All is certainly not well!

A couple of weeks ago, before moving to Singapore, a friend invited me over for lunch. It was during this time when some parts of Hyderabad were experiencing communal tension. Just to refresh your memory, it was the same time when Sania Mirza’s marriage was ‘breaking news’ on all the TV Channels. And considering that communal violence is commonplace in India, this bit was not all that ‘breaking’ for the news channels.

Post lunch, my friend dropped me at a place from where I took an auto for my journey back home. Call it destiny or something else; I got into an auto whose driver stayed in the old city-the part of the city which was impacted by the turbulence the most. He looked visibly disturbed. I happened to ask him the reason. I guess he wanted to vent out his frustration and helplessness to someone.

Incidentally, that someone was me. I hail from an infamous place-Ayodhya. Hence, I am not new to words like curfew and communal tension. But, in 1992 I was in class IVth. As a kid, all I cared about was that our schools used to shut down, quite often indefinitely, and we used to have a gala time at home. The reality that had not hit me then, hit me 18 years later.

The auto-driver told me that he could manage to take out his auto after 4 days when the police relaxed the curfew for a few hours. He and his family were surviving on his paltry savings for the initial two days and for the last two days his neighbours were helping him by offering some leftover food. But as the curfew intensified, even his neighbours started feeling the pinch. But for his children, he could have managed without food for some more days was what he said. He told me that he was happy to earn some money but on his way back he got delayed and missed the curfew deadline by 10 minutes. He was not allowed to go to his place. Even though he had toiled hard, he wasn’t sure if he could reach his family. Agony and frustration were rife in his voice.

We are all selfish and I think that is the core of human existence. That makes politicians and therefore the politics they practice selfish too. But, when our selfishness transcends all boundaries and everything boils down to vote bank politics, it takes draconian proportions and gets manifested in acts of communal violence, pro and anti reservation protests and not to miss our (in)famous ‘rail roko’ (stopping trains) or ‘chakka jam’ (road blockades) revolutions. It is neither you, who is reading this, nor me, who is writing this suffers. It is people like these auto drivers and their families who suffer. Till date, I have failed to understand how a ‘Hyderabad bandh’ will help the common man and make him want Telengana more. I have failed to understand how burning of trains, buses and other public property can bolster a cause when it is hampering the cause of the common man.

These were exactly the thoughts that crossed my mind while I was listening to him. These thoughts made me cringe then, they make me pensive now and I guess they will just lie in one remote corner of my mind after some time.

At the end of the trip, I tipped the guy 50 rupees. I do not support socialism and this act of mine should not be construed as one that supports it either. I wanted him to have hope because I guess he needed every bit of it that day. And I guess I did that sub-consciously, because I wanted to get over the guilt of being helpless in those circumstances.

Did someone say ,“All is well”?