It’s chilly. It’s getting darker by the minute. But still, there’re a handful of people who’ve gathered at this ‘epicentre of democratic rebellion’ to ‘protest’ against the same old sin – the proverbial ‘justice being delayed’ and in effect, ‘being denied’ routine. You can make that out by the rush of OB vans, press photographers and a dim glow of the candles that these ‘activists’ have lit (candlelight vigils are the in thing these days, you know. No one gives a rat’s posterior about the good old ‘gheraos’ of the Parliament or pelting stones at the police – the latter being revived by, surprisingly, JNU ‘students’).
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It’s the same story, different plot. These well-dressed activists with their leather boots and carefully koeled eyes, stylish mufflers and touched-up cheeks, hourglass figures and dark-rimmed glasses have gathered to demand justice – again.
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Though this time, it’s for Ruchika Girhotra, the school-going tennis player who was molested and driven to suicide by the former DGP of Haryana, the evil, the perverted-looking SPS Rathore, 19 years ago.
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There’s an old man whom the cameramen seem terribly interested in – five news channels and 4 of their print colleagues jostling for space to immortalize this man in their respective mediums before the other does. I hear him talk; I recognize his face. I have a vague recollection of having talked to him somewhere, about something now too trivial to recall.
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He leans into an attractive female print journalist’s face to tell her his name. I remember the guy. He allegedly took early retirement from a well-paying job to ‘fight corruption’
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He’s being showing up, talking about and formulating solutions for everything from corruption to the city’s green cover for months. Maybe years – who knows? I’m just a trainee journalist (young guy, as some one recently referred to me) – been on the job for a very little while.
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Ok. Screw this guy – some lady just broke down. The cameramen rush. The attractive reporter follows. ‘Why are you here ma’am?’ she asks (probably congratulating her on finding the lead to her story).
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Lady: ‘We want justice [?]’
Are you fucking kidding me?! What else do you think she’s there for, you bimbo!
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Some one else has arrived. It’s someone who’s actually been fighting for his son. Actually, against those who killed his son in a fit of rage what with alcohol governing their bloodlust.
He’s in the background though; not visible till one of the ‘organizers’ of the protest calls him to the centrestage, as it were, of the protest. He says a few words. Tries to melt into the background – a tear almost escaping his left eye as he gets nostalgic, heck may be even misses his son.
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Company arrives. Chicks, too. Fair, retro black rimmed glasses, an overdose of kajal, khadi jholas, sneakers, no make up. Attractive. Intellectual. Feminists from, guess where. JNU.
The chicks strike up a conversation with the man. He acknowledges their presence with a nod to one from the group of three he seems to recognize. “What happened to your son was a mockery of our judicial system. It had happened earlier, too. Jessica, Katara, and now Ruchika. We’ve always raised our voices against it,” she says. “There have been so many marches at Camps, by almost every political party – AISA, SFI, ABVP, DSU, NSUI, AAA, GAGAGA.” B.U.L.L.S.H.I.T.
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She IS actually hot. She gets her friend to click a picture of her ‘protesting’. Probably shows it off at the 24X7 Dhaba on the JNU Campus in the middle of the night, too.
“Thank you,” says the man, smiles, turns his eyes away.
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Another ‘regular’ activist appears. “Hey, did you catch me on that show last night? I showed the anchor, didn’t I?” he smiles a self-laudatory smile.
“Hello sir – how’s the case going? Did I tell you about this vigil at North Campus? How’s his sister? Did you watch the show?”
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I go back. Report. It gets reduced to a filler on the Nation page. I laugh as I introduce the idea of the candle industry being behind such regular ‘vigils’ seeking justice. I get pissed. I discuss Lenin’s vanguard theory with a senior. Get dismissed – all in good humour, of course.
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My ‘comrades’ read psychological theses on revolutionaries; march in political marches. Discuss the ‘revolution’ in 10x12 rooms, sipping tea and snacking on subsidized samosas somewhere on the fringes of the national capital, even as aircrafts whiz by above them, surrounded by state-funded ‘academic’ courses, bungalows belonging to diplomats a few kilometers away, malls at walking distance, erstwhile intellectuals, revolutionaries, dissidents now reduced to rotting zombies preaching the way forward, dissidents who forgot the way OUT a long, long time ago.
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Stories upon stories from the tribal heartland of MP get published even as a search for the good old ‘Coke’ ensues.
The poor Delhi boy has still not found his ancestral roots. Language has been of no avail. Interest has mocked the shit out of him. He looks for a punching bag. Well – don’t even try THIS one.
The madness. The sinister, evil, subtle madness.
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I get mocked at office as I flash my expensive phone; on public forums by intellectual friends – pretend and otherwise – for my ideological beliefs. It’s to cold to wear Che or Marx.
My ‘friends’ attribute my acumen to a consequence of the uninhibited, calculated and unrestrained methodology of ‘ass kissing’.
But SHE smiles. THEY smile. It’s cool – really.
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I come home after a long day of doing my bit (knowingly) to keep the established order intact.
I quench my hunger; open a large volume of Lenin’s collected (oops – my ignorance again – selected) works. The pain goes away as I get through the first paragraph. The next few lines even more satisfying than the first three puffs of the day’s first Gold Flake (Kings, if you must know).
My phone rings. Have you heard my new ringtone? It’s this new Kasabian single – Underdog.
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“I’m the underdog…live my life on a lullaby, keep myself right on this train…I can’t say for the people – they don’t matter at all (presently) – I’ll be waiting in the shadows till the day that you fall…”
- Mr. Jojo Rising
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