It is so random, even I can’t make sense of
it.
Sifting through the social media crap that
piles up in front of me day in and day out is becoming extremely tedious.
There’s so much made-up shit in there, you wonder what makes these people do
such things. Bill Maher recently said that, “Somewhere along the line the Information
Superhighway became Bullshit Boulevard. And truth was roadkill”. The other day,
I received a devotional song rendered beautifully by a small kid, with the
caption that she is M S Subbulakshmi’s granddaughter. She is not. Why would
someone deliberately add a falsehood to a song? Then, there is the steady
stream of proud Indians sending out some proud things about which I am
instructed to be proud of. Some messages explain how unscrupulous, scheming
foreign forces are collaborating with sickular anti-nationals to malign our
ancient land of honey and milk, about which I should be angry and react as a
proud Indian.
Recently, there was a story in a friend’s Facebook
page about a rich man living in a villa and his watchman.
The story goes like
this – Rich man living in a villa. Whenever he goes out in his luxury car our watchman
opens the gate and wishes, but the master never responds. One day master
sees guy opening garbage bags for leftover food. Next day the watchman saw a
bag near the dump filled with fresh food, and this became a regular thing. One
day the master dies, and the bag also stops (note: the protagonist, thickheaded
obviously, still hasn’t connected the food bag to the master). After some time,
our dude asks the master’s wife for a raise, who could not believe this guy
needed a raise. However, he tells her the story of the food bag. She started
bawling because she realized it was her benevolent hubby. Next day onwards the
son started bringing the food bag. Wait, it is not over. There’s a twist. Our
guy says thank you, but the son too doesn’t respond. Guy is miffed. Later momma
explains that the son is deaf, just like his dad. So, the moral of the story is
- don’t judge people without knowing the truth.
A whole bunch of people liked it, shared it
and expressed their appreciation at the profound meaning of the story. "Awesome,"
"touching," "great," went the comments. They were all sympathizing and identifying
with the poor, rich, deaf feudal lord who “so generously” left the food bag by the "dump" for
his watchman. Not with the watchman who had to scrounge the waste for
half-chewed breadsticks, but with the boss who won’t pay a living wage to his
employee. And the madam and the son continues with that generosity. The guy, instead
of being grateful for that, was passing judgments. The f#$%ing serf.
It obviously is his karma. As it was for
Rohith Vemula, the kid who killed himself in Hyderabad. A few days ago I was
reading stories from the Mahabharata to my sons and I came across this
paragraph about Ekalavya after he severs his thumb as guru dakshina for Drona.
“You may think it was a hard and cruel
demand that Drona made, but a very important lesson underlies it. A man is born
according to his past thoughts and actions, and his body is part of his karma.
He must not forcibly snatch advantages denied to him by his physical condition,
but must patiently bear his disabilities till he has worn them out, and the way
opens before him. Ekalavya would not wait. He resolutely grasped the fruit that
to him was forbidden, and the body that had sinned had to pay its debt.
Rohit Vemula too did not wait. He was, and
others like him are, reaching for that forbidden fruit, which is irking some
people, who would like to restore that old system and show these upstarts their
place in society.
I started writing this post a few weeks ago
when the Supreme Court upheld the bar closure in Kerala. The Supreme Court, in
its infinite wisdom, deemed that only those mallus who can afford five-star
bars or have friends in elite clubs need to booze. I wanted to rant against that
verdict but then two words – suo motu – stopped me in my tracks. Suo motu is
Latin for “You fat f#$k”. This is used by judges when they throw the book at
you. E.g. “Suo motu (You fat f#$k), solitary life imprisonment for you for
writing dumb blogs and other crimes”. We live in a “kinda democratic” country. Being
“kinda democratic” means you can say some things and get away with it. However,
there is a non-democratic institution which can screw your happiness just like
that and that is the judiciary. A judge can call you “Oy suo motu” and throw
you into jail for anything and everything or even make you write imposition (Judge makes police write imposition).
Though “kinda democratic”, there is one
no-go area. Religion. Hurting religious sentiments is a big crime in India, as
Sanal Edamaruku found when he rubbed the Catholic Church the wrong way. And
there are many other such instances.
But then, what about “scientific sentiments”?
What about my scientific sentiments that are being hurt every time I see Mr. Gajendra
Chauhan, the FTII head, peddling Hanuman pendants on TV for good fortune?
What about my hurt sentiments when I see that
prosperous-looking woman selling a “valampiri shankhu” for prosperity?
O Supreme Court, What about my frikkin
scientific sentiments?
In the meantime, our city got a new mayor.
I was reminded of the Eagles song “New kid in town”, except that in this guy’s
case “Nobody’s talking about the new kid in town.” He is invisible. At the same
time, another election is approaching. So, the railway god was brought out for
the customary light metro gibberish for the capital city, which is into its
fifth year of gibberish-ing. The chief honcho is raining promises on the
electorate from dark clouds covering the sun. The opposition is waiting for the
sun to come out.
As Chanakya, with his brahminical, stern,
constipated look, his stretched index finger poking your eyes, said about
democracy, “When the fart gets wet, it is time to change the langot”.
