Listening to the bustling sound of the city from the windows of my computer room, with a strong coffee in my hand; I feel happy that I’ve achieved something. Every week day, I’d think of spending the weekend in a laid back manner, relaxed in a rocking chair and sipping hot coffee; finally I did it today. So much time for myself to unwind and rewind.

Since morning, I have been thinking of one thing in particular – what goes around, comes around. I’m not sure if this is a part of science which says every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

When I was in a difficult relationship, I used to look at my colleagues who have called off their relationship for some reason best known to them; and think – God, when I can handle my bad relationship, why can’t they? In the following years it so happened that I had to call off my relationship. May be that experience brought some sense to me, I resolved not to be judgemental about anything. Not that I am completely non-judgemental now, but I try brushing off such thoughts as soon as they arise.

Very recently I met a long lost friend of mine. As we met up – we shared the events and experiences of our lives. He mentioned he went through a rough patch in his life. He loved a girl and wanted to marry her. In the process, he met her parents and expressed his desire. The parents questioned about his community (both belong to different castes) and his ability to take care of her. They promptly started looking out for a suitable groom for that girl within their community. Her parents’ act of looking for a groom even after knowing that she’s involved with this guy, their inability to look beyond caste, her inability to stand by him; made my friend break down – he started hating the entire community. He was down for a long time until he met another girl, belonging to a different caste again. To take their relationship to the next step, he told his parents about his decision to marry her. This time it so turned out that his parents acted like the parents of his ex.

The thing is, when our own people react in a way that we’d condemn if others did; we tend to act blind or not reason it out. It was the same case with this guy as well, he felt his parents had every right to worry and ponder about their relationship. He is again dissatisfied and unhappy because he feels the girl is not very understanding. I was left wondering, if the girl should start hating his community for the way he and his parents behaved – the same way that he feels about his ex’s community?

Parents are someone whom we look up to since childhood, but we have to understand that sometimes they lose out their reasoning skills because of their possessiveness. Their hatred towards someone/something leads to kids following them and their kids and so on. This reminds me of an age-old Telugu adage ‘neetulu itharulaku’, which means it is easy to preach but difficult to practice.

I kept thinking, why are we so judgmental and why don’t we search within ourselves for answers before developing hatred or hurting someone with our mindless thinking? One person’s hatred harbours someone else’s hatred. If everyone keeps hating each other’s community, where will it lead us to? When will our communal problems get solved? When will we have a peaceful, grudge-free world?

Imagine if this is how educated people like us behave, what would be the mental state of an illiterate person??