Pale Blue Dot

In 1990, just as the Voyager spacecraft was at the very edge of our Solar system, The Scientist Carl Sagan asked for it to be turned around , to click a picture of the earth

Here is the picture, think about this the next time we have a sense of inflated ego

There is noise everywhere, the pedestrian small talk
The nothingness I can no longer relate to
The buzz of smart phones, the mind numbing pop playing on the radio
In the TV in the background, she talks of rape
He bites into the Mayonnaise
KFC, or MC Donald’s, it could be, I don’t remember
And then he goes back to his writing, words like ‘pithy’ and ‘loquacious’ writing about all the wrongs
They committed to his brothers
1947, 1984, he spews dates , and I can see them fall from his mouth and gather
Into a little puddle on the floor
His eyes bleed red, from last night’s JD (3000 Rupees, I think)
As he talks about all the ills plaguing the country
The TV screen is silent now, nothing but dumb static
And I stand, transfixed, as the surreal plays out around me , like from an Alan Moore graphic novel
He is still ranting, about how Naxalbari ruined his sister’s life
Wearing his Nikes and His Levi’s, he shows me pictures on his Iphone, of the NGO he helps run in Greater Kailash
The names, faces keep changing, and there is always a cause , the cause that the middle generations want to fight for , the safe changing of the world, the Facebook sharing of videos which purport to help the poor

I hate them. I hate you who pretend to care, who wants to help ‘THEM’ , when you know that all you want to serve is your own sense of self righteousness.