Paramjit Bakhshi
About a century and a quarter ago Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “God is dead”, adding a few sentences later, “What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent?” Having witnessed the Durga Puja celebrations in the city, one is sure that God could not be dead, and even if there are but few festivals of atonement, many a sacred game still gets played with boundless zest. It is only some mere mortals who die during these festivals-some even because of them. Coming back from Cherrajupunjee on the evening of the tenth instant, in the middle of the Durga Puja celebrations, one witnessed an ambulance removing a patient from Umtyngar. As one reached upper Shillong, a massive traffic jam awaited us. It took us three and a half hours to reach the Civil Hospital from there. One wondered what happened to the ambulance and the patient it carried. Of course the death of twenty or so people at the Varanasi stampede recently made national headlines.
It is indeed ridiculous that religious fervour is allowed to spill onto the streets and bring the city, and all movement on its roads and highways, to a grinding halt for hours and days on end. If bandhs have been banned by the courts because they bring everyone’s daily life to a complete stop it is time that the judiciary had a look at the way festivals are celebrated everywhere. My festival cannot become an excuse to make your life miserable. Religion should be a private affair, a personal tete e tete with the Almighty, confined either to the home or a place of worship. There is no valid reason for it to become a public nuisance and appropriate every public space. Yet one routinely sees religious processions winding leisurely down the city streets. Stadiums and even the golf course have been used to hold religious rallies. The mullah does not consider it inconsiderate, when he uses a loudspeaker to wake up, not just his flock but folks of all persuasions, early in the morning and neither do priests and pundits when they expound their doctrine or sing their bhajans at deafening decibels at all hours of the day, evening and night. Even though we might rave and rant about middlemen in business and commerce, we all confer special privileges on our intermediaries to God, even when it becomes evident that their words are often what divide men from other men. Some of them of course, cross all boundaries and exhort people to hate and kill rather than be voices of compassion and love. As Jonathan Swift put it, “We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.”
The freedom of religion envisaged in our constitution surely did not mean that we lose all sense of civic responsibility. Sometimes one gets the feeling that all major religious celebrations are little more than shows of strength. Just as politicians round up people for their rallies, the organisers of religious events also like to have as high a head count at their shows, even if that dilutes the sobriety of the occasion. The trouble is that though political rallies take place once in a four or five years, religious gatherings are regular annual events. Such occasions do little to take us closer to heaven or to mokhsha or jannat but surely do prevent us from carrying out our earthly obligations. Every year at some pilgrimage or other there is a stampede that kills scores of people. In their overzealousness to deliver people to heaven in the afterlife, the religious authorities often do not care about people dying as a result of unregulated religious assemblies or inter religious strife and condemn many families to a living hell in having to cope with the loss of loved ones. To quote the Punjabi Sufi poet, Bulleh Shah, “Going to Mecca is not the Ultimate (solution), even if hundreds of prayers are offered, Going to river Ganges is not the Ultimate, even if hundreds of cleansing baths are taken, Going to Gaya is not the Ultimate, even if hundreds of verses are chanted, Bulleh Shah the Ultimate is, When the ‘I’ is removed from the heart.”
It should be the primary duty of the organisers of these religious extravaganzas, to ensure that their faithful, do not jeopardise the freedom of movement of other people. But one has rarely, if ever, seen our religious leaders preach public decorum, in the masses they seek to lead. In many parts of the country highways are blocked every Friday, because the faithful gather to say their prayers on them, and even in a rented house at Laitumkhrah our gate was routinely blocked by people, parking their cars to attend service every Sunday. “Religion is the opiate of the people”, wrote Karl Marx more than a century and a half ago, and judging from most people’s behaviour, it still continues to be so.
Since the organisers of religious fanfare wash their hands off being responsible for their followers’ behaviour, it is incumbent upon the executive to impose appropriate strictures while granting permission for such events. As things stand though, that idea is mere wishful thinking, because the executive in the state has been in a condition of perpetual slumber. As children we used to wonder how Rip Van Winkle could sleep for thirty years, but as grown-ups we seem to have taken the four decade long somnolence of our government with a total lack of incredulity. Rather than doing their duty, our elected representatives were themselves busy, visiting the pandals. Thankfully for us, all but one unelected VVIP, confined their visits to the day light hours, when traffic was manageable. This gentleman however chose to go around in the evening, thereby adding to the traffic snarl and to the woes of the perplexed traffic cops, who sweated to bring some order in the chaos. Surely if he had eyes to appreciate the idols, he would have also seen the discomfort of the lesser mortals as his cavalcade passed. Seneca voiced an eternal truth when he said, “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false and by the rulers as useful.”
Religion is a sensitive topic for most of us so perhaps one can stop at this point. It is not one’s aim to denigrate religion, but to make people aware that what is one man’s meat could be another person’s poison. For a few days Shillong turned from being a Compromise City into a Completely Clogged city. This being in reference to my last piece titled, “Compromise City”, to which a number of people responded. One responder suggested quite aptly that our hometown be called Cab City. After all it is the cabbies that rule the roost on our roads and nothing is more ubiquitous in Shillong than the bee coloured cars. Digressing, perhaps not too subtly, from the main theme of the piece, here are some more suggestions on what the present day Shillong could be called. Sticking to the alphabet ‘c’, one has already touched upon- compromise, confrontation and cab. Another one which comes to mind is, Coal city. After all the character and the look of the city altered completely when cash from the black diamond started flowing in. Assam type cottages with neat lawns and flowers gave way to concrete monstrosities. Coal also brought more trucks, cars and cabs on the narrow streets of Shillong and introduced us to traffic jams. Also in the reckoning would be Corruption city or Crumbling city with the first being the cause and the second the result. Since another opiate has recently become very popular, amongst our young, and not so young, the tag Cannabis city could also be considered. With Diwali around the corner there is also a possibility that for a while we might become Claustrophobic City. Religion will become some peoples excuse to add to the noise and air pollution.
The other ‘c’ which is in the race to be prefixed is Cafe City. Cafes are a welcome addition to the cityscape and provide the right space for the young to mix and mingle minus alcohol. Some of them offer live music and some like The Grub also serve awesome food at very reasonable prices. Sadly these are largely confined to the kilometre or so stretch along Laitumkhrah. Hopefully these will contribute quietly to what one would like Shillong to truly become- a Colourful City.
The writer can be contacted at [email protected].