Jumbish

This is a conversation I had with a bus driver on a journey I embarked on recently. Here are some excerpts:

To start a conversation he started discussing about how the government wasn’t doing things it should be doing, things that were wrong. He occasionally gave some suggestions, derided the policies, and kept pointing at why and how things ought to be. Another one of those street-side political commentators, I thought. Damn!

Samir Shaikh: Why are you denouncing the government? You don’t know what they do up there? Why be like everyone else blaming the government for all the ills of the society? You are not even an authority; don’t know anything about politics, or social development for that matter. Why criticize the government for its policies? Do you think you can do any better?

Bus Driver: Sir, are you really educated?

SS: Why yes! I have a degree in Architecture and a post-graduate degree in Urban Design and Urban Planning.

BD: Are you sure?

My enormously large ego was hurt.

BD: I don’t think I can do any better in politics, but I do know, and can say with confidence that there are very few out there who can drive as efficiently as I do, caring not only for the bus, but the roads, pedestrians, passengers; because all that is my job and responsibility as a bus driver.

SS: Ahha!! So you know a lot about doing your job well, but do not know a cinch about running a state. Then why don’t you just shut up and keep doing your driving? And leave the state to those who are trained in doing just that.

BD: My dear uneducated graduate, that’s because I do my job with meticulous care, and I know what quality in work means. I expect the same quality in everyone around me – including the people that govern my state.

BD: I do my job not only for the sake of it alone, or for the love of it alone, but also with a sense of my place in the system that is the state, and how or where I fit in. Hence it is not only my right to point out what’s wrong with the state, but it becomes my duty and responsibility to do that. It’s almost a crime to be indifferent to government policies for us.

I wondered who the “us” he was talking about was.

SS: So does that mean you want to challenge everything that you see wrong..?

BD: To the best of my abilities and my resources … yes.

SS: Yeah I know I have heard a lot of these idealistic talks and words, but there does not look like anything is being done …. All talk... No action, friend!

BD: That’s because you are looking the wrong way, talking to wrong people and reading the wrong stuff.

SS: You mean there is a revolution happening right now in this world? Hahahhahah!! I don’t see it!!

BD: Exactly!

BD: What you need is a big alarm to wake you from the hypnotic state induced by popular media and years of unconscious self-hypnosis.

SS: And you are one of the revolutionaries, eh? Hahaha

I was laughing, but realizing at the same time that I was laughing not because he seemed funny, but because I wanted to provoke him to tell me something I didn’t know but wanted to know.

BD: I don’t know if you can feel the tremors, the vibrations, in the air around you; it’s like a war song …. and it is everywhere I go …. it seems to have a message for anyone who cares to hear …..

SS: If it is a revolution, why isn’t there anyone out there getting beaten up for standing up for their ideals, why aren’t there ‘Satyagrahas’ for one major cause, and if you consider yourself a part of the coming revolution, why are you still driving this bus and have not set out in search for your ultimate calling?

BD: Revolutions take place in the mind …. What you see outside is a physical manifestation when millions of revolutionary minds resonate. Remember the mystical whooshing sound you heard in the sand dunes of Jaisalmer? You thought it was a great powerful wind surging across the desert that was the cause. But the truth is that the mystical cosmic music is produced when the tiny specs of sand rub against each other and in no time, with millions and millions of sand particles rubbing against each other in resonance, you hear the music of life.

SS: So right now you are a rebel without a cause.

BD: A rebel is never without a cause. After the victory over a challenge he is out there again in arms for a different war.

SS: Enough of this already!! I know I am a responsible citizen, I am aware of the environment, and I do my bit for charity. I am nice to everyone, help others in need whenever I can, do my job with sincerity and loved by all. I earn a decent sum of money. My boss loves me, my girlfriend loves me, my friends love me, and my family loves me. I have struggled hard to reach this place and created this perfect life. And at the same time I care for my nation, do my regular social service. Do you have any of these? You who talk of big hollow ideas?

BD: No I don’t have any of these in the strictest conventional sense. I refuse to be bombarded by the mind-numbing messages of the “concept of a perfect life” of this your world. Have you been to a hypnosis show? The hypnotist snaps his fingers and the subject goes into a trance. The hypnotist says, “Put your finger in your rear and lick it and you will be happy” – the subject sticks his finger in his rear, licks it and smiles. We in the audience laugh out loud. Well, some of us have shut off our ears to the messages of the hypnotist and prefer to sit in the audience listening to our own music and watching entranced people on stage. Now do I have to explain to you who or what the hypnotist is? Because part of the revolution is just that - getting to know the hypnotist.

BD: OK let me give you something you could relate to. You know the British ruled over India for almost 300 years. Now during this span, there were Indians in India who worked for the British. They were good citizens under the rule of the East India Company, responsible, hard-working, and loyal to the British Raj. They did everything they could for their families, their employers, and the Raj. Some became successful under the British, rose to high positions. They led their lives happily and in fulfillment. They believed (or were made to believe) in their hearts that the British Raj was where their loyalties lied. If you were in their world, they were the perfect citizens, believing in their cause - paragons of good citizens, some of them. But then you enter the world of the handful of freedom fighters, and you see what you see today – the Idea of a free India.

I was silent for a moment, trying to grasp the entire concept and its relationship to the discussion at hand.

SS: So you are some big shot intellectual, carrying the torch of truth, a leader of some sort? Tell me what you are doing towards your “Revolution”.

BD: I am driving the bus.

I thought I almost got what he meant, and then the understanding quickly slipped out of my mind. For the next few moments the idea kept playing this game of slipping in and out of my mind, without my being able to fully grasp it. For the rest of the journey we didn’t talk much. He left me alone with my thoughts, his eyes intently on the road. Finally we arrived at my destination, and I waited for everyone to get off board. I went to him to say goodbye.

BD: You seem to be a young energetic person who wouldn’t mind challenging all his earlier beliefs in search for the truth.

SS: True.

BD: Well, then hopefully I will see you on the other side some day.

What “other side”? ….. The idea was still out of reach for me. Finally he lowered his voice and spoke,
“There are signs that a more manly, warlike age is coming, which will, above all, bring valour again into honour! For it has to prepare the way for a yet higher age, and assemble the force which that age will one day have need of - that age which will carry heroism into knowledge and wage war for the sake of ideas and their consequences. To that end many brave pioneers are needed now..: men who know how to be silent, solitary, resolute,... who have an innate disposition to seek in all things that which must be overcome in them: men to whom cheerfulness, patience, simplicity and contempt for the great vanities belong just as much as do generosity in victory and indulgence towards the little vanities of the defeated:... men with their own festivals, their own work-days, their own days of mourning, accustomed to and assured in command and equally ready to obey when necessary, equally proud in the one case as in the other, equally serving their own cause: men more imperiled, men more fruitful, happier men! For believe me! - the secret of realizing the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment of existence is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships out into uncharted seas! Live in conflict with your equals and with yourselves! Be robbers and ravagers as long as you cannot be rulers and owners, you men of knowledge!..”

Where had I heard that before? It was Nietzsche, I guess. Or maybe Morpheus of The Matrix, Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Zorba the Greek, Ishmael the gorilla, the Prophet of Kahlil Gibran, Bus Driver. Whoever he was, he had helped me arrive at my destination.