Blood is Red

The moon had risen on the eastern sky, the sun had set for the day, twilight was making its presence felt. I looked up, pre-monsoon clouds were looming over the skyline of Bangalore. I had no intentions of getting drenched, I urgently looked for an auto rick to transport me home, which was hardly 3kms away. Finally after quite a "jatto-jehat", one of them agreed and suprising with no arguements. I thought for a minute, "what a good guy"! But that thought just lasted for a min, not a second more or a second less, the rick meter showed figures of 30 bucks (ideally it should show 14,)...my immediate reaction was to alert the auto rick driver, who cooly retorted, "madam double rate lagega". I was irritated by his coolness and more so he had manipulated the meter, which is not lawful. Within minutes, there was an altercation..and I threatened him to report to the traffic police..nothing affected him and to my shock he taunted back at me "Yeh karnataka hain, North India nahi hain", I was puzzled, how on the earth was Karnataka related to his meter rates. He continued in his usual notorious style, "you guys from North come here, earn loads of money, use of our facilities, our infrastructure, why can't you pay double the rate? This is land of Kannadas not North Indians". This was enough to piss me off beyond control, but I didnot know what to tell him..I was fuming, fretting, and there were fumes blowing out my ears. I am an obstinate soul, and I ensured that I payed only his legitimate, not even a single anna more...only to hear more foul language from him.
A couple of days back I read on IBNLIVE, about Raj Thackery and his men's "creative idea" of getting attention - "Buy mangoes only from Maharashtrian fruit vendors. The bhaiyyas have taken over the mango trade in the city, while our Marathi people are suffering". From taxis to vada pavs and now mangoes, (I think he wants to hold on to Alphonsos, knowing thats its "the Bhaiyas" who produce the largest quantities of mangoes in the world) Thackarey wants to claim himself to be a crusader of Maharastrain people and culture. A self-proclaimed protector, who wants the usurp the throne from his more dangerous fascist uncle...an idealogy that did bring fame to Bal Thackery, good fame or bad, who is bothered! I think his next creative idea would be "Alphonsos for Marathi Manush only, non maharastrians pay more!!!"

Perhaps the uncle and now the nephew desire to create ripples into a largely calm water body, a desire which can have dangerous consequences, and lead to a lot of bloodshed. And it did happen..an innocent worker of HAL in Nashik got killed by Thackery's party hooligans, and unfortunately for them he was a maharastrian...and it is the red blood that flows finally, the colour of blood is always red, whether it flows in a maharastrian or in a bhaiya, or whether it flows in a Hindu or a Muslim, or whether it flows in an Asian or an Anglo Saxon.
But, why blame these two Thackerys? Politicians all over the world have always believed in what the Britishers adopted as a policy, DIVIDE AND RULE! And we the comman man love to dance as puppets to rheoteric's of these so called leaders! And in a democratic set up elect them as our coveted members of Parliament. As it is called DANCE TO THE TUNE OF DEMOCRACY!
Lets stop for a while and think, is it justified? The auto wala was an uneducated man, but these uneducated men, exercise their franchise!