Fear the almighty or you will face the consequences. The business of fear is spread all around us. Fear is one of the most basic instincts, which is only partially affected by knowledge. I have seen that many times this instinct even overpowers all kinds of knowledge and experience. About two decades ago, my father was suffering from a terminal disease. A man knocked our door and asked us to hear the predictions of a strangely dressed partner of him who was standing few yards behind him. He claimed that the man behind him is a Swami who is an exceptional future-teller.
Since I was the first person who came out of the house, Swami immediately started saying to me that you have a great characteristics of doing the charity work. I thought if he is saying so, let me donate some nominal cash to him and get back to my priority of looking after my ailing father. Meanwhile Swami started saying loudly that he can help us get rid of our troubles related to illness in our family. My other family members also came out and he started predicting few things about each of our family members. Some of those things were true. May be by shear coincidence. Somehow Swami and his disciple were able to convince our family to perform some rituals. My mother agreed, as she thought that we have tried all treatments than what is the harm in getting some religious pooja being performed. Swami and his disciple performed some typical street magic of asking for a lemon and then cutting it with a knife and then showing the red blood coming out of it. Some incorrect versions of Vedic hymns were also recited. I could not resist much in the presence of my mother. My only aim at that time was to let his show finish fast and let us return back to our primary task.
A day back as I watched the famous bollywood movie ‘PK’ my memories of this episode became live. The applications of fear are everywhere. It is there in our education, it is there in our medical system, legal system, political system etc. Our brain gets captivated by simple application of well known fear tools by a fear marketer. Fear of less marks in exams, fear of hundred percent blockage of artery, fear of losing a portion of our land by the wall of our neighbour, fear of losing the election, fear of not getting the respect are few types of fear that are revolving around us. You want to know my fear. Yes readers! I fear the fear marketers. I fear that people who can raise right voices are silent. I do fear to take names. It is a highly sensitive world. I fear because in today’s world an innocent head of an Educational Institution can be beaten to death by mad mob of young people. I fear because so called active media can waste whole country’s time on some person sitting in London and not on the core challenges we face in our day to day life. I hope that new applications of fear will keep getting invented, unless we can build a fearless society the way it was built during our own country’s freedom movement. Till then, I am the best guinea pig to apply fear on.
Dr. Sunil Ji Garg
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