On Communalism

Tees Maar Khan

“Um, patanahi...I don’t think yeh kuch zyada accha option hoga...”

“Ab dekho tum aaye ho, mauka hai aur hum taiyaar bhi hain. Laage-lagaye mein dekh aayenge, nahi toh humara jaana kahan ho pata hai. Aur hume bhi toh naaye zamane ki picture dekhni chahiye! Batao, itne saal ho gaye, aakhri baar Barabar Jhoom dekhen gaye the Abha Behenji ke saath...”

“Haan, well, agar aap kehti hain toh...”

*

“Pahuch gaye. Pandrah-bees saal hue yahan aaye hue. Aadha mann toh yehi hai ke Manoj ke policy kar aaun.”

“Nahi, ab gaye toh late ho jayenge. Ticket bhi toh khareedna hai; aur woh dekhiye, line kitni lambi hai.”

“Hai ram! Waapas chalain kya? Nai mila ticket toh Manoj ke hote hue chalenge!”

“Arre andar toh chaliye, waapsi ki baad mein dekhenge.”

*

“Ae bhaiya torchman, kahan baithain? Yahan baith jaayain?”

“Ji, yahin baith jao ji.”

“Hume zyada aage nahi jaana, peeche se hi dekhenge...hum wahan peeche chale jaayain?”

“Mataji yahin baith jao aap, bas.”

“Arre dekho wahan ganda hai, paan ka thooka hai! Hum nahi baithenge yahan bhai, hum peeche jaayenge!”

“Mataji...”

“Yahan kaise baithenge bhai? Chalo beta, peeche chalo!”

“Nahi, mataji, nahi...arre, chalo aap andar toh ho jao, ek aad seat hum logon ke liye bhi chorh do!”

*

“Accha hua na aage aa gaye? Peeche se puri screen nai dikhti, woh balcony ka projection raaste mein aa raha than a.”

“Haan, woh toh theek hai par yeh kahan aa kahan gaye hum? Yeh janta kaise shor-sharaba kar rahi hai!”

“Ab bhai hall hi aisa hai...har type ke log aate hain na yahan, aur unmein kaafi thorhe woh gareeb rickshaw waale, daily wage earners, outstation students aur yeh sab hote hain na...”

“Humne nahi pasand yeh sab! Pandrah saal ke the toh Eta mein picture dekhi thi, yahan ke crowd ne aisi hooting kit hi. Hum nai baithenge aisi seetiyon aur taaliyon aur shor mein! It’s the limit!”

“Arre kya, a baa gaye hain toh dekh hi lete hain. Waise bhi picture...”

*

“Hey bhagwaan! Kya picture hai yeh! It’s the limit! Aisi vaahiyaat picture humne itne saalon mein kabhi nhi dekhi!Kya zamana badal gaya hai! Aur kuch sar-pair toh ho? Aaj ki larkiyan, bas nanga naach karva lo! It’s the limit!”

“Ohho! Jab maine kaha tha toh tab toh naaya zamana tha! Ab dekhiye!”

“Nahi, hum nahi...arre bhaiya udhar se ghum ke jao na!”

“Bas ek minute, sorry.”

“Ab use jana hai...”

“Ae bhaiya torchman, humne kaha tha na humari balcony ki ticket katva lao, woh kahan hai?”

“Mataji hum kahan se laayenge? Aap batao, hum toh bithate hain logon ko, ticket kahan se layenge?”

“Aur hall bhi yeh centrally heated nahi hai! AC on karo bhai, barhi sardi lag rahi hai hume!”

“Aisa hi rahega Mataji yeh, itni hi garmi hai!”

“Arre hum aa chuke hain pehle, tab...”

“Mataji upar balcony mein hai garmi, yahan nai!”

“Arre toh lao na ticket upar ki!”

“Aap picture toh dekho Mataji, upar ka nahi hoga ab!”

*

“Kuch samajh nai aa raha...itni lambi zindagi mein sainkron picturain dekhi hongi, par iss jaisi...it’s the limit! Kya kehna kya chahte hain yeh log? Kya message hai picture ka?”

“Entertainment hi hai, aur kya...”

“Nahi toh uska bhi toh kuch udeshya hoga na! Aise kaise...abhi hawaijahaz mein the, ab gaon mein hain...aur kuch tuk toh ban nahi raha hai, bas aise hi...arre kitni baar kaha bhaiya, udhar ghum ke jao!”

“Arre aunty kahan se ghum ke jaun?”

“Wahan se jao na beta, baar-baar!”

“Shush! Saat saal ke bacche ki tarah behave maat kariye, picture dekhiye! Kissi ko toilet jana ho toh utna pura hall dundh ke toh koi nahi jayega na!”

“Accha phas gaye bhai...”

*

“Jaan chooti! Ae scooter waale bhaiya, arre zara ruko, yahan Prem Gali se nikal lo. Aisi vahiyaat picture, aur aisa hall! Bathroom jaate jaate toh pair hi philas gaye the, gir jaate toh....hai ram! Aur ladies ko bhi theek se...kya batayain ab! Arre bhaiya sabzi waale dekhte raho, kathal lena hai humain!”

“Iss time pe Mataji patanahi...”

“Arre sab mil jayega, zara aahista chalo...kaan pakar liye bhai, mati maari gayi thi! Ab din gaye, hall mein picture dekhne kabhi nahi jayenge!”

“Kathal ka kya karna hai ab...chorhiye...”

“Sab bacche ek saman hain humare liye, ek khana chahta hai toh hum kyun na banvain?”

“Par iss waqt?”

“Woh dekhiye mataji, woh raha kathal!”

 *

“Kaisi rahi?”

“Bahut accha hua, bahut accha kiya jo aap nahi gaye! Bilkul bakwaas, besharmi ki had hai!”

“Hehehe!”

“Khana theek se banya liya tha? Iske bhi tevar bahut ho gaye hain...aur woh gaana, use toh hum dekh hi nahi paaye sharm ke mare! He ram, aaj kal ki larkiyan, it’s the limit!”

“Arre, ab aisa hi hota hai aaj kal...”

“Hum isliye toh gaye nahi, hume toh andaza tha...”

“Ab maan toh rahi hum dimag phir gaya tha! Bhai hum purane aadmi rahe, humse nahi...nahi, khoobsurati ko pratak karne ka bhi dhang hota hai, aisi hi nahi ke kuch, kaise bhi...nahi, yeh sab toh theek nahi...haan, le aao. Hullo? Haan? Arre, tum bhi? Humne toh ek kilo le liya! Arre, le aayenge...nahi? Yahin rakhe rahain...chalo, agle hafte hi...khair, yeh toh theek kaha, tees maar khan dekhne gaye, tees maar khan hi ban gaye!”

On Corruption

I really don’t get the ongoing hullabaloo over corruption. Agreed, scams and scandals of the sort are pretty unpleasant and don’t exactly reflect well on our integrity and honesty as a people, but then that’s it: they’re a loss to the exchequer and a disgrace to the people, but that’s just it. Certainly not worth the fuss that’s been made of them.

Seriously! I mean, just look at it, look at the way everybody’s reacting to it – and this time it’s not just the media – the so-called media properly, news channels for the most – but the people, the common, middle class citizenry as a whole. Everybody’s shaking their head, muttering prophecies of common, universal doom on this decadent age. The country, the people, they’re all irredeemably down in the pot, so much so that to some not even dictatorship, by large an abiding middle class dream, will save us from the throes of narrow selfishness and despair. The dog days, people say, have finally dawned upon us…

Dear oh dear, the dog days. We’ve all been mickeyed, yes, and fraudulence in public life plutoed beyond compare, but still, it’s just that. Not end of the world, not even end of the world as we know it.

Yes, yes, I know I have that tendency, that habit of smoothening rough ends, mitigating general ills and creating continuums of occurrences, happenstances and coincidences. I know I take it overboard at times and doing so dismiss the gravity of the present for the weighty balance of the past. I know all that, but regardless, I’ll still say that all these present instances of scam and corruption are, well, just instances of so, nothing as out of the ordinary as we’ve been making them out as.

I know the sort of objections most would have to this. The first would be money, that though much has been swindled before, such huge sums were never involved. This is almost like saying our swindlers are better cheats and we perhaps much more gullible than our great grandfathers, an argument to which I can only say that, all due respect to those gone by, perhaps the reason why such huge sums weren’t involved earlier would be that they just weren’t in currency. Think about it, the value of money has steadily increased over the decades so that what was much then is so pitiably small now. Really, the sums themselves have little to do with it: Shree 420 rolled in lakhs, but had he been on Lavasa’s board today he would just as well have played in a few thousands of them.

Now, I can see how this denies conscience and takes quite the dint out of morality. If a cheat’s a cheat and all that’s stopping him/her is only pure luck, then not only would quite a few frauds not have been detected but also the power of precept to guide would be but nil. In that case, the moral and ethical worth of humanity all through would be just the same, the variations being only compounds of the material circumstances of particular ages. The idea of moral and ethical degradation then becomes more or less redundant.

More or less. Like most of my ilk, I choose to believe there’s more to matter than mere materiality. If not degradation, then evolution at the very least: change, changes effected by the dynamics of materiality against certain inherent, passed notions.

Which, in other words, is saying that while the world seems so very much in the gutter now, it’s just more probable that it has always been there and that it just seems filthier because we ourselves have made it so.

Nothing, I say, nothing out of the ordinary.

These things keep happening. The past almost always seems noble and ever so virtuous; quite frankly it’s uber convenient to have it so too – a convenient, if somewhat inaccurate, sepia tinted benchmark against the follies and shortcomings of the present are easy to evaluate. Yet, in doing so we mustn’t loose perspective, that what seems is exactly what it is, an imposition, projection, and beyond that rife with tensions not too dissimilar to our own. When, therefore, we shake our head in disappointment and mutter at the corruption in public morals in our own degenerate dog days, then we may be just as sure that our great grandfathers’ fathers would’ve been doing the same. Corruption, moral bankruptcy, unethical behaviour – every age and generation is witness to deviances from the norm.

But that, that alone, is not my contention here. It’s a bit obvious and to say just that is to be just as much. My point here is that there’s really no need to make such a fuss about the whole affair not just because it’s been done in the past and so there’s nothing new about it, but because – which is more important – to take the matter thus is to further a hollow and redundant belief system which denies the humanity of human beings.

Big words, yes; yet, not without merit I hope. When we talk of the corrupting influence of a particular work, act or event, when we condemn a fraudster, a corrupt public servant or an unscrupulous business tycoon, then do we not take righteousness beyond its rightful bounds? Indulging thus, do we not reaffirm binaries, entrench them all the more rigorously, forcefully in consciousnesses both public and private – this even as we farther claim the unsaid private right to keep them distinct and separate? Isn’t being zealously moral and preachy ultimately a disservice to the very aims of morality and, well, preaching?

When we focus our gaze on a particular figure for laxity or corruption and thus condemn him/her, there is hidden in that condemnation the unsaid, unacknowledged awareness of our own weakness, the awareness of our being human. We’re all fallible, all of us human; saying this is not as much as condoning corruption or laxity in public or private duty as a natural, inevitable fallout of human nature as advocating an approach to or an understanding of duty and discrepancy as potentialities within all of us. If a certain minister manipulated contracts and regulations to siphon crores of public money in his own pocket, then are all those who so vigorously condemn the act completely sure of their own incorruptibility, of their ability to stand indomitable in face of similar temptations?

It’s an old idea, but essentially pertinent to the way we understand society and relate to each other. Being aware of one’s weaknesses and ready to grant others the same doesn’t, again, necessarily mean condoning those weaknesses when they take a form injurious to other beings; nor, indeed, does it mean disregarding the demands of justice as and when they arise in such cases. What I would have it taken as, instead, would be as an empowering consciousness, as inculcating an awareness which takes humanity and human nature as such, as ever prone to transgressions, and does not make a cathartic fetish of those over the top or too injurious to the public good. These deserve to be punished, unreservedly they deserve to be punished; yet, in carrying this out, in pressing for justice and even retribution, before we ourselves go overboard with righteousness, we, and particularly those who aren’t directly victims of the act(s), should remember that all of us are prone to the same.

Of course this is a bit problematic. Saying this, one cannot escape the implication that justice, retribution, equality, all of these dissolve and become ambiguous, arbitrary. But again, more or less: these are constructs, but they have the weight of history and common practice and cannot be wished away. Indeed, it’d be in our best interests, our interests as so-called civilised, civilising society, to keep them in some form or manner. The best thing, of course, is to realise these as such, as constructs, and work towards making them relevant overall in a manner beneficial to all beings.

Which, said otherwise, is saying all of us, particularly our elected representatives, would be better occupied in orienting ourselves thus than appeasing the lust for blood too much by creating a ruckus about corruption and degeneracy as we are now.

-

Fine, fine, I admit it: it does feel different, top to bottom it does. I know I’ve denied it time and again, but I just have to admit it now. Being in MA does feel different from BA.

Duh? Well, yeah, but still, once you’ve gone on and on and told everybody left, right and centre that it feels just the same to say the exact opposite now does count for something.

How’s it different?

Well, for starters it’s a hell lot more boring!

Oh yes, so it is. There’s nothing on at all, nothing! All you can look forward to are lecturers and lectures and lectures. The Department doesn’t seem to have too much of an idea of fun so that the only supposedly extra-curricular activities it organises are talks and seminars – which, were it not for the food in the last case, it wouldn’t be half as worthwhile to attend. The professors, admittedly, are pretty competent and engaging with the usual unmentionable exceptions, but the very locale of the classes is as dull and uninspiring as can be. A long, dusty hall with benches as uncomfortable as can be: there I was, fondly imagining aeons ago a stepped hall wherein the mysteries of learning and literature would be revealed unto me. Masters of Arts. Department of English. University of Delhi. A long, straight hall…sigh.

The company’s none too animated too. Only those who sit up front can savour the delights of intercourse, for designed as it is the hall engenders a natural hierarchy which reduces those at the back to oblivion either in the text or outside the window. A happy oblivion no doubt, but oblivion nonetheless. One wouldn’t like to shout comments and questions, certainly not over heads of stupefied peers transcribing the professorial word onto paper for posterity. Thy word is my law, thy word law…

Nonetheless, what makes it really so boring is not half as much as the Department or those interred in it as the factuality of Hansraj College. Of my now being in Hansraj.

Not that there’s anything bad about Hansraj per se. True, it’s almost at the end of the world, but being so has its own charms of a spread out campus and very many nooks and crannies for quiet hours of reading and writing. Hansraj’s very good in itself.

Yet, it’s Hansraj. Not, oh well, not Ramjas.

Oh well indeed. Not Ramjas. Not familiar faces, familiar haunts, sights and sounds grown familiar over ages. Being in campus, in the academia now feels like an escape, a short cut from the reality of responsible adulthood. The training itself seems devoid of all purpose except continuance in the same and the fact of being in Hansraj, being there for whatever reasons one is there, makes the whole experience inescapably fragmented. Fragmented? Ha! Alienating, fragmented, broken, boring: a whole store full of adjectives yet words, words which fail. You’re neither here nor there: Hansraj is a continent new, Ramjas forbidden and the Faculty an obligation.

A passing phase? Undoubtedly, but that still doesn’t take away from the ramifications of the here and now, especially with there being no hereafter now. What is is and naught more shall be, such must be the lessons of life. There is, of course, more to all of it than just boredom; much happens, so much that it often gets difficult to pick and choose – still, still there’s something, something in the very nature of things, consciousness, nature which is different. Be it the fact I’m seldom on time or that I’m still to feel a sense of belonging to the Faculty, or to Hansraj for that matter, be it what it may, it’s different, it’s different, it’s different. Not just boring, but different…

Mountain out of a molehill? Of course. Yet, depends where you see the molehill from.



Notes on a Presidential Visit

Don’t you think the excitement over Obama’s latest India visit was a bit overdone, that it was hyped and, to some extent, naïve?

Of course, the visit was important and means a lot for not just US and India but a number of other nations as well. Business deals were agreed on, political commitments spelled and mutual niceties exchanged. All that was very prim and propah, all as it should be.

Yet, Obama is, well, just that, a man after all. All the media coverage about the most powerful man in the world landing, the most powerful man in the world shaking a leg, his oh so powerful wife shaking her booty, the ever so powerful couple paying respect to old Gandhi at his memorial…power, power, power. Yes, we all get it, America’s powerful, the American president’s powerful and can bully one and all. Still, that’s that and there is a line.

Not that the Americans themselves crossed it much this time. They had to bring in all their armoury to defend their powerful man, though technically I don’t see why they couldn’t trust him to the security which our own State accords its holy cows. He’d come here after all and he hadn’t really landed in Dantewada; shoot-outs happen, but I’m sure the Indian State had taken all precautions to ensure all were out and out of bounds. Powerful as he is, he could’ve trusted our capability of keeping our big-shots from harm. As for his car being this and that proof, his guard being so and so geared, his…well, if a man’s clever and really sets his heart on murder, not even the Americans can stop him. Certainly not an armada stationed not far off the coast for purposes just in case. Yes, Obama’s an important man and crucial for a lot of things a lot of places, but I really don’t see why his blokes had to send so much ammunition, much less an entire fleet, to keep him one piece. Surely our own Sardarji’s gear would’ve done?

But then, the very fact of Obama being important, powerful. I don’t quite know if they also do it so much where he comes from, but all the shrill rhetoric about the powerful man doing this and that smacked full-on of a feudal servitude that continues to characterise urban Indian discourse. Obama, the mighty god from across the seas, descends upon our shores in his mighty flying machine and goes about our roads in another, equally might wonder on wheels. Everything about Obama is grand, spectacular, epic: he’s the American President, America’s the most powerful state. We bow to thee, great American Obama!

Great American Obama. No, it’s not meant personally and I do think he’s a decent enough man, but really, most powerful man? Most powerful nation? Seriously? Was it just our media which went bonkers as usual or do the Americans too seriously believe their President’s the most powerful in the world? If they do, have they really given him the constitutional authority to be so? Is there really some console hidden in that room from which their President can play Rudra a la the nukes, no questions asked? I’m not ready to believe the Americans trust their President so much as to give him the power to arbitrate war and peace all on his own. If they have, as all the oh-so-powerful rhetoric – unwittingly? – implies, then so much so for their love of freedom and democracy: what is their President then but a tyrant, a big, powerful bully whose writ is law.

Great and American undoubtedly, but not Great American. Yet, that precisely is what our engagement with him seemed to imply. Thank heavens for the frigidity of foreign offices in general, for the way everybody else gushed one would’ve thought the gods themselves had walked the earth. Obama’s wife dances with Mumbai kids: oh, she’s so pretty, so nice, so fashionable! Obama gives a speech in Parliament: oh, he’s so witty, so astute, such a statesman! Yes, all of that is undeniably true: the missus is nice and fashionable, the mister an astute statesman; but the way we did it implied such condescension, that it was such a favour which the Obamas bestowed upon us all by being nice and human.

Of course, as a nation we don’t expect the mighty to descend to such lows: we expect favours to be coated with red tape and rarefy power to Meruvian heights – something of the sort is always expected and people like me ought to be immune to it. Still, one can’t but be irritated at repeated displays of such awe and fawning in front of foreigners. Think about it, was giving that rock such a big thing? Obama donates a piece of marble from some under-construction memorial for Martin Luther King and the keepers of Rajghat erupt in joy and pride. A piece of marble? Yes, personal choice, perfectly valid; valid too the privilege of such choice to a head of state. But seriously, twas just a rock: along with being President, Obama is also just another man.

Regardless, what irks most of all is the development rhetoric. “India is not rising”, quips Obama, “India has risen”. I’m sorry, but I refuse to subscribe to this rising-risen rhetoric: it presupposes a universality, an underlying consensus on a host of notions on developed and developing, advanced and backward. Western economic models make much of the world down and out, but then these models are quite essentially the result of systems of labour which got consolidated by exploiting the rest of the world in the first place. Applying parameters premised on these models to judge a whole people is co-opting them further into those very systems. When Obama says India has arrived, he puts India on a pedestal created historically and sustained still on exploitation and discrimination. One might excuse him for doing so – I’m sure he thinks twas very nice of him – but the sight of people all over India erupting for joy is, to say the least, as distastefully childish as can be: agreed as urban Indian bourgeoisies we’re as much American as Indian, but still, we don’t really need an Obama to tell us whether we’ve ‘arrived’ or not, do we?

Apparently not. Countless activists can cry themselves hoarse about environmental damage, economic disparity, communal tension, sexual harassment, caste violence and so on. But India’s rising nonetheless. At what cost? The lives of millions of voiceless Indians. Being an industrial and military ‘superpower’ a la the American way seems the only goal to work to; why humanity cannot survive peacefully otherwise is a matter not worth consideration…

Barack Obama’s a sensible, intelligent man. His visiting India was a nice enough gesture. Yet, all said and done, it was just a gesture: it merited a nuanced response, not the hysteria which it provoked in so many quarters.