He was as jolly as he ever was; waiting for me to drive me home through the richly lit parts of Delhi. A bit further from where he had picked me up we stopped for the red light, in fact there was no need to display those graceful traffic colours; people were just cutting in and honking ,and hurling disturbing abuses at one another.
A police man in white shirt and blue trousers holding a flashing truncheon stood in the middle of the road. His face was greasy and bore no sign of activeness; hadn’t it been for the movements of the flashing truncheon while changing hands, he would have been mistaken for a planted dummy. The honking lorries, the motorcycles in oscillating motions, the mid-size cars of middle class Indians and a very few luxury cars of BMW and Mercedes, drawing attention, cut in, dodged and moved forwards, but they made sure the man holding the flashing truncheon was not mowed down as one would avoid ramming onto a strong pole.
A little ahead of the evitable chaos a line of cars with tri-colour flags sticking out from their windows fluttered flamboyantly. The flamboyance in the display was augmented by the hollering of “ Hail mother India!” and “Hail Anna!” They were not alone in this ruckus; few motorcycles, three on each, none wearing helmets, though it is a rule, sped up in great frenzy. They also brandished their tri-colour and heightened the ruckus. It was pure excitement to them though it was already midnight and the vigour in display startled one.
He wanted to cut in so that he could dodge his way through the chaos, my disagreement arrested his desire. He appeared visibly miffed, but I made no effort to reason with him at that time of the night. Then he swung his head over the left shoulder, showing a feverish face, announced, “ The whole country is with him, and if they let him die then the country will burn.”
I could only acknowledge, and that was I did; partly because I didn’t want to encourage him much, and besides my lack of fluency in his language would render me incompetent in my attempt. Taking advantage of my silent indifference he allowed himself the freedom; he was stimulated and had forgotten that he was driving me.
“This old man from Maharastra has travelled to this place to show the whole nation what we should be doing, you know sir.” He continued. Then in an emotional tone, “ In this country you are forced to bribe people from birth to death.”
We were on a wide and straight road and this seemed to give him a chance, “When a child is born, parents pay bribe to get his birth certificate, then to get something in a government office, then when he goes to apply for a job, and when he is dead his family has to pay to the man at the crematorium, you see!”
Suddenly I was sent forward, but I was quick enough to put a right hand against the back of the driver’s seat, in this process my knuckles cracked. In the front he released curses; There were nine of them on three motorcycles, three on each, brandishing more tri-colour flags, wearing tri-colour around their necks, heads below white Gandhinian caps scribbled with “ I’m also Anna. India is Anna” in Devnagiri script.
Like most simple individuals he was able to express his opinion, but not different ones. The one that has been passed around after having fed by a hysterical media which has lost its ethical sides for sake of getting more viewers; this is to be understood. While feeding news and opinions to a mass of mostly illiterate things have to be kept simple, but in this country things have been kept too simple and they are filled up with hyped-up speculations which are talked about as though they are the real facts. It’s a very unsettling when one understands that these people, who have forgotten facts and ethics, have become too self-opinionated and a threat to be reckoned.
The thirty-year old man, married for ten years, said he would have to work hard to save up enough money for his daughter’s dowry. One was startled by the fact that a person of my age was already busy thinking about his daughter’s dowry. Was it the failure in him that was ranting? Was it the sense of being rejected at such an age? He wasn’t trained to ask, had he been, then he would have a man of thirty exploring his freedom.
To be continued.......................
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