The Tale of a One, Miserable City

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times,

It was the age of wisdom; it was the age of foolishness,

It was the epoch of belief; it was the epoch of incredulity,

It was the season of Light; it was the season of Darkness,

It was the spring of hope; it was the winter of despair.

I have these words echoing in my mind playing havoc with it, with relentless thoughts bludgeoning past it.

Having been caught up with the tons of workload university life brings followed by the daily races of the corporate world I had lost time for one of my most precious past times- reading. And when I finally found a moment of peace and sat down to read the great classic novel A Tale of Two Cities, my peace was shattered as my head sought to untangle the meaning in the words as they slowly mingled with the brutal messages plastered all over the countless news channels. The worst of times, the season of despair, what better way I wonder, to portray all that is happening around us.

You wake up the next morning and you find out the city is a mass of ashes and soot from the burning down of buildings, cars and tyres the previous night. You go to work one day not knowing what life is going to be like by the time you walk out from your sacred vestibule. The realities of hundreds of lives here are altered everyday of every second with the flicker of an eyelid, the utterance of a single word. Injustices prevail and shroud the city with charred corpses, blood blanketing the ground as the skies resound with another shot, another life ended, another household destroyed, another day of paralysis, fear and trepidation.

I fear that this might never end, that it would lead to something more horrific and unimaginable than before. My heart says revolt; my mind says just leave the goddamn place and go. We’re all a mess. A terrible, terrible mess so revolt we must. We’re educated, blessed, good at what we do. So why don’t the smart economists, political science students, doctors, engineers, lawyers, civil forces, businessmen, marketers and artists take the reins of this country and build it? What good is  all that education if it cannot correct the wrongs it exists to correct?