Business As Usual

While the tsunamis lashed south-east Asia, bombs still exploded in some parts of the world, as if to drive in the point that it is ?business as usual.? It is as if some diehard enthusiasts want to compete with nature on how much destruction some of them are capable of causing. What a glaring contrast! Thousands of volunteers are busy saving lives, and thousands of terrorists are busy taking lives.

I wonder when we will learn that in the larger scheme of things it hardly matters what religion outperforms or outlasts what religion. The earthquakes and the tsunamis didn’t differentiate between Muslims, Hindus, Christians and Buddhists…they killed without prejudice and there is a lesson in it: life should be cherished.

More than 80,000 people have died in the region, and now the governments have stopped even counting the dead because many villages have been buried under the sea sand along with the inhabitants and their toll will never be counted. There are many bodies that have been buried under the debris forever. The count is definitely going to go beyond 100,000. And animals…is anybody counting how many domestic and wild animals must have been killed?

Natural calamities, especially of such scale, are great equalizers. They also tell us that as far as Nature is concerned, there is never a tomorrow. It is a scary thought, to be frank. No matter where you are, if Nature wants, it can get you. Its wrath can visit you in the form of an earthquake or a volcanic eruption, an atmospheric disturbance, an animal attack, a flood, or for that matter even an obscure meteor or comet from the depths of the universe. When I think of terrorists causing destructions in the name of religion, it all sounds like philosophical comedy.