By Paramjit Bakhshi
The way things are going, we columnists are going to be out of business. Not out of the business, as in making money though, because most of us don’t make any by our writing. We will be out of the writing business itself. You see the festive season might be good for love, harmony, brotherhood, parties and exchanging gifts, but it is period of drought, as far as issues are concerned. As if on cue, with the dip in temperature, everything else also calms down. All agitations come to an end abruptly. Just when one thinks, that the agitation business is really starting to get going, with the Rangbahs also joining the youth on the rebellion bandwagon, everything suddenly goes phut. The headmen issue loses steam faster than it started, the dual post agitation fizzles out, the ILP issue recedes from public memory, and the foreigner problem starts gathering dust. Suddenly everyone from politicians to self styled leaders step away from podiums, or from the tops of vehicles, and go into silent hibernation or on foreign jaunts, leaving us writers with fingers numb on immobile pens and frozen keyboards.
Luckily there is this one issue which is still smouldering, albeit a little weakly, even after the Bihar elections got over. If not for that I would have had to march to the politicians and the NGOs to remind the former of my rights and the latter of their duties. You see if the politicians can’t give us good roads, sufficient power, water, employment or a clean environment at least they should make some really controversial statements for us to write about at this time of the year. And why should NGOs go, like government servants, on paid leave now, abandoning plum agitations midway. Come spring it makes it harder for all of us, to warm up to their causes, after such a long lull.
Well the sole issue that just saved me from joining the ranks of protestors is the same issue which has made protestors of many writers, intellectuals and other of the creative ilk. By now you must have guessed, that the issue is intolerance. However the issue runs far deeper, than what other writers have cared to explain.
Like others, I too feel that we live, in intolerant times. Amongst the most rabid forms of intolerance one sees, is the intolerance to smoking. Remember the good old days when one could smoke in movie halls, in restaurants, clubs, bars and buses and smoking on trains and railway platforms was a given thing. Even airlines had smoking sections in the aircrafts, and our girlfriends understood that smoking was a manly gesture. We looked up to the Marlboro man, and though horses had given way to cars, smoking was still cool.
And so were cars with tinted glasses, till very recently. The environment friendly tinted windows, kept us gallivanting couples, away not only from the glare of the sun, but also from the prying eyes of jealous neighbours, nosey relatives, past and future loves and the burgeoning ranks of the moral brigade. The rising intolerance to tinted glasses has killed heterosexual romance and unless you are a gay couple, going on a long dreamy drive or just sitting together staring at each other in a parked car might turn out to be a starry eyed experience in a different way. It appears that the only way left to get really close to your sweetheart, now, is to take a ride in a packed local taxi. Yet there was a time, when car windows were tinted, and restaurant had cabins with curtains.
With carefree smoking being no more than a romantic dream, and romance up in smoke, I wonder how far this intolerance will go. In the olden days one took to drinks when one was sad, and of course you drank when you celebrated. Sadly the norm now is that even after a big election victory, they announce prohibition. Bihar is going dry soon, just as Kerala has, and for every state coming out of prohibition, two seem keen to embrace it. Intolerance indeed is growing by leaps and bounds, engulfing not just districts but whole states. This surely is nothing to dance a jig about. Anyway one might as well forget jigs too, because when it comes to dance inevitably the word dirty is now attached to it. In the olden days, the nawabs could frequent the kothas of the dancing girls, just as the Japanese still seek the geishas. However even this harmless activity, which gets rid of all work and martial tensions, is being denied to us. The moral brigade with more victories to its credit, than the Indian cricket team, has made life utterly joyless. All the dance bars across the country have been closed. I don’t know what all this fuss is about. After all, the harmless swish of a skirt or a chunni is no tandav and the world will not be trampled to extinction under the light hearted steps of a few pretty ladies.
Talk about extinction and one remembers the freedom to hunt in the olden days. All that was required was a licensed weapon and a permit to hunt. What a joy it was to go out into the forest, and return with some jungle fowl, a barking deer or a wild boar. Well you better stop salivating now because none of that is tolerated anymore. Especially dangerous is shooting black buck. However, if shooting is still your passion you are a little luckier than your smoking, drinking and womanising friends though you need to understand that what constitutes fair game is different now. Your new prey is your own two legged brethren and not the four legged wildlife. All you have to do is get some likeminded people together, get a few automatic unlicensed weapons, and send out some six or seven figure extortion notes. Anyone then refusing to fill your pockets becomes fair game, and you can shoot them, where and when you want. Should you tire of the game after having become super rich, you can quit quite easily, hide or sell or surrender your weapon, and return to society which will give you a hero’s welcome and a rehabilitation package.
Hey, talking about intolerance I just realised how utterly tolerant we are. Come to think about it, perhaps I am on the wrong track talking about intolerance. And so is everybody else. Killing fellow human beings has been tolerated for a long time, and why should Dadri alone make us feel, that the country has suddenly become intolerant. People have been killed for some reason or other since independence. Some have been killed for economic or political gain, some for ethnic or religious reasons, and some to give impetus to some local issues. All large communities have also routinely preyed on minorities whether it is in Kashmir, Gujarat, Delhi, Mumbai, Manipur, or Meghalaya and Assam. Hindus have been killed, Christians have been killed, so too have Sikhs and Muslims, and we have never screamed intolerance before.
And if we are talking of intolerance because of a ban of beef, we are still harking up the wrong alley. Is eating beef any healthier than smoking or drinking? In moderation all these activities are all right, so how come governments get by banning just the last two? Production and consumption of beef moreover, poses a larger risk to environment. According to scientists, the livestock industry is one of the largest contributors to global warming, producing not just carbon dioxide but about thirty seven percent of methane which contributes more to global warming, than any other gas.
So rather than talk about intolerance would it not be better to talk of our extreme tolerance. We are too tolerant of too many things in this country. We are tolerant of corruption and nepotism and hence we are also tolerant of the militancy caused by it. We allow emotions to sway us when they concern our self interest or that of our community, religion or ethnicity. We are also tolerant of many bans even though they make little sense. It is not just Nature which is polluted today but our own natures too, because we rarely clean the cobwebs in our minds and seriously ponder about the real issues which concern us.
When my editor asked me why I hadn’t written for some time, I told her that apart from one issue, I had nothing to write about. She told me that I must be joking, because there is so much to write about. She is of course right. Indeed there is so much to write about, that sometimes I don’t feel up to the task. And if you don’t know whether this article has been a serious piece or a joke please don’t worry. This piece is written a little for your sake, a little for the editor’s sake but mostly in anticipation of any award, which I solemnly promise to return at an appropriate time.
The writer can be contacted at [email protected].