The Great Indian Rat Race (GIRR)

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Ishani is now ten months old.

I can see that she has already outgrown her toy-world and is eager to participate in the real world. Well, she likes her toys...but just that they are her property and no more.

Her great moment is when her mother tucks Ishani into her left hip with a left hand vice-grip and cooks with her right hand. The smells and sounds of the Indian kitchen (whistle of the pressure cooker, whir of the mixer-grinder, cling-clang-cling-clang of the ladle stirring up the vegetable in the frying pan, the sudden subdue of the hectic noise when water is poured into the hissing pan....) simply fascinate her. She knows that this is life for real, unlike her toy-kitchen-set.

When she is leased into my lap for a couple of minutes while I am blogging, she knows that things happen when the keyboard is punched; and into my bed while I read a book, that books are great Silencers.

In short she is investigating the household.

And when I dress up, she knows that it is now the turn of the wide world outside full of cars, autos, kids, stray dogs, the hustle and bustle of city life.

She enjoys it immensely.

But then, our watchman stops us and tries in vain to befriend her, and in a great impulse of chivalry he blesses her:

"Study well and become a Collector!"

Collector is the South Indian aliter for District Magistrate (DM).

[The DM was and is (till recently) the symbol of Ultimate Power over his subjects in the District under his command for the nonce (He can round you up for Election Duties). My MD Physician-Uncle reputed for his prowess not only in diagnosis and treatment but also for his Lectures in his Medical College, and ruled over the biggest and best Hospital in our Region, wished he were a Collector; Reason: "When the Collector is ill, his PA rings me up and it is I who has to go to his Bungalow in the JEEP he sends; not the other way round"].

And then even before we cross the threshold of our Apartment Complex, our Retired Chief Engineer wags his finger at li'l Ishani and says: "You have to outshine your parents and grandparents and become the Best Engineer in the US (like my cousin's grandson)".

So poor li'l Ishani is firmly into GIRR even before she can lisp.

I can only wish that like her tell-tale gran'pa she would try hard to be herself rather than try to scale unending heights set for her by uncaring others (I know it is impossible, just trying to be inspirational for a change like AC, DC & PC).

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My Ph D Guide SDM of the Freedom Movement whose aim in life was to prove to the world that Indians have no less Native Intelligence than the Westerners was keenly looking forward to the day India would become a Free Country.

And within 3 years of that Tryst With Destiny he discovered that all that happened was that the Brown Sahibs flushed the Gora (White) Sahibs away with a deluge of our age-old Brown Values.

And then he had the opportunity to sail for England in the mid-fifties. He was a poor judge of persons (he told me he thought I was an HNB spy) and worldly affairs but his insights were phenomenally sound at times. He told me that the moment he set foot on the British soil: "I could smell it in the air that this is a country that has been Free for a Thousand Years (unlike India that has been a Slave for that same period)".

Unfortunately he never set foot on the US soil, so I didn't have his reaction to it ...but I remember the quip of Churchill when Roosevelt appealed that Indians be granted Freedom: "Which Indians are you talking about; the Brown millions under our Benign British Rule multiplying by leaps and bounds or the Red millions you annihilated?" (Selective vs Systematic).

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Talking of GIRR, I liked the one about the wife of the Hyderabadi Beggar who complained that their neighbor is bringing 200 Rupees everyday, double of what her husband nets. HB retorts: "What can I do? Only one of my legs is lost to Polio and so I stand on the other leg the whole day at one place; while that chap lost both his legs in a Railway Accident and got a wheel-cart so he can roam and beg all over the place."

This reminds me of the very convincing plea of Das Babu, our sweet Life Insurance Agent at KGP asking my friend to take a Double-Accident-Benefit Policy:

"Jodi apnaar ekta tong bhangley ek lakha taka paaben; jodi dutoyee bhangley....taholey aaro besh bhalo....dui lakha taka paaben!"

("If you lose one leg you get 1 lakh Rupees; if both legs are gone...it is all the more better...you get 2 lakh Rupees!).

Long Live GIRR!!!


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