Farmers are always done in...fucked in fact.
Either it’s the impersonal hand of God that simply holds them by ears and
smilingly makes them see the mysterious spectacle of undoing all their hard
work. If God gets ready to do some more important undoings somewhere else, thus
sparing the tillers for some time, Government does it from His side. Low prices
hit the farmers even worse, because here they complete the crop cycle with
certain dreams but return almost empty-handed from the market. So caught
between these two supernatural forces, the poor farmer gets just one
weather-saved and market-saved crop in four seasons. And that surplus keeps him
on the path of survival. This time paddy has been fucked by the
Govt.-cum-market forces. I have seen light in an old farmer's eyes, 12 years
ago, when he sold Basmati rice at Rs. 2600/quintal. Mind it that was more than
a decade ago. Can you believe the same stuff fetched a paltry 1400 to his son?
Almost half! Meanwhile costs of farming inputs have skyrocketed. It just defies
logic. Capitalism how can you leave a certain section in lurch like this. A
landless farmer from my village had taken a portion of my land on rent for
paddy farming. The sum we agreed upon was just on the basis of expected price
of 1800/quintal. He returned from market and did as you can image. It was just
a sentimental landvalla and a crying landless farmer. So I had to share his
loss. But this act of philanthropy left a hole in my pocket. If market forces
and the shining economy of India, for their survival, presume such acts of
kindness from semi-poor guys like me, then to be hell with such a system. I
think those who have lakhs of crores in Swiss accounts are better for this
task. But you beat the Swami who talks of getting that money back. Another
farmer, nursing the market insult, was just hatefully staring at the stunted
growth of his winter tomatoes. An ex-serviceman, in late forties, this farmer
has been working with all his army ethics on his small landholding. 'This
country is up for bloodbath, I tell you!' he fretted. Gosh! Guys there was real
fire in his eyes and practical intent in his words. 'The fuckers have stashed
all the money in Swiss accounts. That’s our money man. While they cheat us
through low agricultural product prices and very high cost of livelihood. The
behen****s... ', sorry guys an angry farmer cannot do without gali-sali, 'have
fucked farmers at all fronts.' 'Unemployment...these graduate farmers of 21st
century India are not dumbos like their forefathers. Believe me man the day
will come when they will just barge in Parliament and just kill the lawmakers
there!' Dear-o-dear what a stormy spectacle it became. He was literally shaking
as if we just had the first leader of peasant uprising from this part. Just
imagine what if Anna-type movement is caught in the whirl-wind of such
disgruntled hard workers! The future seems really up for some jerks and pulls.
***************
Why does truth pinch most of the time? Simple!
Because it is no chocolate, sugar candy or mellowable sweetie-pie lump of ice
cream. It is hard, sour, iron ball guys. It has pinching rough stony edges to
its surface. Come into contact with them and they will take a few flakes from
your skin leaving a red or purple bruise depending on the intensity of truth
contained in it. Now the question arises, 'Why does it almost always leave a
grimace on our face instead of a smile?' The simple fact that all of us almost
always rub cold shoulders against this ironed ball having thorns for our soft
skin, proves on fact: that we are not subjectively inclined to accept the
objective reality as it stands in abstract. But does not that mean that we have
moved poles apart from truth and its manifestations while going on the path of
individual and collective improvisations at the subjective level. May be the
reason for our success in emerging at the top of food chain in the game of
'survival of the fittest' is that we have institutionalized ourselves to negate
and defy, and do without, certain basic truths that form the core of creation
and nature. Nothing wrong with that! It, however, is paradoxical that most of
these scions of truth--against which we have always been taking cudgels--form
the core of our moral, humanistic, religious, spiritual and aesthetic vision
enshrined in preach books. Strange!
******************
Late winter mornings are fresh even in the
polluted and dirty sections of NCR. Heavily encumbered sectors in Noida do have
their share of early-morning charm as they try to find out the order and
symmetry meant for them in master plans. They cannot see much among the
defecating, exciting, commercial, crash and crying hulla-bullo going around.
The buildings are semi-daunting: a curious mix of residential-cum-commercial
styles. You see a bit of house, a bit of manufacturing unit, a bit of service
industry, a bit of business, a bit of exploitation, a bit of comfort, a bit of
pain, a bit of life and a bit of death. It is a self-absorbed world, a
cesspool, a whirling system drawing so many survival-lorn masses from nooks and
corners of India. They live identity-less here. The enterprise thrives here.
The malik goes smirk in his big car. The labourers go pitifully, deeply
shackled by the duties and falling bodily and mental notions of being a
human--and how can you expect to be Ganga-clean if you eat, drink and sleep at
the very place where others and you defecate and procreate at the same time.
You find a kid left alone in this non-caring world. A small sack on his back.
The rag picker. He has manly eyes and a kid’s stature. When you are left alone
so early in your life to enjoy or suffer life on your own terms, you just
become one of the thousands of flies fighting for as pace on shit and sweets
with the same relish. You just know one side of life--survival. By any means
and at whatever cost. And what does this survival produce: stunted, frail.
sick, dehumanized, spiritless multitudes who just add to the census sheets of
India. But they serve a purpose. They carry the shining tag of economic boom
and growth on their frail shoulders. They survive by any means. That is their
biggest achievement. The widow, the prostitute, the raped girl, the mad
women(carrying the sex toy for so many frustrated and hungry souls). They beg,
pickup rags, sell their diseased bodies, operate tea stalls, try to pick out
the moments of the day while someone ignores the cancer warnings to buy those
poisonous sashes carrying gutka and tobacco. They even cock a snook at the
great plans in the plan books for this great Delhi suburb, the pride of Uttar
Pradesh. They just settle down at any place in between the industries. Their
tiny hovels, a curious world of dwarfs. But they live as tall people who sleep
and fuck proudly in congested hiccuping afraid air and bring about additions to
their world like ant swarms. You will see their holy places as well. A drop of
gangajal in the sewage nullah gurgling with puss and bacteria of uncaring
humanity. The mandir stands nonchalantly. It’s Gods having forsaken it. It was
never accepted as their earthly shelter at all. Anyhow a poor man's God is no
God at all. It has been proved. The mosque minaret too sulks over this majestic
swarm lost in a terrifying fatality just somehow holding onto faith like their
broken spirit holds onto their more broken bodies. A mere purposeless
appendage. They have their open shit plots. The stench too overbearing and thus
fighting to retain its status and repel any encroacher coming with a non-shit
purpose. Just imagine what will be the garbage dump site of this bigger garbage
pit—it is literally a hell hole. It but serves as the
playground-cum-business-cum-schooling arena for the orphans, half-orphans,
bastards, urchins, nameless boys and futureless girls. In this hell of a hole,
a fat pig brushes its shit-smeared muzzle against the holy mouth of a robust
bull chewing the half-shit fodder and lying at ease in this kaliyuga
playground. Well, well...you just have to pass through just one street and get
the gist of life in these perilously throbbing veins. The blood is poisoned.
The organs are diseased. What is its future? May be even God does not know.
Probably, He is not concerned at all. And why should he be! Because He is the
king of heaven. Why should He have any business with such hells?