Tuesday, 20 February 2018

The IICs, the Fab Indias, the colonial outposts

Never been to these elite outposts, never will.
The places where commoners move is where India lives. And Breathes. And it is only there that I have found my best friends. Telugu speaking, Tamil speaking, English speaking, all.

(via Sunny Narang)
I realized once again today morning , why I have never been a member of any Lutyens Delhi institution . Either a club or an institution .
I was invited to a breakfast adda by a good friend .
Never been to a breakfast at one of these hallowed honoured institutions where Mayawati or Laloo Yadavs have not been allowed memberships , nor crass businesspeople .
Only sophisticated policy wonks , professionals , top bureaucrats , old socialist elites , culturati , lawyers , etc .
I did try to tell him , its lovely weather , lets sit outside . I was told breakfast is only inside .
So I hold my breath and go in.
I try my lowest voice , and still my passion puts energy in my lowest decibel and it pressures the eardrums of a young man in kurta-pyjama having breakfast on his ownsome lonesome about 5 feet away at his own table.
He looks at me, softly apologises and tells me to keep my voice low !
Lower than what I tried my best !
After finishing our breakfast as my friend realizing I was uncomfortable , we decided now to sit outside .
But I went to the young man , and told him , that I am not deserving of such sophisticated places as even my lowest voice disturbs people and that he had taught me I should not even attempt Lutyens Delhi sophistication .
He said as seriously a "Ram Ram" . No smile .
Humourless. Deathly Silent . This is the space for the sophisticated as their Meditation Room .
For me , as I am just a second generation Jhangi (From Jhang, Pakistan now , a very small kasba , where one of the worst terrorist groups Lashkar-e-Jhangvi hails from !) my vocal chords are to call out across the fields and rivers .
I cannot ever qualify for any sophisticated western setting .
A once-upon-a-time radical Naxalite , now reformed activist once was very scared having a meal with me in IIC as he thought people were staring .
And once I was almost thrown out of IIC for going to an after-dinner after an "Alternative" Film Festival , in shorts . Mind you they were below knee level.
I have never understood , all these Leftists and Radicals who want to change the world and all that upper-caste et al , but will obey Lutyens Delhi clubs and institutional rituals to the last word 
Since they have to be seen in the same locations as the funders and global institutional babus .
Many of the Liberal-Left elites of our land in cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata , Bengaluru , Chennai are part of such elite inner societies, where entry is only to the kin and kith of the already powerful .
And then they proclaim , equality, liberty, fraternity and almost revolution to the Peoples !
I am so delighted in being a Forever Unsophisticated Loud Mouthed Punjabi at home in Villages where everyone is my voice levels , at least in Punjab , Haryana and Rajasthan !
Where a free loud laughter is celebrated by others joining in , and not shown the door .
For me the biggest hypocrisy of our land is the Secular Private Temples of the Westernised Elites telling the Desi Mobs on how to be Civilized by throwing off their freedom to be spontaneous , free and talking , all at the same time and still getting the meaning .
Instead of letting each one talk , one by one , and never listening , as they are busy trying to demolish the other person's point-of-view , so they themselves get the pedestal .
This is also a message to all my sophisticated friends , please do not ever invite to me again to your temples of dialogue 

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