That walk to freedom is still on!!

I am on a book reading spree for last few months.

People say that any addiction is bad but the moment I take up any interesting book, I become so addicted to it that I forget that I have a real world as well, out of the world in which that book is written.

Books take you to some another level, in another zone which may be sometimes heartening, sometimes too disturbing as well.

Today I completed a book which I wanted to read for a long time. The book is titled- ‘Long walk to freedom’- autobiography of the Great South African revolutionary Nelson Mandela. It is a tale worth spending your time. It has everything in it, romance, agony, hatred, revolution, courage, dream, persistence and finally achievement. This is the story of a nation from the eyes of the one of the most celebrated person ever walked on this planet.

This story has so many elements in it that by reading and carefully observing the messages coming out of the incidents described in it, one can shape his/her character in a way which can only take him/her on the path of success.

There are so many things in it but one thing which intrigued me was the main concept on which the African battle of freedom was fought- the Apartheid.

Apartheid is a policy or system of segregation or discrimination on grounds of race in South Africa like black, white, colored and Indian. Nelson Mandela fought against it and it was abolished later on when he became first black president of South Africa in 1994.

After reading the book I was so engrossed in the world I was led by the writer himself that I started comparing the world then and now, things which used to be done by the people then and now. The world of course has evolved a lot since then and people have also become more open minded with education level going up. With so much of advancement of the world, these kind of issues should also have been over.

And then I looked around to see the world around me, where I roam around, breath, eat and live my life. When I closely observed the incidences I have faced so many times and still come across, I realized that though in our society there is no apartheid but people still give preference to fairer skin than the darker one no matter how the heart is.

When I was a child, whenever I used to see any person from African country or sometimes from our country as well who is very dark, I would see that person as if he/she is an alien. People around me also used to give special attention to them and make fun of. I never thought what they would be going through when all of a sudden everyone is staring at them. I had realized long back about what I was doing and I had felt ashamed of myself and now when I have completed reading this book , I realized what a sin it is to ill-treat a person just because he/she is nor as fair as others.

Nobody has got any right to do anything like this as it is not something which we choose ourselves. What I have also realized that fairness comes only in comparative terms. If you are fairer than somebody then there is someone else who is fairer then you. And even if someone is the fairest person on the earth, it is something which God has given us. We cannot be proud of something for which we have not worked for.

I have decided now to work for the things I want to be proud of and to treat everyone with as much respect as any person deserves. It’s the character which is supreme and everything else is pale in front of it.

I have started the change from my end and that’s the least I can do to at least make myself a better person in my own eyes.