No, you are not a gareeb
The secret to a happy marriage must be hidden within the comfort two individuals share. Although marriage is a social contract, what eventually matters is how you treat each other when nobody’s watching. Fortunately, most humans lead a pretty normal life. Unfortunately, we don’t realize the significance of a normal life until it’s over. Little things matter. Making a cup of tea for the other person. Laying the blanket on them when they are asleep. Taking domestic chores seriously. Lowering the song volume. Etc. In my experience, laughter is the most important ingredient. If you are good at cracking lame jokes, don’t stop. You may not realize this but your sense of humour goes through its biggest transformation thanks to your spouse. Over time, there will be stuff only you two, and nobody else, find funny. This happens with close-knit family members and friends too. When you spend a lot of time and space with somebody, you end up locating your common coordinates of humour. On that note, if possible, maintain a separate journal — let’s call it, the daily laughter diary — for the stuff that you two laughed at together. By the end of the month or, say, a year, you will be walking through a long list of moments that you two cherished. Not to mention the moments that cherished you two.
We all may differ in our clothing, colour, food and beliefs, but there is one thing that unites us all: the fear of police brutality. We’ve read about thugs but they inspire fear mostly in the pages of books and scenes of movies. Our collective fear is often stoked by the presence of uniformed police officers. When a gunda beats you up, there are laws to redeem you but when a police beats you up, where would you go? We have seen the heinous role Delhi Police played during the recent riots in the capital city. Turns out power drains downwards and the biggest victims will always be those from the lower strata. The ongoing events from the USA are scary and gloomy in the same measures. Scary because some things don’t change in America: a black man can lose his life for nothing on the street. Gloomy because every single time, the same story repeats: no remorse whatsoever from the authority’s end. For once, it’d be nice if the one who is wronged gets the right recourse to justice.
The word you are looking for is racism but the word we should be looking for is accountability. Humans are inherently racist. No wonder the bar for racism has fallen so low that it’s difficult to understand the dynamics anymore. Nowadays, the only thing separating you from being called a racist is a race-related joke. In such a scenario, it’s important that the wheels of law are greased and healthy precedents are set. The wrongs of the past can’t be overturned in the present. Only what’s happening now matters and moulds have to be broken. Otherwise, the same old nonsense shall continue where it’s perfectly OK for the black community to grieve. Besides, the success of any given system is based on an individual’s fear of being held accountable for his actions.
When Kenny Sebastian made those hilarious jokes about chappals in his latest Netflix special, he was making subtle references to the classism visible in our society. A chappal can’t hang out with shoes; their hierarchy remains unabashed and unquestionable. But in India, such a classist society is rooted in the caste system of yore. In our present we find shameful remnants of our yesterday. Just like modern racism of the West is deeply rooted in the Christian supremacy of the post-Renaissance world. Whenever you read about imperialism, note how racism is (mis)construed as the byproduct of white ambition and had nothing to do with the Church’s constant approval of subjugation of the non-whites. A clean chit couldn’t have been whiter. Or holier.
Bollywood should be the last resort of sanity. Except for a few individuals who are true to their conscience, most simply don’t care about the world outside their bubbles. This behaviour can be observed when the PR handbooks are out and the witless actors play along. Calling them spineless is an insult to snakes. They nod and bow whenever and wherever need be. Merchants of a dystopian fantasy, if you care. Which is why it’s cute to see them tweeting about BLM and how racism has to end in America. These are the same folks who maintained pin-drop silence during some of the biggest socio-political turmoils in India before coronavirus took over. Wonder what stops them from being so concerned about their fellow countrypeople? Maybe because it’s safe to throw verbal flowers of hope from a safe distance. It’s a naked dance of optics. You don’t have to do good; you just have to look good. Maybe it’s a subcontinental desi phenomenon where you seemingly care about stuff as long as you it doesn’t harm your status. Maybe these Bollywoodwallahs are no different from the likes of Kumail Nanjiani (who despite his Shia heritage has nothing to say about the persecution of Shias in Pakistan) or Riz Ahmed (who despite his Mujahir heritage hasn’t uttered a word against the discrimination against Mujahirs in Pakistan) or for that matter, even, Malala (who hasn’t found the words yet to spare for the underage girls routinely kidnapped and married off in her home country).
If you belong to the middle class — since you are reading this garbage of a blog post, you surely do — then you must have either heard somebody who isn’t a gareeb (poor) call himself a gareeb or done it yourself. We do it not because we fancy ourselves the existence of penury, but because the poets have brainwashed us with the romanticism of being a gareeb. Which is also why you’ll hear phrases like ‘gareeb ke pet par laat mat maar’ (don’t kick the belly of a poor person) where the person and the concerned belly both aren’t poor. So, we enjoy the tragic nature of addressing ourselves as something we clearly aren’t. Very much like turning the fan on when the room is already cool because you want to enjoy the warmth of a quilt as well while leaving your feet out from underneath it. Best of both worlds. And you wondered what privilege looks like?
Silence is the least powerful as well as the most mysterious tool of all. When you don’t say anything, it either means you are hiding something or you are too confident of your loss. While dealing with idiots, you can either hide your knowledge by staying quiet or you can lose your peace of mind by saying something that they won’t get anyway. In this context, silence goes a long way in solving your problems for you. But for those who haven’t solved their problems yet, silence becomes less of a choice. Those who are oppressed, their silence is least powerful in the power game. But at the same time, their silence is filled with mystery, only to be exploited later.
We like to think of Scandinavian countries as some utopia and to a large extent, we are correct in doing so. When a majority of the global members are faring terribly due to misplaced priorities, the Nordic states come out with flying colours. However, when you read about their conjoined history, you will learn that they were like the rest of us. Scanian War is a prime example of falling into neighbours’ trap. However, they matured over time and have finally reached a stage where they seem to be bereft of problems. They are so low on issues that they create issues out of nothing. According to a recent report, Sweden imports trash from Norway to recycle them, in order to renewable heat and electricity. The downside of being too good at recycling. In Sweden, only 4% of waste goes to landfills, creating a demand for “fresh” trash. In India, 80% of the trash collected is dumped at landfill sites. Tells you why we stink.
I’ve been reading about Scandinavian history and it’s fascinating to learn (again) the prevalence of culture over language. There is a historic pattern in place. Norwegian-Danish relationship were so strong at one point that its effects are felt to this today. Henrik Ibsen, one of the most celebrated Norwegian writers, wrote most of his work in Danish. This is similar to Irish writers like Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Jonathan Swift, Iris Murdoch, Samuel Beckett, WB Yeats, and so many more, writing in English instead of Gaelic. Not very different from you and me who are comfortable reading and writing in English than in our murdered tongue. In a similar fashion, last week, Ladakh Police finally came into existence — a direct result of the abrogation of Article 370 — but it couldn’t come up with a slogan in Ladakhi language. Urdu imposition in the north parallels Hindi imposition in the south. Similarly, the Mughal rulers preferred Persian over Arabic because the former was considered more refined. Cultural dominance has no cure.
What’s common to Albert Einstein and me? We both think that Emmy Noether was the most important woman in the history of mathematics. In case you don’t know who she is — I wasn’t aware of her until last month — do read up on her. There are so many such brave and brilliant personalities who never made it to the top of the recognition list. Take for instance, Dede Allen. She became the first editor to get solo credit in Bonnie & Clyde (1967), meaning her name appeared on the credit roll even before the actors. One more such candidate is Maria Montesorri. This woman from Italy wanted to be a scientist but ended up in the medical field before seguing into educational reform. She became a reformist — not a reformer — a reformer works for reform while reformist advocates reform of a particular institution—after noticing a lack of structure. Today, there is a huge chain of schools across the globe bearing her name. In fact, the world’s largest school is called City Montessori School and is located in Lucknow.
