My world

I was in a deep, deep slumber when they cut my home into two and plucked me out like a vegetable. Moved me out of my home and cut my ties from my world permanently with a single snip of scissors. And then, they were surprised, these strange beings, when they found me in a state of trauma unable to open my eyes to this new, hostile world.

I have grown used to this world slowly. From three four people initially, it has expanded to six seven people now. Two seem more prominent than the others, and I am being taught to call them "peppae" and "memma". It has taken me time to know which one is which. Both are big but I am quite sure now that the bony one with the long nose is peppa and the fleshy, pretty one is memma.

Peppa is funny. I use him for my daily rides around the house once he comes in the evening. He also tickles me with his thin fingers that move up from my toes to tummy to create a goody-goody sensation, making me laugh. But he can also be very annoying, particularly on days when he is at home in the morning. You know, I like to wake up late on days I am not supposed to go out for exercise and play. Even when I wake up, I like to lie down, and with my face up, admire the fan whirring on the ceiling. Or chew little scraps of paper meditatively. At those ruminative moments, he has to come shouting into the bed, and grab my cheeks violently. Sometimes, I humor him and let him abuse my modesty. But then, he takes my good grace to be compliance and assaults me further with his rough face rubbing my soft cheeks. I usually get rid of him by the simple device of twisting his long nose sharply. Crying "oye oye", he relents and moves away.

The best thing about memma is her tummy. I like to put my nose into it every now and then, and find it to be soft and giving with nothing to hurt unlike Peppa's bones. She wakes me up in the morning more gently than peppa by putting something good and crunchy in my mouth and cuddling me with her smaller nose. She is however even more annoying than peppa at times. She is constantly shouting "aa aa", "ba ba", "pa pa" into my ears, and pointing to strange things which are of no interest to me. Sometimes, I repeat what she is saying to make her happy and go away. At those times, she takes me on her shoulders or tickles me hard.

Memma and peppa think they are smarter than me, and constantly try to teach me one thing or the other. They seldom make any attempt to learn from me though. If they are really so smart, why are they unable to slide down the sofa with the ease and control that I do? Or, gargle and throw water from the mouth precisely into a glass kept at a distance from me?

They are ok but I wish they would bother me a little less and let me on my own a little more.

In the eyes of his woman

He reads too much and speaks too little. And she regrets the times when he does speak. It is in rapture over books and ideas and music where he loses all control and balance and propriety, or self righteous indignation against one thing or the other, or inappropriate jokes and songs on the strangest of occasions.

He tries hard to look like an intellectual but has no idea of how and why people act and think the way they do. He tries to make his naivette sound like idealism, and manages to fool some of the people some of the times.

He claims to be lost in thought when he choses to disregard the unavoidable work, and makes reminding him to do important things a specially ordained task for everybody else.

He considers the floor of the bathroom as a washing machine where his dirty undergarments can be dropped at will, and the footwear of everybody else in the house as his personal property.

He considers himself to be liberal-minded and open to criticism, but becomes Mr. Sensitivity when probed even slightly on his pet theories and ridiculous habits.

At first, she thought he is a little different, thats all. Now, she believes him to be completely mad, thats it.

Physical distance

In his classic sociological work on a South Indian village and subtle changes brought in its social life by Independence, Andre Beteille comments that "physical distance can be seen as a function of structural distance". This comes in the context of people living with their caste/communities as next door neighbours. The contours of the Indian village life may have changed in many places from the earlier strict associations between caste and class post independence. However, like most things Indian, changes are fifty-fifty only, and perhaps it is mostly power that has been reconfigured and redistributed with different sets of castes and communities, particularly in North India, while we continue to live together separately.

It is perhaps this physical distance and conformity that one loses immediately as one moves from a small village or town to a big metro. And which gives rise to the desire of many to live in a ghetto, and for those in more financially secure positions, to establish "purity" in a profane environment where people are not sure of their "places". Our reaction to modernity, as to urbanization here, remains ambiguous in all places.

While this perhaps helps us retain our senses, without thinking of our own, in an age and customs that we do not understand fully, it also maintains our conspicuous lack of ability to live and think as individuals in cities. And to look at others as individuals, not just as members of another religion, caste, region or community. We rather prefer to continue with our traditional prejudices that makes our cruelty internal and so difficult to be even aware of.