When I smile, tell me some bad news. Before I laugh and act like a fool.

I just got home after watching Peepli Live. Halfway through the movie I had the strangest feeling in my stomach. It was a feeling of remorse and a sudden guilt. The movie just brought up the thought of millions displaced (in my homeland) and the latter of the movie was spent in this feeling of shame eating me up from inside. Conscience-smitten I sat there watching how ironic the world is and the movie's climax didn’t help much.. 

The reason why this one certain movie made me feel this way was because the same situation is being played out in our country right now. I don't want to give out movie details, but this farmer, Natha, who states that he wants to commit suicide, is "supported" by a lot of people mainly for their personal agendas. All this chaos in his life, the sudden spotlight and influence of his statement leads him in this mess. After 3 months, when he's presumed to be dead, nobody cares about what happened to him. He was forced to think about suicide because the government had announced compensations for families whose members commit suicide. After his "death" the family is still living in the worst imaginable conditions and has not gotten a single penny of that compensation. Natha, was forgotten. By the media who made his life a circus, by the political leaders who gave his life so much importance and by the villagers, who told TV channels of his importance to them.

Isn’t this exactly what happens to victims in our society? This climax made me think of all those millions who have been affected. There will come a point where we all will forget about all those who have faced this calamity.

Five years ago when the earthquake happened.. The spirit of brotherhood came alive. Everyone worked so hard to send relief supplies to remote place. But what's happening in their lives now? Are they well settled? Has their life gone back to normal? Our efforts were well directed, but then how did those efforts end? We don’t care now about them do we..? Life went on after a few months of  help help and support we just stopped thinking about them. 

So now what bothers me is that now that we're facing the worst flood in the history of our country.. What will be our next action? Attending a few relief camp help outs, collecting the aid we get and sending them off? What else? What happens after all that is done? That thought never comes up. 

When we light a candle, it enlightens the whole room with its luminance. This candle keeps on burning until two things happen; you blow it out or it burns out completely on its own. Similarly, two things happen with our sudden brotherhood, love for our fellow countrymen and patriotism. Either, we blow it out or we don’t notice the flickering and the flame dies out. So putting this parallel to our awakening and helping out the flood victims, are they going to have the same fate as that of the earthquake victims? I really hope not but that’s where everything ends. Doesn’t it? We all go back to our lives, sit in theatres, watch movies, host grand dinners, have big weddings and just forget about everything else.