Perceptions and Contradictions

Uncle SS left a few days ago. Uncle SS is also one with questionable secular credentials. Notice how calling someone un-secular is almost swearing now. I remember this episode of Boston Legal where someone sues Denny Crane because he tells them that they "don't sound black". Denny asks Allen whether saying someone sounds black is racist, to which Allan rather elegantly replies that it would be much more racist to say "someone sounds street or urban and mean they sound black". My point at the end of the day is that if you hate a section of people and typecast all of them under one bracket, and then expect others to agree with you, you'd better have a good explanation for it. I'm sure Uncle SS thinks of himself as a perfectly liberal and tolerant man. His well-to-do, affluent and highly educated sensibilities will find it too politically incorrect to realize his lack of tolerance. Living in denial about the same ensures a peaceful existence under one's skin.

Uncle SS has not lived in India for almost two decades now. I have met him on and off throughout that period and never have found myself informed or opinionated enough to actively engage in a debate with him. This time, however, things were different. If anything, the debate ended only because I realized there's no amount of logic that wins against one's emotional faculties. That's not a bad thing per se. But when the emotion is hate and exclusion, it's better to use mind over matter and suppress until one is thoroughly convinced of the truth of the matter. You see, Uncle SS is of the firm belief that everything is black and white. So much so that I might actually end up rechristening him Uncle Noir et Blanche. Everything he says, needs to be weighed on objectivity and needs to be enforced emotionlessly. There are cold, hard decisions to be made in life and emotions only drag you down. On a personal level, I might get myself to somehow agree with him- there are tough decisions to be made in life and sometimes you need to keep emotions out of these decisions. But when he extrapolates the same logic to tell me how India will never progress unless it stamps out the greys and starts seeing everything in black and white, I begin to flinch. We had a rather heated argument the other day on who to ascribe moral responsibility to, when a bribe exchanges hands. Uncle SS believes that as a citizen of the country (as a doctor, say), if I do my job correctly, I have no other moral responsibility to society. "It's a matter of free choice. No one forces you to take a bribe", he argues. I question Uncle SS' belief, saying that the person accepting the bribe may be in a dire financial condition and may not always be in a position to be able to make what Uncle SS might call a morally right decision when a carrot is dangled in front of him. Free choice is not telling a person that he's free to choose and then load the choice heavily in one direction. I'm not using this as an excuse to legitimize bribing and corruption. All I'm saying is that the moral responsibility cannot be passed on to one person in all cases without consideration. Probably never having been in such a situation himself, he cannot admit the existence of such a middle ground.

Uncle SS also returned rather traumatized from the Auto Expo. One of the things that traumatized him was this lady who was sweeping the floor at Pragati Maidan with a bamboo broom while there were Mercedes cars on display right behind her, complete with blondes and brunettes to add to the glamour. "The lady was stupid. What kind of an image of our country does this portray?", fumes Uncle SS. I smile feebly, simply because I realize that this is another argument that won't be won. It tells the world that there exist such contradictions in our country. Right here, a woman can continue sweeping in front of Mercedes cars worth millions, only to look up to be appalled by how skimpily clad the accompanying blondes and brunettes are. She knows she'll never be able to afford the car, but the sweeping of the floor atleast feeds her family, and that's all she's concerned about. It also tells the world that our country can survive (if not flourish) with contradictions like these. So I'd rather let them see it, rather than sweep it under the rug. After about two decades of being away and dealing with binary issues, has forgotten about the existence of the middle ground. One can't blame him; there are very few countries in the world that throw up as many contradictions in a single day as this one does. But to suppose that everything needs to be seen in black and white and the greys need to be stamped out is suicidal. The difference at the end of the day is that I find it quite amusing (beautiful, even) that we continue to function despite so many parameters to balance in every equation (something he might refer to as me having been sanitized to all of India's problems).

Let's face the fact- while that middle ground may create more factors to manage on a day to day basis, hence complicating problems and their solutions, that same middle ground is where people struggle every single day to make something out of their lives. The day you ignore that middle ground in this country, you begin to regress. The same regression which will be termed as true progress by Uncle SS and the like, simply because the white contains everyone who thinks like him, the greys cease to exist and the black (which has essential grown to swallow the grey), we simply turn a blind eye to and pretend it's not there. Democracy wins. Free choice prevails.