Old, new & 'other'

This is my last column for 2021, a year that has been branded in our collective consciousness as our annus horribilis. How many friends fell victim to Covid, how many families were destroyed, how many lost livelihoods and peace of mind, rampant depression and mental health issues –— the list is grim and long. Yet, as is the tradition, this is also the time to welcome a new year and wish everyone peace and happiness. So here is my special greeting for each one of you: may the coming year bring us all good health, happiness and peace.

Even as I say this, I am aware of how terrified we all are of the fragile nature of a brief respite from the pandemic. So far, India seems to have been spared the devastation that has forced several European countries, Australia and the US to consider imposing crippling restrictions on public gatherings once again. Imagine the plight of those who could not celebrate Christmas with friends and family, or those who were looking forward to making some profits after a long spell of losses in their businesses. Yet, worse than all this is the agony of those students who have been forced to study at home, away from the excitement of making new friends in a university as they pass out of school.

Some of our fondest memories of our youth are the rocking time we had on our university campuses, the lively debates in noisy coffee houses, those boyfriend-girlfriend romances, and the discoveries made about students who spoke a different tongue. As for those little children still in school, what is life without scraped knees and fiercely fought matches in dusty playfields? Alas, there appears to be no hope that this will end anytime soon as college and school managements as well as parents weigh the consequences of opening up and live teaching again.

Added to all this is the huge anxiety that the world as we knew it has changed and that climate change is upon us. The speech delivered by the Prime Minister of the Dominican Republic at the recent conclave of nations on this subject raises uncomfortable questions about the profligacy of the developed world. She pointed out how they have squandered the resources that are our common heritage on lavish lifestyles, generating horrifying levels of pollution that now threaten the entire world. As small island nations (the countless Pacific Ocean cluster), Maldives and parts of Bangladesh, to name a few, fear they may be obliterated in one lifetime, powerful bully nations refuse to curb their wasteful ways. It is perhaps some divine justice that it is precisely these countries that now face the threat of migrations and demographic upheavals. Europe is already facing huge numbers of displaced migrants from Africa who brave dangerous crossings to arrive on the beaches of the Mediterranean coast. The social consequences of such huge human migration is a question many fear to even address. Then there are the devastated Central Asian nations, once the playfield of oil-chasing western economies abandoned after they had had enough. How can one not feel the pain and anger of those from Syria, Yemen or Afghanistan who are forced to live on dole in refugee camps that offer little protection from the cold and hunger they have to brave for an infinite time?

Truly, as people of my generation enter the last few decades of our life, we are compelled to ask: is this the world we wish to leave for our children and grandchildren?

It is time to turn to another topic that has always fascinated me: language and speech. The coarseness that has steadily crept into our everyday speech — whether in our own lives or in the realm of public discourse — is another area that should concern all of us. How many of us have just stopped listening to the television news is an indicator that we want news reportage, not slanging matches. Time was when the pitch (both sound and content) attracted one to listen. Now the whole purpose is to create violent hatred for an imagined ‘other’, absolving the listener of any responsibility or agency. News is now created in newsrooms, not gathered from the field. Opinions are not left to readers or listeners to formulate after sober reflection, but urgent binaries asked by hyper-nationalist anchors and editors in an hour. This constant navel-gazing has made us into a nation of illiterate idiots who have no sense of history, international affairs or even basic decency. I remember a time when the words Hindu and Muslim were not openly bandied, leave alone filled with bigotry and hatred. This bred in the reader or listener a respect for the privacy of faith and a level of tolerance that has all but vanished now under the benign gaze of our courts and law agencies.

I refer to the communal conclave of saffron unholy men and women (I refuse to call them holy) who openly incited their audience to pick up cudgels to protect their faith. Some have even pointed out that the ‘other’ side openly preaches bigotry on loudspeakers at prayer times. Since when have two wrongs made a right? How soon we all have forgotten Gandhiji, who said an eye for an eye will only make us all blind.

Hey Ram!