The other ‘us’
I’ve learnt a new word today: Mandel.
For some strange reason, my Microsoft word took the word in without any hint of
spelling mistake. Apparently the new maid in the house is: “Mandel” (mental) Took me some time to figure out what the word meant and by the time I had figured it out, the subject was out of my domestic picture and was on her way home, 200 km from the capital city. The woman had vigorously complained about not being given enough rest and about having to work too much. We are currently three at home now and the only time I see our staff around me is when they serve my dinner. Breakfast is only tray full of muesli, fruits, toasts and jam. Lunch is always a deep fried vegetable roll and dinner is mostly at 7:00 where I like having options. Rest of the day, I am tolerant.
You see, it’s all about tolerance. Yet, as Manmohan Singh yesterday pointed out, we were all getting less tolerant about the “Other”. The fake occidentalist in me ultimately hates the “other”.
I would have been far better off if I didn’t have to look at the complaint letters, didn’t have to talk to personnel or didn’t have to take calls at midnight from an enraged worker who thought she was mistreated.
This is always the problem of being us. We always want to look away from the other.
The other may be a group of dedicated youth like ‘Jagoree’ trying to bring about election reforms in the country by raising awareness; the other may be a group of young people from ‘AIESEC’ looking up to us for guidance and support; the other may be a few secular stories from the region in these times of madness; the other may be a lone honest politician in the offing. Whatever the case may be, the ‘other’ is never to enter the ‘us’. What we believe in is right, what we want to continue believing is what we choose.
The fight between us and them has gained a lot of ground ever since 11/26. Mumbai has gone insane; Pakistani journos have taken a recourse to aggressive self defense and to put it mildly, the region is getting ready not for a conflict, but for a full scale war. The borders are tense; the frontiers are flexing their soon-to-disappear muscles and from a distance, a big Boy is waving the flag of truce by wagging its own tail in glee.
We are all closing our eyes, at one point in contempt of the alternate other. The rationale of not being the other has come home…just because it suits us. After all, it’s not my son who’s killed in the blast; it’s them. Just hold it right there, though…
But wasn’t it just the other day when I noticed my nephew growing a beard? Isn’t it just the other day when I heard a group of young people rationalizing Jihad? Is the circle closing in on us too fast, too soon…? Is the ‘other’ on its way of becoming ‘us’ now?
