रोज रात का राडा

रात को राडा हो गया। पोलिसे आया। अर्रेस्ट बर्रेस्ट नहीं हुआ पण राजू को बोहोत देर तक सताया। If you've come across people from all walks of life in Mumbai, you might be quite familiar with Munna speak. I grew up in a quiet middle income lakeside neighborhood near the rustic outskirts of what was then Mumbai. So it amused and depressed me when we came across individuals who lived in colonies which were a lot poorer or more 'illiterate' and who described in tragi-comedic frustration the vagaries that affected the communities they lived in; someone was found singing konkani songs under a copious overdose of whisky, someone got mugged on the way home, someone got arrested or someone got brutally mauled. At these times, I thanked my parents and grand parents for being boring and diligent, for working their way through the system and for raising us in morally sanitized neighborhoods. An antagonism would be the worst mess we would face. We would head for the shores of foreign countries an order of magnitude saner in their civic conduct. We would live there not knowing shortages, having to ourselves a piece of unaffected land in a green haven and commuting at odd hours without fear. When we returned back home, hit a local poolroom to rub shoulders with some of those we had left behind, we would feel like movie stars in suits. Sure, they can say that corporate lives are fake and needlessly enervating but, I would say, the sanity they offer is heaven in comparison to your daily dose of maximum city. Dealing with organized crime for these less fortunate brethren is not an extreme event. It is something like a daily chai or cigarette. Roj ka hai. And that is why they wish their parents could have been successful people at any cost. At the cost of breaking queues, at the cost of a guilty conscience and at the cost of their family jewels. So that they could have been blessed with the life of an actual doctor, not a society ka doctor. I walk by the table, changing sides restlessly. Perhaps I resemble a greek or a persian, a moghul or a rajput or maybe an english babu. I wonder if this is the thought that reverberates in the stifled pool room. It shakes my faith in law as a paradigm. What if one of these brawny pakyas decide to rob or kill me ? Thankfully, I am a small fly. There are better targets in the vicinity. Worst case possibilities are usually not a healthy consideration in life but I am still grim. I feel arrested. What if this were the philosophy that our youngsters wake up to. To raise clean shaven bankers and doctors, you must first obtain necessary resources which could be done by any means available. It seems oxymoronic. But it is probably just cryptic if not logical.