A nation of cowards?

A venomous RSS pamphlet found its way into my hands. It was a Sunday morning, so I sat down to read it. It had a `code of instruction’ from local leaders to RSS members. I’m not going to reproduce the `instructions’ here, for the sole reason that doing so will help these fascist devils reach out to gullible souls, waiting for divine revelation in the name of carnage. There are occasions when I do feel ashamed that my country chooses to live in a time warp of decadence, corrupting directionless souls to preach the commandments of hell. By the look of things, there are many fools waiting to cleanse us all of our beliefs.

And then, I have occasion to confront a hypocrisy of sorts. Recently, I took a local train in Mumbai in an attempt to get to the `heart’ of the city. I had just splurged my plastic silly at the local malls, but a train experience had to be had. Elated after all the bargain hunts, the euphoria of packing so much activity into short timeframes, it was at Mahalaxmi station, as I proceeded to get a cab to take me back to my guest apartment, that taught me a lesson I’m not going to forget for a long, long time. A step outside the station, and next to a rat infested garbage dump, I saw five little children, dressed in tattered remnants of what might once have been shirts, naked from their stomachs down, sleeping almost peacefully on the dirty, cracked up sidewalk. They were sprawled, as if on comfortable beds, their tiny bodies dusty, and coated with grime, their heads matted with soot and feet that had been unwashed for days. There were rats nibbling on pieces of rotting food a few breaths away. People deftly crossed over the tiny bodies, the traffic moved, the station spewed more and more people. The ragged bodies did not move nor murmur, or disappear as if a bad vision. I stood transfixed, wondering where all the oxygen had suddenly evaporated. There was no adult in sight, nor parent. Did they eat? Where they ok? What were they doing here? Who the hell put them there? And why wasn’t anybody even batting an eyelid in their direction? I felt silly. Like a comic caricature with my shopping bags. I would have looked sillier if I had started to cry. I heard a call echoing from the opposite street. The cabby wanted to know if I was interested in going somewhere. `What about these kids?’ I almost shot back, but obviously, it was not his problem. There was more to see, of course. Like the Christmas ghost keen to show me the `real’ world (as if I hadn’t seen enough already). More bodies sleeping on the pavements. More kids with their ragged mothers living in scraps of housing. I shut my eyes. The bags were weighing on my hands. But this was my country, and perhaps in some way I had contributed too to this soul wrenching reality.

What I heard from an acquaintance was even worse, when I called up a city dweller in Mumbai to ask how they were putting up with this comedy of horrors. `Look at it and ignore it. Don’t let it affect you. It’s everywhere. You can’t go and save the world. Ignore it," was the piece of instruction. I lay awake all night wondering if those five kids would be safe from the evils of the city lurking upon hapless victims. There was more sorry sights the next morning, and over the next couple of days, even on the way to the airport. I had got to the `heart’ all right, but where was the `soul’?

In retrospect, does India have a soul anymore? A soul that once urged me to use my mind without fear; to hold my head high; to look at the world beyond narrow domestic walls; to speak words that come from the depths of truth; to strive my arms towards perfection; to use the clear stream of reason so that I don’t loose myself inside the dreary desert sands of dead habit; to seek a higher living and to accept that all humans are created in the image of God?

This is nightmare. And just a train away to Godhra. Our patch of living hell. An eerie Gitanjali poem gone wry. Do I stay `unaffected’ now that I’ve been instructed that I can seek a higher God only after ripping apart a couple of wombs and parading unborn fetuses on the tips of swords? Do I `ignore’ the blasphemy of colour, creed, religion that demands the blood of those who don’t belong to the `ideology.’ Now do I say it’s `not my problem’ when innocent women, more often children, are raped, maimed and murdered to keep a race of people `in control.’ How can I, even you, not be affected by the senseless butchery of compassion, justice, love and sacrifice. These alone were supposed to take us to heaven, remember? So, when did `politics’ become the fifth commandment? Which, incidentally, clearly says `You shall not kill.’ And in all this mayhem, intellectual and physical, you and I still chose to remain unaffected. It’s strange how we do fervently abide by the rituals of our religion, but seldom, in fact, not at all, practice what every rule, shloka or dictat tells you: Search the God within you. Strange.

Ethel Da Costa
October  2, 2002

Back to Ethel da Costa sez

Back to Front Page