War – An Unhinged Tale of Love, Revenge, and Death
A quick history
It was a sunny morning on the first of May, 2021 when Joe Biden announced the pullout of troops from Afghanistan ending decades long war. America is finally out of the War after decades . Despite its laughable outcome where afghans end up riding - black hawks and firing bazookas. This is not what American taxpayers spent their 18 trillion dollars on , yet the world was a different place back then .
The final etches of Covid were fast disappearing. Everyone thought the world was heading towards a somewhat quiet atmosphere . It lasted 10 days . The Taliban just took over Afghanistan , the Palestinian conflict between Israel and Palestin has begun their yearly turf war. Syria had a civil war on their hands . Despite theas grim stats , barring the Middle East , the world was at peace .
2021 was the last known year when not a single super power was at war! And things…. Changed…. At a rapid phase.
2022
Everything changed in 2022 when Russia launched a "special military operation" on Ukraine. It was war but nobody calls a war, as war anymore! Initially it was reported that Russia suffered huge losses and Ukraine might even win the whole thing! There was subtle yet heavy “behind the curtains “ support from the USA and EU. The world even thought about whether the USA was in a proxy war with Russia .
But as with any war , this War was also a numbers game. Ukraine always has to look to the west for funds, weapons, all they have is numbers(personal fighting war) however meager the number it is. Russia is more populous and all they have to do is to keep attacking and stay put! And they exactly did that.
2023
Israel launched an attack on Gaza after Hamas attacked Israel . Every major news outlet forgot about the Russian invasion,and ran with the latest news cycle.
2024 -
Russians captured around 18% of Ukraine, Israel grazed Gaza, and Trump won! There is a change in world order now. Take it however you want but the 2024 Word of the Year by oxford is "brain rot,"
2025:
Trump wants a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine , while disrespecting Ukraine’s Zelensky , while eying rare earth minerals and letting Russia keep the invaded territory.
He also suggested adding Canada as a 51st state, and floated ideas of buying greenland (as 52nd ) and taking back Gaza to its glory(as 53rd state?) . Not by war though.
Cut to April 2025.
On a hot April day, Pahalgam attack happened . A month later, India launched a midnight - targeted - air strike inside Pakistan and named it “operation Sindhoor” - Again not calling it a war! Perhaps Oxford should remove that word from its 2025 dictionary.
With this the short history lesson is over.
But the stats should bring us few focus points
- The bigger the country , the longer they can withstand and sustain the war - Russia v Ukraine
- The more advanced the country, more the destruction - Israel v Gaza
- When a country has both 1 & 2 , and has a neighbor that it hates and gets hated even more reciprocally, we arrive at India and Pakistan.
Now I don't want to go into this article with a moral high ground. My intent is to present the facts the way I saw it, up to this point.
India and Pakistan have a long history of being at War at the turn of every decade and most of the time it's hard even to state facts. Henceforth, all these are my opinions about my opinions of facts.
Tread with caution.
Pahalgam and the aftermath
When a country gets attacked by the way it happened in Pahalgam , where a few random terrorists walk in and kill innocent tourists, any nation would be spooked. When a nation is spooked, the politicians obviously try to console the country to win a perception war , both at home and at the world stage.
For India , That consolation is the targeted military strikes on Pakistan.
Those who follow Indian history know that this is neither the beginning nor the end of their conflict. All these problems stem from a strategically important place called Kashmir. The history of Kashmir is older than the history of India, Pakistan and their conflicts , so let’s not go there.
When a nation is in panic , its subjects typically want a quick reaction . Indians wanted revenge, and the shrewd politicians did give them Something back.
A previous example would be the 2019 Balakot strikes.
Now post Pahalgam attack , the most important thing to note is that A nation during such times doesn’t operate on simple unbiased logic or on a calculated diplomatic arithmetics .
It operates on emotional logic . Emotional logic is where the patriarchy and nationalism builds. And when it’s built out , patriarchy looks at hegemony for action , a quick brazen something! And you don’t console that patriotism . It’s the same reason why you don’t stand in front of an elephant that’s on the run.
India gave that something using targeted strikes and a sense of euphoria swept through the nation. This will eventually die down, when human minds completely capitulate to the sense of victory and moves on .
But wars or military operations don't stop there. The same minds which wanted heads of our neighbors now have to mourn for collateral damage to its own side . While jubilation is temporary the scars left behind are not !
With all this history, we can concur that a war never really solves anything .
War or strikes are an effective tool , when the nations can control them and end them within a fortnight or two. These are typically less damaging than a prolonged conflict.
At The current state, India and Pakistan, has no endgame. There is no land grab plan here .. There are no ground operations.. yet! So there is really no need to put the finger on nuclear arsenal and that causes confusion!
What is the true cost of war ?
When a war like this taking center stage , controlling th narrative is everything ! That’s what both the countries did.
The recent attack by India and the aftermath did the optics part perfectly! . It evoked a more natural human response when its subjects saw names like operation sindoor and seeing two women lieutenants briefing the media. Tit for far played to the point!
But what next? Where does this all end? India words and plays this out with more sensibility than the other . However, Pakistan wants to control the narrative ! No one wants to lose a war on social media despite the ground data showing the opposite . I wouldn’t be surprised if Pakistan keeps attacking India without committing to a cause , while working through back channels to spin up the propaganda machinery.
Which brings us to the final point ! Whom do we believe?
No one ! At a time like this , never trust the news even when it looks authentic . A prime example is the pak defense minister's claims on live television that they shot down multiple India jets and how he became a laughing stock for not providing any evidence.
India is also playing a waiting game , trying to get the world's approval that it’s not in this for a war ! But next week or so is going to be critical , I really hope , wish and pray that it doesn’t prolong for a fortnight. It’s my belief that India wants to move towards a stable feature and inch towards being the 3rd largest economy and Pakistan tries to fix its political , health issues at home . A crippled Pakistan where terrorists running amok is not whom we want As neighbors!
And an obligatory tidbit. Despite my best efforts not to bring my nationality into this article , there is a high chance that some of you might find it slightly biased towards India.
God , the Paradox of the invisible Hand
As I stand at the edge of the railway platform , on a mid December morning , a breeze penetrates my attire and chills every single bone I have .
The moment when the clouds leave for the sun, life throws me another question! Who is God? Why is he/she/they needed? What exactly is his work , does he (for sake of this article , god will be a he) even exist?
The sun then hits directly on my face with no intention of providing the much needed warmth, however little it might be .
Now this is an existential question for religions. And right from the beginning, who ever raised this question has always met with blasphemy and its repercussions , so if you trust God and have an unshakable faith in him , believe that he is there, and he is responsible for all and everything that happens every single second on the countless trillions of galaxies you don’t have to read further . He exists.
But do read if you want to explore the construct that we built around “God” And what my interpretations are!
Back to the railway platform. My hands tremble as I have had them out in the cold for too long. I know that God won't provide me with warmth by shining a light directly at me(sun is useless when providing just light in winter) . All he can do is to rekindle my consciousness ,that only stupid people, willingly keep their hands out in the cold for a long time. My brain catches all these up and sends the signals to me to keep them in . All this in a matter of milliseconds . Which is a wonder in itself.
Is the mind, the god?
Now this brings me back to the original question . Is consciousness the god that we are looking for ? It’s what keeps humans from executing the most idiotic, dangerous ideas they get. Like What if I enter a fire? What happens when you jump off the bridge? Why can’t I start counting to infinity? So on and so forth! Is Avoidance of pure stupidity an act of god via consciousness ? Or is it just the cumulative knowledge of entire humanity passed on via DNAs?
Talking about infinity , is that god? The mathematics in general and physics that rules the universe, are they God? Or the curiosity of mapping out the ever expanding universe a work or act of god? It could be all or none , but no proof exists to validate either side of the spectrum.
Now that I entered into a somewhat warm train, my mind goes back to the same question, GOD. Who is he? Is he the creator? Are we all some toys to him? What is the purpose of anything that he does or we do? I know the answers are muddy yet finding the right puddle is all I am looking for!
Is Nature the god?
As I think backwards, Earlier humans once they became conscious, feared just about everything. They looked up , saw the sun and got confused . They would've thought “What is this light that comes up every day that provides light and warmth? Why does it go into void and make everything darker? What if it doesn’t come back one day? “
The lack of knowledge around inanimate things or objects then became a path of worship . Why care about the physics and geometry of the sun when you can deem It a god and call it a day ? At night let’s call the moon a god , let’s make our days go with solar and lunar calendars. And the tradition continued with one thing turning into another and groups becoming religions , men becoming god and so on and so forth.
After many millennias, despite the scientific advantages , we are still at a place where we cant predict or stop from the sun melting us down, (if it decides that way)! We still can’t stop an earthquake, we still can't prevent a tsunami , we can’t stop wildfires or volcanic activity, so forth and so on. Is nature the true ultimate power? God is not a single entity or a deity or a stone or a flame or a messiah , it’s all and it’s one ! Your interpretation of god can change from mine , but in every iteration , he is the doer of good! There are things that are unexplainable to us , like a tsunami wiping out a percentage of humanity! But in the history of the universe, humanity existed only for a mere 12 mins out of a typical Calendar year! So things don't have to make sense to us in the grand scheme of things!
Is the power of destruction , the god?
Moving aside from natural destruction, let’s talk about manual destruction and the epitome of our scientific invention - the nuke! What is the sole purpose of creating a weapon that has a potential to end humanity? And hand it over to humans? If there was a god, why would he let a weapon of mass destruction be created, used and threaten the existence of a single planetary species(us and trillions of life’s on this planet). Is this his way of balancing things out? Is that what he really does? More questions than answers so far.
If you were given a chance to press a button to fix all your problems wouldn’t you press it?
How is this different from a leader of a nation trying to do the same for his people? Is he a god to them? Does being god mean you decide for others and control aspects of our lives? So are powerful people the gods? Are governments and religions are those entities and do this in the name of god?
Yes , there will be collateral damage , millions of innocents would lose their lives, but this also includes millions of scoundrels/rapists/bad people . Would a world be a better place if there are no bad people even if it costs millions of lives?
And where does God fit in all these? For argument's sake , he exists , he helps humanity build a weapon of mass destruction, he lets the bad people walk freely and he keeps bringing in more innocent humans to this world . Then what’s the point of god?
Will he/she stop someone from pushing that button? Or this is all an experiment where he measures humanity’s collective worthiness , after all this is not a world only for humans . Well one man’s idiocy is not the construct's fault .
Do we need god?
So far we have arrived at various conclusions where God could exist in many forms. But God cannot and should not be attributed to humanity’s stupidity , Hitler was one man with power , asking why god didn’t stop him is a faux pas. Why would a nation watch and let the holocaust happen is the right question. This also brings the question of do we really need god?
Take God as a construct , when you are down , depressed and in fear , you need a hand, not to solve your problems , but a hand to just lift you up. It is all you need and we should term that hand as god however the way it arrives .
As Yuval Noah quotes , humanity survived as a species because we eventually realized that being in groups has much better probability and chance for our survival. And guess what , we survived! Now that chance we took , biased or not , and its outcome(survival for thousands of years) in our favor is god . If the Neanderthals/homosapiens have chosen not clung on to a group , there would be no humanity today !
Sometimes a pure unbiased chance and the outcome of that chance is God. a flip of a coin turning your way is also an act of god!
So what does this all mean?
It is not my intent to explore whether a man can be god or everyone being god (aham brahmasmi) . My intent with this is to explore the unknown force that guides the world . The things that science can’t prove yet or don’t have answers for are the foundations for a supreme power !
Science states that everything started after the big bang but what’s before that? What is time before the Big Bang ? Is God the time itself?
I am of the firm belief that the more we ask , the more we learn . This is where faith and beliefs come in . Make no mistake, an unquestionable faith could give temporary comfort , but trusting something blindly (including god ) goes against everything humanity has learned over its existence!
So where does it put us?
I believe that something above ordinary exists. Yes there is bad in the world, but there is also lots of good in the world! Everything balances out in favor of good. Until science can categorically , in absolute terms prove that there is no possibility of the existence of that something , I am a believer. And if you ask me if there is a god , my answer is yes!
Having an exact opposite belief is also fine!
Talking about beliefs , a Tamil writer Sujatha put it aptly that you have to believe in something even if it’s not the god you believe in .
To believe in something is much better than believing in god . That belief is how humanity operates, with or without God .
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