There are days and then there are days. Some days go on exactly like the ones that preceding them, exhibiting almost no character of their own, a mere carbon copy, a blank lifeless shadow. While there are some days where unexpected events happen one after the other and snowball into something bigger than the sum of the parts, effecting a profound or maybe not so profound change in your sense of perception. Today falls into the latter category (as can probably be seen with this long overdue update!) :P
Things have always been far from ideal in this great country of ours. I guess even that’s an understatement. The electricity is erratic, the water supply inefficient and insufficient, poor telecom services across the board, corrupt and lazy bureaucracy, an inept police force, lax and rarely administered laws, and a political class which roughly commands the same respect as the criminals, or probably even less. And these are just the essential requisites I talk about. But in spite of the grim picture, we’ve strived. Grappled with the almost insurmountable problems and managed to make a semblance of a name and place for ourselves. We work hard, hope harder and pray the hardest . Whatever the methods maybe, we seem to make it despite the overwhelming odds. A strong reason and driver for this-seemingly-a-success story is our innate and almost unnatural ability to “ADJUST” no matter what. No space in the train compartment? That’s hardly a problem, we can always adjust thoda sa. No surprise the trains with a maximum capacity of 2000 carry five times that much in Bombay. Water coming only twice a day in a trickle? Ah, that’s easy to get by with. We’ll store bucketfuls at the crack of dawn. Rapid and incessant load shedding during summers? Arre, that shouldn’t be a problem. The retort is that Newton/ Einstein (basically any famous scientist you can think) bhi toh streetlights ke niche padhe hai! Basically, as the new rage of the season, 3 Idiots professes (and we idiotically accept), All is Well or in our context it should be All is fucking stupendous in spite of any goddamn shit because that’s just life here! After all it’s not Amreeka now, is it? And this adjustment doesn’t end with the physical space but percolates to every life-decision. From career choices, the car you select, the person you choose etc etc. This is the reason people are stuck in dead beat jobs with no future forced to act like corporate drones, love-less relationships continuing just for the sake of society. After all, log kya kahenge is more important than personal happiness and satisfaction, right?
The abovementioned rant is nothing new. Neither is it a path breaking insight into our incredibly-dysfunctional-and-divided-yet-striving-and–lecturing–the-world-about-harmony-and-co-existence society.
Today, like many other automobile enthusiasts I headed out to visit the Auto Expo ‘10. Accounting for the humongous crowds and congested locales, I intelligently (or so I thought!) decided to use the Delhi Metro. The ride from CP to Pragati Maidan (the venue) led me to wonder if this is what a crudely performed colonoscopy in full public view feels like? And believe me that’s not an exaggeration. I don’t want to complain about it further. Did that already sometime before! That was not all. Upon reaching there because I was not one of the pass-waalas I had to buy a ticket costing 200 bucks, the sale of which, surprisingly had been closed down 15 minutes ago at 3 o’ clock! Yes, 3 p.m. A full 4 hours before the scheduled closure of the exhibition. And the douche bags who designed the official website didn’t find it necessary to put it up there. How very convenient you say? Hell yeah! And since it was one of THOSE days, upon trudging back to the metro station, I find an hour long line to get back into the station! And since all other public transport is not more useful than dog poop, only after walking a couple of kilometers to the next metro station could I get back my life on track (pun intended), where of course another colonoscopy awaited me, but then that should be the least of my worries, right?
What I want to ask is that is there a limit to this all? I mean c’mon, surely there must come a point when this can’t go on? The limits of our tolerance of inefficiency and chaos in society?
No one cares, no one bothers, no one gives a shit. We’re all happy in our cocoon like existence. Fighting the good and honorable fight, fending for ourselves, getting on with the day, proceeding to perform the same clockwork like routine. We all watch with zombie-like stares and life goes from bad to worse to unimaginable. We’ve been numbed by enormous amounts of apathy to point of where nothing ever shocks us anymore. We’ve all seen this before, heard it before, been there but did nothing even then. Nothing ever changes and neither do we. We watch with glee as our impotent and ball-less political class gets shamed in every filthy scam there can be, deriving some sort of a sadistic and maniacal pleasure in the age of 24 hour news channels which sensationalize to no end and whose veracity can’t be trusted in this age when even most of the news is bought out by the very perpetrators who they claim to expose. Kudos to Mr. N.D. Tiwari for his vigour though! :P
Prices of essential commodities keep shooting through the roof but the government stares on like an impuissant fuck refusing to do anything, irrespective of who rules. The only things that change with the party in power are the pictures on the walls of government offices and our textbooks. I could go on and on about this but then you get the drift. Basically when you think things can’t get any worse, they do and the worst part is that we’ve all made our peace with it, cut our deals and carry on livin’
We, Indians are very proud of our close knit community like structure, often ridiculing the west for their concept of nuclear families and individualism. But as Samar Halarnkar, HT’s Editor-In-Chief, pointed out recently, “Isn’t it funny how the west treasures individualism yet works wonderfully as a community, and we in the third world, treasure our community ties but settle for an every-man-for-himself approach in our public spaces and actions? ” That is exactly one of the primary roots of our malaise.
People say anger is bad for you, I say if it helps you channelize your thoughts and energies into something introspective and life-affirming, what’s the harm?
The great French mathematician/ philosopher/ poet, Paul Valéry once said aptly, “Two dangers constantly threaten the world: order and disorder.” India’s and our problem is that we have most of the latter and too little of the former…
P.S. To those who may think that I’ve just stated the problem(s) and not offered a solution, I say, Well if I’d done that it wouldn’t remain a rant, now would it? :P
