Finished reading the book "Memories of a father" just now. It drew a lot of parallels to the Schindler's List narration on Holocaust that I watched yesterday.
Let me begin with a brief synopsis on "Memories of a father". This book which is a translation of the original work in Malayalam by Prof Eachara Varier talks about the ordeals that Prof Eachara had to face during the emergency (1975-77) to try and rescue (but in vain) his son Rajan who was picked one fine morning from his hostel at REC Calicut on suspicions of being a naxalite, taken to a remote camp and brutally tortured to death.A most saddening account also of the emotional turmoils of him and his family following the undeniable acceptance of his son's death.
It is scary to think that people, rather human beings who are all given birth through the same intense pains that every mother has to endure, who are carried in all mothers' wombs with the same prayers, expectations and love can transform into menacing animals who take pleasure at seeing a fellow being crushed and pained intolerably. It is a common story. Be it the anti-LTTE operations of the Srilankan govt or the German Holocaust or the Indian emergency, what is unbelievable is the fact that an individual or a group of individuals are so very ready to perpetuate such inhuman acts on the behalf of a government or a dictator who should hold absolutely no relevance to them. Killing a man out of a sudden irrational burst of anger or vengeance can still be forgiven but to seek pleasure in keeping a man on the fringes of death and see him crying for life or his mother is the most disgusting human act possible.
Another episode in the book that pained me to no end was the way Achutha Menon had allowed power and politics to poison him and make him forget the help and love that his people had shown during the Communist Movement to risk their lives and harbour him. In a way it makes us marvel at the spectrum of human attitudes and emotions possible. From risking your life to protect a friend or a leader to rolling wooden logs on and stabbing the dead thighs of an innocent.
The lines that pained me the most in the book were the father's regret that he could not save his son in the end even when we as readers know that he has gone through the maximum ordeals he could to save him. To lose your son to an act and a cause most unnecessary and demonic in such cruel ways as to not even get the corpse for a decent burial is a pain unfathomable. Probably none other than Prof Eachara Varier himself can forgive all those demons who did that to him.
Kind is the God who gave the father so much courage as to live through it and spread this message to all humanity.
Heart wrenching on similar lines was a scene from Schindler's List where a few women prick their hands to use the blood and apply mascara on their pale and famished cheeks to convince the brutal German inspectors of their healthy looks to avoid immediate execution. This, when they know that in lieu they may either get a hard worker's life or a prostitute's existence.
And to think of all this as events safe and forgotten in the aisles of space and time is nothing short of sheer stupidity. The stark reality that we are surrounded by dormant demons disguised as humans become apparent every time a Gujarat riots or an Iraq Camp occurs. And the most dangerous is that we as a people still live with it and allow our government, the so called representatives to harbour these criminals.
Fanaticism ruins logic and rationale but becomes most dangerous when it erodes basic human virtues of love and compassion as well.
(To be continued....)
