Liberating Indian Mind

3

He did not leave as promised. I had myself no such misgiving. We are friends for decades and know each other not to be easily deceived. He had been sort of Gambler, and gamblers may leave the table if they have won but not if they are losing till they have lost everything. Nay, even then, they try to beg or borrow in the hope that luck may turn the wheel down side up.
“Don’t you feel ashamed of eulogizing yourself?” he shot with pretentious empathy after a brief pause.

“An academic environment wherein those required to assess you and show your worth conspire either to ignore in order to silence you or compose and sing elegies to celebrate your imagined demise, it is redeeming to declare your dominant presence vide someone who has even obliviously rated you above par.” I punched him on the face.

He mellowed his tone, “agreed! But is it good to be so engrossed with the past when there is so much to be done in the present?”

I preferred to tease him, “Past is present and the present is past, you know?”

He looked at me with blank eyes, trying to believe I really meant what I said.

I relished it, “You know why?” I continued in the same vein, “because there is only one time, that is past. Present and future are grammatical constructs, to be taught to school children for essay writing. In life all that we have is past; all that is present is either past or future in the making whose outcome is uncertain. Future is hope and dream brewed in equal measure to keep frantically busy.”

He had recomposed himself by now, “You are fiddling. Aren’t you?”

“I know the size of your mind, year! It cannot accommodate lofty ideas.” I patted him on his back, “believe me or not, I was not joking. Those who are cut off from their past cannot handle their present correctly. If present shows your muscle power, past runs your nerves. A balanced combination of both is necessary to keep you moving with gust.”

He could not appreciate me and did not do, “You people are going to create mass frenzy which is disastrous for the country.” he spit his venom in one sentence.

I enjoyed it as normally I do, “Can we admit patient with me and listen me attentively?” I asked him softly.

He didn’t answer, but got benumbed and curious.

Do you know why despite the fact that English is an awesome language for me, despite the fact that I have to use too many words to say small things in a strange language, I have to use pompous words to express simple ideas, because words of equal measure often fail to occur at the right moment, and yet I chose to write this piece in English against my wish?

This shift from subject to medium of expression was something he did not expect. He felt a bit uneasy and could not decide what to say.

I did not pause for his answer, “Because you have lost yourself respect. Because, you do not listen to your people. Because you are cultural orphans of India looking for an orphanage disowning your own ancestral home. Because you have always respected distant ideas, distant things and distant voices, even distant vices. You form the class of intellectual elites who with their colonial mindset owe the responsibility of guiding the nation grinding the nation, grooming the nation, and dooming the nation without taking responsibility for anything done by you. Because I want to be heard by you, I want to be heard by those in other languages like you, and through you to be heard by my own people, but for that, I want to rub the nose of those on whose feet you fall flat and rub your nose to get recognition, forgetting the fact that Masters recognized their dogs more Intimately than their votaries and that they safely distance themselves from those who pose a threat to their Supremacy.”

He was eager to interrupt, but I ignored him, “the measures adopted by me may appear to be coarse but I want to liberate you from the Western incantation, and feel sad when you refuse the course to cure you. You need my help and I am there to help you bearing all the curses and appellatives thrown on me. You enjoy your bondage, because you have lost even the will to earn your freedom. The slavery you is rewarding but your slavery what the country is a curse.”

He found my reprimands too unsavory to take any note. All that passed to his head was a shrill note repulsive enough to be accepted and heard. He was disturbed of course, but even disturbance is a proof that the subconscious is not going to miss the thrust.