Gandhi, Philosophy, & Fucking Littering

Saturdays are the days people, my age, wake up late next to someone they love or married to, have a greasy brunch and then go do something that looks like fun or whatever that marriage/love makes do. 

I wake up next to a bundle of books I’m both in love with and married to. I wake up early on Saturdays as my ‘prison sentence’ is still another 7 weeks away from getting over. I’m a full-time prisoner of the world’s deadliest jail - Full-time employment.

Either way, my prison sentence, at several times, is super lenient - almost at par with Sanjay Dutt’s jail-term for being best friends with the superstar terrorists like Dawood and Salem. Like him, I get plenty of Out-of-Jail time via casual Furloughs & Parole. 

Though I, officially, work on Saturdays, I often use my veto powers & skip prison [work] altogether or leave at lunchtime. I left at lunchtime last Saturday, 9th March ’19 & went to the suburb where Rich People Live: Jor Bagh

After eating a fairly run-of-the-mill biryani for a relatively deep ‘burn in my pocket’ I walked to the dainty Book Shop [Jor Bagh]. Everything was set-up for a talk with the writers of the newest biographical novel on, you know it, - Gandhi. 

I always wonder if Elvis, Jackson, Marley continue to stay super rich long after their deaths via royalties, where are all the royalties for Gandhi are going. Because literally everymothofucker, who can, is milking the skinhead satyagrahi’s stardom for the last 7 decades. 

The newest book in question is certainly not going to make any money, so the question of royalties is out of the window. The question that was still pregnant before the authors [there were two - a lass Divya Dwivedi and a bloke Shaj Mohan] who arrived in this tiny shop with 20 kid-sized colorful chairs was ‘What’s New’ in this 773rd biography on Mohan Das.

As the talk started with 25% of the 20 chairs still going vacant, I was hooked from the onset. Not particularly because it was riveting but because the Lady was speaking with such immaculate eloquence & precision that I knew I better listen with intent or I will miss whatever she was talking about. Likewise, for the bloke, I really had to tune in my wobbly ears & slippery mind.

For whatever reason, they didn’t talk much about the book in any specificity, but they spoke about whatever they wanted to speak about - Philosophy broadly. 

Now, I’ve gone to the JLF [Jaipur Literature Festival] 10 times in a row now. I’ve attended 230-odd sessions and not once have I asked a question. I never felt like it. Today, I felt like it. 

When the session opened for questions, I asked one:

“I’m not asking for a solution, I’m asking for just an opinion. Now, I believe Philosophy is esoteric; Rhetoric is ubiquitous and supremely appealing. And if we go by the records, it’s been winning across the 20th century and has continued its juggernaut in the dawn of 21st century. The question is - Does Philosophy have any real relevance beyond this little room filled with people who are relatively intelligent. Can philosophy make any difference in real life to even a few of the billions of the people suffering outside the sheltered space that we sit in this evening.”

Both the authors ostensibly seemed to thoroughly relish the question. They didn’t answer the question, but that didn’t matter because there are really no answers. I liked that they earnestly responded to a genuine inquiry.

The discussion was cut short as the ‘shop owner’ felt it was time to shut the damn shop. The conversation moved out of the small room. I waited patiently outside till the girls were done with the authors - English-spewing desi girls love talking and exchanging digits with people who can be useful to them. I’m not saying men are any different - I’m saying: women are no less pathetic than men, but they don’t have the balls to accept their shallowness. Then the bloke author - Shaj politely walked up to where I was & resumed our discussion. The discourse there on wandered into multiple spheres including the imminent election - but of course. 

It was all fairly genteel and intellectual barring one wicked instance that defied everything. Shaj crushed his cigarette box, leaned a tad and chucked it on the road with subtle flamboyance. His panache at chucking was a smokescreen as it was still good old littering - no matter how sophisticatedly it was executed. 

As I walked back, I reminisced about the grave paradox. Though paradoxes shouldn’t baffle me as I live in the country of paradoxes, this paradox made my slippery mind spin like a roller coaster. 

I literally liked these humans [Shaj & Divya] & if you know me you know, I don’t like humans and definitely not the privileged types. They were composed, visibly humble, and learned without any conspicuous trace of arrogance or entitlement.

Think about it - A lad who writes a book on Gandhi doesn’t flinch - doesn’t bat an eye-lid as he litters in front of people whom he just gave an incisive talk about Philosophy & Gandhi.

To put this into perspective, I will give a graphic example. Shaj littering unabashedly is like being a human who Burns Quran for the laughs and calls Allah bad fiction at night and has a day job of a Radical Taliban Islamic Terrorist who shoots 15-year-old Malalas of the world for allegedly burning pages out of Quran.

One more [because I’m loving it]: Imagine you wrote Stephen Hawking’s biography and you’re also someone who trolls people with ALS [like Hawking] & are paralyzed on the Internet round-the-clock. 

And the final nail in the coffin: Do you know what Gandhi thought about Cleanliness: “Sanitation is more important than Independence.”

Yes, fucking Independence

And Gandhi pledged: “I shall not litter and won't allow anyone to do so” [Original pledge: 'na main gandagi karoonga, na main gandagi karne doonga’] [Weirdly that pledge has the same pattern as one of the cheesy Salman Khan punchlines]

It baffled the fuck out of me and made me wonder. Does that act - does that one act - cancels out everything that that well-read man stands for. My first reaction - emotional reaction was ‘fuck yes’

But my first reaction is wrong. It doesn’t. Humans are flawed, and humans make grave errors. He made a grave error [which surely wasn’t an isolated one & reeked of innate apathy], and I hope he alters that part of him otherwise this paradox will destroy everything amazing about him. Littering is disgraceful, and it’s an absolute travesty for a person who’s a philosopher and a Gandhi biographer. 

Almost all of the heroes of this country are self-absorbed wimps, Shaj has got to be better, not for the sake of the country but for his own goddamn soul’s sake.