If You Want to Change Society

We want to change the society around us, yet we want to remain exactly as we are now. But society is made of us, so if we remain the same, how can society become different?

The way we pounce on others for their smallest mistakes—if instead of cleverly hiding our own major flaws or forgiving ourselves for them, we pounced on ourselves with the same ferocity, the path to self-purification would be far smoother. If you want to move forward, you must pursue only yourself, not others.

There are many people in this world who drink whenever they get the chance, yet curse others as drunkards and alcoholics. I've seen some who, standing at bars with glasses full of liquor in hand, constantly think and speak of the entire world as drunkards. When someone gambles all night and returns home in the morning only to curse the neighbor as a "bloody gambler," it makes you want to spit in his face. In this Bengal, there are two types of gentlemen I want to call bastards: those who are gentlemen only for lack of opportunity, and those who are gentlemen only in the absence of opportunity.

Those sons of bitches who constantly steal the rights of the poor through cunning—these very people, when someone gets caught stealing a mere ten or twenty rupees, a handful of rice from a pot, or an old sandal, beat them relentlessly while hurling unspeakable curses like "You bastard, son of a thief!" Just imagine—if that merciless beating were applied to those swine in proportion to their crimes, you wouldn't even find their bones!

There are highly educated and well-established feminist men who foam at the mouth spouting rhetoric about women's freedom outside their homes, while inside, they beat their wives at every turn. You cannot even imagine how these dogs, so vocal about women's equal rights, bark and snarl at their wives at home, judging by their public persona!

When that respected madam who regularly beats and wounds her housemaid, who strikes her with kitchen tools, stands in public squares on Women's Day shouting herself hoarse about women's rights—it truly makes you want to hurl torn sandals at her face! One can tolerate the company of an unmasked devil, but it's hard to bear even the shadow of a devil disguised as an angel!

The man who forcibly prevents his wife from working after marriage is the same one you'll see constantly, as if by routine, taunting her about food and clothing expenses and torturing her mentally, sometimes physically; while outside the house, he earns applause singing praises for women's economic independence. When girls marry before finding jobs, their self-respect often faces extreme threat. Granting proper family recognition to unemployed housewives is an extremely rare occurrence in this country.

The hypocrite who mocks girls in Western dress on Facebook and elsewhere also seizes opportunities to drown neck-deep in pornography, constantly raping women with his eyes. In this age of technological supremacy, there's not even the remotest connection between violence against women and women's clothing. What someone wears or doesn't wear depends entirely on their personal choice and taste. A hyena never pounces on humans based on the color or style of their clothes; given even the slightest opportunity for display, the hyena will show its ferocity!

Those parents who take dowry at their son's wedding, saying "We'll give the girl whatever you're happy with," and then, whenever they get the chance, make disgusting dissections of the gifts sent from the girl's family right in front of their daughter-in-law—these same people, when any demands arise during their own daughter's wedding, don't hesitate to call the groom's family beggars and lowlifes. Such hypocrisy makes me sick, makes me want to vomit! Taking to the streets with a beggar's bag is far, far more honorable than marrying or arranging marriages while accepting or expecting dowry.

Such serpents in society shed their skins here and there as opportunity allows. There's no way to understand how many forms the devil takes until you fall into the clutches of these great souls who roam about wearing masks of various social customs and practices! When I see such sinners who steal people's hard-earned money and then spout rhetoric about honesty and religion everywhere, I desperately want to expose their true faces naked before everyone!

Regardless of their own character, those who spend their lives finding fault with others—these very subhumans are today's saints in everyone's eyes! There's no safer refuge than hypocrisy in today's age. Raising the banner of social change while feathering one's own nest is the main fashion of modernity. In this land of mob mentality, if they don't get caught or don't get the opportunity, every bastard is a living, breathing great soul!

First fix yourself, then tell others to fix themselves. Don't go around distributing certificates of virtue in areas where you yourself have no purity. If you can't change yourself, don't roam around like a goat with the flag of social change in your hand. It really looks awful!

Clean your own toilet before lecturing about stains on others' toilets. Before you prepare to take the microphone to the streets about those aspects of others' character, why don't you speak a few lines publicly right now about those same aspects of your own character with complete honesty? If whether the grape is sour or sweet depends on the cunning calculation of getting it or not getting it, then it's wiser to learn to increase your own height or to jump to the fruit's height.

Lately, when I see people's anger, I try to understand where exactly the source of that anger lies. In the honesty of the capable? Or in the envy of the incapable?