So is India a bag of clichés? A tired gag about scams? A joke poking fun at regional accents? An anecdote about food poisoning? A 12 page essay about the failure that democracy has turned out to be? A Facebook rant about traffic jams? A derisive tweet about corrupt politicians? A prime time drama helmed by belligerent anchors on news channels? A jaded soap opera? An idea falling through the cracks in our fractured national identity?
Or is there another India we can’t put in a labelled box? An India that rarely gets playtime and column inches in the media even though it is replete with the generosity and kindness of people who have no incentive to be honest? An India where tailors in small towns add ‘extra’ embroidery for free in a dress for a bride-to-be. And where a shop keeper remembers your name even after 15 years, because as a child you always got your birthday cake from him.
An India of mohallas, bazaars, chaat and mithai kiosks, conversations across real and not virtual walls and the goodwill of familiar faces that I have paid a tribute to in my first novel Perfect Eight. But even in big cities, little pockets of gentleness show you that no matter what goes wrong with India, there will always be something right. Over the 16 years, I have spent in Bangalore, I have commuted mostly in autos and met drivers who sing to themselves, curse, spit or radiate a Zen calm and go out of their way to help if you are too daft to remember an address. Drivers who tie up plastic screens when it is pouring just so you won’t get wet.
Drivers who impart life lessons and tell you, “Bibi, your child is too young to travel so much every day. Find a creche near your home.” Most of these men live in impoverished neighbourhoods and are lone bread winners. I do not condone their greed and yet it is easier to understand than the greed of the politician who has built a monstrous bungalow with an imported dog and a foreign car in my neighbourhood. I cannot however explain the integrity of someone like Yarab, an auto driver and a fellow A.I.R fan who drove me to a meeting to the accompaniment of “Pukarta Chala Hun Main.”
After he was gone, I realised that I had left behind a file with some documents and my novel. Before I could panic, a colleague from my previous office rang to say that Yarab had found the board number in my documents and had left his number with her. I called him and 40 minutes later, there he was, waiting at the spot where he had dropped me, to hand over my file to me. His parting shot? “Author hai kya? Kitaab likhte hai? Humne padha ek do page. Accha hai.”
To me, a day in the life of India is not just about those who have betrayed the dream of what India was supposed to be but those who vindicate it everyday. These people are not celebrated cricketers, actors or faces in the crowd. They however in their own quiet way, grant us the hope that we are more than our fault lines, our sparring Gods and feuding languages. That we are an India where ‘Rab‘ is not a deity but an auto driver with a conscience.
Reema Moudgil is the author of Perfect Eight (http://www.flipkart.com/b/books/perfect-eight-reema-moudgil-book-9380032870?affid=unboxedwri )
This story was carried in Reading Hour.