Beaten Blues on the Anvil

It is December, 2009; the city Delhi. The not so glorious UPA 2 innings is almost six months old. People have broken Advani’s dream of becoming the Prime Minister of India. Sonia has got another four-and-half years to pull Italian-smart strings from behind the curtain and India is up to be ruled by the official political head who ‘never spoke’. For ten years the people will just wait and wait for the Prime Minister to speak, speak encouragingly, speak extempore because only then one sounds natural and appeals to the heart, and assuages the ruffled soul. But just like Sonia Gandhi reads her Hindi lines from the transliterated scripts in her white woman’s romanticised accent, her right or left hand man appears saying even ‘Thank You’ from the politically correct crisp note typed diligently for him to read out to the anticipating audience. Possibly India would love a speaking Prime Minister, so in the next term they will choose Narender Modi, who would at least speak to keep the struggling masses’ dreams alive.

Tea sellers do a nice business in Delhi during the winters. Around little-little tea stalls scattered around the metropolitan maze, down to earth people take hot sips of solace, gossip to their heart’s content, and contribute to the tea vendor’s seasonal upswing in fortune. Ram Lubhawan is from Bihar. Stocky and equipped with floral linguistic contours of Bhojpuri, he entertains people with his rural Bihar anecdotes as much as his tea melts the frigid fates lying like iron pallets in the souls of his customers, generally poor Bihari emigrants who work in factories, in security services, as peons in private offices, as rickshaw pullers, etc., etc.    

Ram Lubhawan’s witty rustic humour does not leave the usual cackling peals of laughter like it used to do six months back at the time of the parliamentary elections when they ‘the downtrodden’ people had ritualistically voted for the Congress like their forefathers had done since independence. Once again, terms after terms, in rote repetition of blued thumbs and dreamy hearts at the altar of the Indian Goddess, the democracy.

Anyhow, a political talk always rejuvenates. It might be a fact that our kitty of woes at the hands of our chosen governments just piles up like never before; still political discussions are taken so seriously by the people as if Indian democracy will crumble to pieces without their tongue-tiring part in it. So the smoggy, polluted wintery bride in Delhi is being welcomed by so many political bickerings.

Ram Lubhawan has become serious. Like any other man on the street he is afraid of an impending living-cost disaster. He along with his customers is convinced that if things are not controlled, the already polluted air in Delhi will become plainly suffocating for people like him who have to dig a well daily to drink water.

With a pining fart and gloomy heart a fat customer of his is muttering abusively. The cost of living has multiplied too fast, they agree. Yes, the common man is just groaning with the pain of almost unprecedentedly sky-high cost of living. Bus fare is high enough now to give this pinching feeling to any labourer that he/she is contributing to the infrastructural growth of Delhi just for free. The same people, the people on the street and roads—almost antagonised against the capitalist class, the class of well-to-do families supporting the BJP—are now just rubbing their hands with helplessness. Just six months ago they had come out so proactively to give the new iron lady another five years to further consolidate the first political family’s roots. The common man just wanted to define Indian democracy within the strictly defined loyalties to the Nehru family.

Anyway, the acceptance by the masses of the undisputed axial status of the First Family in Indian democracy meant the Prime Minister in waiting was not allowed to change his status. Now, after so much of polluted sewage has gone down the drains to merge the holy waters, the illusions are giving way to harsh realities. As they discussed their not so important woes to the higher world, Ram Lubhawan sees a pleasant smirk on the face of a rich sahib getting down from the safe confines of his big car. ‘It’s your government buddies!’ seems to be the message from his side. In a suffering tone a labourer is muttering, ‘Only if there would have been elections as of now!’ ‘Spare your voter fury for the next five years!’ the portly, safely rich fellow mused.

Wait for five years! Of course they will wait, but during these five years so many things will keep pending, the hijacked life, the frozen dreams, the hibernating fates. They have played their supposed parts in choosing a supposedly ‘people’s government’, but how the hell things will change for them. The very same things that change for so few almost daily and remain the same for these people around the tea stall for generations. ‘Five Years!’ Ram Lubhawan gets a jolt as the boiling tea in his pan puffs out a revolt and splashes out. A storm in the tea pan. A little stronger than a storm in a tea cup. A bit bigger storm in his heart now. His son wants to become an engineer. The famed dream of a poor Bihari emigrant’s son. Tuitions and tutorials are very costly. He has to save many dozens of thousands during the next four years, exactly the time remaining for his son to have a go at the entrance examinations. Pulled out of the discussion, he counts the customers around him.