Walk the
Wisdom
I have made a habit of going on morning walks for
want of anything better to do in my age of retirement. The newspapers are no
longer a ‘must-read’ in the mornings; on
the contrary, they are alarming with screechy headlines about some scam or rape or murder or
accident or about the seasonal flu
varying from dengue to chikungunya, from
bird flu to swine flu that occur with
clock-like precision with the change of weather. Sitting cross-legged on the sofa,
sipping a cup of coffee and glancing through newspapers is no longer a
pleasurable morning pastime. In the post-retirement age, when there is no
timeline to meet, we seek new activities to expend all the available time and
energy. Like many other septuagenarians, I have chosen morning walks that
guarantee longevity and act as a magical panacea against blood pressure,
stroke, arthritis, Alzheimer, cardiac arrest-name any disease associated with
old age.
These walks have given me new lessons that I had
never learnt all these years. I live in
a government built colony which also claims to be a gated colony (only because
all gates are closed for the most part of the day) but without any of the
shared amenities that enjoy social prestige in privately built multi-storeyed
buildings. My walks are limited to walking within the colony till it is time
for breakfast. The early hours before the cars and school vans zoom in and out
of the colony to pick up children are quiet except for the sound of the
broomsticks clearing away the previous day’s deposit of coco-cola cans, beer
bottles, wafer cartons, paper plates with leftovers, ice cream cups not to
leave out the mainstay of roads- dust and dogs’ excretion, filth and fallen
leaves. I meet the road sweepers everyday-
the older men and women greet me with ‘Ram, ram’ and stop heaving their long
brooms lest the dust should blow in to my face.
They still live in the old world culture that accepts social hierarchy
as ‘given’. They have made an art of wielding the broom and do not stop till
the last speck of dust is blown away into pits and dustbins. They are loud,
talkative and noisy as they sit under a tree and drink from tiny plastic cups,
hot tea brought in a polythene bag from the tea vendor outside the gate. They engage
in loud and cynical talks often about the haughty and eccentric behavior of the colony
residents. While they indulge in
memsahib bashing, their sons and daughters arrive in a moped or a bike to start
their work. They are better off than their seniors who travel in crowded buses, nevertheless they look sullen, cheerless and glum and look disapprovingly at the tea party of
the older group. They hardly exchange words with them and keep listening to
music on their cell phone, swaying their broom more likely to the Bollywood beats.
They wear blue jeans and ill fitting sneakers bought from the pavement vendors
to show that they do not belong to the kurta- pyjama, salwar-kameez era. As I walk past them, they
stare at me with anger and hatred and heave their brooms with a vengeance to
blow the dust all over me. Their demeanour and conduct seem to mock at my
leisurely enjoyment of doing nothing and walking around while they have to work
with broomsticks to keep the streets clean for me and my likes. They had never been to school nor had any
skill training. The only skill they have acquired is from their parents to
wield the broom. Their resentment and
anger is understandable since they had been denied the option to choose pen and
pencil over broomsticks.
But
they have their own dreams for their children. They wish to see them educated
and employed in white-collared jobs. The Bollywood films and the TV serials and
reality shows have given them hope that their children may also attain higher
lifestyle through education, singing and dancing. One can see the desperation
in their eyes to yearn for a better life
- if not for themselves, at least for their children. But reality is far from
dream. They know and fear that it will be déjà vu all over again. “Even the loveliest dream bears like a
blemish, its difference from reality/ the awareness that what it grants is mere
illusion”. These words of Adorno sum up
their despair.
The
generation gap is nowhere more evident than amongst the senior and junior road
sweepers. While I acknowledge the greetings of the older men and women, I
experience no anger or resentment against the younger ones who do not greet me nor care if
dust is blown into my eyes. At 70, I empathize with their desires that are overridden by
disappointment- something I would not have felt twenty years back. I am happy
that the RTE Act passed by the
Parliament holds out hope for them,
making education a fundamental right of every child
and mandating all private schools to reserve 25% of seats to children from poor
families (to be reimbursed by the state as part of the public-private
partnership plan). But my own sons and daughters resent the idea of such
lop-sided inclusiveness in schools. They do not share my excitement over RTE as
they fear it would impede their children from acquiring intellectual growth and
social graces. I notice the generation gap manifest in the absence and presence
respectively of fiery competitive spirit between me at 70+ and they at 40+.
All
through my teaching years that spanned four and a half decades in colleges and
universities, I had been an avid advocate of quality at the expense of quantity
in education. I always had my eyes set in the skies desirous of making Indian
universities world class universities. I knew that this was possible only with
reduced number of intake at the graduate and post-graduate levels. I had spoken
and written against democratization of education that conflicted with
meritocracy. But the daily silent walks in the mornings opened my eyes to see
the burning desire among the less privileged to make their wards progress in
life through education that had been denied to them when they were young. They
want their children to get better skills other than wielding a broom stick.
They live in dreams and they know that dreams are true while they last, but
waking up is to agonizingly experience reality bites. It is this that provokes
their anger and resentment at seeing people like me walking as a pleasurable
exercise and at my children, driving to gyms while they sweep the roads and let
their children play in the mud. When I return from my walk I see my grandson
getting into the school bus while the sweeper’s son stands and stares with awe
and despair if he would be any day a privileged child in the distant future.
For him and his parents, hope is the only buffer against desperation. The Bible
says “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick; when it blooms it is the tree of
life”. All human wisdom is contained in these two words, 'Wait and Hope.”
There
is a proverb in Tamil that says what does not grow in five years cannot grow in
fifty years. I now know for certain the reverse-what one does not learn at 17
may well be learnt at 70.
