Thursday, May 31, 2007

A Streetcar Named Desire

Big boys play with big toys.

Happy days are not away. Tata uncle is going to present all the big boys (and big girls) his dream car, in just 100 thousand bucks! Now everyone will have his own car. Papa has his car and mamma has her car as well. Now I too am going to have my car. I will not have to wake up early in the morning to catch the bus. Oh how eagerly (more than for new Harry Potter!) I have been waiting for the day when I will break open my piggy bank and rush to the city center to buy it!

Wow! What a great fun it will be! I’ll drive, like Shahrukh (in that ad with Preity), looking all cool, burning the tires and zooming past all others on the surprised road. Yippee! I wonder how it feels like – to hold the control with soft hands and to turn the little wonder gently on corner, and to feel its tender hum with the touch of foot! Moon! Music! Oh God! It’s splendid! I will ask Neha for a drive, and we’ll go to ‘Temptations’, she and I. Hope that creepy thing - Rahul doesn’t poke his long nose, coz even he was talking about his piggy bank and his plans.

So even he will get a gift, not just I! And like he and I, everyone else! What nonsense!

But then how will I enjoy? Our town is already so crowded, and God knows how many red-lights are there, with those sneaky policemen around. And it is terrible to get stuck in one of those traffic hold-ups! I hate it - people mindlessly honking, and dust and smoke, and our sitting helplessly, sweating and waiting. TURN ON THE AC! What a terrible pain! What is car for if you are made to crawl it behind a rickshaw? It’s all useless junk, any model, any color!

I wish we were in Shahrukh’s town, where we could drive fast on broad clean roads with trees on both the sides, swaying with breeze as they show in TV. Our town is not that good for driving. Hope we shift to Shahrukh’s town some day. Last Friday mamma got so awfully hurt; some jerk had hit her car outside the parking. Now she leaves early for office so that she could reach safely and get a nice place to park her car. I guess traffic wouldn’t be that bad in the morning.

Oh no! Again I’ll have to wake up early!

Well, it’s a good idea to wake early if you could drive fast, at least drive without getting hurt. But with creeps like Rahul around, it’s foolish to suppose that they wouldn’t get this idea. And then it’ll be all the same. I’ll have to wake up even earlier.

Why doesn’t Tata uncle make some roads for us? I wonder how many roads he will have to make, and where! Perhaps it will be too hard on him. But then he should not sell his cars in our town if he, or anyone else for that matter, can not make roads here, the roads that we need to drive our cars without getting late or hurt. Why doesn't he see this? It is so plain and simple. Or may be he does!

Let me think.

I guess I don't need his gift. My bus is alright for me, with Neha sitting next to me. :)

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Reliance Fresh

I have always loved Ranchi, and now I am proud of it. I feel unpardonably ecstatic that it has happened, and that it has happened there. I wish I were there! Standing with those ‘petty traders and vegetable vendors (courtesy Rediff.com)’ with an iron rod in my hands and smashing those ‘Reliance Fresh’ outlets!

I think I have a fair understanding of the significance of ‘Free Market’, perhaps better than many who, without applying their own minds, glibly invoke fashionable phrases in order to feel intelligent, and in turn, to rationalize any atrocity in name of business and GDP. Blind to the world around them, they fail to see the possibility of corruption inherent in these ideas, if accepted at face value without careful examination. But ignorance of many is not important. What is important is that those who know should not be contented so early and so easily, coz many such establishments are yet to be demolished.

Unfortunately, all of them can not be demolished by iron rods, because they are not made up of glass walls. They are ideas, or rather obfuscation of ideas, constructed of words carefully kept one over another with cold precision, and consecrated in our minds in order to achieve not only profit but also approval and applause (for having achieved profit!). And these ideas rely, for their prosperity, on the mechanism of continuous exposure to flashy neon-signs that sensitizes unknown vulnerabilities in man and then evokes the worst in all of us; they rely on all-pervading ads that whet our appetite to the limits of disgraceful gluttony. But this greed and this gluttony are ours and we have to own this.

Every word comes with an expiry date. Worn out words and phrases - clichés - not only eclipse the very thoughts they are supposed to contain, but also ridicule and trivialize its meaning, especially when used glibly in lowly context – the monk who sold his Ferrari – no correlation between words and state of mind at all! But then who will bother to climb mountains just to eats the apples?

But these stale, rotten apples gradually poison the mouth, and become instrument of deception and intimidation in the hands of the clever – the more respected a word, the more prone it is to be corrupted. And before they get tried and convicted, the priests make people commit all type of ungodly acts in His name – so to have a few (un)chosen ones, the scapegoats, sacrificed is okay for the noble purpose of growth; and often such measures of growth, in reality, stunt what is meant by growth. Now which rod can touch these words, and this ubiquitous gluttony?

Besides, the propagators and supporters of these ideas and these institutions are not only powerful, but supremely cunning as well, who very well know how to manage everything smoothly. These people are smart and trained professionals, smart enough to secure judicial protection from their ‘ridiculously tactless’ victims – those who are first rendered unemployed by capital vandalism, and then branded ‘petty’ and accused of ‘vandalism (!)’ by the corporate sponsored urban media, whose loyalty has always been towards balance sheet and stakeholders. It has done little to deserve our, the people’s trust. Truth is more than just a product laid out for sale, much more than something that provides intellectual entertainment to the unintellectuals.

Who needs Reliance Fresh in Ranchi? I never needed them. These outlets will spoil the aesthetics of the small hilly town without adding any economic value to it. It will not generate jobs but will surely leave a lot many people without jobs. In places like Ranchi, there is (or used to be) something called haat where villagers, men and women, even kids, I remember, gather in the vast field beside temple and sit under the shadow of trees, once or twice in a week, to sell their goods and grocery. Amid the clamor and noise of babu, bhaiya, sir etc there would be a cheerful atmosphere of festivity around. People not only go and buy vegetables but also haggle and talk and enjoy the whole outing. Villagers would greet their old patrons with smiles on their faces, and offer discounts and urge them to buy more. On one side there would be stalls of household items and on the other side the bright colored clothes hanging for display would attract your eyes. Children would eagerly wait for their turn to gorge on jalebis, golgappas and chaat after their parents are done with shopping. I remember myself visiting haats with my parents and our helpers. I have seen old women, who don’t know how to count, and who can’t tell between notes of Rs 10 and 100, carry on their trade simply on trust. Such simplicity and such innocent charm are unimaginable in cities. I don’t see even trace of such warmth in Pizza Huts and Crosswords, not even fake. Well, at dusk, they would roll their mat, pack the unsold grocery and leave for their homes with whatever they had earned for their toil from seeding to selling.

Now Mr Ambani decides to go and snatch a Rs 10 note from each one of them, of course not by disreputable old gun but by his honorable ‘Wharton’ enterprise. While someone loses his all, all that he can manage to get is but trifling small! And those who grow food for us have to sleep with their hunger wailing inconsolably whole night beside their beds. Perhaps I am getting sentimental, perhaps unreasonable as well, but only a blind can see something that deprives those poor farmers of their Rs 10 in positive light. And I don’t even find positive answers of many 'practical' questions that arise in my mind. Does he think he’d stay in market because he hopes to grow better fruits and vegetables? Will he make agriculture more efficient, of course, without snatching lands (even lands!) from poor farmers in name of SEZ and sacrosanct ‘growth’? Will this ‘industry’ generate jobs for people?

Actually this is a march of naked hubris and power. Mr. Ambani too, without doubt, keeps an unconcealed (and insatiable) desire for power without, it seems, having commensurate enterprise and risk-taking ability. Opening grocery outlets by Reliance is like a fake Ashwamedha Yagya by a coward king who has had the ashwa (horse) led in the direction of a desolate dessert where no potent rival could challenge him for a battle. With all the cash and confidence he possesses in the market, he could have ventured in the rough terrains of hardware products, or bio-chemicals, or even cola for that matter. That would have been a war worthy of the strength he has inherited and also of the title of ‘youth icon’ this urban media has cheerfully bestowed upon him. But the businessman contained himself in the trade of vegetables! He eyes profit no matter how many farmers starve and how many of them commit suicide. Given his character and (lack of) enterprise, the next sector for him seems to be drug trafficking and prostitution, if he is already not into it.

All of us live by the choices and decisions we make, and I have made mine – I can’t prevent them from hoarding their profits but certainly I will not allow them glory for doing that. Since when have we started respecting people for their ability to acquire, for their greed and gluttony? And I have always failed to see any value in acquisition though I admit that doing that ‘successfully’ is difficult. But an act is not worthy just for being difficult. And without any value these acts are nothing but gross and even criminal.

This country is invaded by her own sons – home-made Mehmoods whose only ambition is to loot as much as possible and take away to their Ghaznis. They don’t hold swords in their hands, and they sit in cubicles with their laptops, so that others could not recognize them. And they make us believe that what they do is what should be done thanks to Ayn Rand School of Morality. Money becomes its own justification, as it is material manifestation of virtue! Market will keep on supplying more and they will keep on looting and hoarding. And above all, they think they deserve respect for this!

Let them be powerful and strong. It is not easy to stop the juggernaut of Reliance Fresh, which is fuelled by the brazenly arrogant force of capital and monstrous greed. But we must resist and we must be man enough to say a resounding No to phallus worship in all forms! Fool devotees give birth to evil Gods. We will worship Christ because he taught us love and humility but not because he was son of some God. Each one of us must fight to his capacity, with iron rods or with pens or with both if needed.