The house of Sankaran on Vali street of Thangagramam was a picture in contrast. Among the row of little brick huts, that formed the landscape of this most neglected part of the village, Sankaran’s house was a pathetic mud structure, its roof half-covered with leaves and thatches, and the door ordained by a modest-sized symbol of his faith – ॐ. The doors of other houses, on the other hand, displayed large crosses proudly declaring their occupants’ embrace of a faith that claimed to bring them salvation from all the miseries that they had been brought up in and didn’t foresee an escape from in any imaginable future.
Sankaran belonged to the lowliest of all castes in the village’s society – a scavenging caste that, though central to the village eco-system, was always discriminated against. People of his caste were never included in any of the village festivals; they were banned from using common public spaces and utilities, and were not even allowed entry inside the village temple – the only abode of the Lord in whose eyes all men and women, as Sankaran had often heard as a little kid from his parents, were equal and worthy.
The Vali street lay on the outskirts of the village where no one of a nobler birth ever ventured near. It formed a part of the world conveniently forgotten and ignored by everyone else in the village. Centuries after centuries, generations after generations, and rulers after rulers came and went, but Vali street continued to languish in misery and sorrow. Not many had complained though. It was all considered a part of the justice system that God had designed around the actions of all things in this world – the system of Karma.
Sankaran too had been brought up in the same philosophy. His parents had often told him that their birth in the lowest caste was God’s way of punishing them for the bad deeds they had committed in their previous lives and that they must ensure that they lead a life of virtue if they seek salvation from this misery in their next birth. It was their unshakeable faith in this system that even a mention of conversion to another religion, and by that act defy what was ordained for them by God, horrified them to the extreme.
They had led good lives, Sankaran mused, and had died peaceful deaths, all in the unwavering devotion to God and his promise of salvation. But he had his own doubts. Life was becoming increasingly difficult to lead for him and his family. The world, it seemed to him, had moved on much faster than he had. The world that he now witnessed around him wore snazzy clothes, drove fancy cars, and lived in palaces. Deep in his heart he felt cheated by the society, by his parents, and by God for making him believe that he had no place in that new world. He wanted his children to study, wanted to buy them good clothes, wanted them to lead a life of respect, wanted them to be a part of the new world, but he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t afford it. He couldn’t take up any other profession even if he wanted to, not just because he didn’t know anything about anything else other than scavenging, but also because no one would let him. It was almost as if he was tied to a pole by a rope sanctioned by divinity frequently impaled by a spear designed by the society and then forced to keep his mouth shut and accept his agony and pain as his rewards.
But things were changing now. Ten years ago a group of very fair people dressed in a strange attire and speaking a strange language had come to the village. They were indeed strange because they did what was unthinkable for the rest of the villagers – enter Vali street. They knocked on every door, spoke to everyone, and offered everyone clothing, food, and money. And they did this at every house in the street. They had come to Sankaran’s house too, he remembered. Sankaran’s father, his face crimson, his eyes burning with rage, his fists closed, and his mouth uttering expletives that he had never imagined his father would ever utter, had literally driven them out of their house and had sternly warned them to not venture anywhere near his house or his family ever. He had realized later that those were missionaries, who had arrived professing a new God, a new religion, and a new promise of respite from their miseries.
Sankaran’s father may have despised those missionaries but to his dismay the others didn’t share either his reason or his faith in Karma. Slowly but surely, one by one, every family on Vali street deserted the faith of their forefathers and embraced the new faith that had come knocking on their doors. The missionaries promised them new jobs, promised their children education in their schools, promised them the opportunity to break the shackles of their caste that they had been chained with and join the new world taking shape around them. Over the last ten years Sankaran had witnessed some of those promises being fulfilled, and how God, contrary to what he had been made to believe, didn’t seem to mind this apostasy. He had wondered why. Was it that his God was waiting for an opportunity to teach the defectors a lesson? Would he have to face His wrath if he too followed others and accepted the alien faith? He had now his doubts. He was beginning to feel that the God of the missionaries was indeed the real God and that the God he had believed in was nothing but a punitive manifestation of the Upper castes’ desire to subjugate them.
The previous day the pastor from the local chapel had come to visit him. He counseled Sankaran to accept the word of Christ and open the world of opportunities that he had deprived himself of all these years. He left a book and a cross at his house and asked him to come to the chapel and receive the blessings of God.
“Suniye Bhaiya! Ye kitne ka hai?”
How many of us have used this line in our daily lives! Whether in the gift shop, the Big Bazaar, the subzi mandi, the saree shop, the sweet shop or any such place, we have often witnessed ourselves putting forth this inane query to a helpless, pitiful, weakling of the human species.
The language, or the tone, or perhaps even the demeanour may change from one place to another but the inherent question remains the same.
I too am no different. I have abused this single sentence so many times that it by far must have become the most commonly spoken sentence across all languages in India.
What I hadn’t observed so far is the mental attitude that accompanied the seemingly innocuous question. Often, and I am discounting the lavish, affluent, up-market shops or showrooms, the attendant workforce in these shops is relatively looked down upon by me. Primarily because in my opinion they are not well-educated, many of them are basically foolish since they don’t understand simple things are almost always clueless, they are low on capabilities – zero sales skills and pretty much non-existent communication skills. The more mass-market the commercial establishment, the lower my opinion of the shop attendants.
Yeah yeah, you may raise your finger at me and call me a pompous swellhead with a giant ego, but at least I am honest enough to admit what I feel. It may be misplaced but to come to a point where I am at least aware of the subconscious thought process that guides my actions is in itself an achievement for me. So there!
Now, it is quite a shock to me when I am at the receiving end of the question in question. Yes, ME. Not once, not twice, but innumerable times while I would be loitering about an aisle in a supermarket or casually browsing through the contents in a shop when I would be posed this query by a stranger.
It hurts me. Really. Because it immediately tells me that I somehow surprisingly exhibit all those qualities that I have subconsciously ascribed to the lowly creatures of the shop-attendant kind. It hurts me to know that despite wearing a T-shirt that carries the unmistakable logo of the very famous “Well known Institute of Management in Western India” that I have had the privilege of studying in the stranger does not hesitate even for a second before proceeding to assume that I am one of “THEM”.
Well, it happened to me yet again yesterday and this time in a Big Bazaar, arguably the most mass-market commercial establishment. The perpetrators this time were not one, two, but three people in succession who came up to me and asked me the price of a stupid mosquito-annihilation device that resembled a tennis racquet. All this happened while I was in an insouciant manner practicing my forehand with one of the pieces on display.
My immediate reaction was to break their heads with the device, then throw them on the ground and jump on their chests until their hearts popped out which I would then tear apart with my bare hands. But I am by nature a non-violent person and my inherent passive disposition eventually prevailed over my instincts.
But I did learn an important lesson yesterday. No, it is not that my respect for the shop attendants has increased remarkably. I don’t suppose that is likely to happen very soon. What I learnt was far more important and perhaps more essential for a better life. A life where embarrassments would be less and occasions for placing our feet in the most unlikely place of our mouths would be rare.
The lesson: Always make sure that the person who you are going to ask the question in question is indeed a shop attendant. Look for a tag, a uniform, or any other identification. Else, at least wait for someone else to speak to the person before you do.
What if you don’t? Well, remember not everyone is of a passive disposition as I am. :-)
Indians are often criticized by many for their poor civic sense particularly hygiene and cleanliness. By who? Well, at the least the elite and the educated in India do. Well, at least those in the network of my acquaintance do. Oh well, at least I do. It is frequently mentioned, often to the point of inducing hatred towards India and the Indians, that we, the Indians, do not know, appreciate, or even understand the value of maintaining cleanliness, especially outside the walls of our residences.
I will not dispute any of these allegations and it would be imprudent if I were to try to even remotely justify the callous indifference with which we, the Indians, treat public areas. I will also not try to cleverly manipulate you into believing that the blame for this mess lies with the Government, the authorities, the ‘system’ (whatever that means!), and what have you. I will also not try to commence a lecture on the benefits of cleanliness because I believe that anyone who is capable of reading this blog has learnt all that was to be learnt about the benefits of cleanliness in the process of their schooling.
So what is this whole rant all about? First of all, I would advise you not to label all this output of words as a ‘rant’ and discard it outright. I don’t believe that repeating a problem statement sufficient number of times reveals the solution automatically. We need to think, apply our minds, or innovate to produce a solution to a problem. With this inspiring thought I now proceed to propose a method by which we, the Indians, can be ‘encouraged’ to be more responsible and considerate towards the notion of civic sense.
No, this article is not a discourse on another great revolutionary idea about education, morality, and global warming. Instead, this article is about ‘Fear’. Yes, the same fear that gripped our hearts, occupied our mindspace during the Y2K chaos. The same fear that now scares the hell out of us when we have to drink a glass of water at a roadside ‘thela’ selling delicious samosas. The same fear that advises people, especially women, to not travel alone late in the night in the city of Delhi.
Fear I believe has been, is, and would always be the biggest motivator for the mankind. Fear makes us do things that we would never do, or as a corollary, would make us not do things that we have always been doing. Fear is the key to a man’s mindspace. Get fear into a man’s mind and he will readily do whatever you ask him to do. A very common policy, I say, that is often employed by the politicians of this country to ‘motivate’ people to give the former their invaluable votes.
So how do we use ‘Fear’ to elevate the abysmal standards of civic sense? Consider the following scenarios.
a. A plastic bag supposedly containing garbage thrown on the roadside of a busy shopping area
b. An open garbage dump that has been in existence for years in the corner of a residential colony
c. A crumpled piece of paper lying on the corridor of a mall or a commercial complex
“What about them”, one may ask as one is often used to such a sight across the length and breadth of India. But imagine the above scenarios with the following modifications:
a. A plastic bag supposedly containing explosive material thrown on the roadside of a busy shopping area
b. An open garbage dump in a residential colony contains a bag full of explosive materials
c. A crumpled piece of paper lying on the corridor of a mall or a commercial complex contains anthrax or other such potentially dangerous bio-weapon
If the above modifications do not succeed in running a chill down your spine, then you are either well protected, or you are one of those who were looking for a new idea to strike terror and now have found one thanks to this blog.
It is not very difficult to see how our indifference to unattended garbage lying about can be taken advantage of very conveniently by the Terrorists.
However, imagine these scenarios in an imaginary India where an instance of unattended garbage lying about is rare, where the people and police are vigilant about those who recklessly throw about garbage in public areas. It would be extremely difficult for one to inconspicuously plant a bomb or such and get away.
The key, I reiterate, is Fear. The fear of being blown away by bombs I hope is potent enough to drive people to dispose off their garbage in a more organized and ‘safe’ manner. It is only a matter of using the Fear Factor the right way. Radical thought? Well, I said so. :-)
