hate
heɪt/
noun
- 1.intense dislike."feelings of hate and revenge"
synonyms: loathing, hatred, detestation, dislike, distaste, abhorrence,abomination,
execration, resentment, aversion, hostility, ill will, ill feeling, bad feeling etc
When was the first time you experienced hate, in whatever form for instance when someone expressed their hate for broccoli?
When was the first time you felt the emotion of hate towards someone or something?
I honestly can't remember.
When was the first time you felt love? First love? When was the first time someone told you that they loved you?
I can remember countless incidents, and countless times.
Even if you are the most depressed, morbid person who is devoid of love, of family, of friends, or even love for oneself, you will still remember one moment filled with love.
Love leaves a huge mark on our lives. It often shapes the kind of people we become.
Sadly, Love doesn't change or affect the world.
HATE affects and changes the world.
Every adult I know, if they could, they would relive their childhood. Even if someone has had an abusive childhood, they would still want a chance to go through that phase of life again, not their phase, but some phase of being a child. Why is that so? You could say that it's that time of your life when you don't have to worry about the world, you don't worry about the money, you are carefree, you have your parents to care for you, you have an innocent mind etc. But why do we actually want to relive it?
Because a child doesn't feel hate.
A child is carefree for various reasons. You hate that boy who teases you? No. You dislike that boy for a day or a month, you get over it. You don't like broccoli, doesn't mean you hate it, you still eat it because it's good for you. Or you give it to your dog when your mother isn't looking. You will dislike broccoli, but you will never hate it. Even if it is a passionate dislike that makes you have a gag-reflex every time you think about it, you wont hate it constantly at the back of your head.
A child doesn't understand wars. A child doesn't understand crimes like murder and rape. A child doesn't even understand why his/her mother doesn't let him/her play with the kid from XYZ family that lives down the road.
This not because a child is not "mature" enough. If a child can understand the most complex human emotion of love and reciprocate it hours after coming to life, maturity isn't even the question.
It is because, a child doesn't understand hate. Or the logic, rationale, cause, repercussions, end result, by product etc related to hate.
It makes no sense in irrationally killing someone you don't like.
It makes no sense to wage a war against another country simply because one country didn't agree with the other.
It makes no sense for your mother to not let you play with the kid from XYZ family that lives down the road.
Children are right. It never makes any sense. And never will.
When one grows up, they will think of a billion reasons why they hate someone or something, but they will never think of the logic behind it.
If love is blind.
Hate is the paralysis of the logic part of the brain or the Cerebrum.
So I asked my 12 year old sister a couple of questions, and this was what she had to say.
Q: What does love mean to you, where does it come from?
A:"Love is a compassionate feeling. It comes from the heart. I mean, it comes from your brain only, but it warms your heart. When you really like something or someone it leads to love.
Love comes from within".
Q: What does hate mean to you, where does it come from?
A:"Hate is higher level of disliking. I don't really know where it comes from, it's mostly your mind that makes you not like something but I don't really know why".
Q: I am your sister, if I did something bad, would you still love me?
A:"Kind of, like in the middle. Yes and No. I mean, because you are my sister and I love you, I would still love you. If like you were to be sent to jail, I will think it is good that you are going to jail because you will get better but my heart will still love you. My love will be more than hate. But it depends on the kind of 'bad' thing you do".
Q: What do you think is closer to humans, love or hate?
A:" Love. Because it is a part of life, if you don't love (or have loved) anything, you're not human. You can live without hate but you CAN NOT live without love. It's kind of equal, but love is little higher."
Q: When was the first time you felt hate and first time you felt love?
A:"I don't have like a first memory of hate, but I can remember a lot of memories filled with love."
Sometimes, no always, kids are the most logical and rational beings.
Why am I analyzing hate from a child's point of view? Because I want to know what a child feels when they first encounter Hate.
I have been born and brought up (mostly, because of my father's Air Force background) in Bangalore. My parents are from the center of India-Pakistan conflict state, Jammu and Kashmir. I go to Jammu once every Summer, it's not like all scary as higher areas of Kashmir and how the media portrays it. It's pretty peaceful for a small town. Bangalore is my home, but Jammu is my parents' home. And that's cool I guess. My grandfather, was born somewhere in Pakistan. The Dutta's (Punjabi ones) are ancestrally from that region. When India got its Independence, in 1947, My grandfather, then 7 years old, left all his belongings, didn't wear his slippers, left home to cross the border to come to India with his father and siblings. For if they hadn't left everyone would have been killed. Being 7 years old, I don't think he understood why he had to leave everything behind or why the situation and the war even existed. That same wonder leads to his teary eyed childhood stories that he tells me with a smile when he is two drinks down. I have noticed how that smile never goes, for I know, as bad as it seems, it was still his childhood. It still means so much to him and he still doesn't get the hate. Does he hate Pakistan now? No, because as a child he never understood the hate and that shaped him into the person that he is now and he doesn't hate Pakistan. Yes, the conflict over Kashmir is bad, and it's not going away anytime soon, but there is still no concrete or logical reason to hate.
When I said hate affects the world, it does so immensely that we often begin to feel regret, pain and love as a part of humanity because of its colossal effect.
Like my 7 year old grandfather did not understand the hate then when he experienced it for the first time. I am sure those 132 children killed on December 16th 2014 in the military-run school in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, did not understand the hate either.
It breaks my heart to even think of a child, scared little child, staring into the terrorists eyes at point blank range. Memories of his/her short lived life and of his/her family replaying over and over in those seconds before a bullet goes through his/her brain. Scared but still can not understand why there is SO much hate in the shooters eyes.
Being scared and dying is one thing. Being clueless about an emotion you have never witnessed. Experiencing it at its maximum, in such an unexplained gargantuan intensity and dying is just something else.
Something indecipherable.
The First encounter with HATE for any child is extremely confusing. Most children won't even remember it as they grow up. But those 132 children, they experienced the worst first encounter with HATE and died with it. They didn't get to grow up, they didn't get a chance to make a list of reasons to hate something with no logical reason behind it. They did not get a chance to digest the reality of hate for there is nothing else we humans can do about it. They did not get to finish lesson 10 of their math textbooks or get that A+ they worked on for the whole weekend.
They wore a clean fresh uniform in the morning, and had it stained by blood, before the mud from the playground or the oil from the lunch box could have stained it.
It breaks my heart that people are talking about the dynamics of India-Pakistan ties. It breaks my heart that World Politics still is looking for ways to tackle and handle their diplomacy. It breaks my heart that we humans think the superficial political ties are the ones that matter. It breaks my heart that parents who sent their children to learn are now cleaning their dead bodies to be lowered into their graves. It pains my heart to see that humans, in the name of religion, in the name of hate, in the name of proving ones opinion over another, kill other humans. For some reason killing children just seems so much more worse.
It's not that children deserve to live more than adults. It's just that imagining a child, who hates no one, not even the bully who kicked him/her, is a victim or rather collateral damage of this hate that he/she will never understand. We adults have the power to propagate such nonsensical hate, to feel anger and convert it to hate, to let our egos rise, to understand that these murderers wont care about who or what you are. The only thing a child has seen is love, And THIS is the worst first experience of HATE. It breaks my heart that for years now, things like this happen, we loose faith in humanity, we write blogs and Facebook posts with #FaithInHumanityLost #RIP, share it and like it, propagate this loss of faith, And this loss only increases. Brave humans once in a while turn that hashtag to #FaithInHumanityRestored for a post or 2 only to be lost again by another heinous event like this. For ages have passed that the Human Race has fought pointless wars that are taught to 7th graders in History class. Taught in a way to inform and memorize rather than actually trying to understand or not make the same mistakes their illogical ancestors did.
But most of all it just pains my heart to open the newspaper in the morning to news of hate, in a neighbourhood or a country, in the form of rape, murder or mass murder. It breaks my heart that innocent lives are collateral damage.
It breaks my heart that 132 innocent children died on their first encounter with HATE.
With a broken heart, I pray for those 132 souls.
I pray for the children who are being brainwashed by Terrorists.
I pray for the humanity.
I pray that when I become a parent, I don't have to worry if my child is safe at school.
May those confused little brave souls Rest in Peace.
Fin.
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