New Breed of Slaves

The Salves that we have read about, who were chained and brought from Africa to work on farms and do other hard labour works must have loved to see their Master being beaten in public by someone else for his misdeeds during their times but it never happened.

Those Slaves got liberated and now live a normal life like everyone else.

However, there is another new breed of Slaves I find very interesting in this country today.

They are the political Salves and unlike the other Salves, they hate to see their Master being even challenged, leave alone beaten and of course in the literal sense in public.

Their Master has not served them anything good in their lifetimes but they still guard their Master’s image even like a bitch guarding its litter.

A whiff confrontation in the air, this new breed of Political Slaves come at the challenger like a wounded water hog with all their guns (read Teeth) blazing.

Some very easily identifiable and visible traits of this new breed of slaves are aggressiveness, the incomprehensibility of even a very simple fact and most importantly the use of vulgar and unprintable words in public.

With those traits and their dispositions too are not in favour of them, slogging them (literally) in public will not be a way to get them reformed.

Like Harriet Tubman, once a Slave herself said: “ I could have freed a thousand more, only if they really knew they were Slaves”.

Let them eat the humble pie someday first and though it will be too late for them, complete avoidance of this new breed of Slaves is the best strategy one could apply if you want to stay sane while discussing politics in public forums.

To Sir with Love ( My version ).

A few senior boys and their thugs stormed into the school during interval/recess time to beat up a classmate, when we were in grade 10.

We did not say nor do anything to avert but watched in shock as we did not know what to do.

The chemistry subject was the period immediately after the break and as the master entered the class, we knew that he was not in a mood to teach.

He was silent for some time and we waited for him to say something.

Then he asked all of us a very simple question.

"What kind of young men are you, watching your fellow student being beaten up by thugs on the school premises and doing nothing?"

There was no chemistry lesson that afternoon and some enjoyed the break but a few started pondering the incident seriously.

Having enjoyed success the previous day, the seniors and thugs revisited during the interval with the idea of bashing the poor fellow up a little more.

What happened thereafter is well known in the school history and that was the last time we had thugs visiting school or seniors flexing their muscles.

The chemistry master came to class grinning from ear to ear after the interval that day.

Recently, we had an old teacher’s felicitation ceremony but sadly he could not be invited for obvious reasons.

The value of unity and standing up against injustice were two lessons we learned from that great Chemistry master.

(May our old Chemistry master attain the supreme bliss of Nirvana).