Is another world war nigh?

Powerful Putin pounds puny but intrepid Ukraine.  Mighty China looks wolf-eyed to devour the whole world– be it our own Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh, or the Indo-Pacific; and even gnashes its teeth at the world’s ‘my-way-or-the-highway’ daroga, the US. India-Pakistan hostilities never cease. Long-suffering Syria is ever in a boil. Africa - the continent that birthed and cradled humankind - has militancy, coups and internal hostilities erupting every now and then. North Korea acts like a ‘main-na-maanu’ rogue thumbing its despotic nose at every one and launching missiles as children send their little ‘hawaais’ to the sky on Diwali, every now and then with sardonic glee, giving sleepless nights to its techno-savvy and industrious neighbours South Korea and Japan. And now with guns booming, bombs exploding, hospitals crumbling, and missiles whooshing over the West Asian skies, Israel and Hamas are having it out in Gaza; while Iran and Lebanon in the neighbourhood flex their muscles to jump into the fray. Are these the ominous intimations of another world war being nigh?

Maybe not. I don’t want to be a Cassandra like doomsayer, anyway. But let’s ponder a while. What is all this horrendous, blood-chilling drama of death, destruction, bloodshed, pain and suffering being played out on the world theatre? Can there be no stopping it? The whole world is a mute, hapless witness but no tangible initiative either by the enfeebled UN or dummy tiger, the Security Council. And what about our big world leaders, the Bidens, the Rishis, the Macrons- each a self-styled vishvaguru in his own right? Wouldn’t our world breathe better and smile more heartily if these egocentric ‘ultranationalists’ were all packed in a gunny bag and dumped into the nearest sea? Don’t they owe it to the world to rise above their selfish geopolitical shenanigans, their myopia, their rule-at-any-cost vote politics to launch a collective initiative to put an end to this raging, recurring madness? To restore peace and order and bring all the warring nations to a negotiating table? How many more Amnesty International protests, public rallies on the streets of Paris, London, Washington and at Jantar Mantar do they need to hammer home the dire need for joining their heads for a cogent plan to address the NUMBER ONE issue of Climate change first and foremost? How many more hurricanes and cyclones, floods and storms, landslides and misery before hammering out a new agenda of sustainable world order? How many more screams and wails of orphaned children, destitution, poverty, hunger, disease and Covid-19s for the good sense to prevail; concerted action to begin? How long will the powerful ‘ruler’ keep on using guns and machines, tear gases and whiplashes to quell such sane voices? Voices that tell them that weapons and wars, and hypocritical but loud and meaningless jumla-laced declarations after global conferences sweetened by 10-course dinners served on golden platters with silver cutlery, are not going to save the world hurtling towards inevitable doom.

At times I wonder what rotting garbage has got into human heads, heads with superior brains though, that we never learn, never heed the warning calls of melting glaciers and polar caps, scorched earth, polluted seas, dwindling wildlife, gasping fish, and dying corals. What a grand mess we have created for ourselves and for the planet!

Therefore, even if there is no world war in sight as of now, the war that the forces of enraged nature have unleashed upon humankind are much more potent than all the nuclear arsenals and other WMDs that silly, stupid man has so proudly amassed.

Rightly it is said: vinaash kale, vipreet budhi.

                                                                                    *