Conscience Personified

I remember being given a topic of debate during my college days, "Teachings of Mahatma Gandhi are relevant in today's world" I had opted to speak against the motion. I had felt that there were more points to talk about, if I did so. Now I realize that it was not the applicability of the teachings that I was trying to oppose, it was an idea that I was rather trying to support that living like Gandhi is not possible in today's world. I felt that I had a lot of logic in my statement. The circumstances, I thought had made it impossible to be even close to Gandhi. Was it a rational idea or an excuse to eschew self reform. Was it yet another attempt to stifle the feeble voice of conscience. Was it an excuse to justify my impulsiveness so that I need not make amends to rebuild severed relationships. Had avarice entered our hearts so much that self-restrain appeared to be evil, something that stops all progress. Had our greeds really become our needs. Conscience got personified in him, and like every inner voice it got crucified, let it be Christ, Gandhi or any other great soul that showed the path of bearing the pain not because they were weak, but because they were so courageous that they could bear all the blows, have invariably met the same end. Every such form bears the stigmata of crucification. But for us I guess there is nothing new about it, we kill the Gandhi inside us every day, we have been doing it for years. Debates like these prove how difficult it has become to cope up with virtues! Why no Pietermaritzberg now arouses resentment, why no Champaran stirs the country, and why isn't even one such person whose fasting could stop the deadliest riots. Just where did we lose the right path. When did our motherland stop producing Mahatmas, when did poets like Pradeep stop writing songs Just when did the land of Gandhi become the land of Parzania, Albert Einstein was right when he had said that for generations to come we would find it difficult to believe that someone as this, in flesh and blood walked on this earth, only that it has happened lot sooner!