Chola Maati Ke Ho...

Today is Independence Day. Me & my cousin just saw Peepli Live. Well just an insignificant co-incidence. To us what matters more is that today is Sunday and we have an off. Independence ?! What independence ? (Will come to that later.)

The story of Peepli Live revolves around two brothers. Budhiya & Nathha. Their village is somewhere in MP, quite close to the native place of my own ancestors. Another insignificant co-incidence.

Continuing on similarities, my forefathers also had farmlands (still do), although much more prosperous, thus ensuring that my parents & uncles got a decent enough education and ventured out of the village with most having government jobs. ‘Chachaji’ became a textile engineer in the ‘private sector’(a big achievement & matter of pride for my grand parents :-).

For those who have already seen the movie (am not going into details here), Nathha lands up as a construction labourer in Gurgaon working in one of the myriad real estate projects.

I also live in Gurgaon. With my cousin. And we couldn’t help feeling a little bit like Budhain & Nattha ourselves. We had a good laugh about it. Also how our ‘middle class’ moms too vented out their hearts to us, especially when like all middle class moms, they were trying to make us ‘engineers’ & our sisters into ‘doctors’ ;). But at the heart of it, there is more….

Both of us are also somewhat ‘labourers’. My cousin is an engineer working in Wipro J . I needn’t say more. And I slog in an ad-agency to sell ‘sabun tel’ (actually cars, ACs etc.) for….

But ultimately we are small gears in a huge machine which over generations has moved us from villages to cities for reasons similar to Budhain & Nathha. Umm…money honey !

Yes, we are a few SECs above them and have a better lifestyle, but we too are in a ‘naukri’ for bread & butter at the end of the day. And all those of you who are fellow ‘naukars’ in your respective cushy jobs, do understand what I am trying to hint at…

Thus my earlier sarcastic remark on Independence Day…

Now, talking of change and trying to bring about a change…hmm…well, incidentally I am currently working on a CSR project which is about empowering farmers & stopping the migration to cities. However its impact (if it DOES get rolling) will perhaps be that of a needle on a haystack.

So then is the situation quite as hopeless as Peepli Live suggests? I don’t know.

Let me take a little detour here. Before we went to watch Peepli Live today, there was ‘Gandhi’ being aired on TV today. And like every time I see this movie, I got quite hooked & developed goose bumps. Especially in the scenes when Gandhi fasted for days to stop violence or when ‘satyagrahis’ voluntarily marched into the lathis of British police, file after file, got beaten, with each file of wounded men being dragged out & bandaged by their women….for one whole day!

We respect our soldiers & revolutionaries. I too do. With all my heart. But doesn’t it take more courage to walk into an ambush unarmed and not hit back ? What were these men made of ? And what was this man Gandhi who inspired them ? He would fast for days, weeks…just because some Indians hit back at an abusive British police patrol ?

The reason I mention Gandhi in between this Peepli Live story is that it would perhaps take no less than a Gandhi to change things in the India of today.

And my dear fellow naukars (‘corporate’ or ‘sarkari’), let us not delude ourselves with ‘independence’ any more….we all know our own little stories. We are either servants or consumers of biggies in a system which is gettimg more & more top-heavy & consolidated (quite like US) and where smaller firms & shops are disappearing in favour of biggies & malls who are gobbling them up like the bigger fish do with tiny-minies…

Somewhere we are all Budhain & Nattha…give or take a few SECs…

Gandhi had said that it is not material prosperity which makes a people happy (although approx. 70% of India doesn’t even have that !), and if we import a Western system we will also import their spiritual poverty…and that poverty is quite visible in the prosperous metros…..while the rural hinterland continues with material poverty..

Solution ? Well, Gandhi had a solution for that too. An economic system quite different from the one we imported from the west. A system which was not top-down but bottom-up. A system which was about empowering the smallest man and not making him your TG (target group)/consumer or servant. A system which was not about bigger machines but happier people.

But I think I’ll end this article here. I am not quite sure whether it is the right time for this monologue. Or even whether I am the right guy to talk about it.

Also, is there an ideal/perfect system possible at all ?

Or is the answer in the lines of the closing song of the film….

bhause paal lage barahe the, hari ke naam sumarle
sangi hare ke naam sumarle
ae duniya maa aake re pagla, jeevan mukti kar le
chola maati ke ram
ekar ka bharosa chola maati ke re
chola maati ke ho
haaye chola maati ke ram

Well, I am just another Nattha in Gurgaon, with more questions than answers and will leave you to think what’s what for yourself…

haaye chola maati ke ram
ekar ka bharosa chola maati ke re…