Freedom From What?

A very happy Independence Day to all Indians.


Or is it?


Not the 'happy' part. The 'all' part.


It began in the morning. I was going to my college festival, Malhar, and was waiting at the railway station for a friend to come. Meanwhile, I saw a few kids approach some elders with the objective of selling paper-brooches (replicas of the Indian tricolour). A man bought a brooch. Another did not. Even I said I did not want one to a boy who came to me. And then, a woman, out of the blue, approached my friend with a brooch and almost pinned it to her top. My friend said she did not want one either.


To many of us, at least seemingly, Independence Day is a day of celebration of freedom, of our varied history and culture    which I don't refute    however, freedom of what? From what? To do what?


If I may elucidate further, it would be the freedom to wish everyone a happy Independence Day; the freedom to sing our national anthem; the freedom to display flags at homes and at places of work and to step on those same flags the next day; the freedom to swear at everyone and anyone; the freedom to do what one wants; the freedom to forget the bad and the good; the freedom to blame others where we should be to blame; the freedom to get the juice out of a system while being totally useless in every possible way; the freedom to get past every echelon of power by showing your VIP pass; the freedom of crying that a battered wife has, after 65 years of Independence, finally got (an anti-climax, wouldn't that be, that a woman got the political right to vote earlier, and then the social right to even cry?); the freedom to shut up to oppression; the freedom to remain blind when what atrocity you see (if not endure) doesn't do enough in itself to blind you; the freedom, in spite of all the littering and spitting and vandalism you've done and all the hatred you've stored and spread, to say, "I love India" without the slightest undertone of shame; the freedom to discriminate; the freedom to belittle; the freedom to care for some and to not care less for others.

Is that what freedom is about? As Clifton Davis put it succinctly, 

"With Freedom, Comes Responsibility."

And while coming back from college, today, I saw a man drag a little boy and another man drag another little boy to the Railway Police Station. I became Peeping Tom. I did not help. I did not not help. Just stood there, watching. Perhaps the guys had picked someone's pocket. Maybe they'd just done something to 'spoil' the men's Independence Day. 

I wonder how many people of this one-billion-odd-populated country have the right to know what freedom is, let alone what Independence Day is (they usually just know when it is).

I wonder if the men would have dragged their own sons like that. Probably. More probably, they'd have just slapped the kid once and then got done over it. 

All of this reminds me of the grand but deep truth that George Orwell, in as far behind in time as 1943-'44, observed    

"All animals are equal;

but some are more equal than others."

And I won't shut up believing it's going to be like that forever. My teacher for Political Science once said,

"The country is free, not its people."

I don't want it to be like that forever.

She

I was travelling in a Kalyan Fast today when a really tall girl got in, and stood stubbornly at the door. She wasn't rude, nor was she intrusive. She was just so tall that her head grazed the ceiling of the door, and no one behind her could see the scenery outside. I was standing behind her, very squashed and very astonished. At first, I noticed scratches that looked suspiciously like scars, and then a large burn, on her arm. Further, I noticed various tattoos on the other arm. Must be either a rock artist or an army officer, I thought to myself.

After a while, she asked us if the train was slow from Thane. Her voice, strangely, was deep and resonant. When we replied in the affirmative, she calmly took a packet of tobacco from her purse and started chewing it. I kept staring. Which woman who looks educated and travels by First Class would eat cheap tobacco? Here, obviously, my surprise did not stem from the fact that she was a woman, but from the fact that she surely knew tobacco-chewing is not very healthy.

Then, she turned a bit sideways at the next station to let the people alight. I gaped at her impossibly long - and obviously fake - eyelashes, dripping with badly applied eyeliner and mascara. Her face was streamlined, yet strangely masculine. There was the hint of an Adam's apple. Transvestite? I thought. A transvestite is a person who dresses like the opposite sex. My gaze travelled downwards. She definitely had a bosom. Then it struck me.

Transgender. And not just a transgender, but a man who had been surgically changed to a woman. She was the first of her kind I had seen, and it made a good change from the socially rejected ones you see begging on the street. I felt strangely proud of this woman who had chosen to be what she wanted - well, except the tobacco-chewing bit. It still was bad for her health.

India seems to be progressing, doesn't it?

Back To The Beginning

It's funny how you try to outdo yourself    how you attempt to surpass your own previous achievements to break away from the shackles of your past. And yet, at times, you find comfort that History does repeat itself, and quite boldly, (and visibly) at that.




No, I am not a demented personality who plays with maths (I love coding numbers, though), but I know it's been 344 days I've known people at St. Xavier's for. And surely enough, I have come to be a guy who know the secret *little chuckle* passages in some parts of the heritage construction. And my beginning was no different from the greenhorns that came in today for their first day in college.




We've (and 'we' is Sharvari Aai and I primarily) dubbed our juniors (there are only the 11thers who are our juniors and therefore, I don't have to mention which juniors), bacchas. Kids.




And in the true sense of the word, they are. I've been there, Sharvari's been there, too. We've looked at the gargoyles and wondered at how the building has been standing the test of time. I have clicked scores of pictures of college and in college. 




And I saw it happening once more. I saw the bacchas looking tiredly at the name-list put up on a huge board, squinting as they tried figuring where their names were. And then there was a girl clicking a picture of the college hall, of all places. And now I realise I've been there, done that too. And I've got scared of the crowd    in the trains while travelling, and in the foyer. (I used to walk around. If not for Terry, I might still be searching for a place to sit perhaps.) :P




I'd decided today, that I would surely spot a baccha and be of some help to them, or tell them about how screwed maths is, and how screwed you get if you choose to do maths. (We were told the same thing, it is just more of a formality than anything else) :P.




So, I saw a bevy of girls sitting next to the foyer-boards (for the record, you don't have to sit there. It's just too pitiable a sight if you do.) And the last of my suspicions were driven away when, seeing the foyer, a girl spoke to (apparently) her friend,"Okay, so now, this is freaky."




Love comes in strange packages though. Sometimes in the form of a wonderful friend. Sometimes in the garb of an 'evil' enemy. Sometimes in the talks of a troubled frenemy. 




And most importantly, sometimes, History sends you a living album of your past. You can't escape it, and guess what, you don't want to. :)

Friends Forever?

It's Friendship Day tomorrow. Meryl calls it Friendships Day. As do many others.

As badness would have it, I could not schedule to spend time with Shama, one of my besties tomorrow. But I am doing that soon. I am dating a Word Games sheet tomorrow for Malhar. And after that, we have an awesome rendezvous at Meryl's. And then, I have something else planned which I will write about some other day.

Friendship, like love, contrary to popular belief, doesn't necessarily come only once, doesn't necessarily never go. But it's true that it creates a pillar of strength. You know that when you stand, you don't stand alone. You know that all the time you spent over cold recess food dabbas, all the time you stood outside class taking punishment, all the time you fought, all the time you patched up, all the times you danced on one stage, all the times you cheered for one another, all the time you made groups fighting 'against' other groups, all the times you unite against trouble    

you learn you've grown up a bit. 

Happy Friendship Day! :)

Pearly Whites (Again)

I've got my pearly whites back! Yes, my braces are finally out. Apparently I look so different, my granny has already started planning my wedding. Moving on...

Well, you know, as they saying goes...I don't remember the proverb now, but it means that good and bad things go together. Or that everything good has a bad side. Or something like that. Anyway, I have retainers to replace my braces. Retainers (this is solely for Jai baba, other people can please read ahead) are removable plates that help 'retain' the newly-attained shape of your teeth. They're also a pain in the neck, because they have to be taken out and washed. If anyone dares say the word 'dentures', I will go as mad as a rampaging hippo. Retainers don't stay on while you're eating.

They also make saying 's' sounds difficult. I can't pronounce my own name anymore. Please do not dwell on this either. Believe me, I'm trying to make do with words that don't have an 's' in them - which largely restricts the use of plurals. Still, it's good language practice.

Overlooking the retainers, I can't stop baring my teeth in front of mirrors now. Ooh, shiny....

Pearly Whites

There was a girl who had pearly white teeth. And then, they remained white, but they just started growing like the texture of mortar on rough walls. And so, the dentist asked her to get herself a long and fat injection. 

The girl winced in anticipation of pain. The dentist was intelligent. He broke the syringe of the injection, took out the needle, smoothed its ends, bent it well, and put it across the two rows of teeth. They called them braces. I still call them braces too, I swear.

Sharvari Aai is one of those persons who got herself braces. Without braces, people don't seem to have come from heaven or hell or from the date-palm tree that is right in between the sky and the earth. Well, I don't blame you if you think I am speaking (err, writing) crap. I've been taught that crap can be recycled to make way for Noddy better ways of environmental consciousness. 

And Manali Phatak, another friend, had also got rid of her braces last year, and I did not notice, and she shot a very bad look at me. I was made to feel guilty. Bad. Not goos.

Well, all the best to the rows of teeth that begin living life without limits. Sorry, the stupid pun, if it counts as one, was unintended. I have to go.

My teeth are crooked too. And someone told me some dentists are really cute. :P