The news-stunner that most Kashmiris celebrated Pakistan‘s victory in the Champion’s trophy made for disturbed reading. The agitation for a separate Telangana or a Gorkhaland can be condoned with, as like-minded people sharing common roots demand a slice of land to call their own. Likewise, feeling a kind of affiliation towards any specific IPL team with international players is also different. But this stark demonstration of joy in the humiliating defeat of one’s home team at the hands of the worst possible opponent India could have played against at the finals is appalling. The sense of betrayal felt by our countrymen cannot be portrayed as unjustified, as the revelation through the media was indeed overpowering.
The annals of history have witnessed humongous tales of deception and betrayal, right from Judas down to the likes of Mishra from AAP. Why do betrayals happen? They happen only for some foreseen gain for the betrayer, or to inflict pain-physical or emotional – on the victim as a form of revenge. Betrayal is one of the most cowardly acts, because it commonly happens in secrecy and lurks in the shadows until the screen-shot moment. The pervert prefers to come in the open only when he knows that he is safe to inflict the wound, figuratively or otherwise, a la Brutus, that made Caesar cry out the immortalized words, “Et tu Brute?”
The saddest thing about betrayal is that it never comes from one’s enemies but from one’s friends and loved ones. An emotional musing goes like this, “An enemy threw a stone at me-I laughed; A friend in anger hurled a flower at me-I wept”.
The feeling of betrayal is more poignant when one’s kith and kin, who have been treated with love and warmth turn against you, for a seemingly trivial reason. One’s extended family should form the haven of comfort from years of shared trust and dependence, and such a symbiotic relationship should not easily be given the go-by without proper understanding of the situation on hand. It takes years to build a meaningful relationship and it behoves basic human nature to arrive at an amicable solution rather than hasty conclusions.
Nowadays the media is full of horrifying news where the unthinkable and unbelievable is happening amongst people sharing the same blood. If one has missed out on such stories real time, one can yet get to know the gory details from any of the many television serials which dramatise such crime. One may argue that the great epic Mahabharatha saw no different, and blood relatives fought one another on the battlefield. But yet again, one is reminded of the Lord’s words of advice to Arjuna ; that it was a battle of ‘dharma’, which essentially rose above the painful thoughts of slaying one’s kith and kin.
But can the same be said about the acts of crime, conspiracy and betrayal transpiring in family circles nowadays? The reasons that seem trivial-jealousy, greed or simply selfishness-turn out to be powerful motivators. The need to see the bigger picture arises more than ever like never before, which make trivialities seem so vapid.
To quote John F.Kennedy, “Peace is a daily, weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures.”
