Two pages in today's The Times of India caught my attention. The first page was a full page Yahoo! ad announcing that the Internet was now under my management. I thought that had happened a couple of years ago, isn't it? Web 2.0 and all that. Perhaps, Yahoo! Is doing a Rip Van Winkle on us? A customizable homepage, an inbox that knows my likes (and dislikes) and mobile access. With these Yahoo! Would have us believe that things have changed... ah well... The second page, somewhere inside, has a full page interview with Arundhati Roy. I know this is a Monday paper after a long weekend, and it's tough to get meaningful content to fill the paper, but this...? Roy maybe a famous Indian (Booker and all that) but today she's no more than a controversial activist. A lot has been said about the causes she thinks she represents and her style of activism; we need not go there. But a full page interview...? About three invisible elephants in my living room... and right, I am the fourth, visible one. I have to seriously start breaking this morning habit...
I spent a couple of hours this morning at a Registrar's office in Navi Mumbai getting a document registered. During those two hours, there was no electricity in the area: part of the scheduled 3-4 hour load-shedding that is prevalent across all of urban Maharashtra excl. Mumbai (rural areas have longer power-cuts). Many homes and most businesses "beat" the power-cut by using inverters (a crude way of load-balancing, perhaps!), so they don't really bear the brunt of the heat and humidity.
What shocked me today was the observation that Government offices don't seem to have that benefit. Indeed, there was an inverter in the Registrar's office but only to run the PC and printer that was required for the registration activity. Not a single fan was working on this extremely hot and uncomfortable morning. Yet, the officials were all working, without too much of a complaint about the situation - for it must be a regular thing for them. The small office was crowded with people awaiting their turn, multiple parties signing documents and getting them stamped and so on. The sub-registrar, the boss of the place, sat in the centre of all this activity, with a soft smile on his face as he scrutinized agreements worth millions of rupees or marriages (worth much more!), and signed wherever he needed to. Not once during the two hours did I see him lose his temper or get irritated at anyone/anything. There was no way I could have kept my peace or lasted even a day in such an environment.
However, our public servants work in such an environment. Daily.
There is a lot that is wrong with the Government and the bureaucracy. Productivity is low, and there's corruption everywhere. But, the next time we sit in our air-conditioned offices (or lounges) and pass remarks about how all these babus are lazy and corrupt, spare a thought for those officers sweating it out in dingy, claustrophobic offices, without some of the basic amenities that we take for granted.
A lot needs to change...
Today's Pune Mirror carried a story on how an author has got into trouble for using the "G" word .... "Ghati" that is sometimes used to describe people from the Sahyadri Ghats or Maharashtrians. Apparently, some activist has filed a case that this is a serious threat to communal harmony!!!
Fortunately, at least in this case, police sources have said that the case against the first-time author, Murzban Shroff, will likely be dropped. Thank God! We all know what happened to that poor Bangalore techie who spent 50 days in jail in a case of mistaken identity for apparently posting a derogatory image that hurt some communities.
Will we ever learn?!
For years, we have been calling our various communities by their pet names... Sardars and Mallus and Gults and Tams and Bhaiyas and Gujjus and Ghatis and Bongs and Bawas.... our popular culture, including films, are filled with humorous references to the quirks of various states / communities... whether it is the English / Hindi accents of various groups or the miserliness of the Sindhis or the Sardar with the Patiala peg and tandoori chicken or the Bong with a cigarette in one hand and a point of view on every topic on the other..... we have always taken it in good spirit and added a new joke or riposte to the collection.
These terms are not racist, never meant to be derogatory. These are our nick-names for our brothers and sisters. Just like specific individuals become Pappu or Motu or Pinky or Laddoo, groups of people that originate from a particular state or ethnic background become known by a representative name. Does it mean that they are necessarily homogenous... of course, not! Not every Sindhi is miserly nor is every Tam an intellectual/nerd... every Mallu does not use 'gogonut' oil to shine his hair and every Gujju lady does not carry a dabba of thepla in her hand-bag.... but it would be fun to think that they did.
India is what it is because of its diversity and more importantly, willingness to accept and respect this diversity. Let us not give up our unique heritage and strength.