When will Indians Learn Manners?

Two separate incidents yesterday made me believe that it is not only difficult but near impossible to teach us Indians to apply basic common sense when it comes to manners and obeying rules.

Incident 1: My office has newly shifted to a big corporate park recently. Since the building is being finished, the employees are required to use the service doors for entry and exit. It is a spring door, meaning it retracts by itself (I dont know what it is called). The wing where my office is located also houses companies like Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, IBM, LRN, and the likes. So yesterday late evening when I was getting out of my office building, about 4 guys from IBM were walking about 10 feet in front of me. I had a laptop in one hand and my mobile in other. As we all approached the door, while on of these guys opened the door, I decided to check what it was it. And… BANG! The door got slammed on my face. Surprisingly, none of the four guys were courteous enough to look back, forget holding it for me.

Incident 2: On my way back to home, a guy oh his bike was driving almost at neck to neck pace with me on the highway, coincidently though. A peculiar thing was, he wasn’t wearing a helmet. Now this is very unsafe considering speeds in excess of 70-80 kms per hour. After passing over 3 fly overs, he slowed down and wore the helmet tucked on the mirror while still driving. Reason? we were approaching the Check Naka where the traffic police are present. So he was actually afraid of the of the bribe or the Rs. 100 fine and not losing his life? strange.

Gosh… when will we learn?

One Year After Attacks, Have We Moved On?

In another 4 days, the dreaded terror attack on Mumbai will complete one year. A night when a handful of gunmen from across the border held the city at gunpoint will be remembered again. It was an incident, which changed the life of many people. But has any thing really changed otherwise?

As an after effect we saw both CM Vilasrao Deshmukh and Deputy CM & Home Minister R R Patil being removed from their posts. The ruling Congress party was flayed, the intelligence agencies were questioned, other political parties were criticized, Raj Thackeray was ridiculed. The people of Mumbai gathered together for a solidarity march at the gateway of India. The protests arose, the cause was raised and gradually every thing died a slow painful death. Is it an irony? I don’t think so…

The only terrorist captured alive is still living in the Arthur road jail without much discomfort. The perpetrators and conspirators are freely roaming around in Pakistan. We are (still) waiting for US to help us.  Congress came back to power both at the centre and state assembly. Vilasrao is enjoying his stint as the union minister for heavy industries, R R Patil is back at the helm of home ministry, Raj is back and busy fighting for the Marathi ‘language’ rather than the people, conducting gheraon and angry protests on issues as trivial as debating on ‘Why Hindi is not a national language’. Shiv Sena, now led by a much mellowed Uddhav Thackeray is criticizing the legendary Sachin Tendulkar because he put India ahead of any one else. It looks like they are coming back to the vandalizing best. The men who could have, should have and must be protecting us from the possible attacks, the Police are busy pointing fingers at each other, one year after we were attacked.

Nothing has changed for a normal Mumbaikar like me… and nothing ever will. Terrorism, in my opinion, is a secondary problem for us. We are battling more than that every day, every month… the ever increasing population on roads, trains and buses, the sky rocketing property prices, the water and power crisis, substandard infrastructure and a slowly retreating ghost named recession. Every day journey to the office seems like a solidarity drive.

I think Mumbai is ready for another attack. Any takers?

What Does a Marathi Manoos Want?

… a question that goes unanswered in all the elections. From wherever and whenever the Thackerays started wooing the Marathi junta, I dont really remember one good initiative taken by any one to ask the real ‘Common Marathi Manoos’ as to what his real demands are.

In fact, in between the digging of the cricket pitches, the riotings and the banishing of the so called ‘Bhaiyyas’, the real cause of concern has been getting lost time and again. The situation is that now the real common ’Marathi Manoos’ doesn’t know where to start and what does he really need from the innumerable political agendas being manifested and bulldozed on his own name. May be he has accepted the silent corrupt (read Congress) over the shouting bigots as his and Maharashtra’s saviour for a better future. Yes, Raj Thackeray has won 13 seats in Maharashtra. We have seen all the talking he did. May be we can see things improving on the ground level too. May be…

Anyway, I’m not spending too much time on who has done what and who wants to do more. I’m just addressing the plain question asked by a ‘common marathi manoos’ and I want you (YOU the reader) to answer it for me.

PS: In my opinion, all a Marathi Manoos wants is better opportunities for him, better living conditions in his own motherland, greater financial stability and peaceful dwelling. And of course he doesn’t like some one else dominating his life. But I’m sure he doesn’t care who sits next to him in his office, whether a Gujarathi or a Bihari.

The Enemy Within

Movies continue to inspire me to write some thing. I watched the movie ‘Shaurya‘ over the weekend. Although I knew the movie was inspired from ‘A few good men‘ , it is a good watch none the less. It is a story of an Army lawyer (Siddharth Choudhary played by Rahul Bose) defending a soldier (Captain Javed Khan played by Deepak Dobriyal) against a charge for culpable homicide. Javed has killed his senior officer and is charged with a murder and links to terrorist organisations. Javed actually is a victim of racism and hatred. He is targeted because he is a Muslim.

Kay Kay Menon, who plays Brig. Pratap, has very efficiently echoed the hatred most of us have against the people who are always credited for spreading terrorism. He (as in his character in the movie) has lost his family to a conspiracy by his house help, who happened to be a Muslim. This is very identical to some one who has lost a member in the innumerable terrorist attacks in India and abroad. We dislike an Ahmed or a Khan because some other Ahmed was one of the accused in a bomb blast case. There are many other names. So we end up hating every one who is a Muslim. Dont we ignore that the ‘good Muslims’ are equally troubled? More blasts and attacks occur in Pakistan these days.

It is not about one particular caste. I think we are pretty damn selfish when it comes to hating or demeaning a race, caste or a religion. As a Marathi, I have seen fellow Maharashtrians making fun of Gujrathis, Sindhis, Punjabis, Biharis… and I have seen the others making fun of each other just as we do. It is nice as long as done in good faith. But you never know when the fun gets transformed into hatred.

Now coming back to the point of selfishness in hating some one. Consider this, a Marathi will hate a Bihari for spoiling Mumbai, but will cheer loud when Dhoni and Tendulkar are playing together for India. They wouldn’t mind a Dhoni or a Sehwag leading a Dravid or a Agarkar. We fight amongst us as states, but come together for a national cause. So a Marathi or a Gujju will become a Hindu and will despise a Muslim because a Muslim terrorist was caught blasting bombs. So all the Marathis and Gujjus and Punjabis will stick together and you will have a 1993 Mumbai riot or 2002 Godhra riots. Despite this, Hindus and Muslims will come together to fight for India. This has happened in the past during the freedom struggle. Hindus and Muslims wanted to drive the Britishers out of the country together. So both hated the British. But they still helped them in World War II against Germany and Japan. Why? Known enemy was better than an unknown friend. India also has had political conflicts with fellow Asian countries such as China, Sri Lanka, Indonesia… However when you look at the immigrants in Australia, UK and US, the Asian populations sticks together for their rights (Although we Indians are still known as ‘Indians’.) So they try to ward off the racist attacks in Australia together. And I’m sure we all will stick with each other if an alien planet declares a war on earth  

So if we indeed have a ‘Earth Army’ to fight, say Mars, who amongst these soldiers will be a Marathi? A Punjabi? A Muslim? A British? An Australian? I think it is stupid to hate people. It is you yourself who have proved time and again that you can compromise your dislike for the ‘other caste’ on more than one occasions. So why still detest it? Your enemy is not on the roads… the enemy is within you. Why live on premonitions? Forgive and forget. Live and let live. Kill the hatred and half your problems are already solved.

“Courage is not in killing 100 enemies and standing like a brave soldier. Courage is in recognising the truth, adhering it and standing by the last word of it.”

The Banana Man

The entrepreneur in me keeps finding inspirations from the road side hawkers and vendors in Mumbai. I have some how developed a fascination to talk to these guys and know more about them. First it was Bilal, the carpenter, then the unidentified flower vendor at a Mumbai signal and now Ramsharan, a vendor who sells Bananas outside the Bhandup (W) station. So here is the story…

I hadn’t singled out any one vendor as such. However whenever I went to a railway station (which I dont do often), I was always fascinated by the sight of all the vendors outside the railway stations. So few days back I thought of asking one or two of them about their story. Nothing much, I just wanted to know what made them get into this business, how do they live, where are they from and how they cope with MNS    But believe me, not a single person was ready to give me time. Probably I went at the wrong time. 8pm. It is their prime business hour and no one wanted to answer my silly questions. I tried again next day, this time at 10pm. But the result was same. Finally I got hold of this banana vendor Ramsharan. I had to lie that I was from Times of India (I had a business card of a poor Times Business sales guy. I passed it on to him )

Ramsharan (He refused to tell his full name. He said its complicated) is originally from Jhajauli village of Shehdol district in Madhya Pradesh. A 50 some thing man, he came to Mumbai 14 years back in search of, hold your breath, a lead role in movies. Like any other small town guy, he too had starry eyed dreams about making it big in the film line. However as soon as he touched down, he knew he was in a wrong place. He didn’t give up though, and went through the ordeal that life threw at him through out.  The closest he came to stardom was holding lights and reflectors during some song sequence in a Hritik Ameesha starrer ‘Aap Muze achhe lagne lage’. That was nothing but he cherishes the moment being so close to the superstars.

By now I had already spent 10 minutes with him and he patiently managed to juggle between his banana customers and me. He excused from the stall for a minute and asked if I could man the ‘tokri’ till the time he was back. I assumed he went for a nature’s call. But when he was back, I was surprised to see two cups of tea. Wow! So he continued. He told me that after the initial struggle, he finally gave up and with few other hopefuls like him, he decided to open a small food stall outside filmcity in Goregaon. Luckily it clicked for him and he continued doing that till three years ago when the 26th July floods swept every thing away. The loss was not huge, but was enough to create a feud between the partners. He was emotionally attached to the stall, since it also connected to the film studios. He could occasionally get a glimpse of big stars coming in and out. But sadly he gave it away and decided never to partner any one. He tried opening a fruit stall in the same location. But being alone, he was driven away by the local goons and other vendors nearby. Finally after some struggle he came to Bhandup station and has been here for last 2 and half years.

By this time we had finished the tea. I offered to pay but he intervened. He said he doesn’t drink or smoke. So a cup of tea for a friend was nothing for him. Moreover no body had asked him about his story till date. So he was delighted. On asking, he said he earlier used to fetch the Bananas from the market in either Vashi or Bhivandi. However it is difficult for one guy to bring the whole bunch so far. So now he buys at the mandai. He makes about 100 or some times 200 bucks in profit per day. He is happy with it. It helps him pay his rent and earn him food for him and his wife. His son works in some garment factory in Surat which he is not aware of. But he sends money occasionally. So he knows son is doing well.

Finally it was time to go. I had to tell him that I dont work for Times of India, but I have a blog and I can give him a coverage on it. He wasn’t upset. In fact he joked saying even if I published his interview in TOI, it would make no difference to him. As he doesn’t understand ‘Angreji’. He might use the same paper to pack some bananas in it.    A true Indian!

What leads to terrorist attacks?

Look at the two contrasting pictures below.

Now help me answer a simple question. “Is violence an answer to more violence?” The terrorists, bandits or jehadis… whatever you may wish to call them, are taking vows to avenge the Gujarat riots. On the contrary, it all started in 1992-93 when the babri masjid was destroyed. Major riots broke out in Mumbai following the distruction leading to killings of hundreds of hindu-muslim households alike. Tiger Memon took an opportunity along with Dawood to blow up Mumbai in the serial blasts in 1993. It helped the Muslims in no way, but promoted even more haterd between the communities. The ‘Ayodhya’ movement gathered steam. Some anti social elements objected and set a train on fire in Godhra. The riots in Gujarat were nothing but an outburst of the killings of ‘innocent’ kar sevaks in Godhra. In response to Godhra, the jehadis blew up trains in Mumbai 2 years back. Surprisingly they are still avenging the ‘defeat’ and so called shody treatment to the Muslims. However this is not about the religion as they say it. ‘Islam’, from whatever I know is actually a very peaceful religion. The Quran doesn’t preach innocent killings. In fact it doesn’t preach the violence at all. Why on earth, then we have so many fidayeens willing to lay their lives on being brain washed by a bunch of selfish culprits? I’m sure many Indian and Pakistani politicians are involved in this dirty race for power.

There is probably no answer to this. All we need to do is use our brains and use them well. These young guys who pleadge their lives are not dying for a noble cause. Sad thing is, they don’t understand this. All they believe is what they see. Their failure to think means we have continued terrorism not only in India but around the world.

So coming back to the question. “Is violence the answer to violence?” Tell me about it!

Fellow Blogger Ramana Rajagopaul as written an excellent article on terrorism in India. Here it is, worth a read: Terrorism in India