ON HISTORY

History- the very word reminds me of the troubled evenings and sleepless nights spent in memorizing innumerable dates and scrambling to differentiate between a Chola and Pandyan king. Or for that matter, labours made to cram all the vital details of the dancing girl of the Indus valley civilization or the height of the tallest temple at Khajuraho. History always seemed such a troublesome subject and I, like many others of my age, could never fathom why we need to know about all that is dead and gone. Not only know, but also remember and then give exams on the knowledge so painfully incurred. It never helped my cause that my father was a professor of history; all my loud lamentations against the existence of the subject were always met with disdain and vehement disapproval.


But, I figure, surroundings and atmosphere do have an impact on you. Surrounded by innumerable books on history of India and those of different parts of the world, I figured out on one particularly sweltering summer afternoon that history is much more than a jungle of dates and figures. What began as a way to while away summer holidays, soon became an area of great interest. I remember having spent weeks on end rummaging my father’s library and reading up on all the books on history just the way I would read a story book. Indeed, it was a fascinating journey through the glories, trials and tribulations of peoples and races all through the world across centuries. Not to say that thereafter, history, as a subject in school, appeared any less formidable, but yes, it was no longer a nightmare.

It was much later that I realized the importance of learning our personal as well as our social histories. Because it is this knowledge which actually tells us where we came from,who we are and where we are headed. As children and teenagers, the idea is totally lost on us. We really don’t care two hoots, coming from sheltered well-provided for families. I have always wondered as to why we sympathize with orphans? Just because they don’t have a family? Not the whole story. Our hearts go out to them for they have no idea who they really are, where they have come from and what defines their being. They are deprived of a sense of personal history, in other words, they are deprived of roots. And that probably, is heart-wrenching and cruel. If we look back, we find that during all conquests, the invaders would always attack the symbols of history of the group facing the siege. Amongst other reasons, the prime motive has always been to deprive the race under attack of the wonderful memories of its past; to deal them the most savage blow ever. For a group which has no memories of its past will lose its moorings and will not be able to sustain itself in the struggle for survival. It will not only lose a war, it also will lose out in a race of life.

As a matter of opinion, I believe that the pedagogy in our country should concentrate on teaching history to our children in a creative manner. They should be told right at the outset that it is nothing but a web of beautiful stories left behind for us by our preceding generations so that we can take pride in their achievements and learn lessons from their mistakes. History also is prone to interpretations, re-interpretations and on various unfortunate occasions, distortions. Now, the latter is a tendency which poses a huge challenge to the social fabric today and the onus is upon well-meaning historians and academicians to contain it. While reading a number of novels with plots situated in Europe or America, I have often noticed that in these places, even the smallest of towns boasts of a museum which chronicles and portrays the local history and is a major attraction for school children and college/university goers. Maybe, we should take a leaf from their book and think of introducing our children to the exciting world of our past by ensuring periodic and regular visits to local museums. Yes, we don’t have many, but it would be a nice idea if we could just use the available resources. We generally never think that visiting museums is a great idea to engage a day but now, we can give it another thought.

My dalliance with history is now limited to getting obsessed with historical novels or dreaming of a long pending visit to Egypt-the land of the oldest civilization or for that matter, occasionally trying to reconstruct the history of my forefathers. However what set my thoughts on history in motion was a random quote that the bird which seeks to soar high should forget the trees it nested upon. I could not disagree more. I believe that the bird should always remember the trees, the love with which they gave it shelter, allowed it to nest and took great care. This memory will give it the zeal and verve to soar higher and higher. And whenever, the bird is desolate, it will remember where it can go back for solace. History is precisely those trees..and we are the birds. We would do well to understand and remember the writings on the sands of Time for us to have the forbearance to strive to greater heights of success, as an individual, as a society.

MID-WEEK MUSINGS

As it happens, mid-week is the time when everybody feels vexed, tired and spent. The days gone by seem a drag and the rest of the days left for the week to get over seem heavy on the shoulders. The weekend, especially if you are expecting a long one, seems as distant and forbidden as a sinful dessert. And, it is then that your quirks take precedence and certain instances which one has made peace with in the past look particularly galling.

The past week and the week before that, I was frantically looking out for a play school for my two year old. Considering that the town I am in happens to be an important commercial centre for the northern part of the state, I was under the impression that finding a decent institution won’t be much of a task. However, this was not to be. After scanning about 7 of them, I realized that we, in this state, and maybe, in this country, have a long, long way to go in terms of infrastructure and an eye for finer details. All the play schools I came across were small, dinghy one-room establishments. Poor lighting, almost no ventilation, a few ragged toys, dirty toilets and most surprisingly, no open space for the young ones to play. After I came to terms with the shock, I realized that these were hardly play schools. They were, in spirit, badly managed and even badly maintained crèches where working parents leave their children while they go out to work. I did ask a few proprietors why exactly they had maintained the establishment in this pitiable state. Some feigned ignorance, some gave the excuse of lack of funds and some said that there was hardly any demand for better maintenance. Or for that matter, a small town is not expected to offer better facilities. All of which left me fuming. We have conveniently borrowed the western concept of play schools but only marginally. I believe the idea is that in a play school, the child, in a setting which is home away from home, learns to get acquainted with the outside world. At a time when our social contacts are narrowing and there is hardly any play area in the concrete jungles, we want to send our child to a nice, welcoming place to make friends and get initiated into the process of secondary socialization. That is why parents are hankering after play schools. All the more when the precocious tiny tot starts getting hyper-active and a strain on the care-giver’s nerves! Resourceful, money-minded scrooges have cleverly sensed the need and have invested in charades in the name of play school. Actually, they are more like cattle pens to which a parent would never want to send his/her child. The school in-charge hardly has any knack of handling children, forget a professional degree, the environment is anything but conducive and the ambience leaves a whole lot to be desired. I was inclined to think that garishly coloured walls with cartoon pin-ups are not anybody’s idea of a play school. And we don’t pay a hefty sum for this squalor. I so wish that the owners/managers of these establishments would understand and respect their own importance. They are the ones who are supposed to be the first ones to be handling a generation which would be the torchbearers of tomorrow. They are the ones on whom we have trusted to develop the faculties of our babies, channelize their energies, make them happy and yes, teach them little things while they play and fool around. And they must also understand that the great geniuses of this country in every conceivable field have not only risen from the metropolises; an astonishing majority is from the small towns of India. Expecting a warm and enriching place for one’s child should not be a privilege of a parent in the metro, but a right of every parent in the nook and corner of this country. It is time that we think of a body to regulate these sharks, inspect such schools and ensure that when our kid steps out of the home for the first time, he steps into a sunny, cheerful world; not into a dirty, suffocating place obnoxiously called “play school”!

As if worries in the personal front aren’t enough, what particularly gets at my gut these days is a total lack of social grace and etiquettes amongst people around us. I believe that as we evolve as human beings and as a society, we are supposed to be more sensitive and caring about the emotions and feelings of others. Didn’t Thomas Hobbes say so eloquently that the primordial life was discarded for a more civilized way of living and life because the former was brash and brutish? Isn't it that we, the civilized people, are expected to have and display in abundance, etiquette and manners, which are a quintessential part of a progressive, evolved society? I have been pretty conscious of the fact, more so of late, that in our present way of living and life, such niceties have taken a backseat. They are supposed to be a part of the gossamer charm of the old world, somehow not compatible with the brattish world of today. All that we want today is not to peek into, but rip apart the curtains sheltering the personal from the public. Rip apart so that we can vicariously enjoy the minute details of the other’s life which is actually of no consequence to us whatsoever. But then, doesn’t this attitude conflict with the parallel view that in the present century, life is moving at such a ‘catch me if you can’ pace that we hardly have time for ourselves, forget others? Well, I am muddled. But then, I have to confront nasty intrusions into my private space on a daily basis. Being a government servant and serving at a post which is in the public glare almost all the time, I realize that I must be accountable and am under scrutiny for the minutest of decisions made in my professional capacity. But my personal life is just mine. I am not a sportsperson, a socialite or for that matter, a media personality whose very career sprouts, flowers and thrives under the public glare. My private space, as long as it does not affect my professional capacities, is simply nobody’s business. But in a small town, much to my utmost chagrin, my personal sphere happens to be a matter of great public interest. It is absolutely disgusting when even well heeled and well educated individuals become nosy parkers, ask you the most personal of questions or are waiting for you to give away some detail of your mundane life to fuel their juicy gossips later. Not that I lead a rock ‘n’ roll existence and not that I am a stickler for utmost privacy, but yes, it is extremely unsettling to realize that scores of people are prying into your daily existence, monitoring your moves for God knows which sinister design. The end result- I have to really work on myself so that I do not become quite a nervous wreck. While I fret over this, I do feel like hitting out at all these intruders and give them a lesson or two on social conduct and manners. For our social grace and composure is what defines us, earns us dignity and respect from our brethren in the long run.

THE MISINTERPRETATION OF THE POLICE PERSON IN UNIFORM

When I was training for the job at the National Police Academy, a question which was asked often was what had attracted us to the job. A common refrain was the glamour of the uniform. And that is what best and most obviously defines us in police- the uniform. In my opinion, the purpose of uniform anywhere is to delineate a group and give it a distinct identity. Also, to bind the members of a group, inculcate in them a sense of we-feeling. Apart from serving all these functions, I believe the uniform imparts an aura of professionalism and seeks to do away with frivolity. In my job, the uniform performs all these functions and also binds us all together forging esprit de corps. I personally feel that the uniform gives me a lot of confidence and commands immense respect. Other than all these sterling aspects, I believe that the uniform does not and ought not to have any other significance. Startlingly, it is not so and I have been discovering this much to my annoyance.

In my place of posting, people regularly come to the police with a whole bundle of problems that does not pertain to our area of administration, that is to say, land disputes. Often I have advised the complainants to approach the concerned authorities and courts but the usual retort is that the entire exercise would involve money and a whole lot of running from pillar to post. The best alternative is to have a policeman to just hang around by their side and lo and behold! The mission shall be accomplished without much sweat. This solution often gets my gut but it is happening everywhere. May it be in case of labour union problems, industrial issues, land disputes or domestic quarrels- I often find that people are not willing to sort out their issues involving other mechanisms or for that matter, register a case with the police. All they want is the menacing presence of the police personnel to gnash their teeth, roar on their behalf and with some arm twisting, solve out their issue. I have often found this manipulative attitude humiliating to the person in that uniform. The policeman/woman is paid by the government to do a job and acting like a gangster in uniform is definitely not one of them. Most pertinently,the buck doesn’t end with the police person at the police station level only.

On several occasions, I have been invited to myriad functions which I don’t believe falls within the ambit of my professional or personal interests. After attending some, curiosity got the better of me and I did ask the organizers as to why they actually require my presence. Grilled further, the reply, much to my exasperation, was always that they apprehend some problem and miscreants would stay away just because I am around. I take a long, hard look at myself and ponder whether I really look those roguish, ghoulish, forbidding sorts who can scare away hoodlums just by mere physical presence. Definitely not! To top it all, an elite local club wants me to preside over their GBMs so that the defaulters get scared enough and promptly pay their outstanding dues. And the idea of it all leaves me terribly short of words!!

For years altogether, the judiciary, media, NGOs and even our political bosses have been boxing our ears because we, the police force, have often been caught overstepping our authority and violating human rights. Granted that this happens, but nobody looks at another side of the spectrum. Wherein it is the people who want to use us for all the wrong purposes, egg us on to do jobs which have nothing to do with us per se, where we are supposed to be their vicious Rambos in uniform sorting out their problems smoothly, efficiently, effortlessly. Yes, we are in uniform because our job profile demands so, we are in uniform so that the person in distress identifies us and comes to us for redressal. We have not donned the uniform to scare away, to be anybody’s Rottweiler on the prowl. The saying holds true that we get the police force we deserve. I have begun forming this opinion that just because the civil society does try to use the police to suit its selfish ends at many times and often using hefty bribes to do so, they have spawned a web of corruption and sheer unprofessionalism. And this Frankenstein thus created threatens the very fibre of our society; encouraging our policemen and women to digress because they have been doing the same on many occasions at the behest of the very people who take up cudgels against them screaming violation of rights and space when their interests get adversely affected.

Whenever I take a look at popular media, especially cinema and television, portraying the police force, a wave of scorn envelops me. On great many instances, the police person is some sort of Robin Hood single handedly cleansing the entire system. Is this a true reflection of our society, of our job profile? No. However, it is a reflection of our fantasy. If you look around, we are not a region blessed with Viking-like personalities or even prone to athleticism. Our police force is a reflection of the same. In all the years I have worked as a part of the police force, I have yet to come across an Terminator kind of policeman/woman. None of my staff goes around like a person possessed to set all wrongs right just on his/her own. I know that fuelled by the popular perceptions, people expect some such miracle, but, it doesn’t happen in reality. Yes, we, officers, who are at the helm of affairs in the district, can boast of having sub-ordinates of indomitable courage, intelligence, zeal and sincerity who work hard to maintain law and order and curb crime with an iron hand. That is the heroism of a regular person who happens to don the uniform as a part of the job and we must salute that. It is not the heroism of a superman. It is high time that we understand that like any other field, we, in the police, work and deliver as a team. There are no superheroes and heroines. And, we definitely don’t want to be seen as that grimacing Tyson in uniform whom people can use to get their dirty work done. The uniform is something we wear out of necessity and with immense pride. Not because we want others to get terrified by the sight of  us. At a stage when we are moving towards an era of community policing, we cannot afford this misinterpretation of the police person in uniform on a regular basis. If it happens, it is a loss…to the people, to the society and to all of us in uniform.