The Mishits

As the heat and fervour was building up though the summers and smouldering political tempers, and India looked again to get a saviour from the conventional political corridors, there were many who agreed that Ramdev and Kejriwal missed it. In their failure India also missed the chance of putting in front certain individuals and personalities that would have changed the apparent face of events in a totally unexpected, unconventional way, as the eventful times during the couple of years preceding the general elections in 2014 promised.

In the immediate Indian history two people have let the rope slip through their hands and fall back into the hole where they started from. They could have reached the summit being pushed and prodded up by the revolutionary fervour. Revolution is not just about the drastic changes born of bloody battles and massacres. In contemporary times revolution basically connotes mass frustration reaching the boiling, effervescent point and the spilled-over froth carrying a few chosen individuals as the representatives of the surge for change.

The UPA-2 messed up things. Even the common man struggling on the path of survival felt its pinch. Scams, ever-rising costs of living and the deplorable living conditions of the people, the aam aadmi, whose representative the UPA government claimed to be, disgruntled the masses. These small-small agonies came to be voiced out by the civil society movements. And these small rivulets of common man’s frustration merged to form two streams that carried two individuals as the modern-day revolutionaries. They seemed to hold the light leading out of the long cave of gloom and despair. Baba Ramdev and Arvind Kejriwal missed it! The reasons have been that they came out too ambitious than they appeared initially. It boils down to their not doing justice to the image that people held them in.

A lot needs to be accomplished in the health sector in India. Inefficient health infrastructure, fake medicines, unethical ways and means adopted by the medical fraternity and on top of that stress and shortages of basic amenities of life mean that majority of Indians face health problems of all types across the year. Ramdev to begin with served a Yoga pill that appeared so easy and approachable even to the average Indian. His Yoga was customised for mass appeal. Given his vocal skills it was sold well. It caught mass fancy. People fed up with traditional system took a nosedive into the pool of Ramdev panacea. Ramdev also had very strong words against Pepsi and Cola. People in fact started to use these as toilet cleaners. Very surprising that he no longer talks about them. Sceptics grope around to find the financial aspects of this silence.

Ramdev vaunted of mighty nationalism. People believed him as well. But we have to take it with a pinch of salt. If his Patanjali medicine outlets sell even his versions of sweetmeats then it shows more of business skills and less of a diehard nationalist. It comes down to make good profits as is proved by his millionaire status. Indians are very good followers. People raised him to the status of the saviour of the country when he talked of bringing back the black money from Swiss accounts. Almost two hundred thousand people clamoured under his leadership at the Ramleela ground. People accepted him as a revolutionary taking India to a new dawn of major shift from a system allowing 10 percent individuals sitting over 90 percent of resources to a system where majority will get at least the basic needs of a common day. Such major shifts demand at least a few broken heads and bruises. Ramdev the nationalist then, scared out of his wits for his life, tried to run away from the show clad as a woman. The aura was punctured. Next day we saw the crying baba who had forgotten to change women clothes he was wearing and crying before the media. People just said this is no revolution and he is not the modern progeny of Bhagat Singh and Shubhash Bose he eulogised on the stage. Today all common Indians believe him to be a smart businessman only.

Similarly, Kejriwal served a curing pill to the masses suffering from political illness and with no cure in sight. Social movements were just struggling as an ineffective appendage to the Indian democracy. Then Anna was smartly portrayed as an icon figure by the smart group of people who voiced people’s frustration. Media is a new business. Its raw material is anything new and happening. So the Indian civil society movement that was hitherto sidelined was portrayed in modern clairvoyance as channels competed with each other to increase their TRPs. The whole of India saw a new creed of selfless Indians following Anna Hazare. They challenged the prevalent system in all its versions. Arvind Kejriwal and Company jumped to another orbit as this movement showed signs of halting. In his stupendous success as a politician Arvind just cashed on the mass frustration at the collective level against the chosen few who were seen plundering the resources in various forms.

Kejriwal sold dreams. And rightly so. When things are effervescent you have to act as a catalyst to take it to the boiling point. When you can convince a common voter that you have equally bright chance to be an MP or MLA, it will at least ensure that people will come out of political apathy. Broom as a symbol and the very name of the party served as masterstrokes. In India symbolism is more powerful than the substance. So these symbols of cleaning the system and taking the aam aadmi to the centre stage of development worked wonders for them in Delhi Assembly elections. People when conscious of themselves can spring a few surprises. And the surprise was thrown in the faces of mainstream political parties. The Aam Aadmi Party got 28 seats. But at this moment the common man’s juggernaut came to halt on account of still weightier plans of Arvind and group. Delhi people had trusted them. They welcomed AAP’s decision to form a government even with Congress help! People were expecting exemplary action. Unfortunately even as the CM and as ministers the AAP leadership could not come out of their revolutionary and activist mode. Governance is different. It’s very easy to shout slogans, and very difficult to bring effective changes.

It was more than apparent that they were more interested in carrying on their movement that was catching mass fancy across India on account of the unexpected success in Delhi. The AAP leadership did not want to let go of their hold on the common man’s psyche. So just hyper-sensitised all issues. The wheel of their popularity was rolling across India. So Kejriwal ever-eager to keep it rolling even during the parliamentary elections jumped out of the CM chair and again started with the typical noisy accusatory game of hitting the big fish with verbal pot-shots. A lesson here. It’s not possible to keep the graph of mass excitement at the same level for too long. As a leader you just cash on the temporary peaks of mass excitement like he did during the Delhi elections. But to expect it to spill over the coming months and do the same in parliamentary elections is like asking too much from the common man struggling and lost in the issues of bread and butter. It was a historic blunder on Kejriwal’s part to jump out of the CM chair and run for the PM chair. He could have done wonders as an honest administrator. People would have understood his handicap as the leader of a minority government surviving on the Congress support. All his works would have set up a new criterion of clean and honest governance in the country.

Now when they were slogging it out across India there was hardly any difference between them and the other political parties except the cap they adorned. But how long the common man would be impressed by the broom, the tag of the aam aadmi party, typical revolutionary accusatory shoutings, and selling of mass dreams? This distinction was going to be even more diluted as they took brave pot-shots against the high and the mighty politicians. To sustain your visibility when the mass hysteria subsides, you need to have some accomplishments in your kitty. The AAP could have achieved those small milestones in administering Delhi. But they were dreaming too big and grossly overestimating the degree of mass hysteria.

A lot many people still wished both Ramdev and Kejriwal had turned out to be the way they proclaimed. Alas! Our retired, single, lonely social worker was again looking for the directions to dump his opinions, as his election victory-born enthusiasm for Kejriwal again nosedived to the dustbin of criticism, a sort of betrayal against the masses. He ended up voting for the BJP by the way. And when the famous single man of India acquired the highest decision-making chair in the country, he applauded, feeling proud for this man who had the whole country as his family and who would act as selflessly as he in his neighbourhood in feeding cows, stray dogs and homeless people. He indeed found a meaning in life again because he belonged to the select group of single-by-choice people in the country, who looked to a larger cause beyond the mundane confines of a domestic life involving clock-hand type circles around the same axis. Many people passing through his street had a sweet taste in their mouths.

The Mute Button Gone

 

It was February 2014. The sun had started to shine a bit more warmly across the fog. The atmospheric god had impregnated the late winter air with seeds of spring to smile in March. India was also waiting for a spring, a blossoming of hopes, rejuvenation of broken dreams, and avid aspirations for the ‘good days’ to come. There had been a thaw in the retired history professor’s frozen pension funds. After much hassles and bruises to his panicked self, he had the financial support meant for his old age. A new dream waited India in May after the whirlwind of multiple-phases of elections in April to May, when a billion people would go to vote, the mahakumbh of democracy!

For all that he had believed and consequently undergone, the professor had every reason to pitch for the BJP. With his knowledge and academic background, he was eligible to give what and whys of the more suitable political choice. The BJP candidate, been informed about ‘that’ episode, had canvassed his all out support. Nursing the injuries and consolidating his belief in his version of history, the old academician went overboard in his support to help India have a new dream in new hands, in Modi’s hands, who had single-handedly changed the fate of Gujarat.   

Why the BJP brand of politics is a safer bet for the Indian democracy at present? He used his ideas and opinions to woo the educated voters for the BJP. He had regained his confidence and no longer just wrote in the journals. He could thunder from the public platform. After all he was singing hymns to the rising sun only which would just provide him warmth after the frigid winters during the day. He spoke with authority, with conviction, as a politician:

Family politics is one of the biggest issues that plague the Indian democracy. The Congress led by Gandhi-Nehru clan and the smaller regional offshoots has checked the flow of democracy from reaching the grassroots level. That’s the reason Swaraj is still a distant, almost impossible, reality even after 66 years of independence. Even within the folds of democracy, only autocratic tricks can succeed in maintaining power concentrated in a particular family. In this regard Gandhi-Nehru type of manipulations have done the greatest harm to the spread of democracy and independence across the widespread strata in India. Consequently, things did not change much for the common man of India post-independence.

The BJP’s brand of politics is in sharp democratic contrast to the Congress in this regard. Atalji headed the NDA as the Prime Minister.  He could focus just on his democratic duties instead of wasting resources and institutional powers in consolidating family fiefdom to keep it floating across generations. The new BJP Prime Minister designate, Narender Modi, will be in a far better position to function as the topmost administrator of the country in comparison to let us say somebody from the Gandhi-Nehru clan. The latter will again have to go into undemocratic manipulations, directly and indirectly, to maintain their grip as the first political family in the country.

In the present conditions the BJP is the only option for the spread of democracy in India. Under Modi, the BJP will take the Indian democracy to the next stage when Swaraj will be a possibility under the care of the new rising son of mother India! 

The Neighbourhood Battle

In the summers of 2013, China's Himalayan Drills had become worrisome. The retired Brigadier never missed a chance to warn that ‘they’ can anytime put a knife in our back. He always believed that with a bit stronger political leadership and a bit better basic amenities, the fight would have been different. After all he still remembered many soldiers fighting in angora shirts forget about jersey. And it was as cold as you can imagine.   

His two neighbours had been at loggerheads for long. One was strong, financially and socially in a decent position. The other was comparatively lesser on all these counts. The stronger one would not miss an opportunity to badger the opponent and never skipped a chance to prove his strength and the other's helplessness. One day he heard the one, who was always at the receiving end, saying, 'I am going to an all out with him. Even if he beats me it’s better to be fully defeated instead of getting insulted all the times!' Driven by the concept and brooding over his insults, he went all out with the enemy at the next provocation! It was unexpected given his unresponsiveness of long. The stronger opponent was taken aback and before others, including the retired Brigadier, intervened he had bloody mouth and many bruises. The Brigadier knew the conditions in which the man had attacked finally. He drew the moral of the story: Sometimes it serves to hit hardest when you are pushed against a wall; when you have been completely cornered!

Each time there was some news of the Chinese wrongdoing in the Himalayas, the soldier’s soul pined for revenge. He openly confessed he hated the Chinese to the core of his heart. When this episode happened in which the unprovoking underdog had finally hit, taking the stronger transgressor by surprise, the polish-mannered soldier had even abandoned his neutrality in the affairs and went to the winner’s house to even congratulate him for his brave battle.

The repeated Chinese transgressions into the Indian territory and India's helplessness in this regard served the ex-soldier a corollary to the episode narrated above. He was telling the man representing India in the episode:

China, on account of the War and repeated intrusions, has taken it for granted that India will remain inert to all provocations. Can India act ultimately like you? If China can cross over into our territory, cannot we go for the same exercise sometimes? Suppose China reacts at the level of using force at our China-type intrusion, we will also earn a right to ward them off at the same level if they play the mischief again. It will only define the LOC more definitely---after all you are supposed to put your stamp of authority on your land through the use of forces to the utmost capacity. It will just balance out the position.    

Amarnath Yatra

The soul eating focus on the editorial desk gave him a tired and brooding look. He, the young man from The Broken Dream, seven years down after the debacle at the hands of the state, looked different from his still-enthusiastic face at the start of his innings in the publishing sector. The civil services candidates, at least from the humanities background, cram bits and pieces of all subjects to be jacks of all trades and masters of none. And when the sledgehammer of reality smashes the dream, all they are left with is to grope around for some respectful means of earning bread and butter. He had been a bookworm, so faced with this challenge to earn his bread, by default sneaked into the publisher’s world. He had always worked with his civil-services-preparations-born ethos. It only means more and more hard work. But then you have to be smarter at many levels to excel in the corporate. The more he worked, harder became things for him. In the melting heat of July, his life unbearable under the harsh torchlight of insecure bosses and jealous colleagues, his mind literally on the brink of insanity, he escaped to the blessing climes of the Kashmir Himalayas, to find himself, to regain his lost footing, to seek solace, to find a saviour, to be with himself.   

Life is all about exploring the self--its limitations, its specialties, its weaknesses, its strengths. Putting yourself in inhospitable conditions can be one of the means for this. The holy cave of Amarnath is situated in the frigid heights of higher Himalayas. As you move along the rain-lashed, slippery and stony mountain track, you find yourself caught in a dualistic chasm. Pleasure and pain side by side. Sighs of agony as well as excited palpitations of heart over the nature's masterwork. In the misty heights the melting glaciers are a visual delight; but the hazy heights lacerated by gloomy, craggy tops gets into your heart like some ice-cold stare of a corpse. 

Walking on treacherous muddy foot-track, with life and death side by side, with agony and ecstasy mating to give a queer sensation, he felt the little world in Delhi inside the cubicle of an office to be funnily tiny with its tinier characters. How could that little hovel turn his life literally into hell? This boundless, open nature cannot give enough pleasure like that tiny bread-earning hovel can give you the misery. He recalled the faces, the faces that had literally broken his hardworking convictions in the professional life. The selfish seriousness on their faces loomed more dangerously than the risky precipice he was taking a rest upon. Their plotting and strategising appeared gloomier than the threatening raincloud surrounding that mountain top and admonishing to come his way to make the climb more treacherous.

Gasping like a fish without water, for the oxygen was seriously low, he found the next little step as the most unachievable task in the world. One look however at the melting glacier on the opposite side of the valley uplifted his spirits like Phoenix. He saw the signs of warmth triumphing over snow: emerging pastures side by side with snow. Yes, green gives solace! The mountains lost in their massiveness just took his tiny existence into their mystic oblivion. He just surrendered! Even their selfish, smart, suave, polished, over-imposing selves, that always intimidated the simple human being in him, appeared a puny little, inconsequential piece of craziness against such massiveness surrounding him. It became bearable for him. Their triviality and this massiveness. ‘We should realise that we are mere parts of nature that can simply smite our existence away in just one angry stroke of little finger!’ he mused and seemed to admonish his detractors.

He looked anxiously into the sky for the traces of rain. The clouds building up around the surrounding hilltops sent down still chillier sensation down his spine. But then a look into the deep gorge across the sheer precipice carrying the track, gave him an outwardly sensation of fear and excitement mixed with a strange elation that cannot be explained in words. He saw fellow devotees struggling along the labouring ponies. These were the rare moments when one can really feel the agony of a fellow human being because you are put in the same cauldron.

The last portion of the valley leading to the shrine was still covered with heavy snow. As he walked over it, he slipped and regained control like a toddler learning to walk. ‘After all we are always God's kids,’ he had a smile on his face. A smile that was so comforting that it could outweigh hundreds of unshed tears in his eyes which they had given him. Despite all the quagmire of terrorism, he felt Kashmiri Islam to be beneficent. At no other place one will find a Hindu religious occasion being supported by so many Muslims. All the hawkers, stall operators, tent owners, porters, foot massagists and alms-seekers were Muslims. At no other place in the world you will come across a Muslim stall operator welcoming a tired Hindu pilgrim: 'O Bhole come and take shringaar for Mata Parvati' In delicious Kashmiri and warm hospitality the locals called him 'Bhole!'. And once inside the majestic cave, he just found himself lost in the divine trance of the ice lingam, Baba Barfani!

He felt safe and sheltered there. The Ice God giving him warmth that his lacerated self needed so much after all of their cold gestures and frigid petty selfishness had turned him to hypothermia, even though Delhi was burning with heat. But he had to go back to the fire. Mustering up courage he started his journey back. Back to where he began from!

Luck, the Slippery Eel

He vividly remembers one Holi. At least seven or eight years back. Drunk and mired in cheap colours like toads in filthy waters, they had hitched upon a tractor and went to the district city to spoil the appearance of their friend's beautiful wife. After spreading disharmony in his household, the Holi-smitten lampoons were coming back to the village. The tractor was giving a stiff competition even to the cars on the potholed road. They yelled at the top of their ebriated, coloured rascality. There was a scene by the roadside. Such a scene instantly gives an ecstatic high to almost all Haryanvis. A man was thrashing his wifie; possibly the result of an argument while they travelled on their scooter. Poor Bajaj Chetak was the mute spectator to this gross act. The hooligan-carrier tractor came to a halt and the first instinctive reaction of the demonic group of friends was: 'Aur maro s*** ko!' And they laughed all inclined to get free entertainment from the spectacle.

As a presumably better educated human being his instincts immediately clobbered down the common Haryanvi instinct and he yelled: 'Aurat pe attyachhaar!' They respected him, those father-defying idiots. So they just jumped down and many heart-felt fist strikes found the man bleeding from mouth in just few seconds. The lady cried: 'Harramjado he is your jeejaji and works with Haryana police!' So all daredevilry was gone in an instant. Totally slouched, civil-dress-clad policeman was dazed beyond all limits. He looked a perfect Hindi movie villain. They were aware of the consequence, even though he was not on duty and was doing something that should have taken him behind the bars. But then it is not the convention. The policemen can be allowed such freebies sometimes. Realising this they just chickened out of the scene even more efficiently than a murderer ever did. His friends cursed him, ‘Your bookish ideology got us in trouble. It would have been better to laugh. The Police in Haryana is held in fearful awe by the common mortals, at least by those who are just common citizens without any background defined by wealth, prestige and the so called connections.

A bloodied policeman can get you in serious trouble. The tractor was mired in mud, even the number plates. So by appearance it just gave clue to its manufacturing company, nothing more. All nasha gone, they washed it clean in the village pond and took a vow to send it to the sheltered barn for at least a month. He had heard the fabled stories how the policeman spanked the naked bum with a leathered monster. His poor bum already twitching against the painful strikes, he prayed to all his Gods for rescue. But luck certainly falls in our laps however unlucky one might be feeling. He could not believe what happened onwards. Next day, one guy from the beating squad was reading newspaper by a roadside barber shop in the village. A policeman came and asked for the approach route to a neighbouring village. 'What happened' the scared reader asked. 'Yaar yesterday some goons on a red tractor gave a bloodied jaw to one of our policeman! Look at the guts!'  

It happened like this. The lady who was being beaten had her maternal uncles in the said neighbouring village. She had spent some part of her pre-marriage time at her mamaji’s place and was seriously aware of the family feud going on between her mamaji’s family and a peasant family in their neighbourhood. That day some elders from this rival family had reached the eventful spot and intervened while the real culprit group chickened out. Nursing insult and unfathomable anger, and not being able to find the real rascals, she and her husband had conveniently farmed these people who had in fact resolved the issue. Pure bad luck for them. Well, somebody’s good luck is at the cost of someone’s bad luck. Luck changes hands man, impersonally, mechanically, like the coins flow from one pocket to the other in the bazaar. It might slip out of a King and land up in the beggar’s bowl and the vice versa.