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A Bihari in Bharat

We’re all Indians, right? Then why do we always mentally compartmentalise people based on their community or where they come from?
by Jatin Sharma

“I hate this hatred that we have over Marathis and non-Marathis, and Mumbaikars and non-Mumbaikars,” said a man sitting near the window in a local train.

“I hate all the politicians who infiltrate people’s minds on the basis of such separatist ideology. They are supposed to be our leaders!”, replied a man who was vada-paoed between two others in the train.

One man was listening to these comments with a lot of curiosity. He was ‘new’ to this old city of prosperity and wealth. He had heard a million gems of wisdom while his mother packed his bag with laddoos and people gave him a lot of advice about how he should behave in Mumbai. After all, he was a Bihari. He had been sufficiently warned about not getting into an argument with any person wearing a saffron scarf or a saffron tikka.

So the aforementioned conversation, which actually challenged what he had been told about, was like a sweet melody to his ‘new’ ears. And while he was still digesting this conversation, he suddenly realised that he was reaching closer to his destination. The train was screeching to a halt at the platform. Springing up from his seat, he bravely plunged himself in the crowd of unorganised, frustrated and tired Mumbaikars standing in his way, to try and reach the door.

Suddenly someone asked him, “Kahan jaana hai? (where do you want to go?)”

He replied, “Bhayander.”

Someone else replied, mocking his Bihari accent, “Bhayander. Toh bhai tum andar hi rehna.”

He pleaded, “Mujhe jaane do, utarna hai.” His voice was peaceful, his tone still calm.

But the other popped a question, “Bihari ho?, Laloo ke desh se?”

He knew where this conversation was headed. And probably with the earlier conversation he’d heard still ringing in his ears, he very proudly replied, “Nahin, Bhartiya hoon, Gandhiji ke desh se.”

If this had been a film, we would have whistled and cheered and clapped at this rather excellent reply. But the tragedy was that this wasn’t a film, and after this dialogue, all we heard were punches and the man’s screams. No one came forward to save a Bihari then, not even the people who hated the fact that the leaders were infesting our minds with the poison of regionalism. Everyone was silent, and even plain logic was muted on the spot.

And please don’t even try to fool yourselves saying that you are not like that. You may not bash up Biharis or anybody else, but mentally, I am sure you bash some community or the other. We have developed this habit of asking people their names, and then following it up with, “Oh, Harsh Shah, so you are a Gujju,” or “Oh, Bejan Batliwala. So you are a Parsi.” We have been associating people with their faith for such a long time now, and somewhere along the way, we have all demeaned the whole idea of co-existence.

To add up to the woes of our nation, we remain silent when we see something going wrong. We discuss a lot of things, but we don’t stop them from happening when they happen right in front of us. Some may excuse themselves as, “Jaane do. Mere baap ka kya jaata hai?” But a dialogue is not something that should happen between two minds, it should happen within societies and communities. If one feels that something is wrong, then he or she shouldn’t keep quiet when it happens in front of them.

That’s why the wrong voices are becoming stronger and the right voices are becoming weaker.

The wrong is multiplied and the right is just dying a quiet death. Leaders are nothing but the ones who voice their opinions with strong voices, where they believe in what they say. Become a leader and change the world.

Jatin Sharma is a media professional who doesn’t want to grow up, because if he grows up, he will be like everyone else.

(Picture courtesy aglaia.co.in)

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Do your job, do it NOW

Jatin Sharma writes on our collective tendency to not make those who serve us accountable for their (lack of) duty.

Jatin SharmaI’ve been writing on several issues – public apathy, making a tamasha out of a funeral, celebrating festivals over mobile phones. But today, I am writing about a domestic issue.

Please don’t stop reading. Sure, other people’s domestic issues are very boring, but I need an intelligent head to help me out here.

A month ago, my maid didn’t turn up for work. She didn’t even inform me about her impending leave. I was quite handicapped as all the household chores were now my problem. I didn’t do them as I thought she would turn up the next day. But she didn’t arrive the next day as well. So, juggling my office schedules, I finally did all the housework.

But laziness made me sit out one more day. Plus, my mind started playing with questions: I had hired her to do my housework, I had never been late with her payment, I had always shown her consideration, so why did she treat me like this? My thoughts made me so adamant, I decided not to move a finger till she showed up next.

Three days later, she arrived unannounced. By now, the house was a pigsty, and I was about to burst with anger. I asked her how she could leave my house to be dirtied, to be infested by cockroaches and spiders. She reacted to my comments as if I was playing Mozart to her – with only half an ear on my voice. Realising that she was not paying any heed to me, I became angrier and made myself clearer. Or rather, I laid down a few rules: if she failed to come to my house for work and also failed to inform me that she wasn’t coming that day, I would deduct the day’s dues from her salary. Further, if there was the slightest deviation from these rules, I would fire her.

I can’t see someone dirty my house. If I don’t lay down the rules for her, she will feel free to act with impunity and leave my house open for filth and pests. Don’t you agree?

And if you agree that I should be stricter with my domestic help in order to discipline her, I am sure that you will also agree that we need to discipline our public servants. I am not saying they are domestic helps. But I am quite appalled by the way our public servants are currently working. They have no fear of retribution and some of them, like the police, are creating no fear in others.

I was reading the story of an acid attack victim the other day, where the attackers were caught after two months. They were given a mere nine-year jail sentence, and they secured bail after just four months of being locked up. Even after the attack, the criminals had the audacity to threaten the family, while the girl’s father was trying to seek justice. Of course, justice was denied – shouldn’t punishments be able to stop crime? – but I don’t think it made any difference to the criminals’ lives.

I was so irked by this story and the so-called public servants responsible for the mess. But this happens because we as a society have failed to make our servants work. They have been shirking their duties and sometimes denying to perform them, and our failure lies in not performing ours.

Our failure in getting work done from our government is quite shameful. This is a country that is considered to be intellectually enlightened, and this is the same country where everyone boasts of sanskaar, pratishtha and sammaan. But our ‘intellectual enlightenment’ makes us decide things on the basis of which side of the equation we are on: the victims’ or the victimisers’. If we are a victim, we talk about the crappy state of this country and its laws, and want to raise a voice. But if we are the vicitimisers, then we very conveniently let the law take its own course and see to it that it doesn’t.

We may try to bribe, modify and influence people’s opinion. For the sake of love and emotions attached to our loved ones, we pressurise the judicial system and use our influences. We let public servants become our puppets; we become the puppeteers who make others dance to our tunes.

I could go on and on, but let me just say this: why do we wait to support a matter of justice only when we are victims? Why don’t we raise our voice when somebody we don’t know is seeking justice too? It is just gossip when it happens to our neighbours, colleagues or peers. Why do we say, ”Mujhe kya karna hai?” or “ Yaar, ismein padke koi faayda nahin hai”?

Things can work when we make our system work, when our public servants work properly. Today, those meant to serve the public feel that they can do whatever they want to because we are not making them accountable for their work. We are simply shrugging off their ineptitude. It is time that the masters take charge and start controlling the servant better. If we are not going to act like a responsible master, our houses are going to be infested by much worse than cockroaches and filth.

Jatin Sharma is a media professional who says he doesn’t want to grow up, because if he grows up, he will be like everyone else.

(Picture courtesy outlookindia.com)

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The monkey and the cell phone

Jatin Sharma writes on the phone-picture trend that makes us tell the world ‘I was there’ even during a tragedy.

As a child, I heard my mother use this phrase a million times: “Bandar ke haath mein astara.” I always used to wonder how this line could apply in real life. How could someone be compared to a monkey, and how could a little astara in a monkey’s hand seem so wrong? My questions were answered 20 years later, more specifically, with the unfortunate demise of Balasaheb Thackeray.

I’m not debating the most controversial man of our political times. Certain ‘comics’ have joked about him after his death, pundits have spoken about his divisive politics, the layman has spoken about how his entertainment channels were blacked out. Balasaheb’s  funeral became the biggest news in the country and everyone in India was glued to their television sets.

But that is not my point. My point is about how indisciplined and insensitive we have become. I assume that everyone who came to Shivaji park came there because they wanted to pay their last respects to the ekta tiger. But I was amused and amazed by the insensitivity that we have started showing as a culture. In the aforementioned phrase, the astara is the cellphone we carry with us everywhere.

Most of those who attended the funeral were more interested in capturing the moment on their phone cameras, rather than just experiencing it live, quietly. Whenever a news camera passed through crowd, the sight of flashlights and video shooting by every person was evident of how the new age astara has turned everything into a big tamasha. Whether it’s a birthday party or a funeral, people have stopped segregating things in their minds. All they want is one big photo to show ‘I was there.’

Of course, a lot of people would want a picture as a memoir of their leader. But it’s not just about this particular incident, it’s about cell phones as a whole. People are more interesting in shooting videos than cherishing or taking note of their historic presence there. All they think about is capturing their daily lives in a few megapixels, without attaching importance to them being there in person. The things that they could have seen with their very eyes are being looked at through cameras to show the world later.

Their presence at the very spot is reduced to nothing, because they are watching that particular event through a glass that throws some electrons on a cathode ray tube or lights up some pixels.

And what is more stupid is when people take the very cell phones and click and video-shoot themselves at such events and smile and caption the pics as ‘At Balasaheb’s funeral, what great fun it was’.

When I die, my last wish would be that no one should carry a cell phone to my funeral – I would take it very personally if somebody was mocking me after I was dead. I would even haunt them later for doing it. But for now, let me just keep aside this astara and get on with celebrating my life in person.

Jatin Sharma is a media professional who doesn’t want to grow up, because if he grows up he will be like everybody else.

(Picture courtesy www.visualphotos.com)

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Happy Diwali in text and spirit

How about ditching that SMS you were about to send and actually calling your friends and relatives to wish them?
By Jatin Sharma

This Diwali, I want to be helpful to you guys. So I’m going to start this piece with a question that everyone must be thinking of by now: How do I wish everyone ‘Happy Diwali’?

For starters, go to your phone’s message field. Type ‘Happy Diwali’, select ‘Send all’ and click. Congratulations, you have managed to wish everyone that is in your phone book!

But have you actually managed to wish someone, or have you just completed a formality? The formality of being in touch, of wishing them on Diwali. Do you really think that that person has taken note of your wishes? Do you really think that person felt wanted this Diwali?

My father once told me, that the more modes of communication in the future, the less people will communicate with each other. Listening to him at that time, I confess, I told my father that he was wrong. Technology would just make life simpler, you could connect with anyone and everyone at any given time. I asked my father, “You must have lost so many of your friends because of less modes of communication. I am in touch with all my friends through SMS and Orkut.” My father said, “It’s just that communication, my son, is not about fake emotions and text. It’s about feeling a touch, listening to a voice, looking at an expression. But I guess I am too old!”

Every time that I receive a forwarded text message now, I remember this conversation. It reminds me of him being so right. We had this conversation when mobile phones used to come in TV remote control sizes, when outgoing call rates were Rs 18 and incoming rates were Rs 16. It was the onset of the generation that was going to take SMS packs and wish everyone in the future.

Though text messages are made of words, somehow I feel they don’t reflect the same emotion. Special days, like festivals, are about the excitement we see around us. It’s more about a shrill voice screaming ‘Happy Diwali’ at us, not a redundant text message that has been sent to millions like us. It’s about coming together, not texting together.

Celebrate this Diwali by calling up your friends and relatives. Make them feel important. Make yourself feel important about having so many people to love in your life. Create a world that is more expressive, not one where a few words that can be deleted by the press of a button on a gadget. Make this Diwali a memorable one.

And I am sorry, but I can wish all of you only in text for now. Wish you a HAPPY DIWALI 🙂

Jatin Sharma, 26, is a media professional who doesn’t want to grow up, because he feels that if he grows up, he will be like everybody else.

 (Picture courtesy www.acne-tv.com)

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Relation ships that sail

Jatin Sharma ponders on the frailty of modern-day relationships, and says that love is the heart’s responsibility, not the mind’s.

“I am constantly in love, it’s only that my lover changes,” said Lord Byron, a poet, who was criticised constantly for his conduct in public, and termed as a Casanova in the 19th century. He was considered as a stigma on the British literary society for his flirtatious behaviour.

Who knew that come the 21st century, and most of us will find Lord Byron in us. The more you look around, the more you will see that people are happy changing their relationships like they change their clothes. And that’s because the heart has been replaced  by the mind.

I remember the old movies and I’d fall in love with the love playing out on the screen because it was so pure. Two individuals liked each other and could do anything to be with each other. It was an unspoken love – touching the girl’s hand was an achievement for the boy, their kiss would be depicted by a bee sitting on a flower, flashes of lightning always made them draw closer, albeit accidentally. They wanted to be with each other, but they always exercised caution.  That was a time when love was constant and no lover changed. Lovers died or lovers sacrificed, but love never died.

These days, love dies a natural death every day like the beggar on the street who has not been fed for days. Love has become the last priority in a relationship. Lovers are chosen with ‘fastest fingers first’ being played. And now the smarter we have become, we have also segregated love into several categories: Rebound Love, Time pass Love, Lovable for two months Love, Lovable till I stay in Mumbai Love, Love who I love because he/she is loved by others, Love that is not love but Chalta Hai Love.

‘Chalta hai’ is killing love. We are so confused and so lonely nowadays that we would like things to be chalta hai. We don’t love our lovers, we actually appoint them. Whether she is good looking, whether she dresses well, whether she is considered hot by my friends, whether she is rich, whether she is ‘happening’ – all these questions and more eclipse our very own decision to fall in love.

Plus chalta hai has made that simple kiss a simpler one. We now have such things as a ‘friendly smooch’, a ‘one-day smooch’, a ‘drunk smooch’, and others.

So it is safe to say that relationships are not a big deal anymore. We are so conveniently adding so many words to the dictionary of love, that finding the real meaning is becoming difficult in this book.

Also, we live in an age of ample options. And this realisation of ample options has just made us indecisive and egoistic. We can’t adjust nowadays. We fight and we leave each other. Earlier , if a TV didn’t work properly, people would call someone to repair it, now they just replace it. And we are just reflecting our times and not repairing our relationships, because we feel there are lot of options available. But in the midst of all the options, we forget that for once, we will have to make a choice, rather than rejoicing about all the options we still have. For once we would need to think of ‘us’ and not I. The moment we fall in love and think ‘us’, it’s sorted.

For once, we all need to understand that rather than falling in love, we have to rise in love. Not think so much about it, feel by our heart and not our mind. Because if it’s a heart’s KRA (Key Responsibility Area) to like or not like someone; your mind will make the wrong decisions most of the time.

Jatin Sharma, 26, works in the media and says he doesn’t want to grow up, because if he grows up, he will become like everybody else.

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