife Shanthi made some sweets (Mysorepak) at home and made individual packs for his colleagues. He never got to meet his boss regularly. There was not much need for it and also Sarangapani was a frequent traveler. That day, however, he was in office. Velayudham distributed the packs that his wife had sent with him for his colleagues, who all wished him heartily with a casual handshake or a friendly pat on his back, never a hug. Then he ventured into Sarangapani’s office. Sarangapani stood up, came around the table clasped his hands firmly, and asked him to sit down. He went back to his seat only after Velayudham was seated. Velayudham extended the small pack to him and sheepishly said “This is homemade. My wife made it last night. Today is my birthday”

Sarangapani’s face broke into a wide grin. He stood up so briskly, that he almost toppled his chair back. He rushed around the table, grasped his hand, pulled him up, and gave him a hug. Velayudham had no recollection of when someone outside his family hugged him. Still standing and talking he picked up the box from the table

“May I?” he asked.

“Of course, SP (that is how everyone addressed him in the office). It is for you “ stammered Velayudham.

“Wow! Mysorepak! My favorite. There is one thing I can never resist and that is sweets” saying this SP took a piece and tasted it. His face broke into a wider grin

“This is bliss. The last time I had a Mysorepak like this was when my grandmother made one when I was in school. Alas, my mother never got the exact skill needed to make like her. I have been consigned to readymade ones from the shops that are more useful as bricks in a building. Tell your wife that I am jealous. And also let me call HR and I will instruct them to include “Deliver one box of Mysorepak to SP each month” into your job description”

If SP was ecstatic with the sweet Velayudham was delirious with joy. He came back to his seat with a stupid grin and the grin never left his face throughout the rest of the day.

Not even when he spotted the watchman eating from one of the boxes when he left the office. So, what if he had forgotten the watchman. One of his colleagues (probably more than one) has corrected that oversight by dropping theirs with him.

It was one of the first shocks after he moved into a city. He expected a metropolis to be more inclusive and mature. The city did not take long to smash his misgivings. The neighbors who opened the doors wide for them when they went to introduce themselves failed to control their body language when the name was mentioned. The face revealed what their minds were thinking. The quick mind equated a name to a caste and to a strata of society and immediately arranged the social pyramid in which they sat above their new neighbors. After all, almost anyone will sit above an Irular community. Invitations for dinners were politely refused and in the regular gatherings in the society, the position of Velayudham and Shanthi was made clear without spelling it outright. The security guard who stood up and saluted every passing vehicle soon learned that the car that brought in Velayudham could be easily ignored. Should he go and challenge him? What would that achieve? Society has developed enough mechanisms to manage such situations. How do you fight a ghost? No one will confront you. No one will tell it openly. They will outright deny any of your allegations. Converting the victim to an unreasonable imaginative aggressor and the instigator to a victim of reverse casteism. If, how do you fight is a complexity too complex to unravel, then how long can you fight is already a lost battle even before it starts. It did not take them long to realize that solitude could also be experienced by a pair. The strange mathematics demonstrated that the solitude expressed by two individuals did not add up but multiplied in intensity. Isn’t this how this malady keeps growing. It is never in the open; always subtle and always vague, left to multiple interpretations. After all the upper caste has been practicing this art form for centuries.

“If you are free this Sunday, could you join us for lunch at my place?” asked Sarangapani when Velayudham and he were going down in the elevator at the end of the week, on a Friday.

“By you, I mean you and your wife”, he added. The mirrors on the three walls of the elevator reflected the surprise on Velayudham’s face.

“Certainly SP, any occasions? “

“None whatsoever. It just occurred to me that our families never met each other. Do I take that as yes for an answer” inquired Sarangapani with an impish smile.

“Any allergies? Any restrictions?”

“None SP”

“See you then on Sunday”

Velayudham and Shanthi were not used to being invited for lunch to a place that was not one of their relatives or one of their people. They had no idea what to bring along. They finally settled on a simple flower vase and a bouquet of lilies and orchids.

“Where is my Mysorepak?” screamed Malathi as she gave a bear hug to Shanthi. The flowers were immediately arranged in the vase and left on the table. Shanthi kept apologizing for not bringing the sweets. She had no idea that Velayudham had given it to Sarangapani or that the latter liked it or even took it home.

The couple made Velayudham and Shanthi feel at home without doing anything outwardly superficial or unnatural. Their living room was simple and beautiful. The main color theme was white and gray with dashes of bright red dotting unobtrusively. There was a huge floor-to-ceiling bookshelf that covered an entire wall. There was one section entirely devoted to Hannah Arendt and another to Walter Isaacson. There was a huge collection of Tamil writers – Jayakanthan, Sujatha, Perumal Murugan……

“I am a member of the Music Academy and SP never accompanies me to those concerts. He finds them boring. It would be lovely if you can accompany me. That is assuming you like Carnatic music”, said Malathi to Shanthi.

“I would love to. I have the same issue at home. My husband listens only to Jazz and it gives me a great headache”, smiled Shanthi.

Sarangapani’s eyes lit up. “Did you say, Jazz?!!, how lovely”

He stood up and selected a record of Herbie Mann and placed it on his Rega turntable.

Before switching it on, he sought the permission of Shanthi, who blushed with embarrassment and nodded.

“Let us go see our garden,” said Malathi as both the women escaped Memphis Underground while the men were already in a trance.

“There are still decent people left in this world,” said Shanthi to Velayudham that night before they went to sleep. Some people are so disillusioned that a mere act of normalcy amounts to a great act of benevolence.

A reciprocal invitation was accepted. Shanthi had a new friend and enjoyed those musical evenings. Professionally, nothing differed. Sarangapani never mixed personal relations with work. Velayudham was smart to keep it the same.

Books were exchanged. A few vinyls were gifted.

“I am often reminded of the similarities between our lives and a mythological one. Karna was the same. Shunned by society, never acknowledged; did not even possess the “entrance ticket” to arenas where he could show that he was no less than others. A Duryodhan came along and gave him the priceless gift of friendship. Treated him as his equal. For that Karna was loyal to him all his life, even dismissing a chance to join the Pandavas. He could have become the king of Hastinapur as the eldest Pandav child if he had shifted his loyalty. I wish I could do something like that to you. But what can I offer you other than my friendship” said Velayudham to Sarangapani one evening when the wives were away at the Music Academy.

Miles Davis was playing in the background.

“Well, you can” said the epitome of decency and a pillar of equality

“Shanthi”. 

One Ordinary Day, Please.........

Sunday, 12^th April, 1987.

Four in the afternoon is not a nice time to be waiting outside Matunga railway station on a Sunday. But, Murali and I had no choice. This was our weekly rendezvous that normally culminated with boarding the last local from VT station, the last local actually leaving, officially, on Monday morning. We were waiting for Mohanan (called Anna by all, probably even by his parents) and Sapkal (called Chotu by all, including his parents). Anna was a stickler for punctuality and he would arrive soon; we were early. Chotu would arrive about an hour beyond the agreed time and would believe as if nothing amiss had transpired. This stop in Matunga was a ritual. We visited RamAshray for their divine Vada and Dosa and the nectar-laced filter coffee. Waiting outside Matunga station was a pain in the ass. The pavement bookstalls were near the King Circle, a 10-minute walk away. Go there and we will miss Chotu. The street (actually it was more of a lane) outside the station had only some fruit shops and juice centers. Only a moron would spend money on fruit juice when RamAshray was just 3-minute away. We were doing the full-page jumbo crossword in the Afternoon Dispatch & Courier till Anna joined us.

“Optical illusion,” Murali said for 2 down – the clue was “unpolitical soil presenting something that was not, maybe”.

The crossword gave way to tentative plans for the evening when the duo became the trio. We did the same thing every week, but still, the future managers in us liked to plan things. Chotu surprised us by turning up just 32 minutes after the agreed time. We were past the period where lame excuses were made anymore. We proceeded to RamAshray and the place was packed with people waiting outside. The day could be wasted, but evenings and nights were precious to us. Chotu led us to the family section and occupied a table. The waiter strode confidently to us and declared

“Sir, this is the family section. Only families are allowed”

Chotu replied

“We are family, we four are brothers”

In spirit yes.

There was not one feature that we could agree was in common, other than the fact that we were all clearly males.

The waiter’s training had not factored in the wily ways of Chotu and his likes. He faced a question or a statement that was out of his syllabus.

“Er..  Hmm.. but Sir, there is no woman” he blurted out with a certainty of Lord Subramanya who circumnavigated the world and returned to collect the sacred fruit and was equally disappointed when Chotu replied with all the pseudo-indignation he could muster

“A woman could make us complete and the assembly of four brothers is not enough for you! Call the manager”

The waiter was by now not only out of syllabus but  out of his depth too. He swallowed his pride and set about serving us. For the three of us, it was an exceptional victory but for Chotu, it was just another day in office.

The distance from the VT station to the Café Royal (there is a new swanky one in the same location today, visited by billionaires before 40, Obama, and the likes – but in our time it was a simple adda – chosen for the singular reason that they served alcohol by quarter and not by pegs) should not take more than 30 minutes when your legs were young and the evening still fresh with last traces of dying daylight. We never traveled like an arrow.

We meandered like Brahmaputra.

Checking the films being shown (Excelsior / Sterling), bargaining for tees with AC/DC or Pink Floyd on them, stopping at the footpath book collection near Flora Fountain, where the shopkeeper was well versed in anonymous as well as Satre!

The routine once we were seated in Café Royal was always the same. Order as much alcohol as you can consume in the time available. It must be the Indian genes that make you drink as if to quench your hunger instead of nursing a drink.

Billy Joel could have sung “Makin love to his tonic and gin”, but we were usually violating! This was never the time to sip, savor, swirl in your mouth, slip into bliss kind of a thing. It was always a competition between how quickly you could drink and how fast the waiter could serve your table.

Two hours and an obscene amount of alcohol later, Anna could not hold his bladder any longer. The toilet at the back lived up to the levels of sanitation you could expect from such a joint. Once drunk, your sensibilities could be heightened. You could not demean yourself by relieving yourself in such a filthy squalor. Anna stood up and went left. There was a poetic equivalent of the first class passengers turning left while economy mortals turned right on an airplane. Not for Anna the ill-lit, reeking of stench, filthy assembly of pissoirs. He was looking forward to the cacophony of Bombay traffic horns, the bustle of the never-ending movement of humans, and the caressing breeze of the zephyr coming off the Gateway Of India on his sweat-drenched back as he would unload his bladder, which was ready to burst. His crab-like movements, influenced by nearly 600 ml of alcohol, took him to a wall with iron railings, just off the footpath across the road. He unzipped his fly and heaved a sigh of relief as a steady stream hit the wall and slid down to the pavement. He needed to widen his legs to avoid the stream soiling his slippers. He may have been drunk, but his senses were still sharp. All was well. Well, almost…..

Murali was the first one to raise the alarm when Anna had not returned, even after allocating additional time in perambulation to reach his First Class piss pot! Chotu was a rare specimen! Nothing made him nervous. His first reaction was “he will come”. That was his only reaction. I was easily excited and this trigger from Murali was enough to push my state from a slightly worried to an absolute paranoia. We both stepped out, just in time to see a police constable escorting (actually pushing him ahead with a firm grip on his neck) Anna away from Café Royal!

This time they turned right!

Chotu reacted to our description as if every person who left a café for an open-air piss jaunt usually ended up with a police escort.

Chotu was always practical. An excited duo like us would have deserted our table still laden with unfinished drinks (and free on-the-house peanuts)  and bolted in the general direction of where we last saw Anna. Chotu’s mind could evaluate all combinations and arrive at possible conclusions like Bobby Fisher fashioning his checkmate after Karpov moved his pawn to Q4.

As the two of us waited nervously, imagining Anna being tied and hung upside down, with lathi-wielding burly policemen hitting the soles of his feet (no specific reason – just the image that came to our fertile imagination), Chotu kept his calm. He finished the rest of what was on the table, including the last unfinished drink of Anna. If we had not acted in time, he would have finished ours too.

With a certainty that bordered on the supernatural, he led us to the Colaba Police Station which was about half a km away. How the gears and the cogs whirled inside his cranium and spat out the right answer is beyond the understanding of lesser mortals.

There we saw an indignant Anna slouched on a wooden bench, with his trademark smirk of disapproval, surveying the surroundings with complete disdain. He physically distanced himself from the other undesirables who occupied the same bench alongside him. Pimps, pickpockets, peddlers and drug addicts.

The sub-inspector, P.Patankar, was seated on his throne, the seat did not deserve the name throne but can only be described thus the way he occupied it, with his legs stretched out, half his ass hanging outside the edge of the seat, further descent arrested by his belly encountering the desk, seriously exploring his nostril with his right thumb inserted deep inside while his index finger held on to the area of interest from without.

Only Chotu could have the courage to interrupt such a deep meditative exercise and he did

“Saheb, To amcha manus ahe! Tyala jau de”

Mr. Patankar was not happy that he was interrupted from his nasal excavation and that too without any decorum.

 He looked over at the bench that Chotu’s arm indicated and quickly made out Anna as the topic of interest from among the various suspects. He had not become a sub-inspector for nothing!

“Do you know what he did? IPC 115 is the charge against him. Not only did the royal highness pee on the compound wall of the Maha Nagar Palika, he asked the constable to wait till he finished.”

Anna made a face that said, “How can one stop mid-pee?”

To see Chotu working a hot-headed stubborn and insulted sub-inspector into a meek understanding smiling comrade is to watch a work of art. The exchange of money was unnoticeable even though the transaction happened in plain sight.

After the highlight of IPC 115, the rest of the evening did not have many surprises. The pitcher of beer at Café Mondegar, while marveling at Mario’s murals and listening to “The End” by Doors on their jukebox was the next ritual that was maintained. Here the restroom met with the approval of Anna and there was no subsequent threat of yet another visit to the Colaba Police Station.

We made our way to Bade Miyan for our last stop for the usual diet of juicy kebabs and

Monday, 13th April, 1987

chicken legs.  The last local to home was eventless too. Murali and I went to bed at 2.30 in the morning hours.

We were woken up by our neighbor at 4 in the morning

“Your roommate Ganesh called. He wants you to come to the VT railway police station. He wants you to bring some money to pay for the penalty”

We looked at each other to make sure that it was not a collective illusion. Our neighbor had no more information. Ganesh was on the afternoon shift on Sunday and must have returned home by 1 in the morning. We were too drunk to realize his absence when we returned.

What is it with the police and us? We wondered.

First Anna and now Ganesh.

For the second time in less than 12 hours, we made our way back to VT station. Ganesh was in a lock-up. Real deal. No pathetic benches for him. In fits of anger and frustration, he narrated how he ended up in the VT station lock-up instead of in his bed.

The afternoon shift was exhausting. The Sunday shifts were maintenance shifts. We called them graveyard shifts. Every possible machine that could break, broke. And then some. A hydraulic hose came off its fitting and he was drenched in oil. By the time he scrubbed himself clean, he knew he was running late to catch the 23:34 train. Miss that and the next one would not be around for another 40 minutes. He entered the station as the train left and he jumped into the first compartment that he could get into and was surprised to find it almost empty. He did not mind it and rested for the first time in the preceding nine hours. His rest did not last long as two constables rounded him up in the next station and took him all the way to VT railway station and then to the lovely cell that he was presently standing in narrating to us.

His crime: He was in a ladies-only compartment!

Zeus must have been in a foul mood that night. What are the odds, else, of law enforcement agencies targeting two of our small group of friends, booking for acts that we had seen a countless number of times before?

The constable on duty, fresh from a night’s sleep, waiting for his reliever to come, told us

“He will be taken to the court at 11.00, where the judge will let him go with a fine. You pay the fine and take him”

There was nothing else to do but wait.

At 11.00 Ganesh was taken to court and we waited along with other people who came to bail out their friends.

11.00 became 12.00 and 12.00 became 12.45 and we were getting restless. At this rate, none of us would make it back to work in time for the afternoon shift.

As the judge concluded his 7^th case that morning, and when the bailiff called the 8^th one as “People of Maharashtra vs Prashant Bhosle” instead of the anticipated “People of Maharashtra vs Ganesh Krishnasamy” we exhaled a resigned sigh and started thinking about lunch.

Ganesh felt the cumulative amount of injustices against him had crossed a threshold and decided to act. Indian cinema has taught us what to do in similar situations, we have seen countless protagonists represent themselves in courts of law, where a considerate judge often listened and steered the wayward path of straying injustice towards the correct path of righteousness and restored the balance in the world.

Before the said Prashant Bhosle could take the stand, Ganesh Jumped the queue, occupied the witness stand, raised his right hand, as if calling out his childhood chum across the sands of Chowpatty beach, and hollered

“Your Honor! The charge against me is unfair. Mine was an act of omission, not one intentionally committed. The enervation was the sole cause of my ingress into the incorrect compartment and not out of any malicious or puerile intent. I am willing to…”

He could not complete it because the judge banged his gavel and told the constable to take him away on “contempt of court”

The judge’s decision came because of many reasons. He was running late for his lunch. He never liked Hindi Cinema. He did not know the meaning of the words “enervation”, “ingress”, “malicious”, or “puerile”. The words that he did not understand would have been more significant if he had allowed Ganesh to continue. Ganesh was (and still is) our resident Shakespeare with an awesome vocabulary.

One moment we were all looking at a quick lunch and back to work. The next, we were left wondering what in the hell just happened while Ganesh was escorted back to his cell.

His turn eventually came at 3 in the afternoon. We skipped our lunch not knowing if we had enough cash to bail him out. We were talking about multiple charges now.

A tired trio walked back to the VT station, relieved ourselves in the designated restrooms, and boarded a compartment that was not “ladies only”, not “First class”.

A vendor came along displaying an unbreakable, flexible plastic comb which broke into two when he demonstrated its flexibility leaving him red-faced.

A second vendor came with sliced mangoes, a third with plastic pouches for passports, ID cards, and season tickets; the stream of vendors on a Bombay local is endless but all we wanted was just an ordinary day with no more adventures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

US & THEM

What’s in a name?

The bard had no idea about

The crazy times that were yet to come

Everything is in a name!

 

What is this place?

A temple

No, but before it was a temple?

It was a mosque

But before it was a mosque?

It was a temple

Before it was a temple?

Someone’s home

A place of worship

A palace

A kennel

A manger

Wait.

How far back do I have to go?

It depends on where you want to take your stand

Is it really important?

That question is again relative.

Is it right?

That is an irrelevant question!

 

Is this the place where Palestinians lived?

Depends on where you stand?

You mean this place belongs to the Jews

I did not say that

What about October 7^th?

What about October 8th, 9th, 10th …?

Leave these two questions aside

What about children and civilians?

This is not a relevant question!

 

Is Russia right in invading Ukraine?

Depends on where you want to stand?

So, Russia is right?

I did not say that.

Then Ukraine is right

You are saying it, not me!

Once again, what about children and civilians?

Do not you ever learn?

How many times will you ask irrelevant questions?

 

When two countries fight, what do we do?

We take sides

On ethical ground?

Of course not! We decide who we supply arms to

Is that right?

I am getting tired of your naivete

 

Will Trump be elected again?

Probably, yes!

What about fraud, mocking the disabled,

Disrespecting the women, insurrection, lying under oath?

You think the two are related?

Don’t they!

Facepalm!

 

Will we phase out fossil fuels?

Do we need to?

Don’t we?

You tell me!

I think we need to

Why?

Because!

Do not play with words

The evidence is plain

Says who?

Well.. everyone who believes in science

It is a hoax!

Says who

I

So there is no way to agree on this

I did not say that

I am saying let us continue till

We find a common ground

Ah! You agree to stop burning fossil

Till we come to an agreement

No, I am saying let us continue

To burn till we reach an agreement

At this rate there will be nothing

Left to burn soon

Precisely, Precisely!

 

We are heading towards the sixth extinction

What do you mean

This is the Anthropocene era

It is not even an official name

We are destroying the only world we have

Do not be a fearmonger

At this rate, we will all die soon

So, why bother?

Do we need a religion?

Of course!

Why?

How else can you control?

So, it is not about God

Never was, never will be

So, it is just a tool

A very powerful tool

Isn’t it wrong?

Depends on where you stand

What do you mean?

People are stupid, we need to control them

They do not know what is good for them

Do you know what is good for them

Irrelevant question.

But you are using it to control them

Yes, because I can

And why do people need to listen to you

They do not need to

But they do

That is because they are stupid.

So, you mean if they are clever, you will stop to matter

Ha Ha Ha! How naïve can you be

The clever ones will be silenced

But why will people allow that

Because, they are stupid.

 

You are destroying this world

I know

There will be no future

Sure, I know that too

Whatever it is, it will get worse!

History will judge you

What is history?

It is what we repeat endlessly

Morons of the past wanted to shape the future

They all failed

We are the new masters

We shape history.

We work on it till it reaches what we want it to be

Shape it again when the time comes

Some people believe that

Birds are spy robots

9/11 was a conspiracy

Democracy is for the weak

Nationalism is good

Immigrants are cockroaches

There is us and the rest is “them”

And “them” is evil

You read George Orwell, Ece Temelkuran , Jason Stanley, Arundathi Roy and Timothy Snyder

Hoping they expose the rot

We read them as guidebooks

You need a great mass to realize, rebel, and raise

We need a small group to remain steadfast

You believe that the right shall prevail

We know violence works

You want permanent peace

We rely on eternal war

You need proofs

We need only doubts

You must win

We

Just

Do

Not

Need

To

Fail!

 

Pic Courtesy: npr