Education

Isn’t is shameful that I, Siddharth Tyebji, son of a Muslim father and a Hindu Bengali mother, neither can speak Urdu nor Bengali?

- Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi

Though it’s hard to define the primary goal of education, the result of education should ideally lead to an enlightenment of the student towards the world outside, to provide him with a better understanding of things within him and without, so that he could use those skills in their betterment in some way or the other.

What shouldn’t it be? Most importantly, education should not solely be a means to livelihood, it should not only be the process one has to undergo to earn a living in this world, it should not only mean the passing of an exam or the stamp of a degree.

Unfortunately, it has become to mean exactly that. The idea of a holistic education meant to broaden the mind is almost non-existent today. We live in an era of ‘specialisation’, and it, by definition, demands a narrowing down of interests, a sort of isolation. Where the proliferation of choice is seen as the biggest positive development, it is not a surprise that the belief has percolated to the field of education as well. Education is the ice-cream parlour, the subjects are the various flavours on display. Take the one you like. No one’s better than the other. The vendor has no suggestions to make.

School

Take, for example, the schools under the Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE). As early as Standard IX, students are required to select their ‘Second Language’ (it is named so as studying English is, of course, mandatory). The options available in my school were Sanskrit, Hindi, French and German.

While Sanskrit might look like a welcome inclusion in this list, anyone who has been at school knows that the picture isn’t so beautiful when it comes to its application. There are a very few students who take Sanskrit out of natural interest. Instead, most of the people who do are the ones who want to have it easy in their 10th Standard Board Exams. The fact that Sanskrit is a ‘scoring’ subject in which not too much hard work is necessary to get you a 95 out of 100 is known to all.

This has perverted the whole intention behind imparting knowledge about one of India’s ancient languages. A historically rich and beautiful form of communication has been reduced to becoming a way of acquiring numbers on a sheet of paper. A subject that can potentially open up one’s mind to a universe of knowledge is being mugged up mechanically by students, just as they had done for the multiplication tables in preparatory school.

On top of that, the options given to them are French and German. Now, for a child who has been familiar with phrases such as ‘the big, mean world’ and the ‘cut-throat competition’ outside, it is fairly easy to guess what language he or she will choose. In the new globalised India, where one might be involved in workforces constantly in interaction with foreign clients, a little knowledge of French or German is seen as an added ‘asset’. For the urban middle class India today, Sanskrit and elements such as that are part of the old India, the India gone by, and empowered by the chance at financial success and a superior quality of life 1991 has provided them, they are firm in their rejection for everything old. As if we there was actually a demarcation like such, where the old died and the new was born. But in their minds, it is clear.

I would like to iterate here that I have nothing against the teaching of foreign languages. The more appropriate way would to give students an option between Hindi and Sanskrit (and the local language of the place, if different from Hindi) and in addition, provide an optional Third Language option which facilitates the leaning of French, German and the like. The obvious argument to this would be that it’ll further increase the already immense workload the average school-goer suffers from. The obvious reply to this would be that perhaps languages are the only definable entity by which we stay connected to our culture, to the past. To subvert the study of the same for the sake of more ‘scientific’ education can be disastrous. In short, the study of history and culture, or in other words, what connects us to the past is of prime importance. The marginalisation of this defeats the very aim of education.

The underlying belief behind the existing state of affairs, though it might not be stated explicitly, is that education’s primary responsibility is to make products out of human beings. The phrase ‘duniya ke liye tayyar karna’ has taken a wholly absolute meaning today. Children have become raw materials, who are then processed with education, after which they are let out into the big, wide world as finished products. The system of examination prevalent today only furthers the extent and impact of the above style of thinking. We rely primarily on memory-based questioning which encourages students to stack up as much as they can within a period of time, just to vomit it all out on the day of the examination. There is very little emphasis given to imaginative or divergent learning, or to anything that falls beyond the scope of the textbooks.

All this is a result of a society which demands only concrete results. What you know and what you feel is immaterial to them. What matters is only the final number on your grade sheet. This is also a society that doesn’t permit failures. The emotional ostracisation that one has to undergo in case of the same is enormous. The numerous cases of suicides by students unsatisfied with their 10th and 12th grades are a big example of that. If that is not a cause of worry for us today, and if it doesn’t lead to radical change, it’s hard to say what will. The recent measures taken by the government to make the 10th board exams optional is a long-awaited step in the right direction.

Note: As I was writing this part of the piece, Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal also came up with a proposal making the teaching of Hindi compulsory across all schools in the country. This, however, is ridiculous as imposing Hindi on a Tamilian is as unjust as imposing Tamil on someone from the Hindi belt.

Universities

Albeit, it is heartening to see Kapil Sibal eager to implement the suggestions made by the committee headed by the 82-year old Prof. Yash Pal (a full copy of the report can be found here). This report on higher education in India spells out the problems it is suffering from and also suggests policies and concrete steps the government should take to overcome the same.

As Mr. Sibal puts it, higher education today has become ‘compartmentalised’. That is not only to say that streams operate independently of each other, but also that research and education, which need to go hand in hand in order to produce quality teachers, are also seen as separate entities. Quoting the report:

It should be necessary for all research bodies to connect with universities in their vicinity and create teaching opportunities for their researchers and for all universities to be teaching and research universities.

While the report acknowledges the importance of imparting knowledge about a varied set of disciplines at least at the undergraduate level, it adds that there already are some current universities that offer such opportunities. For example, there are some engineering colleges today which offer courses on subjects such as history and philosophy. But even at those centres, they are very rarely taken seriously by the students. The report’s suggestion to counter this shortcoming:

One way of improving the quality of teaching of these additional disciplines and stimulating students’ interest is to allow students for whom a subject is additional to study along with those for whom the same subject is primary. For instance, a mathematics student should study and undergo evaluation in philosophy as an optional subject along with students for whom philosophy constitutes the primary subject.

The whole idea behind the report is to make education more inclusive by way of integration, be it in terms of disciplines such as science and humanities or fields such research and education itself. Should only a part of the suggestions mentioned in the report be implemented, it will lead to a significant positive change in the way education is perceived today.

The currently fashionable idea of ‘specialisation’ has taken a totally different form when it comes to universities. While schools, through electives, deprive the child of essential basic knowledge, universities, which are the last step for a student before starting on a job, work in near complete isolation with each other. The many engineering, management and medical colleges around the country have been lacking in this regard, and this does not exclude the much-aspired-for IITs and IIMs. An student who has taken admission into an engineering college is delivered education pertinent to his field of specialisation only; there are but very few colleges in India which encourage the study of subjects beyond its principal scope, depriving the student of exposure to innumerable possibilities where different fields of study interact and co-produce, leading to over-all, all-inclusive development. Development – this is one aspect of education very conveniently forgotten today. The Constitution is unclear about its regard for education as an agent of transformation or change. This spirit is lost when education starts to be seen as something that only ‘adds value’. The proliferation of private educational institutes offering higher education is a prime example of such change in view. Most of these institutions are nothing but money-minting ventures which take no responsibility for what their duty is towards the society at large. Rather than looking at the multi-national firms which recruit people from such places and the fat pay packages they give as criteria for judgement, universities should be judged by how much they have done to reduce disparities such as gender, class and caste.

Boring Road

He stepped down from the large autorickshaw, and his feet landed straight into a puddle. The autorickshaws running in Patna were different, not like the ones he hired in Delhi, with exclusive usage for the duration of the journey. He had had to share this one with around ten co-passengers, not to mention two others hanging precariously at the back. The rains had arrived and the air was humid. Amir’s shirt, soaked half with rain and half with sweat, still carried the smell of strangers.

He had been dropped at Hadtali Mod. Around him, the traffic went on with its usual business, cars honking and crawling past, the incessant rain just adding to the confusion. Sublime chaos, at three in the afternoon. The old temple on his right, the hoarding for Amrapali restaurant on the left, images from the past past. Still the same, this place, except for the new red lights which did not work.

The house wasn’t far from here. About a kilometre and a half. But it was still drizzling, and Amir called out a rickshaw-wala. Reluctantly (as afternoons were meant for siestas), the man agreed to take him to his destination. ‘Only 20 rupees’, is what the man asked in return for his sleep, and Amir found it hard to deny him that.

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Puku, the old housemaid recognised him at once, and came almost running to the gate, mumbling something beneath her breath. She was visibly happy to see Amir, and perhaps, as Amir thought, couldn’t think of the right words to greet him with after all these years.

‘How are you, Puku mausi?’, said Amir, not knowing how else to start. Having opened the gate, she now reached down for his feet. He dismissed her with a couple of embarrassed utterings.

‘Is Nani at home?’, he now asked her.

‘Where else will she be? She’s here only....come come’, Puku replied, and signalled him to follow her.

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The room, silent, orderly, unchanged. On the bed lay his Nani, his grandmother’s sister, sleeping, with her head turned away from the door. The fan went about its work slowly, as if it too had given in to the inviting afternoon. On a table alongside the bed – tablets, small bottles of medicine, a water flask and a glass, and an empty cup of tea. The table was the only new entrant since he had been here last, almost nine years ago; even the little sofa set and the paintings on the wall had remained as they were before.

‘Nani...nani’, Amir pronounced in a low voice, touching her feet gently. She turned to look, and for an unreal second or two, kept gazing at him.

‘Amir....amir...arey such a long time!’, she cried, and reached out for his face, covering it with both her hands. She looked at him closely now, and Amir wondered whether there was already a hint of moisture in her eyes. As a child, he’d always wondered how grandmothers could cry almost at will, or to put it more mildly - how easy tears were to them.

‘Nani, how are you?’, said Amir, caressing her hands and then taking them into his own. He looked at her hands, the wrinkles jutting out like cracks in a famine-struck land. Her nails, like his grandmother’s, curled completely in a perfect semi-circle. He had never seen a more abnormal pair of hands, and never a pair that was so beautiful.

‘How will I be, beta?’, is all she said in reply, and then asked, ‘How are you here?’

‘One of my friends is getting married. I was in town...so I thought I’ll meet you’, said Amir, and they exchanged a smile.

She called out for Puku now, in a volume so low that it could only have been meant for Amir. He relayed the call, and Puku came, hunching, eager. She was asked to get another cup of tea, and she walked away, nodding.

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‘What can I do, beta? It’s only these four walls for me now. Even to go to the toilet, I have to call Puku. Poor woman, she’s still here after all this....’

The rain had resumed full service. Amir sipped on the tea, nodding slowly from time to time. The saucer now had a small ring of brown in the centre, tea which had fallen down from the cup, and he watched this circle form and un-form as he picked up or placed down the cup. Everything was so slow, relaxed; he wished he could lie down on the bed too, in this peace broken only by his grandmother’s voice, and the soft tip-tip of the rain outside.

‘Time has come to a standstill for me. Days pass and I don’t even remember what date it is...I read sometimes, but even that is difficult to do for long when you are always lying down, no? Everything is so monotonous but what can one do?’

‘Why don’t you change things around in this room, Nani? A little change here might help...why don’t you replace these old paintings for one?’

She only smiled at Amir, said nothing. The smile made him feel uncomfortable, he wondered whether he had hurt her in some way, and lowered his eyes. There was silence for a minute or two. How distant they had grown, thought Amir, in their own worlds now, separated by time, space, memory. And still, everything on the outside had remained the same, the gate outside the house, the room with its old structure intact, the two beautiful hands, the semi-circular nails, her voice.

‘I’m so happy to see you. At this age, what else do we have to live for? Not just me, but anyone. To see you again after so many years, to hear your voice, that’s enough. Otherwise, what is there to look forward to? Just two lonely women living out their respective lives. ’

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On his way out, Puku had handed him one of his grandmother’s umbrellas. When he refused saying that he wouldn’t need it, she thrust it into his hand, adding that it was of no use to the house anyway. It was still raining, in fact more heavily than before. But Amir had decided to walk to the Mod, and he ambled along slowly.

Half-way, he paused to look at the scene around him. The rain had cast a white shadow over everything. So much so, that it seemed to him that even the early evening traffic chaos looked beautiful. A stupid, dangerous thought, he then reminded himself, shook his head, and walked on.

The Death of Familiarity

“Why don’t we ever learn that all changes of place are for the worse? It’s not love for the place; it’s the familiarity, like old winter clothes.”

- English, August
Upamanyu Chatterjee

How does he start?

It was like being in the presence of an old lover, there was familiarity but also the knowledge that he didn’t belong here anymore, that it belonged or was going to belong to someone else very soon. Yet, everything was there as he had left it, books and papers strewn on the table, the almirah wide open with some leftover clothes, some leftover books and CDs. Even the graffiti on the wall, and the little Mao Zedong mask, hanging rather precariously.

He had only a few hours to himself. His last few hours as the owner of this hostel room, one that he had inhabited for four long years, his territory. He had to check if anything worth of value was still left to be taken away, throw out the remaining garbage and pass on the room possession to the supervisor.

The place almost felt eerie, naked and abandoned. To think that not so long back, this place had been full with conversation, laughter, Floyd and Morrison, was unimaginable. He felt heavy with feeling, something that was hard to explain, even to himself.

How does he start?

He looked into his drawer. It was quite a melange, from everything like newspaper contacts to received rakhis on display. There were also a broken nail-cutter, some shampoo pouches , fee receipts as old as four years and keys for which he had now lost the locks.

He picked up the rakhis; they could not be thrown away like that. The shampoo pouches – they could still be used. And what about the newspaper contacts? Couldn’t they be of use later?

Suddenly, he felt tired, physically and mentally. He closed the drawer and lay down on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Was it possible for him to take away everything? Was it even desirable? Was it correct wanting to create an exact replica of this room, with its drawers, racks and closets, wherever he was headed next? Is it right to carry memory as baggage and not leave behind things knowing that they didn’t belong to you anymore, and indeed weren’t even needed?

With some effort, he got up again and headed for the almirah. It had been wide open for the last couple of years, in the exact position as it was now, owing to his lethargy and near aversion to cleanliness. There were cobwebs and dust all around, and retrieving things felt like digging up stuff from debris. There was not much to take really; the few t-shirts, socks and handkerchiefs littered weren’t fit for public consumption anymore, and he let them remain where they were. There were a few assorted CDs too, perhaps the only thing worth taking away, and he pulled them up.

He felt rather exhausted. There was dust on his hands and his whole body was soaked in sweat. Why, he thought to himself. What’s all this for?

It was over. Whatever remained would be thrown away. He walked to the door and looked at the room one last time. He tried to sum everything up – the room and him, but his thoughts failed him, or his intelligence did. Irritated, he switched off the power, walked out and locked the room.

Ready to walk away, all of a sudden, he felt the urge to see the place once more, now for the last, last time. He opened the door again, switched on the lights and had another look. Unanticipated, a wild surge of emotion ran through him.

Why, why does he even have to leave this place? Why can’t he live here forever? Why do we ever move away? Why do we ever leave our homes?

He felt angry, repulsed – whether by himself or the room, it was hard for him to say. He walked out finally, locked the door and walked away, without looking back, with as much confidence as he could possibly fake.

Mirror

He looks into the mirror and asks - 'Do you wish to become a monster?'

The mirror pauses for a moment and then says - 'No, I'd rather remain a human being.'

Ignorance, Kundera

I imagine the feelings of two people meeting again after many years. In the past they spent some time together, and therefore they think they are linked by the same experience, the same recollections. The same recollections? That's where the misunderstanding starts: they don't have the same recollections; each of them retains two or three small scenes from the past, but each has his own; their recollections are not similar; they don't intersect; and even in terms of quantity they are not comparable: one person remembers the other more than he is remembered; first because memory capacity varies among individuals, but also because they don't hold the same importance for each other.

Words

You will read the words on a cloudy August morning.

The smells of rain of the night gone by would slowly reach your nostrils. You would wake up, reluctantly, and the first thing you’d see would be drops falling down from the tin roof outside your window. The drizzle falling on the roof itself would make soft, pleasing sounds, and for some time, you will lie there, just listening. You will pull the blanket up to your neck, and contemplate going to sleep again. In a while, you will get up and look out of the window you had left half-open last night. The sky would be an all-white, and the air would be filled with a strange drowsy innocence.

The words, wrapped in paper, would lie on your desk, unattended, almost washed with the rain that had managed its way in through the window. You would pick them up, tear open the envelope. Some of the letters would have lost shape and form, smudged.

Yes, you will read those words on such a cloudy August morning.

And maybe then, if never else, they would make sense.

Dark Man IV

The near-darkness to which the brown curtains subjected the room was making Amir almost feel drowsy. The heavy thick piece of cloth had something resembling flowers stitched on it. He ran his hand on the contours, absentmindedly, not knowing how really to spend time. It was a holiday, and an afternoon, and with Papa asleep and Maa busy with chores, there wasn’t much to keep himself busy at.

The eyes were slowly giving way now. He was almost half-asleep.

Just then, the door bell rang. Far from being irritated to be disturbed when just about to doze off, Amir felt rather excited. Activity was activity. And on an afternoon with nothing to do, even to open the door for the maid or the dhobi was an event, an occurrence that gave the passing time some shape, some meaning. So before his mother could even call out to him to answer the bell, he was almost there, ready to finally let some sunlight in.

Through the netted door, Amir saw a man, dark, spectacled, slightly bending forward with a beaming smile on his face. Even he, as little as he was, could see that the smile was fake, forced and rather shaky, that of a man eager to please. On his shoulder, he carried a thaila, and in his hand was what looked like a box wrapped in plastic. Before he could ask the man anything, he himself spoke.

‘Bete, mummy ghar pe hain?’

‘Haan hain….kya kaam hai?’

‘Unko jaa ke bulao…’

He had ignored Amir’s little query. Children have to get used to their little queries being ignored.

He gave the man a momentary stare and then rushed inside. Maa was in her bedroom, recording expenses in her diary, the one household task she seemed to enjoy most. Looking at Amir entering the room now, she gave her writing hand a pause.

‘Kya hua? Kaun hai?’, she asked.

Again, before Amir could speak, a question had been thrown at him.

‘Koi aadmi hai. Bola ‘mummy’ ko bulao’, replied Amir, then eager to provide some extra useful information, ‘Lagta hai kuchh bechne aaya hai…’

‘Bolo woh ghar mein nahi hain.’

‘Lekin hum bol chuke hain ki who ghar mein hain’, Amir lied.

His mother looked up from her diary now. For a moment or two, she looked at Amir, wondering whether she should get angry at him, and then decided against it. Instead, she clicked her tongue, threw the diary on the bed and stormed out of the room.

‘Kya hai?’, she shouted at the man outside. She stood in the dining room, in the darkness. The man couldn’t sight her, and as he hadn’t really seen her coming, he took a little while to reply.

‘Didi zaraa idhar aake dekh to lijiye…AquaGuard Zero-B sab bhool jayiyega!’, he finally did, holding something he had just taken out of the box.

‘Nahi chahiye!’ is all she said in reply and then stormed back into the bedroom. The man kept pleading behind her, begging her to give the machine just one single look, offering her the world’s cleanest water, and even free installation of the contraption in the household kitchen.

Amir looked at the man closely from behind the netted door. He appeared exhausted, if anything. Mentally and physically. Sweat poured down from his forehead, pure transparent drops of crystal, like the clean water he promised. The flat was on the 3rd floor. God knows how many such he had visited this afternoon, Amir thought, and how many steps he had had to climb, only to be snubbed at the doorway.

After this latest unsuccessful attempt, the man prepared to pack up and leave. When just about to turn back, he looked at the door and saw the kid gazing at him.

‘Bete…ek glass paani pila doge?’, he asked in a low tone.

‘Haan, ek minute rukiye…’, replied Amir, without even a moment’s hesitation and ran to the kitchen. He didn’t need his mother’s permission. You never deny a thirsty man water if he has asked for some, he remembered having been told by his elders many a time. Surely, Maa doesn’t need to be bothered for this.

He filled a glass with water and walked back to the door. Silently, trying not to attract his mother's attention, he kept the glass down, unlatched the netted door (something that required both his hands), lifted the glass and placed it into the man’s extended hand. He did it all almost like a ritual and it gave him an immense sense of satisfaction. Why, his little mind wasn’t quite disposed to fathom yet.

The man drank the entire glass and gave it back to Amir, saying ‘Thank You’. He himself replied with a neat ‘Welcome’ and closed the door again. He then watched the man pick up his thaila and walk down the stairs, to ring the bell for another potential customer, to sell the world’s cleanest water.

Talking Contradictions

On a summer afternoon in the capital, the Young Urban Indian happened to be in the company of the Young Jhola Krantikari, at perhaps the only place this could actually happen.

On a DTC bus. Their destinations are same, and for a change, they have taken the same path too.

Excerpts from an unlikely conversation:

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YJK: Do you think we’re shining?

YUI: We?

YJK: Indians. India.

YUI: Well…that’s a good question. On the face of it, we are, aren’t we? In the space of the last sixty years or so, we’ve improved on a lot of our shortcomings. The economy is doing a lot better and is continually on the way up, we have the resources to make ourselves stronger internally and the defence to give ourselves protection from external elements. India, which was yesterday a minnow Asian country, is today all set to become a global powerhouse. In that sense, I would say that we aren’t really shining yet, but are on the right path to do exactly that very soon.

YJK: Stronger internally? The whole country is in deep strife, my friend! There are so many of it parts, be it Kashmir, the North-East or so many others, which want secession, dissatisfied with the power at the centre as well as the state. Ah, and not to mention the menace being caused by the Tamils in the south and the Naxalites in Andhra. You call it strength?

Our defence which you refer to so handsomely also has been proved to be inadequate on many an occasion now. In the last few years, almost every big city here has been the target of Islamic extremism. Delhi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Bombay. You call this security?

YUI: You are right in what you say, no doubt. There is a lot going wrong, yes, but there’s a lot going right too. Is any country in the world today free from the threat of terrorism? America isn’t, Britain isn’t. Does that mean that they don’t have it in them to protect themselves properly? Somehow, people like you never seem to look at the positive side of things. Tell me, has India ever been as conspicuous on the global stage as it is now? Leave that aside. Let’s talk about our oldest of all problems. Education. Hasn’t something like the literacy rate risen to almost 3/4ths and is on the way up?

YJK: You talk of education and give me literacy as an example.

YUI: Well, ok, even if you talk about education in the strictest sense, we boast of some of the best schools and universities around the world today. The IIT’s and IIM’s are only examples. As Indians today, we have the power to take our own decisions, to study with, succeed and beat the best in the world. Is that not true?

YJK: Ha! I find your optimism infinitely amusing, I must say. Are you aware that 70% of India still lives in the villages and a greater part of that chunk feels lucky if they complete high school, leave alone ‘competing with the best in the world’.

And yes, by the way, the education you people are receiving, the one which helps you beat the best in the world, isn’t that beautiful a thing, either.

YUI: What do you mean?

YJK: What sort of education is it? What sort of lifestyle is it encouraging? What are the IIT’s and IIM’s, which you speak so highly of, producing? At the end of the day, they all are money-making machines - they take you in as raw material, brainwash and modify you according to their paradigms, stamp their brand name on your foreheads and then let you out in the open to mint money. The primary aim of education, in my view, is to instill in the students the sense of social responsibility. Where is it to be found in today’s urban youth?

YUI: That is just not true. Many of the people I know have made use of whatever skills they have acquired to serve the society in the way best suited to them.

YJK: Yes, they are a few. But how many? Or rather, what percentage does possess this sense of social belonging?

YUI: Well, you can’t have everyone thinking along those lines. Is it necessary for everyone to see himself and society that way?

YJK: I’m not sure whether it’s practically possible but that should at least be the constant effort of education. At present, the people who engage themselves in such activities do so from the weight of their own conscience. At present, the education system does nothing to instill that feeling from the very beginning in every citizen.

YUI: Instill? That’s a strong word, you know. Wouldn’t that be akin to brainwashing – children being told how to think towards the world from day one?

YJK: Maybe, but it would surely help.

YUI: Well, I’m sorry but here, I disagree. The basic aim of education, according to me, is to provide the individual with choice, to give him the opportunity to decide for his own self. Tell me, aren’t engineers, doctors, lawyers, designers servants of society in their own right?

YJK: They are. Very much so. I don’t mean to say everyone has to become a selfless social activist, but that everyone has to give something back, eventually.

YUI: Well, these people do, don’t they?

YJK: Yes, they do. But look at the IIT’s and IIM’s that you just mentioned - the most popularly sought-after institutions in our country, the ones which produce the so-called ‘cream’. Would I be wrong to say that a majority of those who come out of these institutions live a life of social oblivion, perpetually filling their already overflowing pockets, living their executive life with a wife and two children, totally unconcerned with how they could be more helpful? What do they produce at the end of the day – laptops and cell phones? Who uses them? The elite. So you have it here. The elite making products for the elite, in turn making themselves even more elitist! No accountability to the people who are below them, none at all.

YUI: That is what I’m saying. You’re too judgemental. Why can’t you just let them be? That’s the life they choose. What’s wrong what it? And besides, many of the ‘cell phone and laptop’ producing men are students of science, of technology. They are the agents of industrialization. Wasn’t that the ultimate dream of our first prime minister? It is their job to work in its cause. How are they to blame?

And tell me, isn’t science and technology hugely responsible for what we are today? Look at it broadly, look at what it has given us. Without these men you demean, would it be possible to realize all the innumerous possibilities of energy we have today, would it be possible to stay connected with this ever-so-small globalised world that we inhabit, would it be possible to reach out to the remote parts of this huge country that we live in?

Science and Technology are two of the most uncomplicated things on this planet, in the sense that they are unencumbered by opinion, irrationality or politics. They don’t have any scope for such entities. They are truly free and so are their practitioners. If mankind is to progress, they alone provide the right path.

YJK: Well put. But would you be saying that Science and Technology for its own sake is good?

YUI: It has to be, yes. It cannot be fettered. As a corollary to the point I just made, to inhibit their growth is to inhibit the progress of mankind itself.

YJK: It is precisely this kind of capitalist thinking that’s eating away the whole of civilization today, not just our country. Anything working for its own sake is doomed. If human progress is indeed our aim, everything has to work so as to help us attain this goal better.

YUI: But it is! Can’t you see?

YJK: I can. But who are the ones progressing? It is the elitist again. These cell phones and laptops you make in the name of Science and Technology – whom does it benefit? Not the 27-odd percent that still lives below the poverty line. Instead of using your acquired skills to help them get up, you help the ones who are already so better-off. You further increase the ever-growing disparity, in a country where the top ten percent earns ten times more than the bottom ten percent. You breed discontent. You inspire rebellions. And then when they fight back, like the Naxalites did, you call them terrorists.

YUI: Heh. What else would you call men who engage in the indiscriminate killing of women and children? God’s angels?

YJK: Well yes, their methods have been quite disturbing in the past few years and it’s not that I necessarily have sympathy for them, but what I’m saying is that we need to understand the reasons which inspire such outrage. The more you ignore the common man, the more he’ll make his presence felt, and sometimes in the most violent ways.

YUI: So what do you suggest? We stop all technological research?

YJK: No. Don’t stop it. But make it work in a direction where it takes everyone along with it. Make technology help the illiterate get education, provide the poor with the latest health-care facilities, give the economically backward ways in which they can pull themselves out of the rut.

YUI: Sure, why not? But then, all other forms of technological research are useless? Is it?

YJK: Yes, without a doubt. You tell me what all wonders industrialization has provided us with. For a moment, think about the damage it has done too. The ‘progress’ it has brought about – has it made us any happier than we were earlier? Is your Happiness Quotient better than your grandfather’s? Not that such things are measurable, but they are surely quantifiable.

YUI: You aren’t implying that just because humans would remain in the same state of mind irrespective of the luxuries that are at their disposal, we should stop wanting to achieve higher standards of living, are you?

YJK: Why not? If it ain’t broke, why change it? It is change for the sake of change that I protest.

YUI: That’s just stupid. The way you propose wouldn’t see any human development at all. It is the curious in us that drives us to innovate and invent. If we humans just sit around and don’t attempt to see ourselves getting better, it would kill us for sure. Practically, it’s impossible. To stifle the curious in us is to negate the sheer essence of the human spirit, and this, if anything, would inspire unprecedented rebellions. Of an even graver nature than the ones we today have.

YJK: Maybe. But if you think about it, this is the only way we can survive.

YUI: We shall see.

YJK: So we shall.

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They had arrived. And as they now bid goodbye to each other, they knew that they would meet again for many such conversations.

Conversations. Clashes. Collaborations?

Talking Shadows

She looked at his silhouette in the moonlight, the black curve of his Adam’s apple against the dark blue of the sky behind, the way those two almost blended when he moved a little. They both were drunk; on the terrace where they stood, came the sounds of the living room below. The others were not quite done yet, and sudden shrieks and shouts could be heard from time to time, breaking the silence of the cold December air.

‘Do you know how difficult it is? Do you know how hard it is for me to just let it all slip, to forget it all and move on…’, he seemed to be saying, the frustration seeping into his voice.

‘Hmmm’, she replied, and there were another few moments of quiet. She wanted him to stop speaking, she wanted them to sit together like this and look at the sky together, everything drunk and hazy. But she didn’t have the courage or the heart to tell him so.

So she listened.

‘I called her a million times last month….and on the phone, everything is alright….when we meet with everyone around, everything is alright….but a moment alone, and nothing is alright anymore….I’m sick of it!’

The vodka was making him speak more, and louder.

‘I…I…’

The sound of breaking glass broke his dialogue in the middle. For a moment, everything was silent again; and then, the shrieks and laughs came with even greater intensity. He started to move towards the staircase.

‘Where are you going?’, she asked.

‘Down. God knows what’s happening there!’, he said, glancing down.

‘It’s OK. They probably dropped the bottle or something’, she replied, and then, pointing towards where he had been sitting, said, ‘Sit.’

That’s all the invitation he needed. He didn’t want to go really. Sit and don’t talk, was what she had wanted to say. But the words didn’t come out.

‘Am I talking too loud?’, he asked nervously, in an unnecessarily low volume.

‘Na. Its OK. But don’t talk so much.’

She had finally mustered the strength to say it, half scared that it might hurt him, or worse – put him off.

‘No….no…let me talk…please’

And then he started again. In the limited light the moon provided, she couldn’t see his face, and so, she imagined. She imagined his cheek bones getting stretched in anguish, the nerves on his forehead coming out, the anger making his nose twitch. He looked majestic, like an actor on stage delivering his ultimate performance.

And it was only his silhouette talking.

‘Are we machines or something? No, tell me. That you press a button and wow, it’s all gone? What am I supposed to do? The effort has to come from both sides. This way, nothing will happen. And its killing me….totally…do you….do you understand what I’m saying?’

‘Yes…yes I do!’

This time, the anguish was in her voice, not his. It made him look up.

And in the near darkness of this cold winter night, their eyes met for the first time.

The Wrong in Being Correct

Let me take the liberty of making a distinction here, a dividing line between the ways in which we react to situations, between the decisions we might make. The reader will forgive me in my choice of words for the same, if they don’t appear to be completely dichotomous to him/her.

There are two ways of responding to a given situation. One is the right thing to do – the easy, obvious way out, the way which appeals straight to common sense, and one which doesn’t take too much mental effort. The other is the correct thing to do – this is the more difficult path; one which doesn’t come naturally but with some deliberation, one which requires an amount of sustained courage and sacrifice, and one which might also amount to self-deception in certain cases, albeit superior in moral terms.

If one goes by the above definition, then India and Indians have always (well, almost) opted for the correct option, rather than the one which is right.

Had the revolutionary movements caught on and had Gandhi not returned from South Africa as he did, we would have ousted the British by force anyway. Post the partition of Bengal and then Jallianwala, the British had themselves put a time limit on their stay in this country. India wanted to be free and Gandhi or no Gandhi, it would be so. Whether sooner or later is a matter of speculation. But the revolutionaries never found enough ground to make a serious impact here. The common Indian did the correct thing – of resorting to peaceful methods of protest, of hartals and fasts instead of murders or assassinations or guerilla fights.

During the partition of the country and the birth of Pakistan, we had an option (maybe unlikely, but an option nonetheless) of declaring ourselves a Hindu state, to say that Pakistan has been created specifically for the Muslims, let India be only for the Hindus. But we didn’t. We did the correct thing – of declaring ourselves secular; India, which since time immemorial has kept as its own and assimilated numerous cultures and identities shall not divide itself on the basis of religion.

Post independence, when the Cold War was gaining momentum, we had the choice of pledging our loyalty to the Soviets - our close friends and a country for which our then Prime Minister had a soft corner. But we didn’t. When everyone in the world was taking sides, wondering what the less harmful option was, we joined hands with certain other countries to form the Non-Aligned Movement. Again, we did the correct, honourable thing.

The correct thing. That has almost always been India’s choice. Needless to say, this choice has been fraught with much struggle and sacrifice, but it has also given us something to be proud of, of making us believe that we are indeed special. We are proud of the fact that our independence struggle was a lot less bloody than others around the world. We are proud of the fact that we are secular, that it doesn’t matter here whether one is Hindu, Muslim or Christian. We are proud that we have a mixed economy, that we are not slaves to any other nation, that we are truly sovereign.

None of the above decisions or any other has hurt us more than our choice to proclaim ourselves secular. These years have seen the Hindu majority clash with every single sizeable minority; the extent of the Hindu-Muslim clash need not be elaborated upon, then we had the Sikhs massacred in ’84, and now, the historically harmonious relationship between the Hindus and the Christians has received a serious battering post the anti-Christian violence in Karnataka and Orissa. Time and again after independence, India has had to pay the price for doing the correct thing. It has had to bear the consequences of upholding its ethical values. And to its credit, never has it deterred from its belief in the principle of secularism and how essential it is for a nation such as this.

But more than sixty years on, there seems to be no end or even the possibility of an end to the issue of religion. The past few years have seen unprecedented attacks on civilians by religious fundamentalists. And it’s not only the Muslims; Malegaon has come as a blow to several self-righteous Hindus as well. But more disturbing than the actual violence has been the people’s reaction to it. Suddenly, it seems that our unshakeable faith in people of all faiths has been replaced by a visible tentativeness. Hindu socialites appear on television acting all pally with their Muslim friends, as if that alone is the proof of their belief in the concept of secularism. Simultaneously, Muslim leaders and elite are being told that it is their responsibility to keep the sentiments of their community in check and stars like Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan appear on news channels speaking on Islam and terrorism, reiterating again and again how one doesn’t stand for the other, as if they were expected or required to do so.

Are we really secular as we think we are? If yes, then what indeed does one mean by being secular? Does just having friends of different religions qualify? Or sharing your bus seat with a Muslim? Or having your food with him? Yes, perhaps, if these above actions are done with zero mental effort or thought, then we are genuinely secular. But do we? Do we not feel uncomfortable when passing through a Muslim-dominated area in the city? Do we still not discourage our Hindu son or daughter from having a Muslim spouse? In other words, do we not treat the Muslims as our paying guests – ‘We’ve given you space here, consider this as your own home, but do maintain a certain distance from us, please.’?

At times, the pretence or self-deception being indulged in by the average Indian comes shamelessly to the fore. Take, for example, the film Chak De! India. A story of a Muslim hockey player who is branded a gaddar or traitor just because he misses a crucial penalty kick. He then goes on to coach the women’s Hockey team to World Cup glory. Thus, he proves his loyalty in the most spectacular way and all is forgiven. What people fail to notice and what’s rather unsettling is the fact that he does have to prove that he is loyal to his motherland, that he is not a Pakistani in his heart. Would the same treatment be given to a Hindu if he happened to make the same mistake? I doubt it. But the predominantly Hindu audience sees nothing wrong. I wonder how the intelligent Muslim would have taken this implicit insult.

If this is indeed the case, if we are not genuinely secular, then we can be sure that there will be no end to communal hatred and violence here. What has been going on for more than sixty years now might just go on till eternity. It is all very well doing the correct thing, but it is also very important to be authentic about it, to believe it inside. Otherwise, all of one’s actions add up to a detailed, elaborate charade, and when practiced on such a large scale, it can prove to be the country’s nemesis. For once, we need to rethink and ascertain the responsibilities that come along with being correct rather than right.

Angrez Chale Gaye II

A thought: If we Indians happened to be white in skin colour, like the firangs, and if someone saw one of us walking down the street, would he be able to guess our nationality? Would he be able to tell whether we are Indian, or American or European? Probably not. And why? Because today, where everything from clothing to behaviour is being homogenized, where everyone talks the same language, wears the same clothes, similar to everyone else even in mannerisms, it’s only our skin colour that establishes our uniqueness.

Because we are the urban Indians. And like the Americans living on the other side of the globe, we talk in English and think in English, wear t-shirts and jeans when casual and suits and ties when formal, have coffee rather than tea. All whitewashed. If one thinks about it, food preferences are perhaps the only thing that have still not changed; although we love burgers and pizzas and pastas, most would maintain that rice and dal is what is best for everyday consumption.

It is fascinating to see the gradual shift in Indian lifestyle in the years after independence. The British Raj insured that Indians would never again be comfortable with their own identity; the five-cubit-tall sahib would forever hold a psychological edge over the third-world, backward Indian. Even before the British left us, this inferiority complex had settled itself in the Indian psyche. To emulate the foreigner in everything he did, to talk, dress and behave like him, indeed to be him, has always been the Indian’s ulterior, if not declared, goal. Of course, this phenomenon, this aspiration to become someone else is not just restricted to our country, but to many others which have been subjected to colonial rule.

But curiously, this desire to ‘be’ English has faded away gradually. To be replaced by an affinity for everything American. And the sort of maniacal attachment the young urban Indians have for it is rather interesting, when not annoying. One look around and it’s easy to recognize how much American preferences have permeated into our own lives. The introduction and subsequent success of fast food joints, the coming up of brands like Levi Strauss and Dockers, the market for American films (or rather, ‘movies’, which are always, by some unwritten law, better than the material we produce here), the stupendous speed at which coffee joints have opened (and tea centres have disappeared), the inception of words like ‘stuff’ and ‘bucks’ in everyday conversation, our carelessness in spelling ‘colour’ as ‘color’ and ‘centre’ as ‘center’ etc etc. The Indian obsession for education in the ‘States’ tops it all. American college t-shirts are so popular and common now that the last time I visited Sarojni Nagar in Delhi, I even saw a roadside shop selling fake cheap red sweatshirts with ‘UCLA’ printed on them.

Of course, for most parts, this inclination towards American attitudes is but natural. What Big Mac does, the Toms, Dicks and Harrys do it too. The Americans are, after all (and I borrow a phrase rather famous in diplomatic circles), ‘the shaper of global sentiment’. But even if you leave this very human tendency aside, they deserve most of what they have managed to do. American universities are some of the best in the world, Levi Strauss is the last word in casual wear, McDonalds does deserve its status for the sheer quality of the food it has to offer. And till the day Indian brands come up with the same standards, the above are bound to stay on top.

But sometimes, it all becomes too much to take. They can’t be the world’s best in every single darn thing they do, can they? Sometimes, if not quite often, this phenomenon becomes rather nauseating to assimilate. Sometimes, if not quite often, one is bound to feel that that our little tendency here is only an inch short of blind aping. Sometimes, if not quite often, one is sure to think that if this continues to be the case, the Indian in us will slowly fade away, making us what an American Macaulay would love to see us as – Indians only by birth, but Americans in behaviour, lifestyle and education.

Of course, one might ask – Is that a problem we need to address? For me, it is. And yes, there are some solutions too that come to my mind. But leave all that for some other post, at some later date.

The Booker, eh?

Chetan Bhagat must wonder why any of his novels – Five Point Someone and the other two, whatever their name was - haven’t won the Booker yet. For if a heavily clichéd take on modern Indian civilization by a first-time amateurish writer can bag the prize, surely Mr. Bhagat deserves it too. His efforts if not purely authentic, were at least not cynical or judgemental in any way. At least, they made for good time pass.

Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger leaves you with no such hope. The plot itself is one that’s bound to make you roll your eyes. The protagonist, a sweet-seller-turned-driver, son of a rickshaw puller, recounts the story of his rise to entrepreneurial success to none less than the Chinese Premier, letting him see and making him familiar with the face of the ‘true’ India in the process. Sounds quite exciting, doesn’t it? Yes, that’s the bait.

What follows is one cliché piled upon another. Almost every page in this book contains some witty remark by the author; you haven’t yet got over the last fantastic conclusive comment when you encounter the next. Very early in the novel, the narrator, Balram (the protagonist himself) divides India into two parts – Light and Darkness. According to him (and this theory takes some gulping down), all the places in the country which lie on the banks of the Ganges (called the ‘black river’ by him) fall in the Darkness. All other places fall in the Light. The Darkness, as its name unmistakably suggests, is an area of utter desolation, where rich and oppressive landlords rule over the poor working class, where no one is ever pleased with his life and hopes to, someday, move to the big cities of Delhi or Bombay i.e. the Light. This ambitious demarcation is not just mentioned cursorily; it is repeated throughout the novel; for example, a fellow member of the working class from Bihar is described as ‘belonging to the Darkness’.

Firstly, what the author fails to realize is that the area he has called the ‘Darkness’, which includes states like U.P., Bihar and Bengal have produced some of the greatest minds of the country. For decades before and after independence, this area has often been the centre of Indian thought. To call it by this preposterous title is nothing but a travesty. Secondly, they might not be in the fittest condition at present, but not all is dark there really. Yes, many people in most of these parts do aspire to move to the bigger cities in search for a better life, but that is only because of the pressures of globalization, the advantages of which haven’t yet reached them in its entirety. Nevertheless, like everywhere else, most of the people do manage to live a content life, and not everyone is as close to destitution and total dissatisfaction as Adiga paints them to be. In his world, every man in these parts is a bitter man, frustrated yet subdued by an overbearing social system, where nothing happens except daughter-in-laws being killed for dowry or husbands being milked for money, treated worse than animals by their wives.

Everything reminds you of some early 90’s melodramatic extravaganza. The villains are the politicians and the landlords, conspiring to keep the poor beneath their feet, adept at murder, rape, bribe-taking and all other possible crimes. When the rich appear, they do like over-savvy maniacs, who are obsessed with wearing designer clothes, going to the malls every second day, who love sending SMSs to their friends in the U.S.A. Generalization upon generalization, so much that it makes you wonder whether all the talk about India’s multi-faceted personality, its diversity, its dynamics is but a myth, whether in reality everything here can be painted in the twin shades of black and white.

But unlike the films, the poor are not really good people either – deeply wounded by being treated like animals, they themselves have become animal-like – excessively bitter, revengeful and ready to play along. They curse the rich behind their backs, leave no chance of pinching money from them, even conspire to murder them. In Adiga’s world, everyone is a negative character, with no scope for human dignity, pity or kindness. You have it in writing here. India is a living hell and all its inhabitants are monsters.

Every great novel, however morose or melancholic, treats its characters and the world around with compassion. Be it Rushdie’s Bombay, Naipaul’s Trinidad or Bellow’s Chicago, even the worst of men in these great cities are portrayed as human beings capable of thought and feeling. And even when the world around is in tatters, there is always the glimmer of hope, the anticipation that things can be set right, that life, however ghastly it may seem at the moment, is better than death. This is where Adiga fails completely. In this novel, which is in the form of a letter, the protagonist finds nothing remotely good about the country to say to the Chinese Premier, nothing that could point towards a possible solution, of a way out of the mess he has taken so much pain to elaborate on.

Adiga gets the Booker. And perhaps it is not that surprising that he did. For to the ignorant foreigner eager to know about India, this book can be very easily assimilated. It doesn’t even attempt to get into the complexities of the new India, the whys and hows, and the foreigner, who has never seen the ‘Light’ or the ‘Darkness’ with his own eyes will take the author’s word for it. A friend told me that Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh is believed to be selling more copies in India than this more recent award-winning novel. And that too is not surprising. For the Indians of the ‘true’ India know better.

Perfect Imperfections

Bombay is a mad city, and that is probably why, despite its thousand troubles and limitations, it is very easy to fall in love with it, to lose yourself in the madness, become one with it. And perhaps, that is also why someone who’s spent even a little amount of time there finds it so hard to leave it, feeling incapacitated everywhere else. The city, through its imperfections, sucks you in. And if it doesn’t drive you insane, it’ll fascinate you like very few other places ever will.

For example:

• Refer to the last post, third segment. There was a snake sighted in the locality I was staying in, and rather than actively taking measures to look for it and possibly save lives, the apartment management just put up a hardly noticeable notice on the walls, saying that if anyone did spot it, he or she was to contact the watchman, who would then see where the snake moves. I doubt if any more sightings of the snake or even casualties would have made a difference to the urgency shown.
  
  
  
  Meanwhile, remarkably co-incident with the snake sighting, the front door of my cousin’s flat broke, leaving a small gaping hole at the bottom. When I asked him whether we should get it repaired lest the snake sneaked in at night, he just shrugged and changed the subject.
  

• Given that the city was devastated by blasts very recently, on my way to Colaba by the local train, I expected to be frisked all over. Nothing of the sort happened.
  
  I could have been carrying a live bomb. It was Diwali night. On this day of celebration, the city was one man’s will away from being blown to pieces. Yet again.
  

• During a three-day stay, I came across two instances of people lighting crackers on the road, that too in full, evening, Diwali traffic. In the latter case, the man was setting fire to chakris and throwing them on the main road, while auto-rickshaws, cars and buses turned and swayed and evaded them without complaint, as if it was all a harmless video game where nothing really valuable was at stake.
  
  The man kept laughing all along, his joy multiplied manifold when the cracker flinging sparks in all directions made another man on a bicycle almost lose his balance. He kept laughing even when a rocket launched by him boomeranged onto his own chest, before he frantically pushed it away to avoid harm.
  

Whichever way one would like to put it, this kind of indifference to adversity, or the confidence of the people in their ability to handle it, is baffling. But that’s how most things in Bombay are. In a city where the cost of living is very high, the cost of life, on the other hand, is very low.

Midnight Halt

It was barely three hours since the bus had stopped last, and now, the driver seemed to want another break, parking it alongside a roadside dhaba. As the breaks finally squeaked and the thing came to a decisive halt, everyone in the bus let out a collective, exasperated sigh.

Amir wasn’t too pleased either. He wanted to get home as early as possible, the short span of the holidays making every hour of journey seem that wee bit longer. The bus was scheduled to reach Delhi by seven in the morning, but going by the way it was taking breaks, that seemed only to be in theory. Suddenly irritated and feeling half-tough, he got up from his seat, wanting to know what the trouble was now.

He got out of the bus and called out for the driver. There was a group of huge, moustached men standing just a little distance away, and one of them replied – ‘Main hoon. Ke baat se?’. That was enough to dispel all the toughness inside him, and feeling calm again, Amir went back to his seat.

A couple of minutes later, the same man entered and declared that as there was some problem with the engine, they were going to have a half-hour halt, and everyone was free to make himself comfortable at the dhaba. Not knowing what to do, Amir decided that perhaps having a cup of tea wasn’t that bad an idea. There was still a long way to go, a little outing away from the almost claustrophobic bus was probably better for the senses, and for his bums as well.

The dhaba looked nothing special. It was like any other dhaba – one floor, walls whitewashed in a horrible shade of blue, a few wooden and plastic chairs around, and a couple of khats kept outside. One solitary tube light glowed on the outside, and this was where the customers sat. The lights on the inside were switched off, probably because there were not many people eating, the hour being close to twelve in the night. Amir looked for the place’s name, and there it was, just above the light – E-quality Dhaba. They all might be the same when it comes to how they look, but they sure are creative when it comes to naming themselves, thought Amir, and seated himself on an idle wooden chair.

It wasn’t long before the aroma of hot, freshly-prepared aloo paranthas reached him, and though he wasn’t hungry at all, Amir ordered a plate along with the mandatory cup of tea. The boy taking the order listened to him keenly, and after asking him twice whether he was sure he needed nothing else, disappeared inside into the darkness.

It was a full-moon night. Back in college, with the hectic schedule, and the noise around everywhere one went, it was almost impossible to have such an opportunity, to sit alone in the dark, amidst strangers and admire the moon in its entirety. This was a novelty, and it was hard to decide how overly nice it felt.

He got up to look at the open fields behind the dhaba. Nothing much was visible, but courtesy the moon, Amir could at least see that the vast emptiness extended far into the darkness. He saw the outlines of the boundaries that differentiated one tiller’s land from another, and also a small, dilapidated, light-coloured house a few hundred metres away. These small structures seemed to be very common in the countryside, and he had seen many such wherever he had gone - Punjab, U.P., Bihar, Rajasthan. Even as a child, he had always tried to guess what purpose they served, or whether they served any specific purpose at all. And as before, he stopped midway in thought now, wondering whether he was getting fascinated with something totally commonplace, whether his fascination with those little houses was only the city-dweller’s fascination with the village.

The boy, meanwhile, had got the paranthas and chai. He called out, shouting ‘Bhaiya!’, and Amir signalled him to get the things near where he stood, a little more away from the crowd. There was less light there, but more peace. Having seated himself finally, he started with the paranthas. Quite unexpectedly, they were perfect, warm, polished with butter and almost bursting with potato. The tea, on the other hand, was a little less sweet by his taste. He felt like calling out to the boy for some sugar, but then decided against it.

Everything about the place felt good – the food, the ambience, the faint sound of petty talk coming from the table in the distance. Everything was peaceful, and that’s why he had wanted to go home – to get some quiet time, away from the daily set routine of college, away from assignments and deadlines. Maybe, thought Amir, he didn’t even want to go home, just some place away, and this little spot here, somewhere in the wilderness, seemed just like what he had wanted. It was perfect here, to be sitting under the open sky, in this place he hadn’t visited before and would never visit again, having food and tea, while endless, open fields provided the backdrop, illuminated, but only slightly, by the moon above.

Fifteen minutes later, someone declared that the bus was ready to leave. Amir walked over to it, reluctantly, hating the prospect of the night’s journey even more now.

Loss

Amir woke up today morning to find his Self missing. The realization came to him quite suddenly; he first felt the void in his head, then he sensed it going down his neck, his spine and then travel to every single part of his body. It wasn’t something ordinary that happened every other day. That much was pretty clear. For the void, rather than giving him a feeling of space, made him feel strangely heavy. A vacant heaviness or a heavy vacant-ness - both meaning the same.

He got up from the bed and the void travelled with him. He didn’t know what to do with it, or even what to do at all. On an ordinary day, he would have brushed his teeth, prepared for himself a cup of tea, and then sat down on the balcony with the morning newspaper. But all this seemed senseless at that moment. Inconsequential. Not that these tasks had overwhelming significance in his everyday life anyway, but the futility of it all struck him to the core today.

Therefore, leaving everything, he went and lay down on his bed.

Where could it have gone? Suddenly, without warning. He had felt quite alright last night, nothing had happened to make him uncomfortable. They had had a drink session at Ari’s place, and after hours of dancing and singing, he had returned home in the late hours of the morning, exhausted and happy. Where had the feeling gone? It was replaced by this weird dullness, this inexplicable sensation of loss.

Looking at the parking lot overlooking his house, where a bunch of car-washers were getting on with their job, Amir tried to think of a possible solution. What could he do to make the situation better? Where to look for the darn thing?

Where would he find his own Self?

It wasn’t just a thing, not his wallet or the lighter. It was him. He couldn’t just jump out and try to look for it beneath the bed sheets, or check whether it had, by mistake, slipped underneath the bed, or remove the junk off his study table, thinking that maybe that was what hid it. He could not even tell anyone about it, simply because no one would believe him. They would laugh it off, blaming it on the hangover. This was something so huge, something so personal, that he couldn’t even hope to regain it by talking it over with a friend, or by holding a loved one’s hand, or by looking into someone else’s eyes. This was, and he knew it already, much beyond that.

With much mental effort, he walked over to the bathroom and looked into the mirror. Suddenly, his own face seemed alien to him, the eyebrows, the curve of his cheeks, the mouth, the chin – everything seemed new and cold, as if it belonged to a different person. Who was he, Amir found himself asking. Was he living inside another person? Did this assortment of organs even belong to him? He looked at his hands, his legs, and he felt he wasn’t even real, just playing a character in some video game, using someone else’s body, who controlled everything but had no claim to ownership.

The feeling of emptiness, the loss of Self, was overbearing. He couldn’t stand it and found his legs shaking rather alarmingly. Somehow, he pulled his body, which felt now like a rented piece, to the bedroom. He lay down on the bed again, staring at the ceiling, contemplating sleep. Maybe that would freshen up his memory a bit. In any case, Amir simply didn’t know what else to do with himself.

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What he also didn’t know was that the realization that had dawned upon him today was the end result of something that had been going on for many years now. He had lost his Self long ago, misplaced it somewhere and hadn’t even given a damn at the time. Time had passed, and though sometimes he did feel lonely and vacant, such moments were pretty short-lived, overcome by spells of prolonged activity, or lost in the laughter and nonsense of everyday conversation. All this while, he had never felt a desperate need to question himself, to look within and see how he had changed and was changing. The Self had left him a long time ago, just that its realization, which had remained hidden from him until this day, had finally made its presence felt.

And Amir didn’t know what to do.

Pack-up Man

My name, you ask? What do you want my name for? That hardly holds any significance. If anything, let me tell you what I am and how I look. I’m middle-aged, around forty years of age (no one in my family remembers the exact date of my birth), with a slight paunch, drooping shoulders, and a head that’s getting bald with every passing day. I am dark, around five feet nine inches tall, and keep a beard which has gone completely white with time, at odds with the hair on my head, which is still more black than white. People, intrigued by this peculiar contrast, ask me whether I dye my hair, to which I can think of no reply.

My family has been a family of farmers; since generations, we have known no other means of livelihood. But now the times have changed. With big landlords eager to get hold of as much land as possible, ready to pay amounts which are too hard to refuse for people like us who never know what tomorrow would bring, its very rare for a man with meagre land holdings to get enough to pass his days. He has to look for a new job, that too in a place where they are hard to come by.

I got a job in one of the many multiplexes that have come up in this little town over the last few years. My task, as they told me, was to maintain cleanliness in and around the place. I am not the only one assigned this responsibility, there are a few others who work with me, and together we clean the floors of the porch, the lobby, and also the toilets, once in the morning at nine, and then in the evening at four. The building is huge, with two floors, there’s a lot of ground to be covered, and it turns out to be a tiring task, especially because we rid the floors of dust with a broom first, and then polish it by wiping it with phenyl and water. To make it shine. As the manager, our boss, likes it. We also, along with the above, hold the responsibility of cleaning the halls between shows, empty coke glasses, food packages and popcorn strewed here and there. But that doesn’t take much time.

As the oldest among the workers, and the one who looks most reliable, I have also been given an additional piece of work. On weekends, in the evening, just outside the entrance to the halls, they have a music show. A bunch of youngsters, all of whom look like they have just got out of their beds, come together and sing noisy, mostly English songs. My job is to assemble the equipment before the shows starts and dissemble it after it ends – the stand on which they keep the keyboard, the drum set, the huge black speakers, the microphones.

It isn’t something that takes too much effort, just fifteen minutes before and after. But what’s exhausting about the task is the wait, to stand there and wait for the show to get over, to hope that the song they are playing will be their last for the evening. When the rains are around, I can’t even leave the place for a moment, lest it starts pouring suddenly and the equipment needs to be replaced to safety. The manager thinks me responsible, and I’m too eager not to lose his confidence. So, I sit in a corner and wait.

I sit there and look around, the players - working away at their instruments, looking absorbed and lost in the music, smoking cigarettes without break, one after the other, the crowd – people eating at the cafeteria just behind, more youngsters, some standing and some sitting on the floor, listening to the music, many of them constantly smoking as well, and then there are, of course, the people who are here to watch a film, who just pass by, some pausing to listen to the music for a while.

The variety of people that can be seen near the place is quite remarkable, there are all kinds – boys and girls dressed for their evening out, company executives just back from office, uncles and aunties who wonder what the fuss is all about, and very old men and women, who don’t give the band as much as a glance. Yet, they are all together there, who have come to this multiplex for some form of enjoyment or the other.

Somewhere between ten and ten thirty, the band stops playing. I, in anticipation, go into the crowd and stand there much before that, hoping that they would wind up soon. This is the most difficult part of the waiting, it’s late and I am desperate to get back home. I can see a few eyes turning towards me, giving me a cursory glance, wondering whether I too was there for the music, and I’m conscious of the fact that here, where almost everyone is dressed to kill, having a good time, I look odd, a man who doesn’t belong, maybe even a blot on the landscape. But it hardly bothers me.

When it’s all over, and the whole place seems immersed in sudden, complete silence once more, I pick up everything from the stage and put it inside the store room.

My work for the day is over, and I leave on my bicycle, for my home in a village just a few kilometres away.

This is what I do. Clean. Assemble. Dissemble.

Bridge Chalein?

All the characters and events in this piece are entirely fictional and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely co-incidental.

From the flashlights of the motorcycle, it was pretty clear to all of them that what stood ahead, just about fifty metres away was nothing but a police jeep.

Their little plan had all it takes to get into the deepest possible shit. It was past one in the night, they, Abbas, Muahid and Tayseer were on someone else’s bike, in a relatively unknown city, without anywhere specific to go, but sure in their minds that they had to go somewhere. After all, they were happy. That’s the least they could do. Go somewhere.

So, having taken a packet of wafers and two Thums Ups for their little picnic from one of the very few places that were open so late, they decided to go to the famous bridge, a broken one, about two to three kilometres into the wilderness. On their way there, the talk was of murders, encounters and cover-ups, and many other possibilities their lives could meet at the bridge, depending on which they might accidentally meet there, the police or some scoundrels. None of them suspected that weren’t after all building castles in the air. The first sight of the jeep was just the preamble for what was to follow.

‘Abey koi hai wahaan pe…truck ya jeep…’, said Tayseer, as if this was a fact that needed mentioning.

‘Jeep hi hai…police ki hai kya?’, added Abbas, fearing the worst.

‘Haan police ki hi hai…’, replied Muahid, and after letting the realization sink in, ‘Waapis chalna hai kya?’

This was a crucial question, the sort which one would rather like to pose than answer. There was a brief silence, not more than a few seconds, as the question needed to be answered quickly, the three of them getting closer to the jeep with every passing moment.

‘Abey chalte hain….faltu mein panga na ho jaaye’, Tayseer, chicken heart, finally uttered. This was all the other two chicken hearts needed, and without wasting further time, Muahid, who was driving, took a U-turn and headed back.

The danger dealt with, the three breathed easy again. Ripples of nervous laughter were complemented by remarks such as ‘Bach gaye yaar!’, ‘Kya kismet hai!’ and ‘Ab kahaan jaaye!’. But this hadn’t gone on for long, before Abbas interjected.

‘Abey waise problem kya hai?...na humare paas daru hai, na kuchh aur…bas 3 dost hai, chips aur cold-drink peene aaye hai…unko isse kya problem ho sakti hai?’

This was another good question, again one which was really difficult to answer. It is hard to say what transpired next, but within moments, chicken hearts turned into brave hearts, the bike headed back towards the jeep, all three infused suddenly with a new-found confidence in the innocence of their little outing.

They parked the bike just a little beyond the jeep, and though it was pitch dark, each searched for the others’ eyes, for a mirror to their apprehensions, waiting for someone to break the uneasy silence. It was broken, but it wasn’t they who had spoken.

From the back of the jeep, came out a moving a torch, and a voice beckoning them. None of them were really taken aback, they were expecting it, almost waiting for it.

As they approached the back of the jeep, it turned out that there were no less than four policeman present at the spot, three at the back with one asleep, and one in the front, who as they would later discover, was their boss. One of the two awake sub-ordinates, whom we would hereafter refer to as Good Cop, was the first to speak.

‘Kahaan se aaye ho tum log? Kya kar rahe ho yahaan?’

‘Kuchh nahi uncle…woh aise hi…’, replied Abbas, leaving Tayseer a little surprised as to how quickly he had moved on to buttering the policeman, calling him ‘uncle’.

‘Raat ko dhai baje tum yahaan aise hi aaye the! Woh kya hai haath mein?’, Good Cop retorted, his tone a bit harsher this time, pointing to the chips and soft drinks in our hands.

‘Kuchh nahi uncle…woh chips hai….aur…’, Tayseer replied, thinking at the same time whether ‘sir’ would have sounded better.

‘Bas yahi laaye ho?....’, Bad Cop finally spoke up, sounding rather disappointed. He sounded drunk, and excited, this little incident perhaps being the only diversion in his otherwise long and uneventful night vigil. ‘Yahin khade raho.’, said the Good Cop now, and both of them walked towards the motorcycle.

What they were looking for was liquor, and had it been found, it would have been the perfect excuse to have the youngsters jailed for the night and extract some nice cash out of them in the morning. But as they found nothing, even after an elaborate search, they returned silently, almost not knowing what to do now.

Having won a point in their favour, Abbas, Muahid and Tayseer now started to ask the cops for forgiveness, saying that they would never come here again, that they were just a bunch of stupid, innocent teenagers wanting a good time, that they had absolutely no idea that a small picnic on a deserted piece of land in the wilderness at two in the morning wasn’t the safest thing to do.

When they had no more excuses left, all three fell silent and there was a rather uncomfortable silence for a second or two. Bad Cop now took over the proceedings.

‘Thane le chalo sabko! Saale chutiye…subah tak inko wahi rakhna hai…tab samajh mein aayega inke…jab newspaper mein photo niklegi na….’, and then, as if struck with a sudden amazing idea, ‘woh India Today walo ko bulaon….haan wahi jo poore din idhar udhar ghoomte rehte hain’

Good Cop had gone on staring at the hapless three all this time, while they looked ready to shit in their pants. They started on their pleadings again, to which Good Cop said he understood but they had to talk to their boss once before anything could be done.

The boss sat in the front seat. He was asleep, probably on two or three bottles of desi liquor. When Good Cop explained the situation to him, he suddenly got up on his seat, as if awakened by a call of duty and scowled at the three.

‘Band karo inko!...madarchod kya karne aaye the yahaan?...bhodsi ke!’, and then as if exhausted by this sudden surge of activity, he dropped back into sleep again.

Bad Cop, now encouraged once more, added that the three must be thieves, as only thieves come out at such hours. To this unbeatable piece of logic, none of the three had an answer.

‘Kahaan ke rehne walo ho tum log?’, he now asked.

‘Dilli ke, sir’, Tayseer replied.

‘Kabhi dilli mein 8 baje ke baad nikalte ho?’

Another stupid taunt. Tayseer wanted to laugh at the policeman, but kept quiet, knowing that this wasn’t what he was looking for.

Ten or fifteen minutes passed in this fashion. The three of them kept pleading, calling the policemen ‘sir’ and ‘uncle’ alternately, the Bad Cop pouring taunts and threats, one after one. Good Cop now started to talk calmly to the three. He explained how there was a suicide by some Maharashtrian youngster in this area just a few days ago, and how much trouble they had to endure for it, and how unsuitable this place was, therefore, for a midnight picnic.

Slowly and steadily, as Good Cop talked to the three, they started to feel that there was still a way out of this, that there could be a negotiation. And no doubt, Good Cop finally offered to let them go, only if they pay the fine for their little adventure.

Tayseer didn’t even have his wallet with him, Muahid had all of forty or fifty rupees, and Abbas a few hundred. They informed Good Cop of this fact straight on his face; he was disappointed, but did well to maintain his composure.

‘Kitne hain tumhare paas?’, he asked, getting down to the bottom of it all.

‘Mere paas to kuchh bhi nahi’, Tayseer apologetically replied, ‘Iske paas 40-50 honge’, looking at Muahid, ‘aur tumhare paas?’, turning to Abbas.

Abbas dig into his purse and said ‘300…350….’

Muahid, who wasn’t really keen on paying the policeman more than a hundred in any case, who even in such dire circumstances was keen to hold on to his money, now reproached Abbas by hitting him on the arm. Good Cop noticed that, and when Muahid tried to speak again, he asked him to shut up and learn some tameez first.

Tayseer now did all the talking, intentionally sounding soft, trying to make Good Cop feel that he could start crying any moment. Good Cop finally gave in, showering elderly advice on the three, telling them again and again how difficult the job of a policeman was, how they had to cover up so much, how the world would break into pieces if they didn’t do their thing. He sounded like a depressed Atlas, on whose shoulder all the burden of the world rested.

Having exhausted (or bored) himself ultimately, he asked Muahid to fetch the motorcycle, and continued talking to the other two.

‘Ye ladka theek nahi hai…chutiya kahin ka!...poori tarah bigad chuka hai yeh’, said he for Muahid, perhaps remembering the earlier fine negotiation, and then for no apparent reason, added, looking at Abbas – ‘Tum bhi aadhe bigad chuke ho…’. Abbas might have wanted to ask him why, but stayed shut for good.

The three got on to the motorcycle, and after saying ‘Dhanyavad’ and ‘Shukriya’ about 5-10 times, sped off. Their little adventure was over, they had come out unscathed, without even parting with a single rupee (the three had repeatedly informed Good Cop that they were 'student log' and could therefore may kindly please be exempted from the fine), and though their nerves hadn’t quite calmed yet, they laughed loudly, maybe at themselves, maybe at each other, maybe at the hour just gone by.

Then, Muahid, the courageous asked – ‘Ab kahaan chalna hai?’