Rogues... One And All...

Rogue lifestyles, rogue music. Unkempt hair, faded jeans, ripped t-shirts. Lying on bed, cigarette dangling between the fingers of the hand that swings from the bed. Inches from the ashtray that sits between haphazard attempts at cigarette stubbing. A rangoli of sorts. Of sorts. Sometimes a makeshift ashtray. A bowl ingeniously filled with some water so the ash doesn't fly around the room in tune with the fan that’s lumbering along on the ceiling. Scoundrels. Even in their self-induced stupor they won’t let it dance. Prohibitionists in their own right. Leaning so far toward the left that they seem to teeter on the edge. The edge of balance. Tantalizingly close to imbalance.

Soot stained walls from repeated lighting of oil lamps. Ah! The soothing effect of dim lights on alcohol sodden minds. Loud music playing somewhere in the background. Well, if anything loud can really be in the background, that is. Loud sounds – bearable, bright lights – aaaarrrrgggghhhhh!!! Mega-treble reducing the lyrics to incoherent babble. That’s how they like it. Words drowned in louder sounds. Words, mere echoes in the din from slash guitars, synthesizers and drums. They dabble with babble.

Someone attempts at starting a conversation. Something along the lines of the great unanswerable existential dilemma “to be or not to be”. Empty gazes, blank stares and disjointed grunts are all the answers that come forth. Attempt promptly abandoned.

We hear of counter cultures. This is ours. Drug-induced stupor. Our answer to the problems of the world. Gone are the days of revolutions and mass upheavals. We will fight hypocrisy and the complete breakdown of democratic machinery with flights of fantasy. They say the mind is a powerful weapon. We know. Because we use it. Ours is an anarchy of the mind. So long as we can manage to step away from the ritual mundane ness of the world, all is good. Or let me rephrase that. ‘It’s all goooooood, man!’ Defunct systems be damned.

Indifference

Traffic crawls along; shops open to the trickle of prospective customers. A middle-aged man combing the scant hair on his balding head, as if Cupid finally answered his prayers. Or maybe he is just a staunch believer in putting his best foot forward for any customer who might happen to wander into his shop.

A bunch of know-nothing-do-nothings stand in group, discussing something animatedly, all the while pointing towards an old tree. Rumor has it that an unclaimed suitcase containing a bomb has been abandoned under that tree, and that the Bomb Disposal Squad is on its way.

Three youngsters - a photographer, and two writers (one of them, me) - sit across the road, smoking their cigarettes and listen to contradicting explanations as to the cause of the chaos on the other side of the road, watching a story unfold. The photographer gets his camera ready, shrugs and says, “Only if there’s a bomb blast will there be a point in taking pictures”. Ah, apathy - that ruthless slayer of all feelings humane.

Two or three cops half-heartedly shoo away the thronging crowd. Life moves on at its own lazy pace in this industrial area in west Delhi, impending bomb blast notwithstanding. Everything seems normal, except the slight buzz of activity and gossip which is promptly drowned out by the louder sounds of traffic. There is no hue and cry. Nothing is disrupted. And people from different walks of life, wait for something, anything to break the monotony of the day; even if it’s a bomb. Never mind that unsuspecting pedestrians and motorists are within meters of the suspected bomb. Never mind that each and every shop around the ‘suspicious, unclaimed suitcase’ is open. Never mind that curious good-for-nothings are gathering by the dozens in the vicinity of the ‘cordoned off area’.

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News honchos running around yelling ‘Khelo! Khelo!’ Play on the story, for as long as possible. “Because that’s where the TRPs are”, I completed the sentence in my head, as comprehension dawned. When I first witnessed this scene, I was stumped. By the businesslike approach to the tragedy that was unfolding before us. Two bombs had gone off inside two separate local trains in Bombay. As I stood there taking the information in, two weeks into my job in a news channel, news petered in that five more bombs had gone off across the length of Bombay. The refrain of ‘Khelo! Khelo!’ reached an unbelievable crescendo.

I had always known it was a business – the business of making news. But I hadn’t anticipated what I was witnessing. Phone lines and means of communications weren’t the only things that were disrupted. What I was seeing was a complete breakdown of that one thing that binds us all in one thread, never mind caste, creed, gender, region or even religion. I saw humanity fall apart and a calculative business-sense take its place. A capitalist, individualistic world does that. It breeds indifference.

I Wander

I always knew my country had great travelling potential. But never, in my wildest dreams (or through those many years of dedicatedly declaring my allegiance to its "rich and varied heritage") did I realize that it was a bl#$dy treasure trove for travellers. I mean, talking about heritage is one thing, but witnessing (however small) a sample of it is a whole different experience, and one that is completely out of the world.

I'm unemployed (by choice - its called being on sabbatical), I have absolutely no savings and all I really wanna do is travel. I'd hitchhike, except that that isn't the smartest thing for a person in my country to do.

So, I bet you're being forced to conclude that I'm crazy or something. Well, I am. A little. You'd argue that eccentricity isn't quite the same thing as insanity. I'd say po-tay-to/po-tah-to. It's all the same to me 'coz I seriously enjoy bouts of insanity.

See, I firmly believe that the only time we are truly free is when we give in to the madness within - dance in the rain, sing on the street, smile at a complete stranger - just for the fun of it. Just so we smile (and maybe, bring a smile to someone else). I don't mean, let's-go-psycho-on-the-world kind of madness. Just the kind that lets you be a kid once in a while.

You see, sanity (and adulthood) can be quite cumbersome. More so because they're expected of us. I, for one, have never liked rules. They're too limiting. How is one supposed to wander when all we're busy doing as a species, is drawing lines to divide. Good from bad. Dos from don'ts. Us from them.

I say, break free, every once in a while. Wander. Take a trip. Let your mind wander. Jump right out of the box and see, really see, life. Yours as also that of those around you. Step aside. Leave the rat race. And watch as life passes you by. Then jump right back in and see how great it feels. This power to let go. To jump the straitjacketed rules of the world. And just be.