XXXVI : Epiphany I - Arvind & Sarsuamma

It was about late in the evening when Arvind finally stepped out again, this time from his house, he had already come out of Mohan and Sarsu's home late in the afternoon,the little boy Daniel was washed and put to bed after some preventive medication, fortunately they were told by the other boys who brought Daniel in, that the water well into which Daniel fell wasn't really all that deep it just had water that could come up to Daniel's knee and the height from the ground to the well water too wasn't all that high so all in all it was a lucky escape for little Daniel. Once the whole commotion returned to normal almost everyone who had assembled at Mohan's house for a Sunday lunch decided to call off the lunch plan, leaving the family to dedicate their time to take care of Daniel. 

Now as he stepped out, and lit a cigarette, the flame flew out a little bit,  some part of the cigarette ash also flew out due to a sudden gush of wind against him, the flying ash sprinkles were burning and live for a brief instant before blackening out and disappearing, the evening sky above seemed to be quietly courting something more passionate, chasing the receding Sun, it had turned on a large coat of flaming orange split into huge chunks that looked like herds of forest fire, flying in batches, the visual that stretched wide and distant had a number of such large Orange flame clouds moving south west as if trying catch hold of the fast setting Sun, trying to hold and restrain the Sun from going away for the day, the pale blue backdrop above the flaming orange accentuated the canvass like large heaving breasts. 

Arvind took a light drag and slowly exhaled by just contorting a part of the lower side of his jaw to the right side, to allow the smoke through that side of his mouth keeping one part on the opposite side somewhat shut, the action created a skewed whistle shaped mouth that also had his teeth in between- like he was biting the smoke - the smoke sneaked out, slow, lazy, curling a bit as it went up, thinning and spreading out as it whirled out of sight like an invisible paramour joining the orange sky above.    

Arvind arrested his lips to remain open for a while. As the smoke continued its flow, out, real slow and deliberate.

Arvind was a young, upcoming politician, currently seen as a candidate with great promise, belonging to CPI [ ML] , short for Communist Party of India, favoring the Marxist Leninist ideology,  a party that was inspired by a counterpart based in Ireland, the Irish left front, the Communist party of Ireland, both shared a common ideology, their allegiance, to all things that was at the root of the Bolshevik Revolution, a.k.a October Revolution, in Russia under Vladimir Lenin. 

He was a close associate of the then party stalwart Sundaraiya from the days of the Student revolt against Indira Gandhi’s Emergency rule and also following the launch of the All India Co-Ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries ( AICCCR), about which we'll talk more later, Arvind was already someone who had a ‘comrade’ base across India, Nepal, Burma, China, Ireland, Eastern Europe and of-Course Russia, by virtue of many of their 'exchange' visits. 

Arvind, had had several cases of criminal nature foisted against him during the days of the Emergency, many of which were later dropped at the end of the Emergency rule and the subsequent political changes that had swept India. As a leader of Students and the youth hailing from the Osmania University and also as the leader of the movement for separate Telengana he had tremendous clout and say in his age group.

He was an idealist. Sharp, argumentative and all out for a revolution. 

He was fair in a very light brownish way, medium height, about 5'7", lean, somewhat , mildly, muscular ( thanks to a little time he managed to spend at a local gym ), he had long, partially curled, black hairs flowing down covering his entire ears, known those days as the hippy cut, his ears were straight and vertical in shape, wide foreheads, thick black eye brows, dog like eyes, fluid white and black with small lashes that could out stare a lot of normal people if called for a 'staring match', he had a slightly thick mustache under a slightly broad yet long, straight nose, that joined a Beegees like long beard that urgently needed some trimming sitting on a on a short but thin neck, one look at Arvind's face would give an overall feel of a youthful rebel written all over it. He had a slouching frame with shoulders that walked with chest up with a straight and broad stride - with the face almost always preferring to walk looking down with a smooth chin up action to push his long hair once a while. 

Arvind would have looked every inch an American College youth if he had stepped into one. Without anyone even suspecting his skin color.   

Actually, if one were to go by just looks and the dress code, he, Arvind, too was as good as a bourgeoisie, that their party derided, he wore jeans, smoked pot, communicated in English, loved American rock and even American films. He wore busted rebel T-shirts that had images from Viet Cong, Che and Bob Marley on the front. This was at a time when India was still not really all that much into T-Shirt. When not wearing a T-shirt, Arvind, preferred a khadi kurta and blue jeans. That he personally worked hard on, to make it look nice and faded. 

He was educated in a rich "English Medium boarding School" near Lonavla, on the outskirts of Poona. 

Most of his friends were already enjoying life in the Americas. But he thought he will remain a friend of Cuba. And a citizen of India.      

He was walking towards what In Hyderabad are known as an Irani Tea Shop , by name 'Skylab' where he was hoping to meet some of his friends and party colleagues for a routine evening chat over tea, biscuits and small onion Samosas - something that Arvind and friends did every evening , these 'tea & smoke parties' as one can call them, were another one of those everyday routines for most of his friends, all of them met ,almost religiously, everyday, over an evening cup of strong Irani tea, some snacks and tobacco or pot smokes if available, sharing jokes, local gossip, sports, movies, politics whatever came to their mind and then exchanging pot - and it was always at the Skylab - rarely at some other Irani Chai joints ( hotels) nearby, Hyderabad was full of them and Hyderabadi youth chose these places to smoke their lungs out, while sipping at least half a dozen cups of the hot, steaming, orangish color, concoction of thick milk and tea leaves made famous by immigrant Iranians, the brew was fondly called " Irani Chai" even if it wasn't the usual 'Chai' that one sipped across India, it was thicker, stronger , brewed longer - incidentally all the Irani tea shop across Hyderabad invariably also had a Cigarette shop attached very next to them where it was common to find young and old standing and smoking and sharing a joke with the Paanwala -  but today as he walked towards the 'Skylab' tea shop, Arvind's mind was a bit in the sink, quietly reflecting on the events at Mohan’s house. 

He was thinking about his feelings of anger when he had rushed towards the Mohan’s door, when he heard the door bell ring like some world war Nazi raid at a Jewish home, even as Sarsu, Mohan , himself and a few other friends who were gathered at Mohan’s place for lunch were having a heated debate on India and Indian Democracy. Sarsu, Mohan's wife and Daniel's Mother was in fact right in the middle of expressing a very aggressive point of view, she would have continued, but was cut short, by the bell. 

He was angry at the intrusion, in fact everyone inside were, it was sudden, unwelcome and very obtrusive. 

The intensity of the knock and the door bell ringing continuously really added to the irritation, almost everyone assembled their thought that the aggressive ring of bell and the frenzied knock was handiwork of those uncivilised Sales boys on a Sunday brunch sales pitch attempt that had become common over weekends, of late, these door to door sales pitches; 

Later when he did open the door he was taken aback at the sight of  rogue boys from the basthi carrying Daniel on their arms, instead, when he had opened the door, being the first one to reach the door.

Arvind continued thinking about the incident, at Mohan’s house, something about the incident kept coming back into his mind , ever since the commotion at Mohan’s house had settled down, he had remained a little shocked, not at the incident itself, which was over and done, but at something else that he was himself not very clear what , but something ‘about’ the day’s events or ‘from’ the day’s event seemed to be bothering him, clawing at him – something abstract, remote, grey.

What Arvind did not know or couldn't place is the abstract feeling that his mind was quietly thinking about, it was about the general sense, actually the lack of it, the feeling of potential hurt upon witnessing scenes that had death or some such tragedy or such other feelings that would have been natural for any human especially those witnessing the Sunday incident that of little Daniel looking totally wet and looking like he was fished out of some real dirty trench somewhere near Mohan’s apartment block and for a brief instance looking almost dead. 

Somewhere at an abstract level Arvind’s mind seemed to have continued analysing the one very critical fact, why was it that he, his mind and his heart have very less feelings of the sort that he would have expected from a normal human in a similar situation? Why was he growing increasingly dumb and numb towards death and other human feelings like empathy or sympathy? when he came across someone else's suffering ? why was it that for him it was more apathy that seemed to dominate him? lately?   

Many of Arvind and people of his age and even beyond were growing numb towards the news of death, or even seeing death, or death like incidents, Arvind for instance had started to observe this feeling ,or the lack of it actually for a while now, not just today, but during a few earlier occasions too, his reactions to human tragedy were ‘impassive’, mild and devoid of emotions, the other day he had read news that a few hundred people died in a rail accident and he hardly felt anything reading it, he might have as well read an article on some boring local event, the feelings were similar, and he wasn’t very happy about that.

There was a growing sense of emotional decadence all around, death, morality, ethics had become words filled with mockery, sarcasm and even ridicule. Even suicides had ceased to pain – like those people from the basthi dancing while taking out a funeral procession, drunk and dancing , a mindless, frenzied dance, to loud ‘theen maar’ drums. While they. the basthi crowd, still seemed to express something, most of the educated urban class across India, were seriously dumbing down, at least at a collective level , if not at the individual level.

Call it the effect of the collective fear of the Government 'post the emergency, the hangover'. 

Or whatever.    

The fact remained. India, had become an Emotional and Intellectual mortuary. Frozen, atrophied. 

A huge section of its youth were being drawn into an unemotional mortuary. Unknown, to them - the youth ie.        

The late morning incident seem to be indicating to him that he, a upcoming politician, was evolving into someone whose only motivation remained impassive manipulation of the social set up around him, all he wanted was to further his own pseudo Marxist ideology, other feelings towards issues that were severely effecting the country, were becoming more and more synthetic, despite when the need was to have youthful politicians like him , who had stood up bravely even during the emergency days to bring in emotions that reflected realism - after all India was facing a crisis so severe in so many different areas. 

Be it, any social or emotional pain, poverty, starvation, exploitation or even death – all that , as an emotion, seemed like feelings and stuff meant only to be put on when needed and then removed.

As he continued walking, cigarette in hand, and lost in thought, Arvind noticed he was passing through a neighborhood basthi, that he crossed everyday, a good number of new temporary shanties were being built - using plastic flex sheets tied to sticks cut out of wild acacia plant shrubs, maybe even tin sheets and asbestos that were used earlier had now become unaffordable Arvind thought, the tent was standing on bare mud with open drainage on all sides - the 'home' was made uglier due to open defecation by children from all around. 

Arvind knew that these were typical colonies that symbolised the life of the poorest of poor from Mettuguda to Rio to Caracas to Nairobi, they were everywhere, he had even seen a few of them during his 'exchange' tours to some of these places, outside India, where extreme poverty existed. 

Where the extreme situation was not just neglected, it was actually exploited.

Across the world. 

By politics and by anyone and everyone.  And today he too had blended into one of them. The blend of the unemotional.  

Be it in Mettuguda or Bombay or Addis Abbaba or anywhere. The tribe of Arvinds were growing. 

Even as the tribe of the great slum swellers also kept expanding, exponentially.

Made of 'illiterate' of the mind and intellect Fathers, Mothers, Sons and Daughters of migrant families from deep inside their country's rural peasantry, coming into cities from remote rural hinterlands, mostly displaced by decisions like building Dams or homeless people hopelessly marooned during floods and subsequently shifted to temporary shelters and then left to fend for themselves eventually having no alternative but to move to the cities or tribal poor whose forest areas were robbed or duped by mining barons and then thrown out or they were naïve farm labourers brought in with a promise of better life by conniving contractors supplying cheap labour, the reasons were as many as the size of the migrant population, very few basthi citizens were immigrants who came well planned, in search of jobs.

Whatever.

While the apathy, the ‘dumbing down’ of most Indians, had become widespread – India , the whole of it, had become a society free of ‘pain, remorse, regret’ – completely and totally - in a very negative sense of the term.

Most migrants living in these squalid tents were poor, unskilled, illiterate displaced people. But, no Indian who witnessed the migration occuring right in fron  of their eyes had any motivation to stand up and do something about the growing cancer. They just walked past, head bent down. Seeing yet not seeing, watching yet not watching. Feeling wretched yet allowing the spread uncaringly.  

These people who filled the basthis were different from the ones who came with better plans. 

Those coming with a planned scheme , in search of jobs etc. were different. Such kinds were limited to the more literate class.  Arvind himself was an example of a literate migrant. His family was basically from a village called old Sironcha located on the Maharashtra side enroute to Nagpur, on the Andhra Pradesh-Maharashtra  border. 

His father had migrated to Hyderabad after passing his SSLC, from the nearby Zilla Parishad High School, he came in search of a job, Arvind’s Grandfather was a Carpenter working in and around Gadchiroli. Their family spoke a language that had a mix of Marathi, Urdu and the telengana dialect.     

His family belonged to a caste called the Padmashalis , a class that once upon a time earned their livelihood by means of Carpentry esp. carpentry work that involved building houses in the good old days that used large amount of wood in its engineering, but now the caste had fallen into a lower economy club since most houses used very little wood,  it was all plastic and Aluminium these days, wood itself being scarce. Their caste belonged to what in India were called as OBC’s , Short for other backward Castes, that enjoyed reservations ( read as government assisted benefits of all kinds – except train and bus reservations they were given preferred treatment for everything else )  into virtually anything everything in India this was an incentive given through a Parliamentary statute to various sections of Indian population commonly known as oppressed class, a class that was once treated as ‘Untouchables”, later given the identity as “harijans” by Gandhi  - Arvind never ceased to be amazed by these economic spirals , the true hidden theory at work, that threw out some haves and made them have not’s and then brought in some have not’s and put them into the category of Haves all of it by sheer accident - so Thanks to the reservation he had managed to complete his Masters in Political Science and Economics from Osmania University ( everyone in the twin Cities of Hyderabad & Secunderabad graduate from Osmania University) even if he had hardly managed to pass through most of his academic years.

Incidentally Arvind's Father was a Union leader at the local Railway Mazdoor Union. By the nature of his father’s work and his actual position , that of a Class IV employee, also known as a ‘D’ Class Government Servant, Arvind and his family would not have been all that endowed. 

But Arvind’s family was somehow quite well to do, he suspected his Father was corrupt. 

Even if he spewed Marx and Working Class rights, he knew his father was a hypocrite capable of quietly betraying all the causes he espoused, Arvind had this suspicion because they seemed to be living a reasonably good life. 

What with his English medium boarding School education, his once in a while trips outside India where he was given decent foreign currency to spend,  and such things. His Father also hinted that Arvind will soon get a job offer from the Railways, a chance that many other common Indians couldn't get into all that easily.   

Arvind’s thought process was again drawn to the environment around him, he couldn’t help but notice one of the tent that he was passing - of just about 4 square feet - he could see the whole setting inside , clearly, despite the fading light , since it had nothing to screen out the inside living area, there was a bluish light inside due to the blue color of the plastic flex sheet on top, giving the tent a very unearthy feel, almost like a crude night club inside a tent, the floor was plain earth , there were children of all ages, including a new born in the arm of a frail women making rotis using a make shift fire from dry twigs with 2 bricks on the side to hold an iron tawa- a pan - Arvind noticed that the mother was using water instead of oil to ensure the rotis did not stick to the tawa, the pan, and the children were swarming all around the woman. One of them a toddler was in her arms even as she was making the bread.

Just outside the tent he also saw a big , fat, dirt laden Pig with several little baby pigs being fed - there must have been at least 7 or 8 baby piglets - some still blind, the little baby pigs were falling over each other to be able reach their mothers breast, the pig looked nearly dead ( Arvind wondered as to why he felt that most of the things he was seeing were seemingly dead) . Flies and ants were moving about her nose, her eyes was shut, her tongue was out , but she was breathing. The irony of the human condition inside the tent and the pig outside was not lost on Arvind, but yet, it really did not ‘move’ him to decide , as a politician, to put together an act to end such squalor. 

Arvind and a few of his politician friends had once visited one these colonies to talk to one of their self appointed leader - a crafty, suspicious looking rogue with black and red tobacco and paan stained teeth, who was always giving out a crooked smile before every word spoken - and it took them no time to soon realise that these temp shanties would soon become their major vote banks provided the shanties were not allowed to be shifted to any other constituency, since then it would be that, the other constituency, that will stand to be benefited with those many extra votes. Most people living in these shanties would do anything for money, even vote for money or report by the hundreds for a political rally on just a promise of free food and alcohol.

It was an easy kill, really. These rally's. India and Indian people came cheap, real cheap, all it took was a promise of about Rs. 5, free travel on a truck, a packet of food and for the restricted few who were responsible to collect the crowd, alcohol. Arvind had sometimes managed close to 50,000 to even 100,000 people for a rally. All it took was putting in place a good logistics plan and accessing the millions of illiterate poor around the several basthis of Hyderabad and Secunderabad.

The participants were trained to clap and whistle and shout slogans as per a pre defined drill. They, the rally crowds, were even trained at arson, riots, burning buses, plundering an office or a railway station - whatever. Nothing was sacrosanct, everything was just a game - pay and provoke and the rest will happen. 

No rally in India was really genuine, peoples, rally. They were all without exception paid. And they were all full of poor, illiterate bastards. 

Educated Indians by nature are cowards, hypocrites - Most educated Indians have been conditioned to look down upon mass protest, of any kind. So they even if India is nucleared out, or destroyed mercilessly, the Indian educated class would simply, find a new country to live. 

Simple. And talk or even preach hatred in whispers while making sure they had access to all the good things - Manipulated Status Quo, at any, any, cost. That's an Indian for you.   

So their party had decided that that they would fight tooth and nail to ensure these shanties 'remained' as they were and they fought even harder not allow anyone try and shift them from their location. 

And that day onwards the party used to send young Politicians like Arvind along with a team regularly into these ‘Basthis’ as they were known. Arvind and his team went in to build a political nexus between the people of the basthi and the party by building youth clubs, reading rooms and also organising ‘bhashans’ by their leaders once a while. The Youth clubs, Reading room etc. were just fronts fro gambling dens that was often funded by the party.

Maintaining status quo was an important element of their strategy when they engaged such basthis. 

Many of the rogues of the basthis could be used to forcibly stamp and dump ‘extra’ votes into the ballot boxes during elections, since most common folks simply detested these elements and avoided them like a plague, besides having no guts to fight them when  found indulging in activities that infringed upon even ‘fundamental rights’ – like ‘voting’ .

Such was the fear, many of these rogues could come, pick a girl from an apartment, rape or molest and still go scot free. The girl’s parents would simply cower and refuse to pursue anything legal, fearing something worse, as a backlash, if they did.

Fucking, Mother fucking, rats. Arvind muttered under his breath. In Telugu. As he drew another drag from another cigarette that he had lit. 

Whither human courage? Whither the courage to stand up and fight ? Whither human dignity, rights and Freedom ?? From fear ??  

C’mon.

He stopped and looked around. He was now near the cross road opposite Skylab. His cigarette had almost neared the end of its butt, it singed him just before he threw it into an open ditch.   

Arvind had realised the inadequacies of the Indian mind right from his days when he was an underground Student leader during the emergency rule of Indira Gandhi. Here it was that the country’s most celebrated freedom fighter's daughter, the daughter of Nehru, India's 1st PM, a man who had given the famous speech ' tryst with destiny' on India's ascension as a free democracy, this woman who was also the longest serving Prime Minister of Independent India, had usurped all Indians of their basic rights, everything that they fought for had been taken away – but out of the zillion Indians, just a few score, or even less, had the fucking guts to stand up and fight and fight real hard.

Of course many who fought - were tortured to death. With no epitaph or a grave. But the educated Indian remained a natural, a coward.  

To Arvind the attitude shown by those more privileged who had permanent shelters just next to these basthis almost adjacent to these temp shanties often was amusing – most of those more privileged were happy exploiting some of these from temp shanties to work in their homes as their domestic maids or servants, none, Arvind thought, none ever took efforts to either protest their presence or try and make the government do something about the level of sanitation or improve their living standards.

Sarsuamma, not even James, was the only exception, She would walk around these colonies, bring some of her Doctor friends and conduct medical camps and almost always try and contribute or develop these unfortunate human fleets.

Sarsuamma was also someone who burned with a passion of a rebel, she had every element of a revolutionary, in the making. 

Arvind stepped into Skylab and ordered a Chai and some 'tie' biscuits. 

Even as he unconsciously viewed the Skylab menu painted on the wall - Dilkhush, Cream Bun, Mirchi Bajji, Veg Puff, Egg Puff, Chicken Puff, Samosa ( small), Samosa (Big) , Biryani, Chai, Spl. Chai, Bournvita, Horlicks... 

The radio at the Hotel was on Vividbharathi. It was Jaymala. And the song requested by about a few hundred Indians and many Army jawans , for whom the radio program was dedicated, was from a film by name Qurbani.

Naseeb Insan ka...  the songs mood wasn't very helpful to elevate Arvind from his soliloquy.