An incredible short-story about a tear-gassed demonstration
Men in full suit and some with ties loosened and top button off. All
in shoes, wearing expensive shirts. Air-conditioned faces reluctantly
yielding perspiration. Yes, perspiration, for some don’t sweat. Hair
only slightly disheveled, for ungrooming, even in humid conditions and
heat of the moment takes time. Women too. In office attire. Apart from a
slight smudging of makeup, still very chic. They weren’t screaming, for
raised-volume in public space takes learning, practice and sometimes the
fuel of humiliation-filled decades to emerge from throat.
The slogans were borrowed, as is often the case in first-time
agitators. With time and the employment of ad agency they would have
novelty and punch, but right now it was plain and simple and, frankly,
‘tired’.
Diyau diyau apata diyau...ape laaba apata diyau! they screamed. ‘Give
us this day our daily profits’. No ‘forgive our sins’, naturally, for
that would have compromised the pithiness requirement of decent
sloganeering. Perhaps.
Global recession
It was a historic moment. The Corporate World was finally exercising
the valbooru nidahasa (Freedom of the Wild Ass) in the streets, amid
dust, noise and smoke. Until this point the wild-ass freedom had been
exercised in cushioned comfort, while sipping pick-me-up coffee or
pick-each-other-up cocktails. It had provided the ‘daily bread’ without
any sweat-dripping to write home about. That was what others did. They
perspired on account of other things, for example investor-confidence,
political instability, global recession, declining profit margins,
market unpredictability, miscalculated risks and on the rare occasion,
labour unrest or worse, labour-friendly regimes that sought to corral
the wild ass in them or environment-friendly ones that imposed strict
rules and regulations on corporate polluters.
Something had snapped. No, it was not that restrictions had been
imposed on the right to profiteer, it was, plain and simple, an
unexpected and unacceptable drop in profit margins. Those who made 10
million a day were now making only 9. Something like that. Agitation was
the word in corporate circles. Agitation was called for. Agitate they
did.
Relaxed labour laws
Out there in the world of dust, noise, irritating pedestrians going
about eking out a living, smoke and squalor, wearing discipline’s
unmistakable uniform was a special mob-control regiment called Reality
and armed with special teargas canisters called ‘Get Real’.
There were batons too, all marked ‘Taste of real life’. There were
water cannons, carrying the bold legend, ‘Do you know how profit is
made?’ A booming voice blared out from a megaphone.
‘When the rupee depreciated, did you raise the wages of your
employees? What part of the concessions given by way of tax holidays,
relaxed labour laws and subsidies were channeled toward the welfare of
the work force? When profit margins were maintained by trimming benefits
and blocking income-enhancing avenues of your employee, did you realize
you were maintaining lifestyle at the cost of further limiting their
life chances? When you filled your CSR Portfolio, was it to alleviate
guilt of annual corporate irresponsibility? Did they balance off one
another? Did you grease a few official palms so you can continue to toss
effluents into the nearby waterway with impunity? Were politicians
richly rewarded for showing preferential treatment in awarding contracts
and tenders?’
Demanding answers
They were not stunned to silence. Each passing minute was made of
practice-moments. The slogans were screamed with greater conviction and
confidence. Diyau diyau apata diyau ..ape laabha apata diyau. The
irrationality of demand was naturally lost on them, as is the case when
slogans are pinched.
They continued to scream. They vented their anger on anything and
anyone within reach. A truckload of bricks had been brought along.
Bricks were hurled randomly. Some were seen grabbing random pedestrians
and demanding answers to questions they, the pedestrians, did not
understand and in a language and accent that was foreign to them.
Teargas. It was inevitable.
Not one tear fell, though. Let me repeat. Not a single tear fell on
that historic day. ‘Reality’ was trumped. Fiction won the day. The old
order was reinstated. Profit margins were guaranteed and delivered. By
and by.
Long before these ladies and gentlemen took to the streets, a
confused scribed had put a question to his friends:
‘If those at the helm of the corporate sector took to the streets
agitating against falling profits and were met with tear gas would they
have tears to shed?’
A perceptive friend had responded: ‘Do they have eyes?’
It is not only teargas that provokes the element water to move from
heart to eye and down cheek. There is a necessary precondition: eyes.
Some are born blind. Some get blinded along the way. Some choose to be
blind. Some can and will cry. Some cannot and perforce will not.
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