BEEHIVE

“Aaja meri gaadi mein baith ja... aaja meri gaadi mein baith ja !! ”,I was shocked but as always I ignored and kept walking. I realized Tanu is not with me only when I heard her shouting aloud. “B****** ! M***** ! Ladkiyon ko chedta hai ! du kya ek rakh ke ! ” I wasn’t surprised. It was Tanu, the same bold Tanu. Oh god why don’t I just disappear I thought! I wanted to scream aloud, “I don’t know her. I am not with her. I swear!” A gang of guys were sitting on bikes at the corner of a turn. It is not required to specify that it was a clear picture of eve teasing. “Tanu jaane de yaar. Leave it!”, I told her holding her hand. “No ! These people think they can misbehave with women the way they want and nobody will come for their rescue!”,Tanu was fuming. Well a girl had stood up for a girl.


A few days back, I was reading an article on the massive flood happened in Surat in 2006. Monsoon fury had Surat under waist-deep water for three whole days. Many people had been saviors for others. Arun, living in another foster home at the time, saved 3 women. Arun had said in an interview, "The water was rising fast and it was a race against time. Had it been a little longer I would have neither saved them nor survived.” Well the unity among only women or unity among only men feels very insignificant here. Isn’t it!


Mumbai. It is the city which has always been known for one thing, ‘strength’. No matter which disaster the city has seen, it has always witnessed this strength to stand up to it. It is about Mumbai disaster which had left the whole country shaken for 3 days, the 26/11 terror attack! When the state government and state police failed to control the situation, commandos reached the location of the siege incident. Everybody knows how commando operation was the major reason to bring the situation under control and save a lot of people. Where were they from? Not from my very own state –‘Maharashtra’. They were from various different states of our country. Where were those people that time who promised to save the people of this state, who forced the people from other states to move out of Maharashtra, who induced the hatred for the people from other states into the hearts of the maharashtrians? Well the simple fact is that a few perverted people use us for their interest and we get used! People saved each other without thinking about which state they belong to. Again this unity is more meaningful than the ones mentioned before!


Unity can be about any group of people. Unity can be within the people of same sex or people together with no bar on sex or people of same religion or people of the same state or people who belong to the same country! What I want to say is Unity is an abstract term. It’s us who decide at which level to define this word ‘unity’. The one at a higher level is more meaningful than the one at a lower level. It adds the maximum value if it is defined on the highest level. So when we find our unity shaken at a lower level of this pyramid, let us recall the scenarios where we have been united at a higher level. When we feel like killing each other just because one belong to Bihar and one to Maharashtra or one prays for Allah and other for Jesus, let us recall the moments where we have cheered for the same country when it played the world cup. When we feel like hating each other for the reasons like religion, culture or region, let us recall the moments when our hearts have beaten on the same tune for the same cause! Let us be ONE!