Them vs. Us
I get asked a lot of questions. For example: “ You are 28, why don’t you get married?” or “Why did you come to India?” . But the one which really makes me want to place an order for a Bofors and then aim it toward the questioner’s cortex is when they ask me “Why do you work so much?” Just as age brings out the taste in wine, this question becomes really annoying when one of my uber riche friends ask me this question.
I went to Indiana University. Most of the Indians there (the real Indians, not the coconuts) came from your standard South Ex (if they were from Delhi) or Colaba (if they were from Bombay) families. You know the kinds who get their share of attention by loudly announcing which random page 3 celebrity they happened to share the urinal with. These retards would spend half a million at the bars each weekend, come to the restaurant I worked at (and not tip!!) spilling half the food, comment about how India needs to change, go back to their dorm rooms, do bucketfuls of cocaine, have equally vain women by their sides who for some reason didn’t seem to mind that they were arm candy for walking human lard. With the 60 K USD Audis that their Pappas gave them, these poor little rich brats would be spilling out their existential angst and deprivation over alcohol and drugs. I would look at these kids and wonder which India they came from. They were probably born in Breach Candy Hospital, schooled at Panchgani, learned their survival skills at The Taj, and when daddy could not bear them any longer, shipped to the US for some higher education, hoping that the “oh-so-tough” environs of a US college campus would help instill some character into the Little Prince.
Cut to day before yesterday. I had just had a very good conference call with a big potential client from the UK. My team and me decided to celebrate the occasion by having coffee at a Café Coffee Day (India’s answer to Starbucks). As we were walking there we passed an old bungalow which was being torn down to create a high rise. Hardly had we gone about 20 metres from there that we heard a huge shout and gigantic amounts of dust in the sky. This was followed by frantic wailing, the kinds only someone who has been in a war zone or a natural disaster will know. We chose to ignore it and went to the coffee place. But somehow, that idiot who lives inside me, kept on pricking me. So under the pretext of having a smoke I went outside the café and headed the bungalow. Already a crowd had gathered there. Turns out that a wall had collapsed and a laborer was caught under it. I asked a generic uncle (he looked like the ones who regale everyone with fake stories about their youth at family events) standing there what had happened. He told me that a laborer was trapped in the rubble. I have heard cricket scores being told with more intensity.
What struck me was that there was a crowd of about 50-100 people there now. All watching, waiting, all impotent. I don’t know, but this ass who lives inside of me, said, you idiot, why don’t you do something about it. Suddenly I also remembered that I had read somewhere that the first 30 minutes after an accident are crucial. So I started running to the road to stop a rickshaw. Its funny but I passed so many people, pleading for them to stop, that there was a man critically hurt, that we needed their car, but they all seemed to be consciously ignoring me as they drove away. Middle class people, rich people, people with Honda City’s and hands free cell phones. But that moment they were all eunuchs. Acting like they didn’t see me.
Finally I saw an auto and called out to him. There were passengers inside, we requested them to step out. They did, God bless them. By this time the man was pulled out of the rubble. He had no face left. His head wrapped in a cloth was looking like a football. Blood was dripping from his head. Its funny, but that blood was the same color as you, me, all the people who were impotently watching the show and all the people who ignored my calls for help.
After he was placed in the rickshaw, I thrust 100 Rupees into the hands of the guy who was with him. They sped to the hospital.
Today I walked by the construction site and enquired. He had died.
About a year later, a building will be built there. Two years later, some Rohan, Karan, Rahul etc, son of Mr XYZ, the builder, will be home on a vacation from the US. In a drug fuelled frenzy, he will plough through construction laborers sleeping on the streets. And the cycle will continue.
And we would all gather there, spectators, mute, impotent, and thank god it was not us.
Today, India is facing insurgencies in no less than 160 districts. From J & K, to the North East, to the Naxalites and the Maoists. They are no aliens, but our own people that we forgot. Our dark truth which eclipses India shining. Go and see any house in Bastar (it is in Chattisgarh, a newly formed state in India), you will know where and why these insurgencies get their new recruits. When governments fail, parallel governments emerge in the power vacuum.
Why am I saying this? There is a reason. The kids I went to in college were the sons of bureaucrats, politicians and industry leaders. Children of people in power. People who have a control on the destinies of masses.
In all probability, the little prince will succeed Big Daddy a la Rahul Gandhi. What happens to our country then? When its leaders are so disconnected with reality? When their idea of pain is not getting into their favorite nightclub? When their idea of hunger is carb reduction? When the Kareena Kapoor- Shahid Kapur break up are the national issues? It reminded me of the time I was travelling with a rich friend of mine in Bombay. Seeing a roadside shanty, she asked so matter-of-factly “ Why do these people live like this?” She probably assumed that they all had a choice of living in a mansion in Bandra, but for some reason, preferred to live in a shanty by the railway tracks.
And you and me, our children would continue to watch. Impotency being our heirloom passed from generation to generation.
When I thrust the 100 Rupee note into the hands of the victim’s relative, our eyes met, for a second. For that second, we were not rich nor poor, not IT versus laborer. Just two people who knew pain.
I hope that one day the future leaders of our country can look into India’s eyes.
PS: If we conducted a national poll today, I bet most young people in the age group 18-25 would think that the Naxalites are a rock group.
