The new metro train in Delhi is a long shiny tube in which genders are packed in separate compartments. If a lady happens to be in mixed compartments she can expect to stand among tens of ogling men squeezing her with visible pleasure. To expect to get off the train with polished shoes still shining, suit without wrinkles, is to expect that after a fall from forty-storeyed building one will get up and walk.
To expect a seat while travelling more than an hour is something one should forget, even a mother with her infant in her arms finds no gentle character to save her from the nastiness of being squeezed between loud-talking men and then being jostled with her infant. Expect your destinations, but expect no comfort and decency.
If you have put up the bestial nature of the fellow commuters, then you should also expect the worse form of elbowing your way out among gushing people in unnecessary hurry, while being pushed in by impatient people from outside. Decency belongs to some unknown places; cleanliness and order are for outsiders.
It was strange to see few empty seats before me, few couples with their children sat together. This was Sunday. With ten more stations to go I thought I should look at the book that I had been carrying in my bag. If I hadn’t lived in cities I would never have had this insulated ability to read among people. Years in cities had made me a city-man comparing every now and then with the village boy from the past.
As I began to look at the first paragraph, a group of mustachioed men, heads below those scribbled-Gandhinian caps stormed in. The closer they came, the stronger smell of body odor and gutkha grew. Two among them took the empty seats before me, others stood facing them, leaning against the poles.
A younger man among them opened his bag and pulled out a folded canvas, unfolded. It bore long lines ridiculing the prime minister and few of his ministers. They scrambled to hold the unfolded canvas, moved around and finally turned on to the sitting men. The sitting men had been busy fiddling their smart-phones, but this sight seemed to have charged them, and began with, “ Long live Anna!” , “ Kapil Sibal is a rat!” , “Anna is India, India is Anna!”, the last line , and another , “ Anna has four brothers, Hindu, Sikh, Muslim and Christian, long live Anna!” was disturbing and it was often heard elsewhere.
Why does it have to only brothers? Do people still think that India is only for men? If the so-called religion-tagged brothers represent the nation, does it mean that non-believers have no place? Does my sister have to be happy in a country branded as a nation of men?
The shouting persisted for twenty minutes, it was a pure spectacle in the beginning, but the longer it went on I felt that the tube wasn’t the place for such thing.
Later in the evening I was introduced to a man who worked for a well-known media house. Before we could introduce each other well, he shot at me with a question, “ Do you support Anna?”
My response was prompt, “ I, to an extent, agree, but don’t not subscribe to his rigid demand.” I don’t think he wasn’t looking for opinion, he was looking for a supporter in me. In a probing manner he continued, “Do you think we can get rid of corruption in this country without this kind of ombudsman?” He wasn’t happy with my explanation: If a motorist going to attend this corruption protest is detained by a police officer for breaking traffic rule, common phenomenon in the country, what do you think he would do? Would the man take the ticket and show up at the police station to pay the fine? Or will the man stick out a hundred rupee note for the cop?
With a tint of fury, which he couldn’t suppress, “Have you seen anyone doing that?” When I said nine in every ten Indians do that with a displayed conviction, he was already ready for another question on whether the people of this country should consider that the Parliament is a just a chatter-house, and should those inside remain indifferent towards to what had been happening outside.
Who are these people in the chatter-house, though? And how did they land there? No alien power transported them in a supersonic plane from another planet to be planted as the lawmakers of the country. I could tell that he was trying to say that he had lost faith in parliamentary democracy; perhaps he wanted someone like Anna Hazare to be the premier of the country just because the man’s media-hyped fast has been streamed out to the entire by an irrational media which has forgotten to exercise to exercise its sound mental faculty.
If they are so concerned about his non-violent movement in pursuing for the betterment of society, then doesn’t Irom Sharmila deserve the same attention for asking New Delhi to repeal the draconian Armed Forces Special Power Act, which allows any security personnel to kill anyone on the mere grounds of suspicion?
"Whatever, man, I support him and I am also Anna." It sounded like he wished to conclude. I pointed out something in him, " Mate, you can support a cause without losing your name and identity. You are not him and he is not you, this can never happen and should not be allowed to happen."
Another argument from the AFSPA-gripped areas crops up, “Don’t people have to be alive in the first place to know how it is like to live in an incorrupt world? How could dead people tell the difference between a corrupt and an incorrupt world? They always say India is for Hindi-speaking people. And it is true.
One doesn’t criticize things for the sake of criticism, but it is the shallowness and the deep farce in it makes one ponder over what exactly has become of the country. Things are wrong in this country ,and these we don’t take seriously. The decay in everything has got to do with our unquestioning nature, which hasn’t be installed in us. One doesn’t turn a questioning character overnight. It has to be started from kindergarten.
There are too many people who are willing to crawl and offer, and we have these lots because of the societal structure. A graduate from a top engineering college raises no objection when she/he gets a call from her/his parents informing she/he is to marry a chosen-partner. This whole thing of uncle-auntie idea, never questioning the conducts of their elders by a grown up generation contributes nothing. It can’t be top-to-bottom, it has be initiated at homes and schools.
The role of media should also be questioned as well. Few weeks ago graveyards of thousand of bodies were discovered in Jammu&Kashmir. Nothing was reported on that; the whole media industry was hooked on Ramlila Ground like a hungry dog which has been eyeing a bone. New York Times ran a front-page story on it. This thing to be done by us is done by outsider, shouldn’t this be considered a disgrace?
good observation
ReplyDelete