When I got this forward, I opened it reluctantly. I thought it must have something to do with the BPL versus the rest of India - APL and above, reaching all the way up to the India of billionaires.
Bachchan’s two Indias were 1. the India on the leash, rearing to go charged by optimism and 2. the leash that is India, that skeptical India looking fearfully down at the bottom of the ravine, asking the leashed India to prove itself and only then it’ll be unleashed.
What struck me was the terrible truth that the class represented by Bachchan is totally oblivious to that India, which starves, hungers, thirsts for the basic amenities, to that India which lives in darkness where electricity is unheard of, to that India which is uprooted, and deprived of livelihood and a roof above its head, to that India for which roti kapada aur makhan is the ultimate and unachievable goal.
I hated this forward for I too belong to this callous India, rearing to go, about to make history and earn all those adjectives, which the world is showering on it!
I too belong to that India which snatches bread from the hungry India and demolishes the tiny hut which gave it shelter from wind and rain and scorching sun so that I can have live in air-conditioned comfort, or travel in hi tech cars.
I belong to that India which kicks another India out of its home all the way to giant metros to live on footpaths and be resented and insulted by the denizens of those big cities.
This forward reminded me of my sins.
And I don’t want to be reminded.
Or feel guilty.
I’d rather continue to bury my head in the sand like the proverbial ostrich, and continue to exist in my ivory tower- -
Till that day the deprived India rises
And guillotines me.
I wait for another messiah, another Gandhiji. I compare Amitabh Bachchan to Arundhati Roy. I know where truth lies. Maybe I am unable to do anything about it, but I shall not shy away from truth. Like the Late police constable Ramachandran Nair, I say, Hang me to death, if that will save this country.
ReplyDeleteThe former class as you say will wish away the other India. Why inconvenience and that is sore to the eyes?
ReplyDeleteThe latter like many of us are fearful.But we are termed sceptical , pessimistic lot of Nuisance. Neverthless it is worth while to termed so, because that categorisation will come only from minds that know from inside that they are wrong.
Do you think that if you cry till your tears dry up, any one would listen?
ReplyDeleteThw world will go on revolving the same way.
And after every time of sobs and tears, we just let it go and stop crying,and go on with life.
Everything in life just needs getting used to.
There are some rules for the nature.Equality is not one among them.