I Kinda Have a Dream

Next month is the 50^th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech (March on Washington, August 1963). To think that it’s been only about 50 years since black people got equal rights in that “shining city on the hill”, “the beacon of democracy”, “the indispensable nation” is mind-boggling. But that is another story. Here today is my own ‘I kinda have a dream’ inspired by the great MLK speech.  
 

I KINDA HAVE A DREAM

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as just another stupid day in the history of our State.

Some years ago, some great Mallus, whose statues might one day cast shadows on garbage piles, signed some worthless proclamations. This came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of mallus who had been searing garbage piles here and there.

But many years later, the Mallu still is not free to do what he pleases with his garbage, which he has to slyly dispose off in distant neighbourhoods in the middle of the night. Many years later, many Mallus live on lonely islands of opulence in the midst of vast oceans of waste. Many years later, the Mallu is still languishing in all corners of the world and finds himself an exile in his own land, only able to come here once in a while to throw tissue papers around.

In a sense many come to the State's capital to take a dump. When the architects of our city, if there were any, drew up the plans, they were thinking of the hordes of people who will come here with their flags and plastic bottles and Styrofoam food packets and their bodily orifices for excretion. So our architects ensured that all men, some women too, would be guaranteed the unalienable right to choke this city to death in addition to the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that the State has given the people a bad cheque; a cheque which has come back marked "insufficient funds" to give them the freedom to throw stuff. But we refuse to believe that the bank of government inefficiency is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity for corruption in this State.

It would be fatal for the State to overlook the urgency of the moment. This stinking monsoon of the Mallu’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating season of dengue and Chikungunya. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst by drinking from the tap of municipal water supply.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here to throw a few stones. Some of you have come fresh from the Middle East or Singapore where your quest for freedom to poop by the street side left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Kasaragod, go back to Alappuzha, go back to Kochi, go back to Idukki, go back to Kannur, go back to the slums and ghettos of all our cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be replicated in your cities too. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in wet Mallu dreams involving sultry sirens silhouetted against solar flares.

I have a dream that one day this State will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that some, if not most, men are idiots."

I have a dream that one day on the green hills of Ponmudi the sons of rich guys will get sons of power shovel (JCB) drivers to raze down the hills and make it motta (bald).

I have a dream that one day even Attapadi, a place apparently overflowing with rice and ragi given by our State, will have the freedom to throw the plastic sacks in which the rice and ragi come there.

I have a dream that my children will one day live in a State where they will not be judged by the colour of the plastic packet they throw on the street but by the contents of that packet – Lay’s, Pringles, Kurkure, etc.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, right here in the capital, the vicious caste-ists, their lips dripping with the words of tolerance and love only for their own kind will throw filth at each other; and one day right here, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little wheatish-complexioned boys and girls as well as fair and lovely boys and girls, as sisters and brothers to go to the Secretariat and the Corporation Office and dump their diapers there.

                                 (Diapers and other garbage that some lovely parent throws near my house every few days)

 

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be filled with Big Bazaar bags, every hill and mountain shall be made low to build monuments to greed, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the garbage dumps shall be revealed, and all the fish and flesh and organic waste shall be in those dumps too.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back with.

And if we are to become a super-duper State, this must become true. So let garbage flow from the prodigious hilltops of the Sahyadri. Let garbage flow from the mighty peak of Anamudi. Let garbage flow from Mookunnimala of Ananthapuri!

Let garbage flow into the Ashtamudi Lake of Kollam!

Let garbage flow under the kothumbu vallams of Alappuzha!

But not only that; let garbage flow from the high ranges of Kottayam!

Let garbage flow from Sabarimala of Pathanamthitta!

Let garbage flow from every hill and molehill of God’s Own Country. From every mountainside, let garbage flow.

And when this happens, when we allow garbage to flow, when we let garbage flow from every village and every hamlet, from every town and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all men, Nairs and Ezhavas, Protestants and Catholics, Shia Muslims and Sunni Muslims, and all other caste, religious permutations and combinations and even atheists will be able to join hands and take the next flight out of the country singing, "Free at last! free at last! we are free at last!" “But we will come back once in a while to throw tissue papers!”
 

Three Wise Monkeys + 1

There is a myth that has been going around for about 6½ decades in our country, which we tend to present to foreigners to earn brownie points as well as to deceive ourselves.  I do it all the time. This self-deception can be explained in terms of cognitive dissonance, which is used to describe the feeling of discomfort stemming from holding conflicting beliefs and trying to adjust those beliefs to reality.  

India is a secular, democratic country with freedom of thought, expression, blah, blah. This is the myth which has been drummed into us by our textbooks and our government over the years. The sentence has a few extra words. Let’s try to take those out. India is a secular, free, democratic country with freedom of thought, expression, blah, blah. Now that is more like it. India is a country, blah, blah. This is a fact and I hope no group would be offended by it.

Still, we have to be careful. So I’ll take the blah, blahs out too. India is a country, blah, blah. I’m happy with that, and hopefully nobody will like me on his/her buttbook bedspread, or friend me or tweet or chirp me or crap on me. I don’t want to see horrible things like what happened to those two girls or the cartoonist in Mumbai, the guys in Calcutta, the professor in Muvattupuzha, etc., happening to me. 

Cognitive dissonance – You have freedom of speech, but you can’t criticize anything and in some cases not even comment on it as an impartial outsider. If you do, you get #$%@ed. This is especially true in the case of religious and caste-based groups, groups with narrow parochial interests, politicians and officials. Surprisingly, or should I say unsurprisingly, the left is also intolerant of criticisms as author Paul Zacharia found out in Kerala. I initially thought he was being irresponsible by not filing a case against those thugs, but later on I could understand why he did that. The threat of physical violence is always there and your fame may not be enough to protect you.

So, I think it will be wise to act kinda like the three wise monkeys – see nothing, hear nothing, and speak nothing. I added a fourth monkey. Smell nothing. You can’t forget that. The stink!

G'bye.

The Stink Came First, Therefore...

The New Indian Express has a section on spirituality in its Sunday magazine. I usually skim through it for my weekly dose of humour. This week (June 17) was no exception, but the first paragraph of one article got me hooked completely and I read and re-read it a few times in the potty. Later, I found that piece on the web, book-marked it and read it on my computer. I still couldn’t wrap my head around it. I am aware of the profound lack of profundity in such treatises, and that is what humours me most of the time. This time I was struck by the usage of the word ‘therefore’, which crops up after a long, rambling “reasoning.”  

I am reproducing below the part that boggled my mind. (Yogi Aswini. “Celestial Sound That Perfects All.”  The New Indian Express, 17 June 2012: p9.)

The first corporeal manifestation on earth after the Trinity’ birth was in the form of sound. Om (Aum) was the first sound. It arose from the damru of Lord Shiva. Before sound (creation), there was eternal silence and absolute stillness. It was from here that the journey of an individual began. Therefore, sound can be termed as the first dimension perceived in physical creation. From sound emerges the dimension of colours; from colours emerges everything that we see in the physical creation, including our physical body.

I tried to deconstruct the paragraph, but mostly failed. The words corporeal manifestation bugged me for a while. Dictionary entries of corporeal include: having a body or a physical form; that can be seen and handled, etc.  This was the first time I heard of seeing a sound. So, sound has a physical form?? Hmm. Let us skip controversial entries such as damru and all and go straight to the next sentence.

Before sound (creation), there was eternal silence and absolute stillness. Now, this is being stated as a fact. And I found myself struggling not to fall off the commode, “of course, eternal silence! How could I miss that?” The next two sentences, however, had me totally stumped. Where and what is the connection with sound, and who is this individual when he says, “It was from here that the journey of an individual began.” And before I had time to digest these concepts, the sentence “Therefore, sound can be termed as the first dimension perceived in physical creation” appears out of nowhere, suggesting a logical conclusion from the preceding drivel.

What he essentially said was, sound came first, therefore sound came first.  

It (use of therefore) doesn’t work like that.  “I farted, therefore it stinks.” Now, that is a proper way of using therefore in a sentence. If you are doing it after gorging on really spicy channa masala, beef ularthiyathu and beer, then you could elaborate on the premises. “I washed down some nice spicy channa and beef with beer which made me fart and therefore it stinks; royally.”

I slept on it and then the lord appeared to me in my dream and said, “Son, the stink came first.” I thought he was making fun of me. “Everything will be clear to you when you wake up.”

I woke up and walked out and then it hit me – the stink. It was omnipresent, omnipotent and believe it or not, corporeal. It hit me physically. I realized everybody in my city (and perhaps the whole country) worships it. The mayor-ess definitely does. The Chief Minister and the MP too have their own ways of appeasing it. It is there in the piles of raw waste in Big Bazaar bags, etc. placed religiously at various auspicious spots, where pious folks keep coming and leaving their offerings in an unending flow and show of piety. It is there in the railway stations and tracks. It is there in the carcinogenic fumes rising from smouldering plastic and Styrofoam piles, where the devotees make sure that the flames stay lit eternally. It is there in the Amayizhanchan canal that cuts through the city. It is all-pervasive! I bowed before it and I apologized to the lord for doubting his words. Therefore, stink can be termed as ….blah, blah…. “You farted, didn’t you?”