Everyone's writing a novel

Simply uncorking your memories does not mean that you’re a story-teller

My uncle, his neighbour and his neighbour’s sister and her brother-in-law and their Cocker Spaniel – they’re all writing a novel, it looks like. Ever since Arundhati wrote about ordinary things happening in ordinary places and their far-reaching impact, all of us Indians have come uncorked with our stories. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m no snob who believes that English fiction writing is the exclusive turf of the chi-chi haw-haw strata. Or that fiction has to come from the deep tortured insides of a writer. I don’t care about the distinction between high brow and low brow and middle brow and no brow. Everything is narration.
What I find (as a reader and as a book editor who reads the works of hundreds of hopefuls) is that too many aspiring Indian writers in English are totally mired in autobiographical material. Again, nothing terribly wrong with that, all writers ‘mine’ their minds and lives. Why, however, a lot of it is unreadable is that many writers are simply unable to take what happened to them and universalize it in any way. The autobiographical never makes the jump to the kind of writing/narration to which other people can relate and in which they can hear echoes.
If the memories and incidents from the past came with any kind of emotional/social/intellectual insights, these stories might have held some interest and become publishable. This is not the case. There is nothing touching or instructive or engrossing or revealing in any of the strings of episodes that a lot of people choose to simply prattle on about.
So much unpublished guy writing (called lad-lit, like chick-lit) is about life in school or college hostel, and monotonously tells you about the adolescent crush on another boy, or the English teacher, the smoking/drinking experiment, or goes into excruciating and baffling detail about the physics lecture. It often boils down to nothing more than those ‘hey remember when we were in college...” kind of reminiscences that are ok when you’re sitting around with four friends, but does not make the cross-over to being readable literature, frankly. It’s the same with a lot of young (and old) women writers, who are putting in a lot of hard work, no doubt, in telling stories that no one wants to hear. That’s because, again, the stories simply don’t ‘travel’ – from the writer’s life, to touch the life of the reader.
The minute you say this kind of thing (as kindly as possible) to a person who wants to be published, sadly, the response is something like: “Oh everyone can’t be a Rushdie.” But I’m not talking Rushdie here at all. I’m not talking about ‘classes’ versus ‘masses’ kind of distinctions. I’m all for more easily accessible writing, but if you’re writing fiction (and not just your autobiography), it has to grow horns, a tail or two, some sharp nails, some moments and nuances in the content as well as in the way you tell it. Or else it’s just canteen (or kitty-party or chai tapri or board-room) chit-chat trying to pass off as fiction.
Sometimes, people write down stories or incidents/anecdotes from their life to better understand the past and its impact on the present. It is therapeutic, perhaps, this exercise. And I’m all for it. However, this does not necessarily automatically transform it into a piece of writing that is accessible and/or of interest to anyone else. For this kind of self-examination to turn into fiction of any kind of wider appeal, much more would need to go into it. The art and craft of writing is definitely more demanding businesss than simply uncorking your memories and theories, is what I’m trying to say here to all of you (us) working so hard and hoping so fervently to be published. Self-absorption and contemplating your navel rarely are the right tools to become a good writer, frankly.
There are so many avenues for people wanting to talk about their pasts or their presents, without having to do the complicated hard work of fictionalizing and universalizing the story. There are blogs, and chats or diaries or amateur, informal writers’ forums.
There is a Marathi sentence that I always find very touching when people use it: “Mala kahi sangaychay” – ‘I have something to tell’. This is a universal impulse – but that doesn’t necessarily make it literature. Hemingway put it wonderfully: "All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that it all happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was." If you can do that, you are a writer.

Am I dreaming or...

We’ve all laughed and cursed plenty at the famous, traditional crustiness of Pune’s shopkeepers. You know, the old jokes about how they dismissively say “too expensive for you” when you ask them to show you something in the shop. Or how they slam the door in your face as soon as it’s lunch time. I have personally experienced this – where I entered the shop as the shutter was to come down, and found my body almost sliced into two halves by the briskly descending shutter that the man kept pulling down though he had spotted me walking through the entrance. And I was caught in the classical Catch-22: because I was half out, I would not be served (“come back after 4pm”), and because I was half in, I could not exit from the entrance; I was marched to the back of the shop to exit in quite another lane from which I had entered. My crime: asking to be served at 1.02 pm.
Well, guess what, quite a bit of it is changing. And it’s not just the newer more savvy shopkeepers who are showing customers a friendlier face. Last Sunday I saw it everywhere, in all my old haunts. Took me by surprise, I can tell you. I had to rearrange my features - to return smiles, nods, welcoming salutations and thank yous. It was quite something. Put it to recession, to competition, to maturation, or to the coming of the next generation. Take the little shop opposite Mandai where I buy little frames and get things framed. The dour man who never showed me even a flicker of recognition all these years, was replaced by his daughter. The young girl chatted, showed me a bunch of choices to select from, and then cheerfully and expertly attached hooks to the backs of my little frames. Next stop, the guy who buys thinned out brass vessels off you. Again, two young boys weighed, paid up, and spread out a lovely choice of things that I could buy to replace the brass vessel that I sadly let go. Onward to the fellow who keeps yummy esoteric foods like ‘matki papad’ and ‘lissa sakhar’. Normally it would take me a whole 5 minutes at least to get noticed and heard by this gent. Even if there was no one else in the shop! And then another 10 minutes to elicit a grumpy “don’t have it”. This time round, he nodded me in, began to immediately pull out the things that I asked for and actually picked up the phone to ask when the dried onion flakes would arrive, and regretfully told me that it would take another week. When I said never mind, I’ll come back, he said “sorry I know you come from so far”. I jumped out of my skin, and wondered if I had heard that right. In this previous avatar he would have, if you dared to sigh about having come from a far-flung suburb all the way to their shop, shrugged or curled the top corner of one lip. As if to say “Who told you to live in the boonies?”
The same mellow mood was apparent at the cold-pressed oil merchant’s shop. I was on the earlier Pune shopping mode - when it got close to 1 pm, you had to simply give up on the idea of finishing your chores and shopping list in time. Now as I approached his shop and saw the wooden shutters being unfurled for a full shut-down, I thought I would save myself the indignity of being shooed away, and simply stopped on the pavement. The young man (possibly third generation there) who saw me, and the elderly shop assistant, smiled and reopened the doors (believe me, I am not making this up). On top of it, where earlier you were expected to bring your own little cans and bottles, or else go home without your fragrant cold-pressed til and coconut and groundnut oils, this time they pouched it for me. Customer convenience, smiles, consideration and mellow conversations...you better believe it, it’s the softer face of the third-gen Pune shopowner.
Now whether it was this sweetness and light that put me in a good mood, or whether things all around me are getting a little, little bit gentler, I don’t know. But I get the feeling that there is also an increasing tribe of polite drivers on the road too. Suddenly it feels as if I’m not the only one giving way, waving other cars on when they’re stuck at a U-turn, and slowing down or halting completely for pedestrians. I’ve been encountering quite a few others who will do that too, on the road. Somebody pinch me!

FriendsOfBooks is a terrific idea - dunno how they do it!

I stumbled on this great service - an online lending library FriendOfBooks. The person who runs it, Arti Jain, and I got talking, and she's put both my books into her library, and I believe they're being borrowed! The service is available in several cities, Pune included. Do check it out. I think it's the perfect answer to wanting to read stuff but not necessarily adding it to your bookshelf (and floorspace)and dusting cleaning chores.
It must be quite an operation to manage, and salaams to the people who keep it up and running. You can buy or borrow books at http://www.friendsofbooks.com
Check it out here

Music-possessed

World Space Radio plays this deep into the night on Gandharva channel sometimes. It is a piece of music that is haunting me - last 5 months, and i've been searching everywhere for it. The internet mysteriously has references to it, but when I get to the sites, it talks of everything else but that piece.
It's sitar player debu chaudhuri's kaushi kanhara (alap, jod, jhala, vilambit gat and drut gat). It is the most magical piece of music I have heard in a long time - and I've heard much magical music. There is love, patience, restlessness, complaint, understanding, resolution, all kinds of things in this masterful piece. The raag is a lovely one, but he's brought so much complexity and nuance to it that it stands in a class of its own, his rendition.
HMV brought it out and i think has not gone CD with it.
I will cook and serve a gourmet meal to anyone who finds this for me. And of course pay you whatever it cost you to acquire the music, guys!
look, look, please look.
I'm trying to see if pandit debu himself has it in his own recordings...but that's a long shot.

people get famous, i just get anonymous

this thing that i published somewhere once, and put up on my blog, is doing the rounds on the Net. and magically, my name has vanished from the end of this piece. so, for the record, i wrote this, it got published here and there, it is up on my blog.
it didnt just write itself, you know!
g


"Array…. maraychay kay?"

All the characters here are entirely real, and resemblance to anyone you know is not a coincidence at all - of course, with the rider that there are honourable exceptions to every stereotype. . .


Most entrances to homes greet you with a 'Welcome' mat, or maybe a pair of plaster hands in Namaste pose, or even a sticker proclaiming "Guest is God". The Maharashtrian' s front door, however, will greet you with the terse suggestion: "Slippers here"….(Note the economy of words - Lesser mortals would have wordily said: "Kindly remove your slippers here"). Other such injunctions include: "Ring the bell, and WAIT" or (of course in Pune: "Salespeople and hawkers will be handed over to the police". )

Once you've run that gauntlet, and been allowed entry - but only after a good, long two-minute inspection from the peep-hole - chances are that you'll be left to find a place to sit, while the family disappears inside to wear shirts and pull on trousers over their banyans and striped boxer shorts - the "Kulkarni Bermudas". That done, it is not unusual for them to announce, "We just had tea." And that is that. Don't take it personally. We are like that only. If you had visions of chai andpakodas, you're in the wrong part of India. The Rest of India may waste time and money on hospitality. We have better things to do.

The Maharashtrian shopkeeper extends this rather dim view of visitors to his customers too. Just because circumstances have placed him in a position to have to soil his hands with the degrading task of selling things, that doesn’t mean you take undue advantage of him, enter his shop, and rub it in, by actually asking for merchandise and service, dammit. They've got their strategy worked out. While one may greet you with a "We don't stock it," another may helpfully point you towards some more enterprising shopkeeper (who is dismissively referred to as 'non-Maharashtrian' ) where you can take your custom. And if you still foolishly insist on being told the price of something in his shop, he'll put you in your place by saying: "It's expensive." While the other crass and shameless pursuers of business open up yards of cloth and waterfalls of saris for you to choose from, the Maharashtrian shopkeeper will indicate a tightly packed stack and ask you to make your choice quickly. No "Aiye bhenji, kya piyengi?" obsequiousness from him. If it was legal and didn't cost money, he'd hire someone to stand there with a big stick so that you don’t annoy him by entering in the first place. Many shops carry a stern warning on a little blackboard right at the threshold: "No pointless ("phaltu") enquiries". This includes asking for directions or for change for a hundred rupees, asking what time it is, asking for water to drink or for the price of anything in the shop.

But here's the thing: We've had women doctors and writers and thinkers for over two centuries now. We're big on education and reform. We'll change trains, take buses and walk to lectures on the most esoteric of topics. We'll come out in full strength, ages ranging from 9 to 90, to fill the classical music halls to capacity, delighting musicians from all over the country with our discerning ear.

Quite contrary to the rest of our famously brittle, black-or-white character, we Maharashtrians are sensitive and responsive music listeners. We may not like everything we hear, but we will rarely reject anyone outright. We attend music programmes round the year in gratifyingly large numbers, to listen to the rising stars as well as to applaud setting suns.

For decades now, Maharashtra’s Hindustani music listeners have been a performer’s delight. Many a singer/player has said that it is always rewarding to perform here. And if not rewarding, it is highly revealing, because the audience usually has a discerning ear, which has heard a lot of music, and will make its pleasure and displeasure known, gently but firmly. A musician is able to get a good measure of his skills from the audience reaction in Maharashtra.

A false note struck by the artist will get a murmur of - not quite disapproval -but something like discomfort, or sometimes even sympathy, particularly if it is a young up-coming performer or an ageing, much loved ustaad/pandit.

Experiments will not necessarily be frowned upon. When a musician first reveals a variation that he has introduced, our ears are on high-alert, while we consult our music-souls - and our encyclopaedic knowledge - about whether it feels and sounds right. The second time that the unusual note appears, this new spot, or jagah as it is called, it will be received either with small smiles, nods, clicks of the tongue and sometimes with an out-and-out “Wah-wah!” If we don’t like what we hear, the performer will hear the stony (the Marathi word for it is makkha) silence, see us looking away uneasily, and get the message. We won’t be rude at the performance, but it is possible that on our way home one of us will ask: “What was he doing treating the raag like a dombari (street acrobat)?”

How we dress for a performance is also something quite unique. Simply put, we just don’t dress up. Unlike in other parts of India, music performances here are rarely or never ‘dos’ at which we must be seen. So what we wear is immaterial. We will not turn up in tussar silks and diamonds - more likely it'll be sensible synthetics and flat-heeled sandals, even those plain-jane corduroy black slip-on shoes that are so practical when it comes to running for that last bus after the programme…And while on the topic of dressing: if it rains, while the rest of India cowers under trees or buys fashionable rainwear, we are known to keep our heads dry by simply wearing a plastic bag on it. Sartorial fussiness is for the prissy Rest of India.

Ostentation and excess of any kind we disdain. So Bollywood leaves most of us cold. Having a film star for a neighbour is more than likely to really annoy us, "because he and his friends use the lift too much, till all odd hours of the night". We might hang around a cricketer's home to catch a glimpse or have our kids photographed with him, but film stars…..naaah - or "shyaa" as we like to say, when at our dismissive best. Hindi not being our strong point, we might say peevishly to the rikshaw driver who slows down to gawk at a passing film star: "Arre, amchya paas Sachin hay, tarr iss bandar ko kyon baghnayka?"

While Marathi is our mother tongue, sarcasm is our second language. We learn it at our granny's knee. Other kids are complimented with a "What a sweet child you are," when they behave. The Maharshtrian child is rewarded with: "Wah….today you're giving your stupidity a rest?" So we're caustic….even when we're being helpful. The first Marathi words that outsiders quickly learn from the bus conductors is: "Array…. maraychay kay?" ("Hey…want to die?") It's just the warm Marathi way of telling you to come to the front of the bus and not risk your life on the crowded footboard.

'Abrupt' is our middle name. No elaborate, formal, polite conversations for us. Displaying affection, paying and accepting compliments, making small talk….we just can't do it. Greet one of us with a hug, and we're likely to go stiff and subtly ward you off with a rigid palms-outward pre-emptive move. If you step back and say "You're looking lovely," we'll look away and mumble or make some silly joke and change the subject fast. Don't expect a simple 'thank you', and furthermore, don’t ever expect to be complimented in return. We wouldn't know how.

Now go read something else. It's our lunch time.

The Marathi Oxford Dictionary

As we say in Marathi….
Just like the Oxford English Dictionary periodically absorbs words of Indian origin, and in that way acknowledges that they are now in such common use that they have become part of English vocabulary, it’s time for an update of the Marathi dictionaries too. There are some English words and phrases that we Puneris love so much, and use so effectively while speaking Marathi, that future generations won’t recognize them as non-Marathi words at all. Whether they’ve become so popular and easily absorbed into everyday Marathi because they perform a role that the original Marathi word cannot, or whether it’s just our way of shining marna (see below), is the stuff of debate between linguists, sociologists, and psychologists, far beyond the humble scope of this column. Here we will only attempt to list the Top Twenty of these imports and show you how they’re correctly pronounced and used in Marathi – by the man on the street and by characters in Marathi serials.

Actchually: We love actchually. It is used soto voce, when we want to tell you an inside secret, as in: Actchually, they are not married. Or we may use it for emphasis, like: Actchually (which means - believe it or not), he drove over the divider. (A common occurrence in Pune.)
Aadmit zalay: Anyone who is hospitalized, is admit zalay. Not pronounced in some clipped angrezi ‘udmit’ way – but as ‘aadmit’. Once a person has been declared aadmit, then all his relatives are free to take leave from work, no questions asked, to watch if he is going to off zalay (as in leave for heavenly abode).
As A: Used in the sense of ‘in the capacity of’. Somebody’s husband is transferred to Head Office ‘As A general manager’. The ‘A’ is pronounced as in age. You may be asked, if you inform someone that you work, say in a newspaper office: “As A?” Then you reply: sub-editor, writer, reporter, general manager…etc.
Cansull: No doubt there is a Marathi word for this, but we take great pleasure in announcing “Cansull” – if someone asks – what happened to the meeting, why is not being held? Or what happened to the 10.15 bus? Cansull has a blunt finality to it which we love. Rolls of our tongue so well.
Chappterr: No, not as in chapter of a book or chapter of an association, and other such ordinary chapters. This one means ‘a real character’, an eccentric. Next time you meet some crazy uncle of yours, go home muttering to yourself “What a Chappterr”. And you’ll get the flavour of how we use it in Marathi.
Deesh: When we hold a reception, and we distribute dry-as-bone chiwda and laadu sliding about on a paper dish, we will be at our hospitable best as you’re leaving, and ask you: “Have you taken deesh?” Not plate, remember; it’s deesh. And once you’ve eaten the contents of our deesh, our duty towards you as hosts has been solemnly discharged. And you can go home.
Doctor ni hopes sodlay: Said with a somber expression – this signals that the person you’re talking about has gone beyond the pale of medical assistance. Remember, hopes sodlay, is only ever about terminal illness; not about any general feeling of hopelessness, or disappointment, or having slim chances of winning the lottery, and such like. It’s about nearing the end, signaled by the doctor abandoning hope.
Ejjucated: This word we love to masticate and spit out at each other. As in: If you ejjucated people talk like this, then really…or… You may be highly ejjucated, but haven’t you learnt any manners?
Faiu: Somehow, we love our faiu. Even when we can say paach, we say faiu. And if we’ve called someone up many times, we’ll say with some irritation – that we had to call faiu-faiu times.
Imphrovise: Reading spiritual literature helps us to imphrovise ourselves. It’s got nothing to do with improvise as in invent or concoct. It’s us, improving ourselves. See how we iron out the silly inconsistencies of the English language. Why the heck should improve and improvise mean totally different things? Real chappterr these English people are.
Juuust: It means ‘hardly a few seconds ago’. As in: The bus has juuust left; or the person you called up was juuust talking about you. For further emphasis, we may say juuust atta.
Moodoff: When something really puts us off, when we lose our enthusiasm, we become really moodoff. And you shouldn’t mess with us then. Give us faiu minutes to recover our mood.
Neglect: The way we use it, it has nothing to do with abandonment or desertion. If our kid is throwing a tantrum, we’ll caution you against paying him any attention in one word: “Neglect!” If your mother-in-law is bugging you, we have one word of advise: “Neglect!” Somehow, we don’t like ‘ignore’. Possibly because it doesn’t have all those lovely hard consonants that the word neglect has.
Nervhus: This covers a range of emotional states. From exam jitters, to awkwardness to shyness and on to anxiety. Don’t be nervhus, we say kindly, when we want to put you at ease.
Nonsance: Any irritating theory, bad product, silly behaviour, unreasonable, childish demand, or plain stupidity is summed up and dismissed by the final verdict: Nonsance!
Norrmal: When we want someone who’s nervhus to calm down, we may ask them to become norrmal. Also, if you’re not your usual self, we may look sharply at you and ask you why you’re not norrmal. There’s no abnormality hinted at here. It’s just our way to check if you’re upsait (see below).
Shining: To do shining, is to show off. You can do this in your new car, a new outfit, a new job…just do shining and make everyone else jaylous.
Tenshun: A person who gets nervhus is also prone to tenshun. We get tenshun at the drop of a hat. Tenshun ala – we say, if you show up late, or stare at us, or worse, give us a compliment. And don’t take tenshun, we tell you, when we want you to relax about something.
Thaankyou: We have an uneasy relationship with this word (it’s one word, in Marathi). It makes us hugely awkward, if you thank us. We get all curly and say oh, We only, Your thankyou. Or we say angrily, What thank you, don’t say thank you. And we ourselves say thankkkyou to someone only when we want to be huffy and are dripping sarcasm.
Upsait: This is serious stuff. To be upsait means to be in a prolonged state of moodoff. Tears and diprayshun could be involved.
Uselace: A real four-letter word for us. Doesn’t mean something that is without use. It’s much more than that. It is a dismissive, nasty name that we can call you, if you give us too much tenshun.
gouri dange

That most appealing assortment

The charmingly mismatched melange in a farmhouse lend it that cosy, undemanding atmosphere

Come Diwali, and I want to run away somewhere. Dog, stock, and barrel. Somewhere I can’t smell chaklis frying and hear money exploding. Nearing New Year’s too, I would love to slope off to some place where the New Year is not a party zone (read drunk-driving track). For this very purpose, I’ve always wanted my very own ‘country home’ or ‘farmhouse’. But for the last some years, I’ve got something better instead. Nice friends who have their own country home or farmhouse. I haven’t cultivated these friends for their country homes (honest, really). Like the story of the ant and the grasshopper, these ant-like friends were way smarter and more industrious than me. I, ever the grasshopper, did sweet nothing. But the story takes on such a lovely turn, when the ants turn out to be hard working and generous too! So, to cut a short story shorter, and mercilessly mix my metaphors, I’m the grasshopper that’s got its cake and is eating it too.
Before you think that I’m one of those plain-living-high-thinking freeloaders, a word in my defence: I am an exquisitely well-behaved farm-house guest. I break or take nothing. My dogs do not gnaw furniture, and in fact help to reduce the mouse population. I volunteer to get the well cleaned, the rain gutters cleared, and other such good-guestly duties. I don’t strew plastic around the place, and I add to my host’s library of well-worn books and linen cupboard of old comfy sheets, when I leave.
Which brings me to what I love best about my friends’ farmhouses. The interiors are usually made up of the leftovers and extra stuff from their primary, main homes. The decor is, as a consequence, a cheerful and unsnobby medley of things from their city life. All the stuff that they outgrew (fashion-wise, or family-wise, or utility-wise) finds its way to the farmhouse. For instance, the cutlery and crockery tells its own story. Mismatched mugs and plates have come from the chunky-clunky studio pottery phase, or the slim and overpractical melamine phase. Curvy-curly spoons and forks have found their way here, from some ancestor’s ‘English’ phase; with a few thrown in from quite another time and place: the got-em-free-with-the-instant-coffee spoons and the freebie beer mugs from the corner daruwala. Utensils in the farm-house kitchen are usually dented and/or charred chai bartans, a temperamental cooker that can be coaxed to work, some giant degchis from an era when a great cook catered to massive house-parties. An inelegant but serviceable gas stove and a peeling, softly groaning fridge complete the kitchen ensemble.
It’s the same with the furniture. Bunk beds, from a time when the family’s kids fit into them, find themselves packed off to the farm-house (here I have to admit that my dogs do clamber on and sleep on both levels). There are diwans with carved legs from the family’s flirtation with antique furniture, dressing tables from when women used Afghan Snow and Lacto-calamine Lotion, medicine cabinets that once held Sloane’s Linament and such-like. Sofas from the overstuffed, foam phase sit around comfortably, with no plans to go on a diet. Mismatched but clean and soft bed sheets, pillow covers and other linen add to the jumble-sale-chic look and feel of these places.
Over time these varied objects get most comfortable with each other. They form a new community of their own. No more identified as outcasts and rejects of city life, they are most self-assured in their assorted-ness. They have had plenty of time to get acquainted, and hang well together. If the home-owner or a misguided guest suddenly introduces a brand new and complete set of anything – crockery, cutlery, furniture, linen – there is bound to be sharp looks, nudging and muttering from the old lot. The newbies will simply never fit in.
The bookshelf in my friends’ farmhouses is a treasure-trove. No, not leather-bound classics or anything, but a fantastic mix from which could emerge anything, from silly joke books to sublime sagas by writers one had never encountered before. Or vintage Reader’s Digests, most appropriately lined up in a shelf on the bathroom wall for people who need to read to digest. Well-thumbed gardening books and food-stained cookbooks provide me with that lovely feeling that someone sometime worked hard and joyfully in garden and kitchen. I, however, love to read them reclining on a generously curved armchair from which it is a big effort to get off, or in a gently swaying hammock tied around two rustling trees through which the wind susurates (there, I got to use that word – there’s a Hindi one that means the same too: sarsaraahat).
The inside of an urban family’s rural home is indeed a documentation, a chronicle, of the life and times of its owners (and its happy-to-visit friends).
***

Let the plane fly itself (or not) while we slug it out

We’ve heard it all now, really. The pilots of a Sharjah-Delhi flight got into a major scuffle with two other crew members. A full-fledged punch-up. What were these people thinking, when they brawled in front of passengers, endangering everyone and making thorough idiots of themselves? What were they thinking? If reports are to be believed, incredibly, the spark was something about who didn’t wish who ‘properly’. Oh lord, save us from this lethal Indian combination: we are pompous and reckless.
We’ve seen it on our roads of course – that dirty dance of the pompous and the reckless. Now, come, see it playing itself out in the air. Pay fancy air-fares to be taken on a flight that drifts along, while the vahan-chalaks slug it out.
Nothing really new about it. Being so completely into yourself that you don’t care about what happens to anyone besides you is quite the standard ‘shining’ urban Indian thing to do. It’s evident in the way we talk, we walk, we drive, we eat, we spit, we hoard when there is any kind of shortage...it’s all about me, myself, and at the most my munni and my pappu. The rest of the world can go fly a kite. There is never, in most of us, a sense of being part of a larger, responsible set of people, citizenry. Most importantly, there are no Consequences. How can there be any awareness of consequences if all I need to do is look out for myself, and all I need to do if I endanger someone else’s well-being, is bribe the right person?
And so we are free to, like very little children, never defer or postpone our own needs, or contain our frustration, for the larger good. And hence, it has now come to this, that even men in charge of an entire aircraft up in the air, have to settle some stupid scores right there and then, and passenger safety be damned. And decorum? What’s that? Sorry, not in our dictionary. Used to be, but we deleted it as a useless word with no takers.
Safety, in our minds, is for some lily-livered, fussy people. Possibly for the old and feeble. Not for able-bodied thriving Indians elbowing each other out of the way to get exactly where they want and what they want. That’s why we have stampedes, and ferry tragedies and a hundred other grotesque ‘accidents’ every year with unfailing regularity. Because no one is overly impressed by the words safety, caution, precaution.
In fact, why call these tragic events accidents, at all, really. These are all a result of consciously and blatantly flouting rules, again and again, with complete impunity. I looked up the word ‘accident’ in various dictionaries, real and virtual, and none of the definitions fit the various disasters that we routinely manufacture, with our public behaviour. One dictionary tells us, that an accident is an unfortunate mishap; especially one causing damage or injury. Another one says that an accident is anything that happens suddenly or by chance without an apparent cause. Somewhere else I read that an accident is an unexpected, unusual and unintended external action; an undesigned, sudden, and unexpected event.
Now let’s see how most of our ‘accidents’ cannot, by this description, be called accidents at all. Tell me, how is cramming people into a ferry way beyond its capacity, an ‘undesigned’ event? How is not having life-saving equipment on that ferry and so drowning your passengers, a ‘sudden action without an apparent cause’? How is having a slug-fest and manhandling a woman colleague while you’re supposed to be flying the damned plane an ‘unintended’ action?
Sure, we can hold seminars and jet around the world to talk about loss prevention, trauma-free cities, secure borders, and good policing. But who will save us from our underdeveloped minds and overdeveloped egos?