The Myth of the Indian Middle Class

The Indian Middle Class, so called is perhaps one of the sketchiest concepts in modern Indian times. If you go by simple run off the mill, Wikipedia stats, Indian Middle Class is 3% or about 40 million of Indian population. By another estimate, this will account for approximately 475 million people by 2030. However, Indian Middle Class is a far cry from being a single monolithic entity. That is, the middle class in India, is hardly defined by simple economic parameters. Being of Middle Class comes from a sense of belonging far deeper than of monetary proportions. It is a social construct, even a choice of lifestyle, a body of belief system and sometimes even a sense of smug entitlement. Coming from a Middle Class is a narrative in itself. It is quintessential Indian version of the rags to riches story. In a world where the strong are increasingly emulating the weak, and need is glorified, where exactly does the Middle Class stand?

Let’s try and examine the fittest example of an Indian Middle Class family. A fairly young couple, who got married in their late 20’s, pooled in their individual resources, while working long hours in tiny corporate houses of a large Indian metropolitan city. Soon enough they find themselves pitch forked under the weight of an unreasonable home loan for a squalid apartment, while nervously anticipating the arrival of their first born. Quite believably confused whether the happy occasion should bring forth celebratory drinks or impending gloom resulting from enhanced expenses. A few years on, the happy family is nominally complete with two tiny tots who enjoy occasional annual short picnic trips with their parents to tiny Rajasthan towns or if more adventurous, to the likes of Shimla and Manali. The Parents by now have exhausted their time, energy, zest for life and have dedicated their lives to hatching ambitious educational plots for their kids’ glorious future. They take these two vacation days to dance away into the wee hours of the morning under shady disco lights, in some obscure camp site. Run this on a repeat and it fits into each of our lives, like a hand in glove. Exhausted and wasted aspiration is characteristic number one for the Indian Middle Class.

Characteristic number two, is the desperate need of the middle class to cling to the traditional Indian way of life. Perhaps this is the greatest contradiction of our times. The middle class is aspirational, ambitious, willing to push forward to break the glass ceiling. The middle class doesn’t shy away from dedication, hard work or zest. The lack of opportunities for this segment is countermanded by sheer ingenuity. There is a will and almost always, there is a way. But, when it comes to the life choices our children have to make, the middle class is surprisingly rigid. The aspiration and ambition that is the trademark of the middle class, fizzles out when it comes to the question of marriage, parentage, sexuality etc. While this perfect couple would want their kids to grow up to achieve heights of professional success, they will sooner or later put their feet down if either of them refuse to follow the norms followed by their peers. The middle class abhors leading, and loves to follow.

The middle class is also plainly fickle. Just like the roman mob, the Indian middle class is light on judgement. Political opinion, social judgement, nationalism and religion are formidable forces in today’s times. I don’t say, the entire Indian population is fickle because a remarkable size of the population that sits below the poverty line does not have the luxury of forming or bearing the consequences of having an opinion. Their votes do matter, but the casting of these votes is influenced by caste divide, religious power play and generous doses of entertaining nationalism. Jobs, is something pivotal to all but understanding the construct of an economy, perhaps starts with the middle class. Therefore, the socially influenced class, the nationalist class, the piously religious class, is the middle class that has the purchasing power to buy a smartphone. It is plainly not middle any more.

And so, I call the middle class the biggest myth of our times. This is a group of people with a strange sense of rootlessness. All of us are. We have traversed an arc of experiences, where we neither feel at home at our origin nor at the present station. This lack of identity is us, the middle class. It was the same with our parents and maybe it will be the same with us. Unless we take an onus to not follow, and to do what we think is best in the circumstances, and not just what everyone else is doing. Maybe that is what middle class should include in their life goal list.

A rescue of no mean proportions

It was a common man on a day of uncommons. A common man, amidst the cacophony of celebrations. A mere common man who dragged up the fallen idol, back on it's pedestal. The procession had halted for a split second. The elderly matrons had started to chant, as the idol comically toppled over. You see, it is not auspicious to see the gods slither and slant. We don't allow our deities the margin of error. Poor dears. Such impossible stress! But then like that stray mindless act of faith that sustains the Hindu universe in the minds of it's devotees, a common man stood with his legs wide apart, pulled on the ropes, wrestled with the bindings and up and about, the high and mighty went! In that one instant, man and God were equal. I wondered if the rituals ever, were meant to be thus commonplace.
I am not religious. Or should I say, I am not sure if I am yet. I have too many questions and religion has too many answers for everything else. And yet during those few days of festivities, I find myself giving faith a patient hearing. If you ask me to interpret, I would probably say that God had toppled over so that man could feel godlike in that one instant. Much like in our imaginary universe, we like to believe that God might pull us up, when we happen to slither and slide. But funnily enough, this being, this entity, this God, usually exercises a will of his own. Suppose toppling was his chosen game?
So when Ganesha found himself prostrate on the ground, the fisher boy jumped to his rescue. The elderly matrons chanted, blew on conch shells, shook their heads harder and all was well. The procession still had it's merits. Ganesha still had most of his limbs intact. Only the common fisher boy, grew half and inch taller with pride. After all, his was a rescue of no mean proportions.

A mark on him

There was a mark on him. A mark, probably meant to warn me off the damage that was about to be inflicted. Some say that in the bigger scheme of things, in the strange ways the universe conspires to let damage attract damage. Or conversely to let hellfire attract inflammable bundles of woodstock. Only the match has to be lighted. And all that remains is smoke and burn. 
There is a perverse sense of intensity in the toxicity of such a fireball. When all hell breaks loose, and all one can do is burn in heat. Slowly and then with putridity. In the aftermath of doused remains, it is hard to guess who drew whom in. The toxicity, the damage, the intensity, the passion, the overdrawn strings of resistance. I can only state with certainty that passion doesn't warrant grovelling. Neither does it beg for attention. So when the fire has consumed the remnants of affection, intensity picks up it's head and walks out of the pyre. Damaged, yet pieced together. Singed and yet whole. Patterns of the cosmos repeats it's cycle till the time that somehow the voids get clogged back up. Bundled up and pushed behind the curtains of pretense. Until the next instance that the hellfire attracts hellfire.

If adventures had a soul

If adventures had a soul, I would find him and chain him down. The hollows of the heart, the insignificance of sorrows, all of it. And none of it. I would find him and chain him down. In ancient times, there would be droughts. The concepts of little as compared to the abundance of present reality. There would be droughts, and not a drop of water would trickle down the parched sky, onto the equally fractured earth. There would be droughts and just like you and me, there would come a thousand old children of the soil. They would till, they would toil and they would perish. The luxury of abundance, just like the luxury of thought wouldn't be available to them. And so there would be droughts as opposed to floods. As meticulously as abundance breeds floods, so does ire breed void. As he moves from flesh to flesh, from ecstasy to rapture, the lacuna of stillness fades. So if you find abundance wrapped up in folds of abstract, chain him down, sit him across and converse. Maybe will the floodgates open. Will the soul to re-inhabit, speck by speck, drop by drop.

Do we have to hate men?

They said in the previous times that, behind every successful man, there is always a woman. A woman who inspires and motivates. A woman who supports and sacrifices. So men are supposed to care for them. But roll back to the 21^st century, women are strong and proud. They are fearless and successful. They wield as much power as any other. So why are the men still supposed to care? This is a question of questionable intents which has of late bothered so many. In the wake of the #metoo movement, we often hear our men, complaining. Why did it have to come to this? Why couldn’t we all be languishing in blissful oblivion like we always did. Why do we women have to hate our men? Honestly we don’t have to. And we don’t either.

Men, like all God’s creation, are beautiful. Quite tongue in cheekily so. They till, they toil. They provide and sustain, following the patterns set for them by the almighty creator, who very conveniently also happens to be of the male gender, 90% of the time, in the least. Keeping the religious debate aside, patriarchy runs through the veins of our social framework. Providers are protectors. Protection, entitles them to concession and concessions can be forced. When a woman defies that protective cover, she opens up the channel for judgement and discord. And then comes the force, which is rarely with her (pun intended). Her non commitment to rules could be of any degree. It could be as irrelevant as being beautiful or aesthetically pleasing to look at. It really doesn’t matter. As and when she challenges set norms, she has to be accordingly dealt with.

This is the common narrative of the feminist order. And it is largely true. Just that, sometimes it isn’t. It is not a far flung conclusion that there still does exist a relatively healthy number of good men around (and I am keeping our fathers out of this debate). By good I don’t mean, the quintessential Indian boy. No thank you! But those friends, the colleagues, cousins, acquaintances even, who happen to be very much a part of our everyday lives. And who make it a lot more fun, most of the times. When we interact, have a conversation, become friends, it is usually outside of the gender filter. We choose people to spend our time with, because they intrigue us, interest us and sometimes challenge us. There are still those men who count women, as important parts or influences in their lives simply because they connected despite their gender and subsequent differences.  

There are those men who are fiercely feminist and there are those women who are vocally misogynists. Personal opinions have as many colours as the spectrum allows in a rainbow. In the increasingly polar and non inclusive society that we are building for our kids, what is surprising is how we are consciously segmenting our interactions with others, packing them in neat little boxes to be stowed away in fear of social censure. Notwithstanding the fact that women should off course voice their opinions, experiences, concerns, as freely as men do, but what is imperative is men should start treating women as any other equal. Amidst the loud noise of feminist chatter, what is drowning is the voice of strong women, who are now rising up and denying any form of special gender consideration. We women do not hate our men. What we hate is the patronising attitude, the inconsiderate condescension.

One would think that with the growing prominence of women’s rights and freedom of expression, the necessity and requirement of sustenance provided by a man would take a backseat. Sadly, that is not the case. The increasing need of putting a man down to shore up a woman’s place, defeats the purpose of upholding the collective feminine pride. Does a woman’s self worth revolve around how she is/was treated by a man?

Contrary to biblical beliefs of God having created man and a woman being created out of a man’s rib, essentially making her a diminutive of his all encompassing self, post industrial revolution world presented us with an egalitarian society. As the decades slowly glide by, we have successfully freed ourselves of many of our prominent social evils. Slavery, colonization, untouchability, religious orthodoxy etc are more or less a thing of the past. Despite us moving out of proverbial dark ages, women continue of be treated as second rate citizens. Yes, they don’t conduct elaborate witch hunts or burn us at stake anymore. But discrimination has never really faded. And the new found aggression is only widening the gap.

So what the future generation needs to imbibe is that everyone is equal in the truest sense. Just as a girl doesn’t deserve to be mistreated or manhandled in any way, in the same way, it is not necessary to limit interactions between male and females out of fear of social embargoes. Neither is a man root cause of all kinds of social abuse, nor is a woman an epitome of all that is just and true in the world. Experiences are individualistic and so should be the judgement (if any at all). And lastly, no, we don’t need to hate men in order to be feminists. All men don’t have to die.

Media in today's times

As the academic and business circles are swearing by Yuval Noah Harari’s insightful capture of the evolution of “Sapiens” into “Homo Deus” of the future generation, I am penning down a brief expose on Media. Not the popular, or rather pop culture influenced media, but primarily the platforms for consumption of information.

Why do I quote Harari and his arguments, right at the preamble? Mainly because, in both his much appreciated works, he emphasizes on the ability of human beings to cooperate, share and disseminate information, as the key to the species’ ability to dominate evolution in it’s favour, on this planet for the past 70,000 years. The need for information barter birthed Media. As we know it today, popular Media is a mouthpiece for information exchange.

Traditionally media outlets spread as centres of learning, exchange, scientific inquisitiveness, religious propaganda and also dissent. One can say that the earliest examples of media hubs were probably, religious monasteries, temple pathshalas, madrasas etc. With the advent of learning techniques, speech, writing, documentation, knowledge began to find fits across geographies. So as knowledge moved through the timelines, so did the form of traditional media. From religion sponsored research, the torch of this quest passed on to power centres of ruling monarchies. The rulers patronised scientists, scholars, poets, composers etc and their courts became the centres for cultural revolutions. These were phases where religion and nations often collided, and in select cases blended into one form.

As centres of learning and research began to find independence from religion and state, the zeal to share began to increase. This was spearheaded by inventions like papyrus scroll and gradually paper. As words began to be formed on printed surface, news began to take shape. Take two to the beginning of the modern era, newspapers and bulletins rose as relevant power centres. Revolutions sparked off from tables of dynamic thinkers, reporters and mass leaders. Ideas began to reach every corner of a state and movements first took their births. Media as we see today has the power to topple governments, damage reputations, wage information warfare and influence citizens like never before. Technology has just managed to add fuel to an already uncontrollable fire.

The pertinent question in today’s times is, “Is media, serving it’s true purpose or is it increasingly being used as a tool for propaganda and misinformation?”. From the brief history I outlined before, we are more than certain that media primarily serves the purpose of knowledge enhancement and aides and enables the search for information. Perhaps it is, idealistic to think that media should be used for the purpose of bringing together, of educating and ultimately to serve as a platform for equal opportunities. Unfortunately, in the present times, media has inflated itself into a Goliath of inordinate proportions to which human ethics are but an insignificant David.

It is mostly an irrelevant and to a large extent widely accepted fact today, that media as an institution is largely corrupt. There are numerous examples to bring to front the excesses of media outreaching the boundaries of moral code, so much so that, we can comfortably compartmentalize media as a cohort, serving the purpose of entertainment more than anything else.

Take for instance, the raging debate on the #metoo movement which has become the talk of the country for past few weeks. Irrespective of my own opinions on the issue, it is nauseating to see how the topic is being talked upon, enacted on series of popular mediums. Starting from insensitive discussion forums, to memes, to open letters, to wildly hurled accusations, the movement is being reduced to a mockery of mudslinging. The citizens or rather the netizens need to realize the fact that the issue is a highly sensitive one and should be treated with utmost caution. Safety at workplace, against serial predators is imperative to proper organizational functioning, irrespective of the industry and irrespective of gender.

This is not a struggle of women coming to parity with male dominated world. That is a concept as old as civilizations. What is important here, is the power abuse in the name of chances, opportunities, advance. And hence the men should be given a hearing as much as the women finding the courage to come out and tell their stories.

Equally obnoxious, is the tide of intolerance which seems to be organically evolving in India. The widespread misuse of popular news mediums, may it be print-tv-digital to criminalize the student fraternity from prestigious institutions is highly appalling. The way that freedom of speech is being curtailed and the influence that troops of marginally educated (if at all), short totting so called bhakts wield is comical, to say the least. I can dramatically tell you that the borders between good and evil media trends are blurring. That doesn’t make this any less tragic and comic at the same moment. Shakespeare would have turned in his grave.

So, what exactly needs to be done? I personally feel, the foremost measure that we as a society should adopt is to stop believing everything that is put in front of us on a silver platter. Someone very long time back, sagely said, all that glitters is not gold. And so, don’t be a vessel to all that you are told. Unfortunate truth in our world is, facts that are out there for public consumption, barring state records, are largely doctored. It is great to have an opinion, but not a rushed one. By all means listen to media, but treat it as a source of information, that needs validation from your own research, and not something which is set in stone. And lastly, laugh it off, media in today’s time is meant to be taken with not a pinch but a generous dose of salt.

When in Doubt

It has been raining incessantly today. Rains always make me think. So today of all days I have been thinking. You know, there are days that you wake up with certain half crafted dreams. I woke up with a strange after taste of emptiness today. This has been happening quite a bit lately. This sudden feeling of lost, abandonment, desolation. So I started keeping notes of my thoughts. So that consequently I can keep track of my mind. I might sound a bit crazy to you, but trust me I am more than fine. I have everything in order.

Just that, I see flashes sometimes. Flashes of my life flying past me. Flashes of all the people I have loved and who in their own ways have somehow loved me. Perhaps. I can’t be sure. This is the magic of uncertainty that I am talking about. This stage, this juncture that makes you doubt yourself, is where I have lately found myself standing. I am not regressing into an alley of mental stalemate. The fact that I can string coherent texts explains that I have not lost reason. Yet there is a certain level of doubt. More often than not, these days, I have had moments where I have doubted myself.

As layers of a hard frost start peeling away, you tend to realize where all it had hurt when you started to fall. Sometimes the person closest can sow the seeds of doubt into you. By constantly nitpicking on you, by constantly telling you that what you say-do-feel is wrong. That you are wrong. In those moments we start doubting ourselves, till the time that doubt starts seriously taking over your conscious mind. Would you call this love or a form of abuse? There is really a thin line.

I doubted myself when he questioned, who was I? I doubted all the years that I had spent being in love with him. I wonder if love has limitations. Or if it comes with an expiration date. When do you stop loving someone? When they abandon you midway or when they question your existence? Whom would you say is a greater evil? Or if evil had a lighter greyish tinge to it. I surely wouldn’t know. I have even doubted it being evil.

I have stood under the splatter of rain on the asphalt and questioned smiling too much. Questioned trusting. When years of blind love stings you with a question of your own existence, you doubt yourself. When the glass cages of your faith opens the door wide for speculation, you gamble yourself. Everyday when exchanges become a toxic broth of accusations, you mourn yourself. As invigorating as love can often be, it does also drain you of life. When loves gnaws you into shards, you doubt, you question, you spiral.

When it burns in the corners of your heart and causes you unutterable pain, would you call that as love? Someone once told me very sagely that, if it doesn’t make you happy and always inflicts suffering, is it worth it? Some of us become accustomed to pain. We make a habit of it, till we realize that it is not normal. We realize when someone walks in and tells us that, what we have is broken. We reach a certain stage when doubt starts seeping in and drying the corners of our soul. Where do you go from there?

One of the scariest things one ever has to do is to let go. To regress. To walk back. To let him be. But on some small occasions walking out is also liberating. If you wait around the corner and let yourself be at that moment, a tiny part of you might feel, a tad bit relieved to have let go of the pain. And that is the miniscule part, you need to focus on. One step closer to recovery is being in sync with your hurt.

So, I pause. I see my life flashing past, and I pause. Heedless to the timetable, I breathe and I pause.

Why don’t we empathize with others and ourselves?

Recovery is a process of self discovery. More often than once, I have heard people mention that certain incidences changed their lives. Change in terms of giving them fresh perspectives, altering their patterns and rescheduling their brain wires. Something like a factory reset on your systems. Unfortunately or fortunately our brains are not precisely programmed for a complete cleanup. We tend to go back and ponder. Specifically, for people who tend to contemplate much before acting, have this good fortune. Pun intended. Take it from someone who has the happy chance of being on the other end of impulse; it is certainly not a wildly intoxicating place to be. My question to you is; are all these people ultimately risk averse? Stagnant, static and perpetually boring?

So let me initiate the argument by asking you, do you think people in general are one-dimensional? Does indecision or stagnancy in certain facets of life mean that the individual doesn’t have another side to his/her personality that could easily redirect your opinion? In our fast paced lives today, we meet, talk, exchange and discard so many people on a regular basis. I do. And so do you. Some you dismiss as uninteresting, some as uneventful, some as naive, some as foolishly idealistic, and the list goes on. Judging, stacking and subsequent labelling is not exactly a crime.

But how many of us, step back and give our opinions a second chance? Call me a naive idealist, but I happen to be a big fan of second chances. I have got some and I have messed up so many. But the important point is, that those people at those moments have had the courage to look beyond their constraints.

The crucial part is probably realizing that everyone is on their own time table. I might not be at a crossroads of an investment decision right now, that doesn’t make me risk averse. I might be a believer of government bonds and not the equity market. Similarly, just because I take time moving any relationship to the next stage, doesn’t make me cold meat. Maybe I believe in building trust before going full throttle on the accelerator. These are choices really and not always individual nature.

More often than not, we tend to place judgements on people within the first 5 minutes. With age or rather with experiences, I have learnt that a little bit of flexibility doesn’t hurt. Sad truth is, you never really know someone unless you’ve had either a late night conversation, an inebriated episode, or you’ve been privy to some amount of pillow talk. So the best advice I have given myself, in the past year is, cut yourself some slack, and keep an open mind. Honestly speaking, as you grow (hopefully gracefully) you tend to realize there is a lot to learn. Specifically about people. Everyone deals with some amount of turmoil at some point in their lives. Poise is to deal with it at your own pace and not become a raving juggernaut that destructs on it’s way to oblivion. Everyone deserves a little bit of empathy once in a while.

When something happens that makes you stop, breathe and re-evaluate, use that time to discover yourself. Everyone of us is a complex web of emotions. Some like remaining bottled up, but when they unravel, that is more often than not, quite painful as a process. Being on your own on this path of discovery is loosely recovery. There is often beauty in being on your own. Relationships don’t have to be based on co-dependency. There are high chances that, if you try and explain this concept, you would be scoffed at. However, individuals who deal with changes on their own are mostly the strongest you would come across. Be social by all means. But not a nerve wreck of social niceties.

When I was a child I was fascinated with the likes of Ayn Rand. Her books spoke so much of truth to me that individuality came as a natural consequence to my mental framework. Humility has taught me that everyone probably hasn’t had that choice. You can call me fortunate to have had these opportunities or you might say that awareness about self is something that our society truly lacks. Speaking for my gender, we often take pride in being an ideal daughter, girlfriend, wife, mother at different stages in our lives. How many of us follow the paths that give meaning to our selves? It might be that living each of these roles to perfection gives you fulfilment, but to a lot of us, probably a concept of a he/them is not all encompassing. That has to be fair too, right?

So, I tell myself routinely, recover yourself, discover yourself, be comfortable in your skin. Self is not a big dark hole on the ground where you need to be buried. And off course to my other impulses I say, a little bit of empathy goes a long way.

Strangers who soothe...

Distinctions of time and spaces are fading. I have been moving around through shadows for some time now. And do you know what all crosses my mind? As much as I would want to believe that I am imbibing and inhaling peace, more than once, during these past weeks, I have found myself wondering about a certain someone I happened to have met once or twice. A certain someone who happened to have told me that I should read into the places, the people as I walk past the narrow lanes of an unknown land, rather than read the written word. I had found it strange then, however time and again I have been thinking about what all he had said. Am I impacted by all of what had traversed during our conversation? Maybe in a way. But I have found myself wondering about him more than once. When you are taking a step back, walking around aimlessly, as a tiny speck in the distant horizon, you tend to think, as probably I am. Maybe one shouldn't think about people you probably wouldn't hear from ever again. But sometimes, in far off distant lands, of the chanting mantras, or in the claustrophobic parties of an unsettled metropolitan you tend to find yourself soothed by a total stranger. Maybe he tends to teach you a new perspective, while being heedlessly lost himself. Maybe your paths would never cross again. And yet he crosses your mind every now and then, to remind you that there is still a lot to be surprised with. As there are a lot of reasons to smile.

Firefly in the sunset

In those days, I would wake up inundated with fragmented dreams. There would be particles of afterthoughts in my memory which glowed in the distant horizon. Like those buzzing fireflies. That's where the inspiration for a name came. Not that I enjoyed Entomology, in the least. But these lights used to churn around in my conscience state, and then I had to put it down in the material world. Kind of like, words behind a picture postcard. They tell a story. Everything connects to everything and words weave a web of imagination. And a firefly is in the middle of it all. Sometimes reflecting, sometimes absorbing, but never quite failing to light up the void around. Sometimes the tiny little being would make tangible sense of the material. Like sketching in a perfect symmetry. And sometimes, it would be a jumble of white noise. The frequencies intersecting and giving up a soundless screech. If you would only tune yourself, you could hear the failings. You could make sense of the perfect balance of nature, only if you would follow the trail of the firefly. Or you could watch it disappear into the sunset, where ether mingles with the clouds. The firefly and it's web of sparkles, forming and untangling as the lights change colour.