Always Aditya

“In Singapore you don’t say anything, DO YOU? YOU wouldn’t dare to eat in public during Ramadan, in Dubai. YOU would not dare to go out without your head covered in Jeddah. YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in London at 10 pounds (Rs. 650) a month to, “see to it that my STD and ISD calls are billed to someone else.” YOU would not dare to speed beyond 55 mph (88 kph) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop, “Jaanta hai sala main kaun hoon (Do you know who I am?). I am so and so’s son. Take your two bucks and get lost.” YOU wouldn’t chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand. Why don’t YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo? Why don’t YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston? We are still talking of the same YOU. YOU who can respect and conform to a foreign system in other countries but cannot in your own. You who will throw papers and cigarettes on the road the moment you touch Indian ground. If you can be an involved and appreciative citizen in an alien country why cannot you be the same here in India.” –A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

Inspirational. Very inspirational. I am sure the audience seated during the speech would have been impressed and would have made those usual ‘will forget once we are home’ promises to go by what Mr. Kalam said. No one, apart from just listening and appreciating, goes all the way to do what has been said. I am sure you will agree that the percentage of people following it would be less than 1%. It’s been the same way for ages now. The one thing we can find in all these audiences who attend any meeting or seminar or speech, is that as long as the speech is on, they all will be very excited and inspired by the talk and the moment it ends, their inspiration suddenly seems to vanish as they come out of the hall. The longer they are in the hall, the longer the inspiration lingers on. The more they see the speaker, the more they feel like admiring him.

This excitement extends to the post seminar gifts, which every person gets. All we are interested in is, what we are getting apart from the heavy dose of lecture. Even if the notes of what is being said are of no use to us, then also we fight it out to possess it as though not having it indicates our inefficiency. Even the most impeccably dressed guys who take all the care in the world not to get their clothes dirty totally forget about it and just barge in to the queue as though they would be looked down upon by their family members if they did not take anything home from there. If some gifts are being given away, then every ounce of decency left in a person can be seen being killed and cremated without any respect. Find yourself a place to stand in the queue and either you will be pushed aside or forward. Lucky that the chief guests are given these things in advance or else it won’t be a surprise to see the ‘always present on the dias and speaking strong words’ chief guest fighting for the t-shirt or a bottle with you in the line. The same person who presented himself as a picture of great knowledge and stature would be no less than a refugee fighting for food.

A large chunk of the audience goes there to see if the speaker is actually as good as he has been portrayed to be. They do clap very hard (of course only after being asked for some applause) sing his/her praise and even advise others to listen to him/her. The moment the speech ends, all of us, with our blood filled with inspiration from the speech and our minds having accepted everything that has been said and fully determined to know more about it and if possible do whatever we can to help the cause, go to the person or his deputy and religiously take the pamphlet which gives their objectives or address and keep it in our pocket with immaculate neatness. If one observes the general behaviour of people, it will be evident that the moment we are outside the hall, all the previous inspiration drains out of our hearts and the topic which occupied the mind a couple of minutes ago evaporates without a trace. It looks like a joint venture of Alzheimers and Schizophrenia. If we notice that pamphlets are being distributed for the next program or about anything in this world (even if they have information regarding the type of wood used in Japan to make chopsticks) immediately our mind sends us the signal to tell the youngest person of the group to go and take the pamphlet. Various reasons can be found for the anxiety to have the pamphlets but in most of the cases it is because everyone is taking it. Talk about sheep like mentality. Imagine the poor soul of the speaker, who would lose all his inspiration to make another speech after seeing all those pamphlets, which a few moments ago were taken with so much interest and excitement, lying outside the hall.

Even if a pamphlet succeeds in clinging to our hands till we reach our homes, the moment we step inside the house we find some more interesting activity and as usual the slip of paper slips from our fingers, looking askance at us, for that’s all the poor bit of paper is capable of, till its journey ends in a crash landing. Paper rights unlike human rights, still being unknown in this land. The next day we hear the maid servant asking,”Malkin, yeh kya hai?” (Madam, what is this?).

Nine out of ten times, this paper would be recycled. It is much better than the usual torture paper goes through if it is not recycled. At least it is has a fair chance of not being a pamphlet in its new life. Who can forget the art of making paper rockets from these pamphlets by school guys. I can vouch for the happiness derived from it.

In some cases, these pamphlets serve as plates for the prasadam/prashad, which is given after the heart filling speech. At least this is much better then the state of those papers which are used to clean our hands after savoring the hot and delicious prasadam/prashad. Eventually we come back to the stage of finding it lying on the road, raped of its chastity and sacredness. If we can give one thought to the amount of knowledge it carries or the fact that it can pave the way for us to come closer to that knowledge, these pamphlets will not be treated like that. In fact those guys who take them in bundles and utilise the blank side for their rough work make much better use of these pamphlets. At least that enables the paper to be used in some way even though not in the desired manner.

If you go to a seminar, you will find a set of pen, paper and a file holder is presented to all the attending members. If it is said that lunch will be provided, then even if the seminar is as boring as Bush’s repeated claims of capturing Osama, more than half of them will stay only to have lunch. Half the hall will be empty. What with half of them having gone back with their tummies full. The remaining half of the audience would be more interested in checking out the contents of the file holder and ensuring if they have got everything even while the speaker is busy talking. If a pen or a notepad is missing, then you have got to see the reaction of the person. It’s as if he has been denied salvation after a life full of abstinence and asceticism. At the end of the seminar, the notepad would be full of nothing.

So, for all you guys out there, if any speech, lecture or a seminar is there to be attended, then go right ahead and do so. All you have to do is, take in what they say and do what you can implement. Don’t forget to carry out our ritual of making those easily forgettable promises. In the meanwhile, I would go and find out if there is any possibility of passing an Act to save the rights of our poor old papyrus’s gen Y and make sure that no paper is made into a pamphlet more than once, in all its lifetimes.