The Importance of being Ordinary

It begins at infancy - the great Indian quest for becoming a Sahib. Happened with me too.

बेटा IIT वगैरह सब अपने जगह पर हैं. IAS का पॉवर ही कुच्छ और है. IAS बनो तुम। (Son, IIT is good but not great. The power enjoyed by IAS officers is in a different league. Be an IAS officer.)

You grow up seeing Sahibism prevalent everywhere. The classmate who smokes at the age of 12 is expelled but the expulsion is rescinded because his mother is the local MLA; indentities are pulled out at the drop of a pin - "you don't know me. I am the son of XYZ, or I am the Chief Inspector at CBI, or I am the friend of local Head Constable". All euphemisms for, "my lot is better than yours, I am superior. Therefore, I derive preference over you - whether it is to skip the queue at the doctor's clinic at the local hospital, or to get my son admission into the presstigious public school, or to be ahead of you in the VIP queue at Tirupati".

Having seen this occur daily in our lives, we grow up to believe that this is the path of progress - to stamp out ourselves as being more important that others. We attend IIT - but the Sahibism has by now become second nature to us.

On finishing college, we join a big famous consulting firm. The sahibism that by now we have come to accept, we now mete out to others. We shout at the driver of our company provided air-conditioned Chevrolet because he is not driving fast enough though we started late from office ourselves. It is his lot to hear our shouting - his lot is inferior than mine. I shout at the five star hotel clerk because he has not reserved the room I had asked him to two hours ago during the busy tourist season. When we go to the visa stamping office, our travel agent has everything arranged for us - we only need to show up. Of course we deserve this - we need to be productive and scores of underlings need to work to make us productive - this is the natural course of life We have gone to IIT and then the famous consulting firm. We have arrived in life - our lot is better than others'. We are entitled to a rosier bed.

Bit by bit, as we get more and more priveleged in life - the more priveleges and arbitrary benefits we seek at the expense of others. Not only do we seek them, but we feel entitled to receive them.

Those of the priveleged lot of us that did not go to the famous consulting firm perhaps became IAS officers. We drive around in cars with red or blue lights atop them - we are the administration. We are more important - our business is more important than others' therefore others must make way. When we travel we do not stand in the railway reservation queue - instead we phone the manager that manages the railway reservation counter and the ticket comes to us - as if it had magnetized wings and we were the compatible poles of the magnet.

We find different ways of rationalizing these priveleges that we extract at others' expense. Productivity. Administration. Avoidance of nuisance. etc. Each of these words a nicer way of saying , we are privileged and therefore entitled to greater and more priveleges.

What is worse, is that the world around us gives it to us - the struggling middle class clerk at the railway reservation counter, the scores of people standing outside the Visa office. Important people - they rationalize and do not grudge us the privelege that we are able to take only because we pushed them a little further back.

Occasionally, very occasionally, some of us think about what they must think. Perhaps we think about their rationalizing that we are important. And we smile and feel good about it.

Individually.... we feel self important.

Collectively though... with every privelege that sets another Indian or set of Indians a little behind - we fall further as a society - not in a idealized normative sense, but in the tangible practical repercussions on our society.

Over time, we the priveleged learnt to withdraw our children from government schools because our children were entitled to the better private schools. The result was the collapse of the government school system.

The IAS officers among barely know what a traffic jam feels like when you have a meeting to attend. Thanks to the red/ blue light atop our car.

It is impossible to get a driving license by yourself, even if you know how to drive. Thanks to our love for productivity and getting things done quickly through driving school agents who literally bribe traffic controllers. Of course, I am not even beginning to talk of the crazies that get driving licenses through the driving schools because we felt entitled to avoid the queue.

Thanks to our love of private security guards outside our air-conditioned offices, the police and law and order have become a lawless law unto themselves. Is there then any surprise that we have terrorists bombing our bazaars and trains stations even our parliament. Of course when oridnary people die we only tch tch. It is when they bomb Oberoi and Taj that it hurts.

Perhaps it is time to become ordinary again. If not in everything at least in part of what we do.

Shun the AC car, or the auto, or the first class, or the air conditioned class. Travel second class instead. Take the city bus to office - at least 4 times a month? God knows what we could do about the schools? Perhaps over time a way could emerge. At least we will demand from our minister friend that he stop sitting on his gracious behind.

Yes, it is perhaps impractical to suddenly start being ordinary at everything. But could we not find 5 things or 5 occasions in a month when we will be ordinary?

Only when the priveleged and powerful become the ordinary, does a country find a way to shun its inefficiencies.

That perhaps is the importance of being ordinary to us and our country.