A Walk over the Peanut Husks

The month of December in Delhi is not just about aggravating respiratory symptoms and phlegmatic fountains, it is also about peanuts, the poor man’s almond. Sonia-push-pulled-drawn-rolled UPA 2 has been enjoying power for the last six months. For the year 2009 just a week left to survive with its bag of good and bad. The Prime-Minister-in-Waiting having failed twice, there is high chance he might never fulfil his dream. Much as Advani might try to keep himself physically fit in his eighties, to survive, to keep his dream alive; it’s Manmohan the mask man who wields power for Sonia, his face remaining the same despite all criticisms and loads of insults in the media. More than governing they seem to be grooming Rahul for the chair sometime in the future: The aristocracy surviving in its 21^st century avatar in the world’s largest democracy.

The road-spitters, peanut-munchers and hunched-defecators have given the motley mix of ideologies embaled in the box of pseudo-secularism another chance to rule their destinies. The UPA gang clamours too loudly, ‘Wolf, wolf! It will tear you apart. The atrocities will surpass even Hitler’s genocide.’ So they stay away from the wolf and take shelter with the non-wolf, which has no teeth to bite, but enough brains to plunder public resources unprecedently. Its constituents having come to an agreement not to block anybody’s progress to get more zeroes at the end of their Swiss bank accounts.   

The grand old man of contemporary politics stands robbed of his chance to rule India. Even in his milder avatar, begotten after praising Jinnah, he is not acceptable. Muslims wouldn’t accept the BJPwallah even if he reads kalima and turns Muslims himself; and Hindus do not like this curious unrecognisable mixture of saffron and green. So the grand old man, with Hitler’s whiter version of his moustache, harbinger of a not so bloody revolution, a milder one and acceptable as per the national and international standards, stands mute and meek. Not caring much about a Muslim bullet, he seems more scared of a knee-rattling hit by the stick held by Khakhi-shorts-clad angry persona.

The RSS will not spare him and let him go unpunished. He has to put his claim down; they might go for a better choice now to fit their dream of a nationalistic, resurgent India. However the pain of the patriarch bowing out is overshadowed by the symbolism of a concept: The concept of being democratic in its management. There is a contrast. The fissure between the BJP and the Congress. There are more democratic traces in the former’s mode of operation. The latter just clinging to a particular family, and the former putting down a patriarch who almost singlehandedly formulated the present avatar of the big national party. All its ideological designs still under the carpet, but at least in letter the BJP seems to have paid a huge respect to the Indian masses by asking Advani to go. Can the Congress do the same to the Gandhi-Nehru family if they also fail twice consequently?

The Congress begins and ends with the famed foremost political family of India. The Nehru family is virtually the definition of Congress. Peoples’ emotions have been put on a stranglehold by erecting a well-functioning system of loyalists ever-oiling the causes of the first political family. Accept it or not, it’s impossible to think of Congress without the Gandhi-Nehru clan. What Advani did for the resurgence of the BJP was no way short of Nehru’s efforts to make Congress a family set-up post independence. As far as the efforts are concerned Advani has been as great as Nehru in erecting a national level political structure. But still when it comes to the BJP, it’s possible to smell its chances beyond the Advani clan. It can be drawn as a positive for the Indian democracy. Now the issue just trickles to the question, is it possible to imagine the same fate for the Gandhis? Not as long as the Congress we are acquainted with!

The Spitting Phlegmatic World

December is very cold in Delhi. Smog grips life frigidly. There is enough pollution and traffic to create serious trouble to old lungs, coughing asthmatic creatures. In any case Indians are world famous in leaving an endless unbroken spit chain on the sidewalks, hedges, walls, pillars, roads, anywhere, even on the passersby many a time. Summer spit is relatively tolerable, a silvery gob having numerous little bubbles, saliva trails, almost innocuous, at least you have to convince yourself as you struggle to avoid the spit mines, only to fail. People do it with relish, the art of spitting. During winters but it becomes obnoxious. Lungs get affected. Spit turns phlegm now, terrible looking, dense, yellow, puke inducing. You have to save your footwear at any cost. More pollution, more smoke, more phlegm.

There are rag-picking urchins, who roam around, very tiny, faceless, almost unnamed. They let out a seasoned jet stream of spit that lands at quite a distance. Sometimes they even spit from an unseen distance at the nice shirts of the more privileged ones. This mischief, this grudge, some criminality in its womb, in a tiny heart and tinier mind in tiniest body. Dangerous probabilities, at least for the higher society. There are very old figures. Lying hidden in a sack. You do not know whether it contains a dead body or a live human being. The suspense is over; a terribly old, dishevelled head of a scary skeleton of a female comes out to have its share of spitting. Not enough throwing power in the lungs, it trickles down, the saliva and phlegm. Hangs down and tries to claim its share of earth. The spitting children; the spitting old woman. One almost recently born; the other about to die on any of these cold nights. We need special care as we enter and fade out of life. Generally kids have parents to protect them from all dangers. These kids do not have anybody to bring them into shape like a pot-maker shapes his earthenware. The elders are supposed to be in the same safe hands as they fade out of life. Kids and elders are the same: To be pampered, to be protected. This spitting world is a different one though. Careless, roofless, unprotected, they just spit, sometimes even more venomously than a Cobra.   

The dirtier blame game to clean the dirt is on somewhere far away in better environs.  Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change, 2009 is busy bookishly as a political tug of war between the developing and the developed world. Anyway the issue is just fit for politics because we have done irreversible damage to the environment. Let them just accuse each other now. Things will never be the same. We are up for nasty times! Our best of sincerity is just not enough to undo the blind massacre of the environmental systems for the last few centuries.

The fate of the air for their lungs being decided on another continent, five labourers get into the brand new AC DTC bus, red coloured, low-floored, swanky interiors to stamp India’s progress. It has been a mistake on their part. It’s damn costly, the ride. To make it more intolerable there is no open window to allow them to spit out their revolting miseries. So they have to retain gutka, tobacco and beetle nut stuffed in their mouths, like they keep their miseries in slums stuffed in their souls. ‘Didn’t you know the fair,’ the conductor reprimands them as they stand shell-shocked after getting the figure. It is INR 125 to the destination—almost equal to a full day wage earned by each of them. Pain is evident on their faces. To make it more painful, they cannot even spit. Bloody thing is sealed to keep the interiors warm. They feel the hot air gushing out of the air-holes along the sides. It is a bit comforting; they seek solace in it.

Neither in a position to go back (because so many eyes are expectantly ogling them for their next move) nor able to stand there because of the economic pinch of the mishap, they just stand there trying to come to terms with the reality. And even deprived of their poor man’s right to spin anywhere! ‘At least there is some space to stand comfortably and reach the workplace without much pains! And also the warm air,’ they appear calculating the takeaways for the many bucks gone from their pockets. They should know that it’s a very costly bus, costing 5.5 million rupees. So they should contribute. They should feel proud that they are giving the largest chunk of their salary to the Delhi Government.  

Now that unprecedentedly high living costs are eating into the meagre salaries of the labourers in Delhi, isn’t it suitable that they move to smaller cities to give bigger chances to their tiny dreams? Some voice of sanity should convince them to go for this option. Instead of rotting like garbage items, they ought to fight it out in smaller towns and cities. Delhi is too big now, and equally bad. Just see the countless humans lying around even more worthlessly than the garbage dumps! Let the big people enjoy the polluted, vitiated air in the national capital. Poor people, let us just go back to our roots!

How Much of Goodness is Sufficient?

A tiniest of puppy is stranded on a busy road. Before it added to the sins of some nastily spinning wheel, he picks it up and places the tiny thing on the pavement. Driven by the larger selfish cause of reaching office on time, he hastily moves ahead. But the obliged little thing is running after him as fast as it can. He just runs himself out of its reach. But while doing so he feels like doing more bad than good.

Ravaged by the times, devastated by being supportless at such an old age, stinking in her rags, and lying more cheaply than a junk food wrapper by her side, she protrudes her bony hand to stop his escape from the puppy. The pathetic apparition jolts him to the core. It is scary to even image a human being lying like that. But then Delhi has development to its credit as well. A sky high, glass fronted office complex blinds his eyes to distract him from the tragic vision. He turns his face away from the blinding light to look at the darkness spread around his feet. To do justice to his conscience, and to seek better karma for himself, he draws out a coin and places it on the dirty hand. This pause gives time to the little puppy to reach from behind. It stands by them now. He looks into its eyes. These are dull grey full of innocence, full of melting pitiable liquid; of childhood needing support. He now looks into her eyes. He sees two hopeless dark caverns; there is no light there. Two pairs of eyes peeping at him. He starts running again, not being able to bear the pangs of guilt for not being able to do more for them. The puppy stays back; sits comfortably by her side like it has got back its mother.      

Now the dilemma arises. Is it possible to do a good deed in part? Or goodness requires the completion of a chance-fallen or self-created cause in totality? Just because most of us are incapable to see through our act of beneficence to its destination, is it justified not to take that littlest of step which might keep the chances still alive for someone in need?

She Lost Here, She Lost There

She looks older than her 60 years. She is big built, and walks with force befitting a Sikh lady. But something is missing. There seems to be a vacuum in her soul which you instantly realise as you look into her sad eyes. In 1984, the bloodthirsty Congress supporters had burnt her husband alive. She was lucky to save her life, still luckier that her son and daughter survived, but terribly unlucky in losing a husband and having no support. She worked harder than her broken spirit would allow, put the mother in her at its best to continue fighting against all odds to raise her children.

The wound inside her feels fresher than that you expect from a tragedy happening three decades back. Her wound was again opened up by another tragedy in 2001 Gujarat riots. In 1984 she had suffered for being a Sikh, and Indira Gandhi had been killed by her Sikh bodyguards. In 2001, she suffered for being the mother of a Muslim convert. Her daughter whom she loved more than herself and even her son, showered with love care and affection and who even did well to get into Jamia Milia University for a graduation course, fell in love with a Muslim boy and would not listen to anything contrary to the inter-religious marriage. Sikhs are nearer to Hindus, sharing even many Gods, but she loved her husband so was justified in feeling closer to the Muslims. Delhi and its society both were claiming their bits of modernism, so her daughter got converted and was married to the boy from Gujarat. Just out of their graduation courses they went back to the boy’s place in his home state. And it was here that the tragedy struck taking away her Harpreet-e-Gulzaar from this world during the dark-famed Gujarat riots.     

The long and wordy debate about the tragic tales of the communal violence keeps going. In the one Sikhs suffered; in the other Muslims suffered; she suffered in both; she suffered as the wife of a Sikh husband; she suffered as the mother of a Muslim convert. Elsewhere in India, Hindus suffered invisibly on account of the talks of Islamic terrorism; the unseen unknown suffering fuelling the pseudo-secular drama which is an important component in the Indian contemporary politics.

In 2009, the UPA government’s eagerness and enthusiasm in deliberately leaking the Liberhan Commission’s report to expose the wrongdoings of the Hindutva elements and condemn the BJP as a communal party could have given her a touch of solace from the daughter’s side who died as a Muslim. But how could she forget the massacre of 5000 innocent Sikhs in 1984 including her husband. Of the two main political parties, which one to support during the elections? She had not voted during the parliamentary elections six months back. For which one to get her soul blued and finger marked indelibly for a week as a token of support?  

In 1992 a structure was stage-managed to be broken for political gains. In 1984, it was the real flesh and blood that spattered the streets of Delhi; like it was the real blood in Gujarat. Who was ruling in 1984? Who was ruling in 2001? Who was ruling at the centre in 1992? How can the central government wipe its hands clean of an act perpetrated in a state when there were intelligence reports regarding the impending destructive task by the Kar Sevaks? It was just like allowing your enemy to commit a murder so that the foe can be held guilty. The Congress government did only that. And ask the pseudo-secularists isn’t it just plain communalism to politically appease a particular section always citing the wrongs committed against it by the political opponents? Political action and reaction mean the same as far as communalism is concerned.

Whom to support and whom to go against? Who was more communal? In the future parliamentary elections where to cast her vote? The mother and the widow in her kept away from any interest in the famed Indian democratic machine operating along the communal lines.

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.