Of Dead Clocks and Evanescence…

If Ashutosh Gowariker ever decided to make a sequel to SWADES, I will perhaps be the best candidate for the lead role. Born and brought up around the world- with a ridiculous accent and strange mannerisms to prove it- I was always the classic outsider here, trying desperately to fit in. I am also the quintessential urban cowboy, having spent my life in metropolitan centres of this world. It is strange, therefore, that halfway through my MBA, I would find myself wandering around a village, trying to speak Gujarati to domesticated housewives.

As a part of the YI-Net here, I was sent to Telav village to try and coax as many women as possible to come for the Women’s Day celebration that we were organizing. But that is not what this is about. This is about the three little local boys who were accompanying us, guiding us from house to house, speaking to those who were unable to understand us.

While making petty conversation to get to know them better, I asked them what they wanted to become when they grew up- yes, yes, I know, very irritating, very clichéd, but I am not sure what one says to a 13 year old. We had already discussed movies and cricket.

Now, all my life, I have been a pretty directionless, clueless, lost kind of person. So whenever some representative of the adult world decided to develop an interest in my future, I would usually tell them that I had no idea. Which, admittedly, they found strange of a 20 year old. Hence, I felt all the more hypocritical. But I wasn’t ready for their responses.

One, the eager-to-please kid, just smiled, while the other said, very prophetically, “Jo bhi banna hoga, ban jayenge”.(We will become whatever we are to become). The third, the most serious one, simply said “humein aapki tarah English mein padhna hai” (we want to study in English, like you).

The child-prophet was perhaps simply trying to sound smart, he may have only meant it as a throwaway comment, implying that he will decide when the time comes, but it is nevertheless a very strange feeling to have a thirteen year old stranger echo your feelings. He probably had no idea how limited in scope his future might be, given his economic and social background, but here he was, at peace with the fact that he will be what he is to be. I doubt if he got this attitude from his parents- I can only wonder where his thoughts come from. I am not trying to hint at any deep, life changing truths here- I am simply trying to articulate what I felt at that point of time.

What struck me most, however, was the third child’s desire to study in English. Now, when you live in India, you kind of get used to the fact that even though you are paying nine lakhs to sit in an air-conditioned seminar hall, two kilometers down the road hundreds are studying in small dusty classrooms with clocks whose dead batteries have not been replaced for months. In such a scenario, millions grow up wishing to speak English, recognizing the language as both a passport for upward mobility as well as a status symbol. But this child was not content with that. Like millions of others, he wanted to learn to speak English, but that wasn’t the end of the road for him. He wanted to go one level beyond all that. He wanted to study in English. Now, that was a kicker.

I think living in Indian metros somehow desensitizes us to the presence of these dusty classrooms two kilometers away from us, the eager-to-learn students who probably will never get an opportunity to, and all the dead clocks. The existence of millions of such desires sprouting all around us is also something we have happily blocked out of our conscience. Our English medium educations, too, are easily taken for granted by us. It took a thirteen year old and his prophet friend to disorient me- temporarily, of course- from my secure cocoon.

It has been several days since my trip to Telav. In the meantime, I have happily settled back into my wonderfully materialistic existence, surrounded with good food, funny movies and plans of bunking classes. I am not really sure what I have been trying to say in this piece. That we should do something for these children? No, I don’t think so. That’s just a cliché. Certainly, I thought about it, as does everyone else who is confronted with all this, but just like cigarette smoke, it is a fast evanescing thought, prone to getting overshadowed by various other, more immediate issues like what to have for dinner.

My determination to change the lives of these children was lost almost as soon as I came back. Yes, that sounds shallow, but I can live with that. Dishonesty- particularly with myself- is what I cannot accept. I think my only aim in writing all this was to sort out the millions of feelings and thoughts that passed through my miniscule mind that day, and for various days since then.

I have not done anything for those children yet. Somehow, I don’t think I will end up doing much either. Nor will anyone else. No matter how much we try, one day these children will wake up and find themselves alone. That day, perhaps, they will try and become comfortable with their existence, and I will be at peace with my conscience. As that prophet-child said, whatever is to be, will be. Until that day, all he and I will do is wait. Nothing more, and nothing less.

I do not know how long we will be waiting. This might be a good time, then, to replace the clock batteries. Or I might do that for them.

That, at least, is something I can do.