Miscellanea/Kamala Das

The sanctimonious homilies and slogans make me want to puke

When I visited my ancestral house recently I dug out a shrivelled sweet potato from near the hedge. Below the red skin its pulp was white and sweet. It seemed like a gift from my grandmother who had died forty years ago. She had planted sweet potato and yam near the hedges. In the summer vacations I spent with her I had helped her to pluck lady's fingers, bitter gourd, string beans and green chillies in the mornings before we went to bathe in the pond. Nobody thought of going marketing.

Rice was grown and later dried and stored in large wooden garners. The cows gave us milk. There were mangoes, jack fruit, bananas and coconuts. Once a year just before Onam, the harvest festival, the chetti brought for us his bundle of clothes.

Today the house and the coconut grove are for sale. Two years ago I received tempting offers from non-resident Indians but greedily I bargained for more. Now with the political and economic instability at the Centre, land prices have crashed. If people have purchasing power they are afraid to reveal it for fear that their houses might get raided. Important politicians and bureaucrats have been discovered to be corrupt. The corrupt are yet to be punished.

The ordinary citizens fear the rise in inflation, nothing else. The Indian rupee has been humbled incredibly. A fear of poverty is in the air. Liberalisation did not bring us the prosperity and progress promised by the former finance minister.

Some of us hailing from feudal backgrounds wonder how we can keep feeding our servants. Our servants have thought themselves to be members of the family. They will be shocked to hear that I often think of easing them out. As a class they are averse to moderation in eating. I shall have to go without health-medicines and new clothes in order to retain them. We are emerging as India's new poor, despite the fact that we have chauffeurs, housemaids and cooks, all of whom dress smarter than we do.

This is a time when changes become imperative. Habits must change. Beliefs must alter to suit the age. We have been taking out the Gods, one by one, for dusting. We ought to consider if they are fit to go up the mantel once again. If we discard them what would happen to the empty spaces in our hearts? Alternatives may have to be located.

Two days ago I went to Trivandrum and surrendered a bank-locker once taken by my husband to store our jewels. At times of need we sold bits of jewellery to survive. When I surrendered the locker there was hardly anything worth carrying home. This must be the fate of the Indian middle class that either chose honesty as a desirable way of life or did not get an opportunity to be dishonest.

At shopping enclaves only the loud and the haughty make purchases. People of our class do not any longer dare to look at silks or jewellery. Going out to dine at hotels has ceased altogether. Foreign cosmetics flood the local markets. But we tend our faces by rubbing with a piece of bread dipped in milk. The yeast in the bread imparts a glow.

Delhi is real. But it seems far away. The news we read do not disturb our complacence. Pakistan has removed its titular head in a military coup. Instead of rejoicing let us think of what this collapse of democracy would mean to a neighbour like India, eventually. Is anyone at Delhi formulating a new and vibrant foreign policy? As potential victims of governmental muddles or mishaps we have a right to know. The oft repeated and sanctimonious homilies and slogans make us want to puke. The talk of our ancient culture is equally sickening.

India is an old playhouse, a masquerade, a mela. If the Indians stop playacting and show themselves to be normal human beings we shall save what is to be saved in culture-integrity.

Illustration: Dominic Xavier