One of my first cousins dropped by the other day.  I had a bit of a falling out with him and was seeing him after quite some time.  Now he’s one of those people who nurse political ambition, and all for the wrong reason.  Like so many delusional young men in this country, who after making a mess of their life, think that politics is the easiest way to make a quick buck and acquire power?  I accept that political ambition has nothing to do with creating a meritocratic society, but even so, cupidity and nepotism are the order of the day; it’s a closed shop really.  I thought he understood all that but with a vague sort of clarity which was neither here nor there.

  So, here he was, like a man possessed by a misguided zeal hoping to secure a nomination from one of the parties for the upcoming state assembly elections.  His last attempt to do so had ended up in a miserable failure, and as it turned out, same thing happened this time also.  He was very unfocused and incoherent in articulating his political views.  He mumbled something about giving opportunity to the youth, and when my brother probed him about having any kind of blueprint in mind about the young people in the country, he brushed aside the question as something utterly insignificant.  He carried a sheaf of papers—a kind of resume—on which written in bad English were the sum and substance of his achievements as a political activist.  He talked to some big shot on the phone seeking an audience with him, but clearly the big shot was not interested.  The wheedling tone, the exaggeratingly obsequious manner in which he was speaking on the phone was quite embarrassing.  Maybe, the big shot would have granted him an audience, I don’t know.  Living purely by instinct, shunning completely the life of the mind, wearing your reverse snobbery as a badge of honor, you lose the language of both your conviction and also of your rage.  Looking at him, it was possible to see that a kind of unwieldy ambition was pressing down upon him and making him somehow diminished as a person.  I tried to imagine some common ground with him, but I couldn’t.  The chasm between us was also an abyss and I just wouldn’t reach out to him.  And then he left.  And that was that.  I kept thinking that even though he was sitting couple of feet away from me, I could have hardly felt more distant from him.

Usually, I follow politics at very superficial level, British politics even more so.  The other day I was watching the BBC when they were anointing Jeremy Corbyn as the leader of the opposition labor party after a tumultuous few months.  Now there was something about his pleasing personality that did ring a bell.  And then the realization dawned on me, and I was convinced in my mind that when my affable brother in law Mike Deleo gets to the age of 65 and beyond, he will resemble very much Jeremy Corbyn!  And the more I saw, the more I thought that Mike will not just look like him in the old age, I don't know whether it was my imagination, but I also discovered some commonality of traits.  The same tall and lanky frame, the relaxed and graceful movement not to mention the amiable demeanor that could be engaged and detached at the same time.  It was quite uncanny really.  If you happen to be reading this Mikey, please don't mind man because I am saying this entirely as a compliment.  As far as I am concerned, it could never be otherwise.

Tuning into BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera every evening, you are brought face to face with a gut-wrenching and a harrowing human tragedy.  Hundreds and thousands of vulnerable and dispossessed people are fleeing their strife torn and civil war ravaged countries in the Middle East and North Africa to seek sanctuary and asylum in more prosperous western and northern Europe on a daily basis.  Devoid of either hope or any kind of legitimate documentation, these people, possessed by frightening audacity, are literally putting their lives at risk in order to get to the Promised Land.  Those migrants who are leaving the shores of North Africa are crossing the Mediterranean and landing in Italy, even though scores of them are dying every month either by drowning in leaky overcrowded boats, or being claimed by sea sickness.

  What has really astounded me no end is the kind of treacherous journey undertaken by those from Syria and Iraq.  Moving entirely on foot, these thousands of men, women and children are first crossing into neighboring Turkey, from there sailing in boats like tightly packed Sardines further west to the Greek islands.  From there on, the journey begins once more on foot, this great mass of humanity marching northward into Macedonia and then into Hungary; their aim being to cross the border to Austria towards west, and then to their final destination of either Germany, France or The United Kingdom.  In that long and arduous journey, they endure all kinds of hardship, from being robbed by the criminal gangs to beating by the police and security forces. It is nothing short of a surreal sight to see all kinds of men, women and small children’s marching down the road with a desperate determination.  Some are escaping persecution by the state and some are running for their lives, from possible genocide. Small children sitting on the shoulders of the elders, frail women some of them pregnant trying to heave their bodies willing them to keep moving until they reach were they want to be. I guess this was the exodus they talk about in The Old Testament.  Even if these people get there, there is no guarantee that they will be able to build a better life for themselves. But their hope lies in the fact that may be, just may be if the fear of death and persecution goes away, they might have a shot. To be fair to the countries in the European Union, they are trying to accommodate as many migrants as possible, but that generosity is fuelling another kind of resentment among the people in the host country.  Some leaders like Erdogan of Turkey and Putin in Russia are taunting the European government that it was there policies along with the U.S that resulted in the crisis in the Middle East & in North Africa in the first place, so it is their moral obligation to help these refugees. On the other hand the European leaders are saying that if the rulers in those countries had put their house in order, this humanitarian disaster would not have erupted.  I don’t know who is right or who is wrong, neither do I have any solution to offer. But every night I am depressingly mesmerized to see this human catastrophe beamed in my living room.