The policeman and the guitar

The 9 mm semiautomatic pistol was aimed at his heart . The white police officer could easily get away with it . For the victim was a black man . Yes after the shootout there will be the "usual " uproar of a racist overtone . But in this case he could get away with it as the circumstances he could explain . And yes with his ingrained racism he wanted to pull the trigger .

But a second before pulling the trigger at the black man he saw it . The 6 stringed instrument freshly strummed alongside the black man . And that second hesitation was enough for him to escape with his life . For though a criminal he had better things to do than to kill a police officer or be a martyr in a police shooting .

After the criminal escaped the officer was still standing staring at the 6 stringed instrument , a crudely made acoustic guitar left behind by the black man . And the middle aged officer was thinking back to his  own  teenage years .

A product of a broken home which doesnt discriminate between black  , brown or white . Bullied terribly in school and college he found solace in music . Specifically the music of the blacks . As a youth he knew though discriminated against in every sphere blacks were disproportionately represented in the music industry . And all his heroes and heroines were black . It was not a conscious process as music didnt have any color that he knew of . But he read somewhere that music of americas originally came from africa . He read that every day the slaves had one respite from their agonising and mundane existence . The world of dance and music which their forefathers gifted .

Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson , Gloria Geynor , Ray Charles , Stevie Wonder , Whitney Houston the list was endless . And in his troubled youth these were his gods and goddesses who took him out of his troubles , gave him hope and made him pursue life once again . He thought again . Without them he may not have survived his teenage years . And for a moment he stared at his gun . The instrument he carried to protect the people but which lost its meaning . That was his last day at work .

He took up a job with an agency working with  homeless black youth guiding them and integrating them into mainstream society .And yes in his sparetime he started to strum the guitar with them . And the black gods and goddesses of music were watching him many from the nether world .......

Heal the world ... Make it a better place ,.. for you and for me ,, and the entire human race ..( Michael Jackson ..)

blood stains on the heart

                                                     I learnt at seven years that blood stains dont go away easily from clothes . Actually they never go away . My dads shirt was having a small blood stain which i still remember from decades back in my childhood .

I sometimes wonder where the owner of that bloodstain is now . It was the blood of a child who was involved in a mass bus accident . I still remember the sound and my aunt closing my eyes . Children are not supposed to see accidents . So i never saw the accident . A bus at high speed had hit a van full of children in front of our shop . Later i heard children were strewn over the road and my father had took them to hospital in our neighbours car . Few children died on the spot but many probably were saved by the quick transport . The blood stain was the shirt which he was wearing while helping to transport the kids to the nearest hospital .

Decades later we have no contact with any of them . Even that shirt is not there . But the memory of the blood stain still lingers . Not as a horrible memory (Remember i didnt see the accident or even the kids injuries ) but as a question mark .

Is the child whose blood stain was in his shirt alive today . Where is he or she ?  Has he/she grown as a good human being after escaping from near death . Has  he/she grown into a real human being having saved by a man of one community and the car which was lent by a lady of another community . Or has he/she grown into a person who has become a religious fanatic over the years ? I dont know .
But for me and my dad it was  a  humbling experience long before i learnt blood of all humans especially of children are of the same colour .