The MUTE Indian

I see hooligans molest a young girl round the corner but do not muster up courage to question them or raise any objection lest they cause harm to my personal self or to my family. Mutely I went home pondering momentarily over it & thinking why bother?

Driving back home in the middle of the night I saw a car ahead of mine, driving at breakneck speed & hitting a motor cyclist & throwing him off the road. Slow down I did but neither did I wait to help the injured nor did I chase the offender as I did not want to be bothered with unnecessary enquiry by illiterate & rude cops. Mutely I drove back home.

I was enjoying my weekend drowned in vodka at one of the posh night clubs when suddenly I saw a man grabbing a woman by her private parts “without her intent”. A huge confusion ensued but I did not object pretending to be the most drunk as I thought why bother. Drowned in confusion & pretending to fall at every step, Mutely I moved away from that chaos.

The other day I saw from my balcony about 10 miscreants chasing a hapless young lad down the street. Finally they brought him down with punches, lathis, rods & boot butts. The scene turned quite bloody. I did exactly what I was supposed to do, Mutely I withdrew “even” from my balcony went inside my parlour & continued to watch with revived interest the next proceeding from my adjoining kitchen window.

I have been brought up, trained to think that flying is a luxury & not a necessity till Air Deccan came my way. I hope so is the case with most Indians but then were we all not mute to a much deserved change which was mine & your right until captain Gopinath (the CEO of Air Deccan) took on the aviation industry & made it a middle dream come true.

We all pay our power bills on time I suppose but yet get to see very little of the rare but essential commodity in India called “electricity”. Yet I do not protest for I & you all feel that it is very normal to have 12 hour power cuts. Do you know countries like Dubai, who have no resources than oil do not know what is a power cut. Come on don’t give me that foolish answer which our wily politicians give,” India is a big country & one billion plus population”, then you don’t know China is 1.2 billion plus & it has no power shortages either. Yet mutely I persevere.

I pay all my taxes supposedly to the municipality & other departments.Yes on time, yet I am only given polluted, littered & indiscriminately dug up roads but I mutely drive on them sometimes cursing my fate & at other times musing mutely at the rampant corruption in the corridors of the departments responsible to give me at least a good road to drive on. I could have possibly written to someone or objected via an RTI (right to information) but who cares & why become the bad & the noticed in the eye of these corrupt officials lest they target me for their hafta vasuli hence I do the wisest of things which is to simply turn away & remain mute.
It was not even a fortnight ago that I was proudly declaring to some of my buddies that the street roads in my sector are one of the best in the district, flawless & well tarred. About a week ago there was this anniversary function of a dear couple in the neighborhood. Preparation started in the wee hours of the morning with all enthusiasm as would be the case in your or my family & we were all happy to see the family busying around with the chores preparing for the feast in the evening & then came the most annoying part- The tent house people came & dug up the beautifully built up roads & put up a real grand tent to welcome the guests. Yes they achieved two things by putting up this tent:
(a) They caused enormous inconvenience to the flow of traffic in the sector leaving no option but to take a u-turn & cause unnecessary chaos & traffic snarl.
(b) They definitely prepared the roads to be the worst in the coming monsoons as these holes they dug up to erect the tent would prove as catalyst for the rain water to penetrate the lower strata of the roads & do them in during severe rains.
Yet what did I do, as usual remained a mute spectator, sufferer & bore it with the best behavior with a smile as I did not want to be the odd one out causing confusion in my neighborhood.

The other day while I was driving back home I observed that the traffic police had put up a diversion on the road to take care of the wee hour traffic & infact they were doing a good job of it not until the car ahead of me with “dark glasses” (illegal), “Red beacon light” (illegal) & bold inscription on the front & the back number plate as “paarshad” (again illegal) as per supreme court directives; decided to go against the diversion obstructing the oncoming traffic. Surprise, surprise the car stopped right under the nose of the traffic cop, the driver side window came down about six inches & momentarily greeted the traffic cop (who was understandably all smiles ) & then sped away to its destination. I fumed, stopped my car (momentarily), pondered helplessly on the state of affairs in my state & then as usual drove off remaining mute. I did it in all wisdom though why should take up the brunt of the administration & know not of how many hooligans if I were to object that shameless mockery of law.

What more it was a lot of perennial effort from the makers of the movie “Rang de Basanti” to have come about just in time & possibly an inspired radio FM to instigate many of us to be woken up & raise our voices otherwise I still wonder what would have become of the “Jessica Lal case” or the “Priyadarshini Mattoo case”.

How long will it be before we like the "1857 revolt - the uprising" stop being mute & find enough courage to protest the wrong & bring about a postive MUT(E)INY”.