Over the last decade, I have developed keen interest in US politics. From subscribing to NYTimes to reading books on the subject and watching the daily late night shows, the US politics has become a constant in my life. This is surely weird considering I have no self-interest and haven’t even as much as visited the US once in my life. Which raises the question – why. What is it so special about it all?

At first, I thought it was the way the news is packaged in the US that makes it very exciting. This is also why the US history is more engaging – simply the way it has been written, depicted in movies or documentaries, and referred to in daily conversations. The news too is spiced up, thanks to the entertaining CNN and the outraging Fox. The Late Night shows, all the way from David Letterman and Jon Stewart to today’s Seth Meyers makes it pleasant to watch.

To add to this, the US system of democracy is fairly simple. With a basic understanding of the voting interests and the electoral college, one can get a quick hang of it. It surely helps that they fight on non-issue issues which don’t visibly seem to be of any concern in India – abortion, guns, and beer-drinking Supreme Court nominee. Each issue is looked with only two possible options, that is, either you are in support of something or against it. Thanks to the dual-party system, this has been even simpler.

But in all of this attraction, I missed the most important reason that makes me like US politics. It is the fact that politics at home is both fear-inducing and evil. In case of US, you tend to watch a show play on because you have no stake in it. It is a reality show where both sides launch their punches and it is fun to watch. It keeps you entertained. But in India, you are that person who has the threat to be punched. You are a stakeholder and the politics determines your insecurities and dignity in the society.

No one plays the identity-game as well as Indian politics do. There is neither any luck involved nor any madmen. If anything, it is only made to look like things are unplanned. For every person getting lynched to every outrage on Twitter, it is all carefully orchestrated. And the entire force is against you. It instills fear, which is exactly what it is intended to do. They win because your fear grows as the days pass. What seemed too far to be reality a few years ago is the reality today. We have developed the tendency to take in that reality and make it the new normal, much credit to our short-term memory which made us forget what India was barely a few years ago.

But it is going to get better, right? Wrong. It isn’t. There is no one who is in the field with the purpose of making it better. The absence and silence of those who can right the ship only shows complacency and defeat. For every such event which sends jitters through our spines, the liberals who flaunt their poetry will quote some lines from Faiz or Habib Jalib. This is done to strengthen our belief in a false sense of hope that we are going to change things for the better. I’ve heard and read every line used to show rebellion, and I am very tired of them.

I hate Faiz. There, I said it. Okay, maybe I don’t hate him as a person. He endured a lot in Zia’s Pakistan and survived. But, I do hate his poetry. Because his poetry gives unnecessary and, to be blunt, extremely useless shield against those who target you. That when you hear ‘Hum Dekhenge!’, you are enbolbed in your spirit and clench your fists as if you are about to leave your house and march down the roads towards revolution. But, you don’t. You simply restore your blood pressure and go to sleep. Tomorrow is another day. And I wonder – Faiz sahab! Kab Dekhenge?

The great Iqbal said, “Utho! Mere Duniya ke GhareeboN ko Jagaa do! Kaakh-e-umara ke Dar-o-deewar hila do!” (Raise up, go awaken the downtrodden of my world! Shake the walls of the castles owned by the rich!). But, Iqbal sir! Who is going to wake them up? If anything, your lines prompted somber sleep where we merrily dream that someone is going to descend from the skies and wake the masses up to do what is right. The sleep is sound and your sound induces sleep. And in that sleep, boy, I love to see how Joe Biden stutters.