The Mute Observer : Alpha

“At the stroke of midnight hour, when the world sleeps India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, then an age ends and when the soul of a nation , long suppressed, finds utterance”, said Nehru, but nobody in my house was bothered. Yes, I was born on 15^th August, 1947 in a ‘bania’ household and let me just clarify, I am not one of those Rushdie’s midnight children, nor am I R.K. Laxman’s protagonist as the title suggests. I am just a 64 year old who happens to share his age with a nation.

Through the years I have watched a new born manoeuvre its way in an opportunist, if not cruel world. India’s journey from being a bread basket to the grain stockpile, through the neo-Malthusian breast beating about the population explosion has been nothing short of extraordinary.

I was still very young when Nehru’s Fabian socialism took over the nation. Everything being in the hands of the state meant equi-distribution of wealth and common welfare. The great Indian mind machine, consisting of P.C. Mahalanobis, Krishna Menon and J.L. Nehru himself, painted a beautiful picture of a nation devoid of differences, regional and ‘religional’, cultural and economical. This was where they missed a point.’ Ineqaulity’ gives birth to competition and hence growth. Equal opportunities must be provided to all but the rate at which an individual grows must depend on the labour put in. They were inspired by USSR’s model that had stood the test of time.

It is often quoted,” When individuals blunder, it is unfortunate and their families go down but when rulers fail, it is a national tragedy.” The same happened to a fledgling that got its feathers chopped off even before its first flight. India has suffered greatly from the vision of her favourite son. ‘State-run’ industries gave birth to a stagnant economy and monopolistic practices.

Though I was born in 1947 but my ‘official’ D.O.B is August 15, 1948. My dad believed that would help me get a government job which has always been as elusive and prestigious in the Indian heartland. Thanks to Nehru’s office torch bearers, you could get everything ‘arranged’, from your age to  name and caste to name a few. ‘Jugaad’ was the name of the game (it still is!). I’ll ever be indebted to Nehru for my age, which ‘officially’ is 63. It is not that Nehru wanted a rotten economy and a corrupt nation, he was a patriot till his last breath but his socialist vision proved to be short sighted in the long run.

I was in college when I heard of Nehru’s death that was a moment of grief for the whole nation. He was loved by children and adults alike. The world was anxious to watch India’s next move, there were talks of disintegration of the nation as a whole because Nehru was believed to be the binding factor. However, the transition turned out to be smooth as Lal Bahadur Shastri stepped up to the plate, and we passed our first test of democracy. His tenure didn’t last though and India got its first lady Prime Minister.

Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi turned out to be an ‘Iron Lady’. She wanted to extend state’s monopoly from media, telecom and industry to the lives and hearts of the people. It was the time that coined the terms ‘Inspector-Raj’ and ‘Gunda-Raj’. Her efforts of forced family planning further dented her image. There was unrest among the commoners and the elite alike.

I inherited a grocery shop from my father because despite a thousand odd attempts a government job eluded me. On 25^th June, 1975, I was sitting outside my shop, reading newspaper, when I heard on radio that the President had declared ‘Emergency’. I had no idea what that meant. Although it was not long before I felt its impact as the oil prices rocketed sky high and the truck owners went on strike to increase freight charges. G.C Jamnalal & Sons, my wholesaler denied me any stock below double the prices. Policemen had extraordinary powers and common man had none. My shop was actually ‘looted’ by policemen and I had no one to complaint to. But then, it was time for some real business. I sold everything left for humongous prices. People queued even for the basic commodities. Two of my bachelor friends lost their vasa diferentia even before they could attain puberty.

Emergency made us apprehend the meaning of corruption more than tyranny. As far as I remember, our first TV (which coincidently was also the first in the locality) arrived after an 8 year long wait, only when my dad finally realized that we could get one in a week in ‘black’, don’t ask about the phone. My dad always emphasized on my education. He kept howling in spite of my lack-lusture performances. Later in my life I asked my dad that why did he force me to study when he always wanted me to run his grocery shop and his plain reply was,” to make up for the 50 Rs. I gave your head-master to get you admitted”, bringing out the ‘bania’ in him, but this made me cognizant of the fact that the seeds had been sown.

P.S : This is the first part of a small series ‘The mute observer’. I’ll come up with more in a short time to unearth the imp that grew up to be a monster; the growth of the nation along with corruption.

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