Wednesday, 18 July 2012

Walk the Wisdom



                                     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.

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