29/03/2016
Interesting time, we live in.
It is a rare confluence of the religious cult, political shenanigans, sexual pervasion, and the many histrionics of the hypocrites and the opportunists.
We've recently read in newspapers that a temple is being planned at Attingal, near Thiruvananthapuram, for the late actor, Kalabhavan Mani. We've also seen Facebook posts from somewhere of posters hailing Mohanlal, the actor, as god.
What've we become, the 'most literate' of the Indians?
For a moment, let's hold a mirror against us, and look. And, look again. See if we can pick out the moral dishonesty, the shadows lurking and the games we play and hands we shake under the table.
We are precariously caught among God, Godlessness, demigods and a super mouse.
Kerala's multicultural past now hangs its head in shame as a sickening whiff of casteism permeates the air. Kerala was the entry point for Christianity and Islam to come to India. Kerala was the only place where Jews were not attacked when Europe hunted and massacred millions of them. But now caste-based discrimination and hatred ooze through all the pores in our mind—and, it hangs over us like an invisible cloud. It will never rain out or empty itself out. It remains there, heavy and oppressive, pressing down on us like a colorless, nameless beast.
A TEMPLE for Mani? Where are we heading to?
We've already seen the surge of Dinkan, the cartoon-character, who has now been given the halo of divinity and hundreds of people are 'followers' of the super-mouse. At the most, it should be a spoof, showing us the naivety of praying to the demigods. It should be making fun of the 'business of faith' and crass commercialization of religion and religious memorabilia.
'Dinkoism' also points to the sorry state of affairs that anything can be a religion and anything can be a god. 'Dinkoism' cuts open our desperation for 'something' to follow and ‘somehow’ to be blessed. 'Dinkoism' is the sarcastic antidote to our spiritual blindness.
If a tourist picks up a vernacular newspaper and manages to read the local pages, he or she will run for cover; will take the first flight out of this horrifying, violent, murderous and superstitious place. Can we spare a few minutes to critically look at what is being printed and telecast by our news outlets?
It is frightening.
Sex is in the air everywhere—even in the form of gender stories. 'Sex stories' sell hot. The voyeur in us is in the thick of action. The moral police instigate 'kiss protests.' The anti-fascists groups unleash themselves in public and on social media.
What are we becoming? Who are we fighting against and for what?
The opportunists and hypocrites thrive during elections. They crop up like mushrooms and tender sprouts after an overnight rain. While the corrupt try to brush all proof and stain under the carpet, others strike unholy nexus before we, the strange victims of a common tragedy, walk to the polling booth hopeful in the morning sun.
Former cricketers, tainted but washed and sanitized in saffron water, strive to be legislators. He may know how to present a steady seam and invoke all deities before he begins his run-up, but, boy, politics is indeed nation-building though it, sadly, offers the last refuge to scoundrels.
Film stars seem to have come under some kind of an illusion that they too are the saviors of the society, hoping to translate the on-screen heroism and gobbledygook dialogues into votes. But then, it is politics. Surely not what the common man can stuff into his pillow.
Why film stars alone? Why not journalists who have been fighting tooth-and-nail in the newsrooms to liberate Kerala from the clutches of solar scams and ice-cream parlor mysteries? After all, they have self-assumed the multiple roles of the Legislative, the Executive and the Judiciary. They have the chutzpah and spleen to scald any wildcat in the newsroom.
Those who have shaped themselves as saviors of Kerala society through their so-called courageous journalism, have set aside the 9’o clock camera gaze and got on the podium to spit some hereditary fire and purge this tiny state of stinking corruption and moral decline. But how many of us will see the strings that control the puppets who are acting on the stage?
No other time does casteism come to the forefront and figure so prominently in the permutations and formulas than the pre- and post-election days. Seats are divided according to caste-based demography with not even a weak attempt to look otherwise.
Our days are wet with blood. Martyrs are made out of deadly political clashes. The dead are adorned with crimson and saffron garlands.
We’ve already seen a number of 'yatras,' from one end of the state to the other—all claiming to liberate the land and its people.
Who are we suffering from?
Remove the colors. Tear away the peripheral layers. As we go in, we realize that it is all the same. The Nation will never get built. Only, history will be edited, tinkered with, with such deft hands and doctrinal prejudice.
Interesting time we live in. What do we tell our children?
We can tell them what T.S. Eliot had said years ago. Let them understand, if they can. Or, just leave it.
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
Come the day of polling, let's walk to the polling booth in the morning sun. The film stars, the cricketer and the journalists are waiting in the wings to build this state as others prepare to build temples for late actors and cartoon characters.
We are our own making.
(Cover painting by B.D. Dethan. Caricature by SajiCS Cherpu. Photo credit: Bryce Edwards via Foter.com / CC BY)