A Vision from Hell...

Last Saturday I had a vision from hell. And no, it didn't involve sinners and losers and all the others that stay there. It involved innocents, and that was what made the vision all the more frightening, impactful, and lasting.

I was driving down Nandidurg Road, and suddenly I could smell this awful stench coming from behind me. My first thought, "Yuck! The garbage truck!" Then, "At this time of the day? Evening?" I leaned back slightly as the truck overtook me. The smell was overpowering. As it passed me by, I could see that it was not a truck. It was a big van.

It was a three-tiered van. Each tier was crammed, absolutely no standing space. With goats and sheep. They looked frightened. And they were bleating. I have never seen a more saddening sight, nor heard a more heart-rending sound. Those eyes, afraid, helpless... They were all bleating, some almost hysterically. With each bump the sound would rise, and then some would go quiet... Resignation? And then bleat again... Fear?

Death is something we all must learn to accept. Because it is the inevitable end to the concept of life. But violent death? That's a hard one. Violent death of the innocents? One can accept the fact of the death of a loved one due to disease, age...

But this? To be brought up, fed, even cared for probably, only to be sent to the slaughterhouse? Why?

If they could feel, they would probably feel the same way the millions of Jews felt on their last rides to Dachau, Auschwitz, Treblinka, Chelmno, Plaszow, Bergen-Belsen... We at least have the strength of consolation...

I know it is part of the natural order of things. That there is a place for every animal in the foodchain, and that goat and sheep and chicken belong there. Finally. On the truck to the slaughterhouse. Or under the knife. That there is the need to survive, and we as humans are better equipped at this game than all other species.

I don't know that my going vegetarian will make that much of a difference in the natural order of things. But I certainly know that I can sleep better because at least from now on, I would not be one of the millions waiting for the meat to arrive...

**I still haven't got over that sight.**

On a Different Tangent...

Recently there was a demonstration by people of the sexual minorities community in Bangalore. It was a sight that evoked lot of curiosity in people. They came in numbers, the participants, and they were open and vocal about their cause, and the harassment and discomfort they face.

People from this community don't have it too easy. Imagine a life where you have to live in constant fear - of being ridiculed, mocked, of being thrashed for daring to love or daring to look for love/sex from your own gender. It is a matter of individual choice, finally, and I think we should let them be. We don't even have the claim to be able to 'allow' them to live as they like, they have their own right, as long as they are not doing stuff to others by force.

One instance comes to mind. It was new year's eve 1995, and I was having a drink alone in my bachelor's pad - a very quiet new year plan. The room next door was having a very raucous new year's eve - whistling, loud music, clapping, the thump of feet on the ground as drunken boys tried to dance, and general merriment all around. I walked over to say hi, more out of curiosity actually, because these were not your upper class revellers, more working class guys who generally slogged their work days.

In the room were about 15 guys, most of them smashed, swaying and dancing and hooting - the works. Between them was one sole transvestite - happily dancing away, drink in hand. I was a bit puzzled, and to be honest, disgusted, because I had never seen a transvestite from up close, and didn't think too much of a man (boy, actually) that loved to dress like a woman, polished toe nails, stillettos and all. I walked back to my room.

New Year's came and after a while all was quiet. However, I could hear the shuffling of feet in the next room, and the hushed sound of people trying to scurry around noiselessly. I went out to check what the scene was, and saw all of them looking around for something. I asked them not to make too much noise, and went back in. Then I heard the whispers 'Elli hogide awunu' or something to that extent which meant 'where did he go'? That got me a little suspicious. I came out and threw a standard smiling 'enu aitu guru?'. The response was shocking. In Kannada, 'That whore ran away'...

I figured they were talking about the transvestite. So I too went out, and after searching a bit, found him cowering in the corner of the wall near the back of my room. He had been slightly bruised, from being slapped and kicked around, I guess. He was crying, and one could see the teror in his eyes. When I asked him what the matter was, he said that they were all drunk and that they all wanted a good ol' gangbang. I am not easily shaken, but that did shake me.

I brought him back to my room, gave him the bed, went out, and told the guys that he would be staying at my place for the night. They grumbled, 'we brought him, let him out', etc. etc. but backed away nevertheless. Once inside I asked the guy not to cry, just sleep and go in the morning. Then I cursed him. How the hell could he be so gullible? Did he think 15 guys called him over to give him flowers? Or what? He said initially there was just one. Whom he met furtively, in Cubbon Park. It was New Year's eve,, and the poor guy was just looking for some fun, sex, love, whatever you call it, to lighten up his otherwise fear-filled life.

The guy left the next morning, and of course I became the object of derision, mockery, scorn, etc. for the next two weeks or so. I had voluntarily asked a transvestite to stay with me. People asked me why I did it. I didn't think I needed to answer that one. I still don't think so.

For heterosexuals like us, social acceptance is something we don't even think about, because it is a given, unless we turn out to be thugs, murderers, rapists, antisocials. For people like the one I met that New Year's night, it isn't. Life is traumatic. From the confusions regarding their sexual leanings at an early age, to the fear of being raped, thrashed, caught (the cops sodomize them for free if they manage to get them into the lock-up, even now). They have no respect from most of us, not because of their incompetence or inferiority, but because of our boorishness and arrogance. We don't have to be tolerant of them, we don't have any right to be, because they aren't inferior to us, more aptly, we are in no way superior to them. We need to let them just live.

Is that so hard a thing to do?

Two Days of Mayhem. One Long Weekend.

Two days of mayhem. One long weekend. That is what most of last week turned out to be. One moment we are at office, trying to beat deadlines, and the next there is news of veteran Kannada acting legend Dr. Raj Kumar's death. The violence that this single event triggered off was staggering, by any standards. Staggering because of the senselessness of it all. The end result? Deaths, and hundreds of thousands of rupees worth of property damaged.

This is something I have not been able to figure out: the mentality of a mob; to be more specific, the trigger for this phenomenon. There is no other word for it except 'phenomenon'. A normal person, in the company of a few emotionally overcharged others, turns into a violent beast, breaking things, beating other innocents, taking lives. It happened in Gujarat - the memories are frightening - and we said how could one man do this to another? Especially women and children? Now we have seen it with our own eyes how one man does this to another.

Something snaps. Maybe there are political connotations to the whole thing, in which case one can imagine the mindset of our elected representatives that were ousted from power, and are currently the opposition. For this is not even political mileage, this is criminal behavior. That at least is something, in the sense, however weird it may sound, that there is an agenda to the whole thing. But if it was not politically motivated, then what? It is a tragedy, to see with our own eyes, that this is what we the common people can become.

As a spectator, as one who hasn't been directly affected, I can afford to curse and swear, maybe even be insensitive enough to laugh about how stupid people can be. What about the people who have been directly affected? Who have had people scale their compound walls and things smashed up? What about the families of people that lost their lives? The family of the police constable, all of 28 years old, who died, after the public got hold of him and literally beat the life out of him? Who do we hold responsible? What happens to the concept of accountability?

Sadly, that is how life is in India. Accountability has been non-existent, almost, in our day to day lives. Once in a while a celebrity does something stupid, makes the headlines, gets punished in the name of accountability, spends a few days in prison, a la The Simple Life, gets out of jail with all the fanfare possible, and then goes on to make movies, beat up people, make threats, make money, screw around more.

This is India, and this is how it will remain, no matter how much of an economic giant we metamorphose into, how much of progress we make.

[P.S: Raj Kumar's family, by the way, apparently could not make it to be near the body during the final rites. What more can one say?]

My bit for the Trivia Circus...

According to Jung's typology all people can be classified using three criteria. These criteria are:

Extraversion - Introversion
Sensing - Intuition
Thinking - Feeling

Do take this test and check your Type ...

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm

A Crackle in the Morning...

This happened last Friday. I was driving to work, The Black Crowes belting out Hard to Handle on my CD player, me generally enjoying the beginnings of what would turn out to be a very good day. Suddenly I heard a crackling sound. I was instantly transported back to my native place, one dull dreary and hot morning there in the early nineties, when the crackle of gunfire became the new voice of violent death.

Over the years it has become quite a common sound. In those early days of insurgency, however, it really shook our people up. Into fright, and then euphoria, spawning an-almost revolution that had unbelievable grass roots support. Everywhere - market places, schools, colleges - there were banners urging youngsters to enlist, to help secede from the tyrannical Indian government. The premise for such a move was, sadly, not too convincing.

In a few years, the top leadership fled the battlefield. For those that were in there, fighting, the strain of staying away from home, the constant threat of sudden violent death hovering above them, took its toll. In short, stripped of the romanticism attached to a cause, they gave up. The government played its ace in the hole - the option to surrender - and lo and behold! Revolutionaries metamorphosed in an instant to hooligans and opportunists.

Today the sound of the bullet has been replaced by the thump of bombs. Because bombs can cause more destruction. The people are fed up, but what can people do? Spawn another revolution to spank the revolutionaries? No sir, thank you. And so life goes on.

The moment of deja vu is past. I open my eyes and realize that this is Bangalore I am in, not my native place. The crackling sound is not that of a bullet spitting out from a Mauser, but some self-flagellating sadhu who is whipping himself and collecting money. I thank god, curse the self-flagellant for presenting such a grotesque spectacle at nine in the morning, roll up the window, increase the volume, and shift into third gear.