All is Not right With India

By Nameirakpam Bobo Meitei *

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.

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?

Nameirakpam Bobo Meitei

* Nameirakpam Bobo Meitei contributes to e-pao.net regularly.
The writer can be contacted at bobomeitei(at)hotmail(dot)com
This article was webcasted on August 31 2011.