An Introduction
Our verbal jargons come so easy , so unlike the life of the so called common man. Let me caricature the common man for all those who have forgotten the heat and dirt of the Indian roads in the rat race to the silver altar. This of course is the life of those 40 - 50% Indians who live India each day and wonder if every-today it has become the India of their dreams.
"I don't wear a sunscreen when I walk that road with my co-pedestrians such as Mr. Scorchman , Miss Sand-dune, Miss mugginess or Mr. Not-enough-bucks-high-five-for-wearing-the-same-pants-buddy.I strictly donot wear gabanna , gucchi , ricci , Kenzo or xyzeee.Truthfully , this is the first time I came across these names , and it feels a hell-lot-good not knowing their prices , I mean , c'mon , that's like my monthly income.I come from a country of cars as well as carts but by the way, I am not one of those 220.1-million-people-living-below-the-poverty-line okay!I have a little rented appartment , big enough to sustain a family of 5 and needs of 1 ,and so I and they - well.....we all , just compromise on many things , the everyday-things , but hey , I am self made and please donot remind me of those times when I could have got an opportunity to study and been a doctor or an engineer but hell , my father had his brother's elephant family to feed and pay prioritized-attention to. Huh ! Hell ya , I could have been - SomeThing ! Though my father is now gone I still love him , so utter not a bloody word against him or ask me why-didn't-he-let-me-study-more kinda stuff.Also donot ask me why he asked me to work at such a small age and introduced me to that dame - responsibility.It was my duty to be devout and we all loved it so. Well , who had the awareness those days ?And please , don't call my father , dad. That's so-not-my-generation and so off-the-respect-for us , 45-year-olds now. You children now a days........Good Lord !!" ....Says every this-kinda man travelling in a bus with a crowd as ours , silently to himself. I call him , The Common Man.
Part 2 : How to Identify a Common Man
Spot these :
> That guy with the length of his pants in a whirl , somewhere amputated , between three-fourths and fulls , bottoms like opened jaws of a whale , on its arduous swim to gobble every today for it's family , waist so constricted , as if made of pant-colored-pocelain right around the boulders of the flintstone-land , awwww , deformed with time.Often can you see this lower middle class , with hard working bulges right at the right places , like their firm determinations , on their way to bus stands , clerical desks , their kid's school, corporate housekeeping choring , running errands for Miss A's kitchen , Mr. Y's garden , Mrs Z's school and Mr K's government desk. These people who work for Mr's n Mrs's A to Z and further on the President's and the MLA's , are merely a 1st , 2nd and 3rd degree of separation to each other , no matter which branches of the traditional-Indian-hierarchical-tree they burgeon from.
> That lady wearing a summery-curtain-print kurta with a bottom of the same cloth or a very thin cotton saree that could be washed and dried easily or bright contrasting colors with traditional jewellery in a city so pink , all fall into the same pool of non-imaginary-real-common-manhood.
These people are, or have been, perhaps, your father or my father at some point of time, or at one point of time, such were our fathers.
Le unseen potrait de common man
Fatherly , motherly and sartorial stuff aside. The real potrait of a common man looks something like this :
A swirling urge in the heart , shoring to the eyes and floating there in the form of a wanting to render abundant comforts to his kids but yet the pool of infinite patience never subsiding for the lack of resources to do so. The career of common-manhood edifies patience as its first weapon of survival. Patience here refers to the ability to endure much more than what he can confide in his kids or wife. That elasticity of hankering from getting his kid a plane or that little crawling girl her first voile-frock hinges on this ammunition-de-patience. This is the prime idiosyncrasy of a common man.
No matter how right this class is, they mostly never get their fair share of justice over land or water or police cases they file against crime , so they say in India atleast. Why? Simply because they fail to please the Judicio-political Indian cult viz. have nothing to reciprocate the equity with.
Since when was equity on a clearance sale? And who ever bought it?
To flesh out the subject let’s consider property encroachment case filed by this common man of the state Himachal Pradesh. This person here files a case against illicit land purchase, land encroachment , unlicensed construction and Violation of the Forest Act of Himachal.
Under Himachal Pradesh land laws, only the state's permanent residents can buy the land in the state. Others who want to purchase the land for non-agricultural purposes have to seek relaxations under Section 118 of the Land Reforms and Tenancy Act from the state government. But this guy purchases a land despite having a domicile for the state , cuts down a tree in a ‘green land’ right in the middle of houses , makes the biggest building by bringing down the houses that surround him circularly , leaves no boundary around his house , pulls down a retaining wall of an adjoining house and happily goes on constructing his big blue building.
Upon being filed a case , the guy happens to be of some origin , not Himachali – holding no right to buy a land until some clause’s 1 2 3. Holds no right whatsoever, to chop trees which sadly fall in the centre of his so-called-self-proclaimed-land and needs to construct back the attacked-retaining-wall of his neighbor. The guy is backed enough to take the old photographs of the same-sane wall and present it in the court as if he re-constructed it after pulling it down. To no surprise the judge agrees with him , and I wonder why. I saw this happen and kept wondering how could this happen ? How could he escape such a government that says “we-love-green-and-we-will-penalize-you-if-harm-a-damn-tree” ? How could he construct his house on a Green Land - State government’s property? How ?
The petitioner on the other hand tries to meet every right official involved and questions them as to why this is allowed within the state? To no answers , he one fine day discovers that the illegal constructor happens to be a seamster of the clergy and the politicians of the state. Plus, all parties right from the ground zero are impressed with him because he is awesome at their garmentmaking. Excuse me ! ?? ! Well , when did our politics need reasons ? And what reasons are anyways capable enough to brazen out truth ? So here : The petitioner gawks at the broken wall as the perpetrator rejoices over the same. Whatever happened to the sunshine on the broken column !! Well , till Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s house in himachal is well under construction and a few minutes away from the Helipad , who cares ?
The common is just lost , just the special lot remains , and what makes the special more special is the power to be and the power to make - Anything of anything.
Commonmanhood of the Indian IT
Here in India , these common men donot not wear gucchi and prada.They do. What they donot wear is the real badge of murder of self-honor,self-respect and non-toadiness .These people who donot hail any claque or are unable to gerrymander because that's how they are , are made to feel , every now and then , like some impractical citizens or common men.They continue doing whatever they're doing for their monthly e.m.i's and commitments.The rates of capsicum in the city are thrice of those in teeny meeny towns sir.you've gotta live - someway !
These common men come , work their best , get the worst.They crib for a while and then settle into the unsettling silence of the-self-worth-questionaire.Rarely are they helped.This makes me believe that there is an entity as luck and it defines much of what they call - destiny.The bitch who can not be helped.
Life goes on , so does this comfortably-well-off-common-man.
The Why's
The questions here arise as a cliche' why's.
The first why being ,Why do we become so common in this quest for life ? isn’t life common enough eventually anyway ?
Next : why does everything look like a wild-goose chase after a point of time when the strings are off the good lord’s hands ? Doesn’t every common man have his day ? His patience must have an end too.
Not to be cynical , why does common become so taken-for-granted and played with? The eventuality of all ends remains the same : no one dies as blood or bones. Ash it is. Then sit there and write whatever name you like , with ash.
If everyone's degree of separation is freely pondered upon , it would happen so that the bread you eat swirls forth from the touch of the common man who killed the grains , winnowed them and made the bloody bread for you. So realize your position in the bungle and try living like a man of connection and restoration , like a man of love.
Common man is a phenomenon not obsessed with the goal , because he is seeking , receptive and free.He is the Herman Hesse's Siddhartha of wisdom , wisdom that is not communicable , and of deity within himself , not in books or ideas. He is the truth as much as the unlike and when we talk of evolution , it was his unrest and voice that crayoned the renaissance.
This song unsung goes out to them who believe in the karma , it's repurcussions and the aftermath , but primarily in being there and doing it unsung.
This song goes out to every common man , with a touch of every love that every heart that loves them always wanted to confer upon them , but did not find the right cards or bookmarks or armours or swords or pens to present it.
This goes out to every common man , with love. And quite a lot of it.
Swati Tempta
3rd Day of April 2010
.jpg)
