Madness in the name of Our Lord - The Indian Way

It's Holi today. For people unfamiliar with the word, it's the festival of colors where people in this country and their genetic protoplasm spread all around the world like a virus, shed their inhibitions and emerge like the Lochness Monster that's been lying dormant throughout the year spraying color and drinking unbelievable amounts of 'bhaang' (Indianized alcohol, that is deemed and believed to be holy, quite conveniently of course).

Here's a more, real description of what this day usually is like for Indians all over the world.

It's funny how we Indians believe that if there is an occasion to be happy about, they need everyone around them irrespective of caste, creed, and sex to be involved in their happiness. Well, 'forced to be involved' is more like it.

Loud music, unruly behavior, drunken stupor, creating a nuisance, disturbing the peace, forcing down one's beliefs and faith down other people's throats - these are the features of any Indian occasion. How and why are these such important elements of celebrating a festival? You're happy - good. Stay happy in your own home. Mess up your own compound, make a noise in your room, play loud music with your earphones on, spray color on yourself, your family, heck...even your dog. The fact that you're happy doesn't warrant you the right to impose your happiness on me.


Naturally, the rowdier elements of society use this opportunity to threaten the innocent passerby & demand money. But then that's an entirely different matter and doesn't even deserve a separate post since that's really their nature and enough has been written and said about it already.

Funnily enough, this is a day when the lower working class of the Indian population forget which religion they believe in and all of them make it a point to be punctual at the households they work in, are at their best behavior, with a smile upon their faces which is otherwise a contorted countenance on most other days.  There is only one factor that brings about this sea-change in their behavior - 'baksheeh' or money. They consider it their right to partake some money that they feel is rightfully theirs on this auspicious occasion. It is the same set of people who in times of national crises or when it's important for people to keep their wits about them, are up in arms citing religious differences as their main grouse and go about killing people in the name of this sudden attachment to their religious selves and texts alike. Hypocrites - all of them.

Every coin has two sides and if you think about it, this is one festival where this madness results in unity of some sort, where people don't distinguish between each other in terms of skin color or just color in general for that matter.

Coming back to the point. If you're happy about something - keep it to yourself. If someone wants to be a part of that happiness, they will come to wherever you are and join you in your reverie. If someone doesn't feel the need to, or the want either to be part of this artificial day-long craziness, leave them be. Stop that loud music, irrational behavior, crazy drunkenness, and make life normal for people who prefer to celebrate their festival in peace and in the comfort of their own homes. In short (and generalizing it a little bit), GROW UP!

It's just not fair! We - The People.

By the way, today's post is being published while I am surfing on Tata Indicom's Photon+ Wireless Broadband Data Card (wow - didn't realize it was that long and complicated - and no, am not being paid to write that). Nice speed. 4/5 rating.

I was driving through Delhi today and passed along the most beautiful parts of Delhi - that's right - Akbar Road, Janpath, Aurangzeb Road, Africa Avenue, etc. There were many thoughts that came to my mind. Some of them were:

a) Crooked, dishonest, illiterate politicians get to stay in houses with sprawling lawns and state-of-the-art facilities, while a very very large proportion of regular, honest, hard-working, salaried individuals are paying 70-80 lakhs for a 1600 square feet apartment in Gurgaon. Don't even want to talk about Mumbai - not only because of 1600 sq feet (which is palatial in that city), but also because of the paltry sum of money, i.e. 70-80 lakhs, which is just about good enough to get you a pigeon coop in a decently located area in Mumbai.

b) Why is all the greenery in the godforsaken city of Delhi/NCR concentrated just around the houses of these losers? Isn't the rest of the population of the capital deserving enough to breathe good, clean air and live and experience decent surroundings?

c) If they have been elected by the people and want to do good for the people, why are they given houses that the same people who have elected them can never get access to? Forget the houses, the public can't even get access to the people whom they have elected.

d) Why do they get unlimited and uninterrupted water and power supply when the common man on the road or anywhere else for that matter is subjected to all the misfortune of no water and no power? Shouldn't they stand side-by-side of the people who have chosen them as their leaders?

If they can get clean air, water, electricity, why can't you and I?

Why can't the powers that be come and live among the people?

Have they forgotten the meaning of democracy? To refresh their memory, a democracy is for the people, by the people, and of the people. In this case, all 3 parameters seem to be missing. These elected representatives have become celebrities in their own right.

One might argue that since they are important people in our country, they need protection. Well, don't you and I need protection too? Why should we be subjected to all the dangers in the world and the people whom we have elected to protect us from these dangers lead a sheltered life? Why can't they face the same hardships that you and I face on a daily basis?

We gave them the right to lead and represent us. We however, did not give them the right to live like kings/queens while we suffer because of their shortcomings, incapable decisions, and corrupt minds.

Enough. Be one of us - be among us - face our difficulties - survive with us.

...And then, I returned to Gurgaon. That should explain all of this.

- Hef.