Smile

Smile, they say, and the world smiles with you. The naive li'l babe-in-the-woods that I am, I believed in this adage. I may not have been much of a 'smiler', but I always tried to return a smile. That is, until a certain ex-DGP Rathore was seen smiling on national television.

This was one smile that changed all perceptions about smiles. This particular smile/snigger/smirk didn't make any of us smile. Rather, we felt perhaps as outraged as the modesty of young Ruchika. We felt outraged at our own helplessness, at the impotence of our Judicial system.

Actually it was, as Sango God would say, a juncture of mixed emotions. We felt outrage, fear, shame, anger, amazement, and topped it all with good old fashioned spiritual resignation. What can we do, except take out candle marches. Talking of candle marches, certain hostels have been forcing new comers into candle marches of a different kind, all as outrageous as the acts of Mr Rathore, the crackdown on ragging and all notwithstanding.

Are we really that helpless? A society that ostracises families when their young ones choose a partner of their choice can do nothing to show this pervert that he is not wanted? A society that massacred thousands of innocent people in response to the death of one lady can do nothing to protest against the merciless torture of a whole family? A society that burns up trains to prevent entry of 'unwanted' people into their territory can't do nothing to confine this corruptor to a solitary cell somewhere?

Of course it can be all done. But the problem here is the lack of a tangible target. It is not just one child molester that is to blame. This is just a manifestation of the systematic subversion of the entire 'system'. A system to beat the system, maybe? A conversation about the Ruchika case can never be limited to the two principal players, the overt victim and offender. The incident is just a footnote to the chapter which talks of thousands of terror victims with not a single conviction.

But the bigger problem is that this incident has just shown us our own true nature. All of us have, at one time or the other, felt ourselves above the law. We never hesitated in trying to bend the rules to our own convenience. It's something like the 'chori ke aam' that are always sweeter than the ones bought from the thele wala. But the chori ke aam have lost their innocence along the way and become a assertion of our true selves - lawless hooligans. When we see Ruchika's pics in the media, we don't see a pretty young girl, but the ugly man in the mirror. And it is not a pretty sight.

P.S. If, hypothetically, this piece were to form the commentary in a Burkha Dutt documentary,would it be followed by a commercial break for some anti aging cream?

Kyra

Mujhe mera wohi wala teddy chahiye – these are the words most parents have had to contend with, probably. For ‘teddy’, read car, doll, cycle, chaddi, pencil, girlfriend, whatever. I think most of us did form strong associations with items as kid, a tendency we got over in view of the rapidly changing concept of the ‘in’ thing. I mean, I did, so much so that my sister could blackmail me by holding my horse and eagle hostage.

As I grew older, I managed to get over these attachments. I clear out my junk regularly, tear up letters immediately on reading them, delete e-mails and sms before reading them, and have been eyeing every new car that hit the roads (what were you thinking). I had got rid of my 6 year old car a few days back, just before pranging it (only I can manage to prang something after having sold it off). Whatever the reason, it was missing from its usual parking position outside the gate. I was busy scheming how to beat the scheming of the insurance guys and get a full refund. But these plans took a back seat when my daughter Kyra suddenly burst out crying while standing at the gate.

“Mera papa car gum kar diya”.

I don’t know if that means that her dad has lost her car, or that her dad’s car is lost. What did get conveyed was that she was missing the car. I suddenly realized that this was the car that had taken my kids on their first rides. The car whose engine noise (and there is a lot of it in the Indica) got them to the door to receive me as I drove back from work. The car that in the evenings drove them to the park (that my son loves) and parties (the only thing my daughter lives for). I had no right to leave it rusting at some junkyard while my daughter cried “Mera papa car gum kar diya”.

My immediate reaction was to call up the garage tell them to go ahead with the repairs, irrespective of the cost. Thankfully, my dad prevented the intended communication from taking place. And I spent the next two days making amends to Kyra. I missed my car, a machine (but not a bike), a piece of metal and vinyl that I had been meaning to replace for the last one year. No, I was not regressing into my childhood, I was progressing….into parenthood.

It is this little girl. A little shy of 3 feet, she has the capability to lift this 5’10”, 80 kg guy to seventh heaven and to sink him to the depths of despair. She is lovely when she is dressed up. And she is beautiful when she comes in all messy from the park. I love her when she listens to me, and love her even more when she defies me. Her tears drive me to tears, but so does her smile. I can’t leave her behind when she is crying to go with me, and I can’t leave without her when she waves me good bye. I don’t yet know how far can I go with any of my seniors or juniors, but she knows exactly how far she can go with me.

Sometimes, when I am looking at her, I feel as if someone is squeezing my heart and it will just go pop. Sometimes, the surroundings go all hazy and I see nothing except her. My biggest nightmare as a kid used to be falling down a bottomless pit. Now my biggest fear is her falling from the chair. I did feel the same way about my son too, but nowadays he is too busy playing with his cousins, or doing his homework. I am not disturbed about that, I always knew that was going to happen. But with Kyra, I see myself at the centre of her universe for a long long time yet.

So what is the point? The point is about change. I always thought that anger was a much more potent emotion than love. Over the last few years I had developed these funny ideas of fairplay wherein any wrongdoing had to be punished. No quarters asked for, none given. And along comes this little angel and turns my ideas on their head. I am going all mushy. As for fairplay, I still believe in that. Only difference is I always find a justification for whatever she does. I do lose my temper with her, only to go groveling back for her forgiveness.

Also, I always saw myself as impervious to change. I felt proud whenever my old chums told me that 19 years in uniform had not changed me. And now I find myself changing, totally. I jam total strangers with tales of Kyra’s antics. I know they don’t give a damn, but neither do I, about them. I react with a soft exasperated ‘Kyraaa’ when she plays havoc in somebody’s carefully done up sitting room, and expect them to keep their ‘breakable’ stuff somewhere safe. Safe here means somewhere she can’t see it, cos if she wants it, I have to get it for her.

I know it’s not me, it’s nature. It is one of those devious ploys of mother nature to keep herself going, and have enough of us long enough to play around with. I am no different than any other animal that is hardwired to look after its young, only to be kicked by them when they can look after themselves. It is perfectly natural. So what! A sunset, no matter how pretty, is natural, but that doesn’t stop anybody from wondering at its beauty. And there is a lot more ‘Natural’ that we find people ogling at. Can’t I look at my own ‘Natural’ behaviour and be amazed? Amazed, and grateful, for Kyra, and my natural programming, that are the source of so much joy right now.
Now, if I could only get that car back for her.