But aren't a vest majority of these people becoming exceedingly oblivious to the imperfections around? I at least feel yes. At least the younger section of it seems more inclined to escape into an apparently picture-perfect virtual world of internet and also dreaming of moving out instead of trying to change the surroundings.
The morning today was not good at all. It was sultry, suffocating and unfruitful. I nowadays am not busy at all. The factory is running much below its capacity. So there's no work pressure at all. Most of the neighboring factories keep closed in the week end where once upon a time even sun day was not counted a holiday. Workers were paid extra for that. Now gone are the days though.
To make things worse, a bad piece of news brought back bad memories. In the everlasting chaos of voter wooing politics over chit fund (everyone screaming, blaming at everyone else; fighting for air time in televisions and wrangling for land (space) in the newspaper with renewed zeal---as if a dying one sided cricket match has suddenly turned competitive with the winning side losing 3 wickets in a row) and speculation over the "historic judgement day" regarding the modes and dates of Panchaet election, the story of Roshnara Khatun caught my eye.
"A class IX girl was set ablaze by her stepmother for refusing to marry and wanting to pursue her studies. She was threatened, tortured at first and finally they tried to burn her alive for the disobedience." That was the story in a nutshell.
It caused an in rush of feelings. Some fresh in their recentness, some blurred in the distant corner of mind. The torture of them came back again.
Rina was a wide eyed girl in my mother's village. My early memory of that place is dominated by her. I was then 4 or 5 years. She was 3 or 4 years older and my roll model of a village girl. I called her Didi but was literally wholeheartedly in love. From swimming in the pond to tree climbing to discovering and sharing all the hidden treasures a rural life had to offer------------- She was frenzy of activity all along (Much later in my life when I had almost turned into a typical urban snob I found similar moments in a top notch Ray classic and revisited those child hood days with a sense of guilt). As she was impossible to contain by ordinary words of rebuke or scold and even occasional beating at the hands of the elders, her parents devised way a way to reign her in. And it worked magic. It was a fictitious threat of "marrying" her "off to Midnapore". Moments after the 1st dose of that threat, the air around would inevitably change and frenzied, wide-eyedness gave way to frightened, small, alert miserable eyes, that could only be pitied. She would fall silent a my aunt would, out of sheer compassion, would take her to her lap tie up her hair into a ponytail. She was a very cute child..
As I grew up in our extended Kolkata house hold, my visit to that place became more and more infrequent. And my aunts got married in cities and Uncles got city jobs and the whole clan became city-dweller altogether. After my grand ma got ill and (although against her repeated plea), had to be taken to the city for better care, all our links to that place got severed. I heard much later that the girl could never really got rid of her "marriage phobia" and when after her securing an enviable marks in the 1st board exam, they tried to marry her off (in real) to Kharagpur (the largest city of Midnapore, ironically), she got frightened and at first resisted as much as she could and when following repeated humiliation in front of a large village gathering, she committed suicide.
No body thought that the "ponytail-wagging" "skinny" "frenzy" knew other things in life than just being cute. No body thought that she could revolt.
No newspaper reported it though. I heard it because I went there a couple of moths back in some other work and dropped by that place. The village had no sense of repentance and every body tried to be evasive, avoiding direct answer pretending to busy, offering fresh coconut and milk, asking about mother, aunt, asking to stay, asking to come back with the whole clan...
Now was that a murder? Probably no. The girl was mad, she killed herself.
May be yes. It was a death sentence. Given much before the girl was born, much before the 1st board exam was conducted, the moment the society created rules and divided roles between males and females. The moment the 1st spark of revolt challenged the rule and died because they reigned in.
Coming back to Roshnara's story, no matter she survives or not, this will miss newspaper head lines of most of the newspapers. And except occasional flash in the bottom not much air time will be allotted. It will not catch the imagination of our middle entertainment craving, aspiring, middle class,middle rated mind. We aspire so much to settle out side, to dream "American dreams", we are dazzled so much with gadgets, new technologies and so much fed up with the misery of people around us, Our nerves are so fretted, that we have become tolerant and oblivious. Most of us think we will simply escape---"The largest secessionist movement" As the writer Arundhati Roy very rightly said in an interview with Howerd Zean in USA "is the movement of aspiring middle class into outer space".
In the new internet-driven empowerment of the 'shining' middle class, why Roshnaras are left out is perpetual, over used, over confronted issue. "Why the "trickle down" of wealth is so badly failure in the whole third world has a known answer, because, there's no hole for wealth and aspiration to trickle through after that middle class slab" a fellow blogger of mine used to remark. India is considered a leader in the democracy because our government has been able to create this substantial middle class (30% of the Indian population) to act as the buffer between rich and poor.
There had been many distractions for the middle class, many allurement to be oblivious about root, to be apathetic about poor and poverty, to hate the country for corruption and " dream the great American dream" together with the other middle class people of the other developing countries. But there had been nothing as powerful as the internet, it almost sealed the fact the our minds, for the coming 3 decades at least, are going to be controlled by capitalism, American style. The few notes of dissent, like that of ours, will be heard, only to be lost out in the crowd.
Yesterday night in the you tube, I was watching a Marissa Meyer interview on "what a search engine of 2025 would be like". She was talking about how the search engine, gradually with time, will be able to amass huge amount of data on the user including user's past search records, his or her age, friends and circles, the location, preferences (from the "like"s and "+1"s), choice of food, favorite movie stars, favorite games and tourist spots. And with these data at hand, it would know, with unbelievable accuracy, it would be mind reading our search and showing the result even before we put our first keyword on the search bar.
The search engines are fascinating enough already in their current form, from the core product "search" to other associated products for "mailing", "finding an answer", "being social" and "connecting with friends', "saving your important data online", "creating a document online" -------------their slogan can truly be:
"Here, there, everywhere
keep us in your pocket
or place us on your desk
But we are so much a habit now,
That you won't forget to check.
We sort your world
and we make your day
We give you every single thing
And if you see ads
We don't make you pay"
Our intelligentsia will die to work in Google, and our Rina s or Roshnara s are going to suffer and get lost. No facebook fan page will follow them and keep alive their memory. And we are going to continue (after checking the bank balance through phone banking or recharging the phone using debit card) marveling at the speed THE WORLD IS PROGRESSING. But who's world? Yours? mine? Roshnara's? Google's? Ambani's? World Bank's?
Who knows??
The winners'... May be..
