4.HEROES AND COLD WARS

 

Angshuman is a young boy of 21 years and just out of college. He has plans to go for further studies in his line of interest but thinks he can wait. His father, a business tycoon has very little interest in Angshuman’s plans and wants him to start a career in his expansive industry. He decides to gift him with a car for his birthday- A Honda Accord. And there went his dream of serving the country literally down the road.

Angshuman is quick to get into the driving mode; more so like an ace speedster, weaving in and out of the traffic, even on one of the bumper to bumper days. He creates a menace on the streets, ignoring the scowling red-faced persons at the wheels of the car, who shouts at him from inside their air-conditioned cars and some even roll down their glasses. Apart from that, with his glasses rolled down on occasions, his car would sound like a mobile discotheque what with his psychedelic music of sorts. In short, Angshuman dared to be the devil in disguise, least bothered about the trail of hate votes he collected on the way! And why should he, when his father, a known socialite was least bit bothered about his son’s antics. And who knows, Angshuman might have very well picked up the dramatics from his father.

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So, now we have a major problem on the table and an agenda to tackle. With 200 cars added to the streets of Guwahati every day, one can only expect to possess a car which will double up as a helicopter- a helicar on one of those days when we have to reach dot on time for a meeting. And with people like Angshuman, we have an even more serious crisis.

Today, if we notice, there are more people with humungous cars and equally gargantuan egos to match their cars than we had a decade ago. But when we see a boy graduating out of a university with a name to match its standards, we expect the boy to behave in a manner similar to the environs he had been used to in college- calm, sophisticated, royal, steady  and carrying himself with élan.

These days, people really are treated to a feast of cars on the roads of Guwahati as one gets to see all sorts of cars- starting from the humble Maruti 800 to the Hummer. And why not? More than any other asset, people have acquired an affinity for cars which make them feel powerful, strong, aggressive, domineering and menacing. So cars too many on the streets of the city!

But the question is “Should these big cars behave like an Oxford University Grad or like someone who has dropped out of school?” A serious question but one that needs to be taken by the horns. A small car behaving ‘badly’ on the road can be to a certain extent excused but when it comes to one of the ‘big’ cars like a Safari, an Endeavour, a Hummer, a Xylo, an Innova, one would expect it to be quietly standing next to you without much of a hullaballoo. It would be dominating enough for such a ‘quiet giant’ to slowly and steadily go through the streets instead of rushing at a breakneck speed and trying to kill people.

In the past, a Rolls Royce would be sold to that person who belonged to the elite, educated class with a social standing and not to some ‘Tom, Dick or Harry’. Rolls Royce returned to India in 2005 in a huge way and they have two dealerships (Mumbai and New Delhi) and sell 16-20 cars a year.
Before 1947 some 900 Rolls Royces were sold in India. Many were bespoke cars for the Maharajas (including several cars outfitted for hunting tigers). But a lot of these cars were sold to foreign collectors in the 1960's. So all this leaves us to imagine how one of these Rolls Royce car owners behaved or behave when they get their car out on the streets once in a while.

Someone once said, “A car is an extension of the personality of a person.” Rightly said. If a person driving an Audi behaves in an incongruous manner in the traffic, what can be said of the owner? Likewise, when the Scorpio hit the streets of the city several years back, everyone thought it was a mean and dominating machine. And it quite lived up to its expectations! Every Scorpio owner thought the SUV they were driving gave them power to dominate others and they had the rights to override other ‘smaller’ cars. It was like the Scorpio told a Maruti 800, “Hey Tiny Man, move over. Let me pass or I will hit you from the back!” And the humble Maruti would move over cussing under its breath, “Wait till I hit you!" So, here we have a cold war and cold murderous glares at each other!  

If every car decides to stamp on an etiquette seal and behaves better than before, maybe there is hope of seeing less accidents, less cold wars, congruous city traffic and peace of mind! Just as a car is cleaned every morning and given a shine, if every owner’s etiquette on the road too shines like the car, then we can say that we have happy days ahead. And who doesn’t want a happy situation?

 

Indrajit Kr. Saikia

Tinat Atifa Masood

3. AT THE CROSSROADS

Love can be very liberating! A feeling of exhilaration that is indescribable. It’s something everyone craves for. Yet when they finally get it, it takes them a lot of time to realise that they have been gifted with it already.

 I really loved John. Loved him because he was always well dressed in his black coat and trousers, wore black glasses and used a walking stick to move around. Stylish to the core! Except I didn’t like his smoking habit. He smoked like a chimney and always wanted me to pay for it. I had to since I loved John so much. He and I met only for a short while but meet we did, despite the odds. Come rain, hail or thunder, we invariably met and walked all the way through the footpath, lining the colourful shops and a few tastefully decorated houses. I would put my hand around his arm and proudly walk, even while we talked non-stop and laughed heartily. So, John and I would meet every day after school without fail and I had to walk with him up to the Police Point area before I walked off further towards my home in Laitumkhrah. John was slow while walking and it would put me in a tizzy as I knew exactly how Mom would react to my few minutes of delay while reaching home. But like I told you; I loved John very much and he loved me too and as is my nature, I just couldn’t even come as close to thinking of leaving him alone. My heart went out to John ‘cause John had difficulty while crossing the main road on his way home. So invariably, it was me who had to do it for him ‘cause John was 60 years old, blind and lived in a home for the deprived!

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So you thought that it was only the people in Assam who were absolutely unaware or feigned ignorance on the importance and the meaning of a ‘jebrra’ crossing? Well, read that as zebra crossing, the actual pronunciation being ‘zeebra’. But people just prefer to call it ‘jebrra’ and are rather happy to say it with élan. The zebras would probably be at the crossroads when they hear about the atrocious ‘pro-noun-ciation’! Even Mumbaiyas are known to have pathetic road sense in some areas, at least that’s what I saw when I visited it this autumn! Being a metro, one would expect Mumbai to behave like one. But annoyingly so, almost everyone save a few commuters are wont to stop at a red signal. And if perchance, the traffic police are not around, everyone has a field day! My scathing remarks fell on deaf ears and the only remark that stood stoic is, “Aarre Madam, sab log karte hein!”

Jorhat may be a small town but people have a lot of civic sense. Everyone, irrespective of whoever they may be, stop at the red light and patiently wait for other cars to pass and even let pedestrians cross over safely! It is sad but true that people in Guwahati have absolutely no respect and emotion for people walking on the streets. They rush at break-neck speed and stop exactly over the zebra crossing, making it a gargantuan task for people to get across. They wouldn’t mind running over old people and school and college going children as well!

On a GSE trip to Canada, as is the habit with us in Guwahati, Neelakshi and I were hesitant while crossing a street, when we saw a car approaching us in the distance. But we couldn’t believe our eyes when the car stopped almost twenty metres away from us. We were still hesitant but then the gentleman assisting us on our journey in Canada told us we could cross the street without fear of the car running us over. A car driver could be fined by the police for not complying with traffic rules and one of them happens to be an attempt to run over people at the zebra crossing, he said. Well, we have to learn a thing or two from them! So, I am really hoping the next stop for training of our traffic police should be Canada!

I have been really fortunate to have studied in Loreto Convent in Shillong, a school which honed us on traffic sense, besides other things ofcourse. Our teachers actually took us onto the roads and made sure we looked first to the right, then the left and then the right again before we crossed the road. And we did exactly that! I have been crossing the road in this manner ever since and Tirus, my little sonny boy now knows only too well how to do this! If wishes were horses and I could fly, then I wish children today would be taught about this most important concept in school and also by their parents.

But, in Guwahati, I have tried endless number of times to cross the roads at the zebra crossing and have failed miserably because of the dispassionate attitude of the people driving their SUVs, MUVs, XUVs and what not. Not to forget the overtly stylised bikes with humungous attitudes of their own to match their owners but all the while forgetting that there are other mortals around them who might be hurt by their attitude and their speeding bikes.  Nonetheless, it hurts me immensely that the people of my city are so lax about traffic sense, even as they maintain palatial houses  and ‘shiny’ cars!

Guwahati would have been so much saner if everyone didn’t behave in a nonsensical manner! But they do and that is one of the reasons for the utter chaos in the city.

As a kid, riding around in my father’s bike was easy as spelling ‘easy’. There were just scant cars on the road and parking was not such a big deal. Today, with more than 300 LMVs sold every day in Guwahati and the hapless and uncivilized driving of the greenhorns, we can only hope and pray that we safely return home to watch the News at 9.

Behaving on the roads has been part taught and part acquired by me. Not that I didn’t have road rage. Ofcourse, I did! But road rage was always for a reason. The reason being rash driving by someone who thinks the road belongs to him alone and someone honking for reasons beyond my perception, even after they see the lights turn red.

So there, you have all sorts of people on the road trying to prove something or the other to God only knows whom. Not that anyone is impressed but they seem to get the so called adrenaline rush all the time they do one of their ‘dirty acts’ and the glee on their faces is unbearable for people like me. And hence the road rage!

But all said and done, the onus lies with the parents to actually teach their children how to behave on the streets and everywhere else. When I speak of parents making their children globalised, it’s not just the ‘global’ education we are talking about. It should mean an all round moulding of his character, by which he will be identified no matter where he goes or what he does. The duties of parents don’t end with just sending their children to a ‘good’ school. It goes beyond that! If we are to turn out good people for the future, then we will have to put our heart and soul, our unstinted dedication and passion into being with our children and creating awareness about the importance of a world, which will be ruled by only the ‘best people’.

Can we think of doing certain things, so that we can set an example for the others?

1. Teach our children and all others who need to be taught the systematic way to cross the road. “Look right, then left, then right again and then cross the road.”

2. Stop the car when we see a person trying to cross the road, (doesn’t really matter if they are old or young) so that they can safely cross over.

3. Stop before the white line of the zebra crossing, so that pedestrians can make proper use of the zebra crossing. It’s not about having a sophisticated car. It’s about how sophisticated one behaves while driving his ‘shiny’ machine.

4. Try to drive slow and safe. This way we can avert accidents and have a smooth running of the city traffic.

5.  Stop the car when the lights turn red. At least for the sake of calling ourselves globalised citizens, let’s behave like one.

6. Can we not go against the traffic when we are desperately trying to take a short-cut. If we take the longer way, it will actually save the fuel and save others from going wild about cars coming against the traffic.

7. As pedestrians too, we have the responsibility to behave in a manner congruent to the road rules. Can we think of crossing the road at a zebra crossing, instead of trying to zig- zag through the traffic and in the process putting our lives in danger, leave alone the scathing remarks of the drivers?

8. Children are precious and so needs to be protected at any cost. Can we as parents or guardians hold the child going to and fro from school or otherwise towards the left of the road, that is to say, hold them with our left hands so that we can save them from the onslaught of recklessly speeding cars?

All said and done, the onus lies with each and every one of us to behave in a manner congruent to society. It’s the time when we should stop blaming the system and take it on ourselves to change the system ourselves. Cynicism is passé and boring. People with ideas to bring a change are more interesting. So come on people, stop blaming others and passing the buck! Put on your thinking caps and think of bringing a change, here and now!

Tinat Atifa Masood

2. GIVE THE WORLD A BREAK! IT WILL LOVE YOU BACK!

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years back and the next best time is today.”

Chinese Proverb

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My Mom used to tell me “Do something to be remembered by. The world is heavy anyway with so much negativity. Don’t make it heavier by doing nothing. Take responsibility.” And these words have been etched in my heart since I was a kid. Not that I didn’t take any responsibility then. At my age, in my capacity, I sought to do the things which made me ask myself “Am I being responsible and living up to my Mom’s expectations.”

So this urge, this burning desire is still a rage in my heart as I think of the things that are my duty; the things that I have to do in spite of everything.

Now, with becoming a parent, my work as a responsible person has gone up manifolds. My sole duty is now to make an excellent person out of my child. I want to see him as one who will take on the world for reasons which will not only make me proud but also others. I want to see him as someone who again will take responsibility of his state, his country and in turn, the world.

So, as someone who believes that all children should become global citizens, I had chalked out a few points to start with. These are again for parents to follow so that their responsibility rubs onto their children. .......

Dear Parents,

It’s time we made our children global citizens. At least we can start by setting examples ourselves. The present is ours. The future is theirs.

 1. Moms and Dads. We have to start talking with respect to each other at home. (My child notices even a small lapse in our relationship)

 2. Watch the language I use at home. (If I speak lewd language, he/she will pick it up instantly)

 3. Treat my house-help with respect. (This will help my child to see everyone on an equal level)

 4. Conserve electricity. Switch off all electrical appliances I will not use while coming out of my room.

 5. Plant trees and raise my voice against illegal felling of trees and earth-cutting.

6. Inculcate this theory that the city is mine, the state is mine, and the country is mine. It’s my responsibility to keep it clean. Everything that I use. It may be a public wash-room. (I will make sure I don’t dispose empty chips packets, used coke bottles etc. on the road while driving or otherwise.)

 7. Respect elders (parents, teachers, seniors and people in general). (Leave my seat when I see an elderly person standing and speak politely to them.)

 8. Simple words but magical words. Thank you, Excuse me, Sorry.

9. The road belongs to me and I have to maintain proper traffic order whenever I am driving. (I may be late but I will never go against the traffic and take a short-cut while I have my child sitting next to me)

 10. I will obey the traffic signals. Wait at the white line of the zebra crossing and let the people walk by without trying to run them over. (I will not jump the red signal even if no one is looking)

 11. I will value money and I should know there is no such thing as 'easy money' (Input by Naina Barbaruah)

 12. I will save water. I will use only that amount of water that is necessary for me.

 13. I will save some time for prayer everyday and not pray just for myself but for the world. Pray for world peace!

  14. I will make some time to read. (Spend as much as you can on books, 'cause this way you are building a library for your kids.)

15. If I love someone, I should love unconditionally. (Teach your child unconditional love)

16. I should by now understand the concept of global religion. We have a long way to go...lot of contributions to make to the world. So we should rise above petty thoughts and teach our children global thoughts on religion.

17. What is missing in almost all of us compared to other civilized communities is the " Humbleness". As individuals, we are not humble in our attitude or action. We never respect other people’s right and presence. We try to Jump the Q either in a ticket counter or in a social counter (in that sense)... We tend to believe, Jumping the "Q" (there by ignoring the right of others) is the only way to establish our presence..!! This can only happen when if we, by heart love being "humane". (A world citizen), whether related or from our geographical boundary, or religious beliefs, known or a complete stranger...!! May be this is what u may call a part of global religion (I call it Global human custom). I have to teach my child the art of patience. (Input by Bibhu Bhuyan)

18. As part of Global religion, divine beliefs, beyond reach of man etc...Are to be strongly discouraged amongst our children... as if it’s a Horror Movie. Let's believe all in moderation...nothing is to be accepted as God Sent or Absolute!! Scope for questioning the old scripts must be within next generation’s sensibility tolerance’s freedom. Also all the "Self appointed Contractors of Religion”, be kept at arm’s length...and their influence on our life must be made limited. They must be treated as a Book Reviewer who reviews a Single Book as per their knowledge or understanding, nothing more..!! (Input by Raphael Warjri)

19. I should try and teach my children the art of watching good TV programs and also the Creators of TV programs should rethink the following: (1) PORTRAYAL OF COPS: Don't use long-haired, unshaven or pot-bellied actors. Cops should be smart, non-judgemental & avoid gratuitous violence in dealing with the copped. (2) LANGUAGE: To start with words like "OI" & "ABBE" should b outlawed. (3) INACTIVITY: There should b a conscious attempt to avoid portraying any character in idleness...to the extent possible all characters should be busy doing SOMETHING USEFUL. (4) WOMEN: Shad not be portrayed as if all they are waiting for is to get married. (Input by Deba Choudhury)

 And for all this, I have to give a lot of time to my child. I want him/her to be healthy in the mind, pure in the heart and clean in the soul. But I LOVE HIM/HER, don’t I and I want to give to the world the best person that it can expect. I took all the pain in the world to get him/her….so where is the question of not giving time. The TIME is now. Give them your time now, so that they fully bloom in the garden of life!

Indrajit Kr. Saikia

Tinat Atifa Masood

1. TIME OUT! 

Tirus, 6 years now, asks me a lot of questions. Questions which make me actually sit up and think. Every time he asks me a question, it’s like I am bound to put on my thinking cap and just pray to God that I have a logical answer! And it’s very interesting about what he thinks! The questions come most often when we are watching television together and the anchor or news-reader says a word, which Tirus has never heard before or maybe had heard it but stored it to ask me later.

So, this time Tirus, while riding his cycle around the house asked me, “Mom, what is the meaning of duty?”

I got him close to me and gave him a kiss on the head. I sat down on the cane chair in the verandah and pulled Tirus onto my lap and hugged him close.

Tirus insisted I tell him. So I started. “Duty is responsibility.” “What is responsibility?” he asked. “Responsibility is something that we have to do in spite of everything. We have to complete the task that is given to us.”

 So, I went about and explained what my duty is right now towards him. “My duty now is to love you, take care of you, feed you, send you to a good school, teach you good manners, let you do the things you love; all in all, make you a very good human being.”

Tirus looks cute when he thinks and his eyelashes curled up when he rolled his eyes and looked away in a contemplative mood. He was thinking. He shot back at me again, “So Mom, what is my duty?” with a lot of stress on the word ‘my’.

“Kiddo, your duties are to study, eat healthy food, be good to others and love everyone. When you go to a bigger school, your duties will be to study harder, respect your teachers and elders, show concern for the environment and love everyone. When you become a little older and start working, you will have a lot of duties towards the society, your state, your country, the world, which will include safe-guarding women and children.”  

Tirus listened wide-eyed all the time, soaking in what I was saying. “Mom, all this is pretty simple,” he said. “I know I can do it.”

All said and done, I have told Tirus about his duties. But what have I done all these years? What is that one special thing that I have done for the society? Have I gone to any lengths to make my city a better place to live in? Have I done anything to makes the lives of the lesser privileged a little better? I had thought of a home for the under-privileged but what have I done so far to make that thought come true? What about the garbage? Have I even taken some action to clean up the streets? And then how can I even think of blaming the government for not cleaning up the streets? It is I who has made a mess; thrown garbage all over and then what right do I have blaming someone else for it? What have I done for my country? I say I am an Indian but what Indianness have I shown so far? And what about the environment and the world? Who’s going to take care of the world? Isn’t it my bounden duty to make the world a better place to live in? But what have I done so far? Nothing! Only lip-service!

There were these voices which constantly whispered inside my head and I was going berserk trying to pacify them. But to no end. I can quieten them only till I have done something significant; my duty as a citizen of the world. And everyday, this frustration, this urge, this need is getting the better of me.

Tirus says his present duty, apart from his studies is to get my mobiles, tab and lap-top charged. How responsible! Being a little child, he knows his duties well but what about me? Isn’t it already too late? Am I not being totally irresponsible? Irreponsible towards my society, my state, my country and the world. One thing I know for sure! I am not asleep. So  what is it that I need to get me started. Am I waiting for that moment in time when someone is going to say, “It’s too late now! Nothing can be done anymore!”

So Tirus has now shown me the way. I am already getting started. Thankyou my dearest son, you have shown me the importance of doing my duties and I better do them fast! Mine are not simple, like you say your duties are!

Tinat Atifa Masood