“Democracy,” began our political-science teacher in her high-pitched nasal voice and her staccato accent, “Is a government of the ‘peeple,’ by the ‘peeple,’ for the ‘peeple.”

I remember nothing else.  I did mug it all up though, that and the rest of it, for the Board exams. Did pretty well too, come to think of it. But then social sciences were always my strong point.

It didn’t matter much back then if I knew what democracy meant. In those days, I did not really fancy terms such as Discrimination, Reservation, the Federal State, the Constitution, the Preamble, Women’s Rights, or Child Labour. It all seemed like something some one had told me to  learn about. And of course that made it vastly uninteresting! Then something strange happened. I found out that I was 24. I woke up one morning, and looked at myself in the mirror, and saw the first fine lines under my eyes, faintly tracing a pattern of worldly-wisdom.

Promising to buy myself some under-eye gel, I got ready to go to work. First day on the job. Big glitzy world of Mumbai.  As a second assistant director, I began work in relatively high spirits. It was easy work. No one asked me to recite the Constitution.  In fact not even an appointment letter apparently! I could see the beginning of a long and mutually prosperous association.

Before the end of the second day at work, I had gathered a very thorough experience in using a telephone, watching other people talk about important things, and surfing the Internet. Even five years at the National Institute of Design had failed to teach me all this! Anyhow, on the third day, I was sent to assist the overseers of the casting trials.

The two casting directors, by far the sweetest souls I had met, on what was my  seventh day in Mumbai city, set me the task of scouting as many hanger-outs at the auditions that I could find. I was to send in the promising hopefuls. After a grueling day of trying to look busy, attempting to stand tall among beautiful Ectomorphic people of either sex, being kind and courteous but at the same time assertive and firm, and most importantly not getting fired; I found myself back in office with the very happy prospect of sitting together with the director till three in the morning, to view the casting tapes.

12 tapes in all and he merely picked out a few dozen hopefuls. Most of the girls were “too fat, too ugly, too short, too dark, too down-market,” and when they did weigh 45 kgs, measure 170 cms, have chiseled features, luminous complexions, and dressed right, they just could not dance to, ‘It’s the time to disco!’ Tragic.

“Alright, listen up guys; we need a couple of ‘chinkis’ in the commercial.”

The director announced next morning after a three hour meeting, cooped up with the producers, and his one man army, his First Assistant. Apparently we had to create a multi-ethnic workplace, and the Chinese nation needed representation. And who better to do that, than our very own indigenous north-eastern citizens? Two of the most wonderfully co-operative and unassuming models, I have ever met, or ever hope to meet again, were found after the search for the perfect Indo-Chinese ‘chick.’ There are no girls in Mumbai, only ‘chicks.’

The search for ‘chinkis‘ taught me that all the lessons about North East India and seven states commonly known as the ‘Seven Sisters,’ all the informative lectures about Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura had been wasted.

My stay in Mumbai was short, but very colourful. Life-altering almost, you could say. Next stop. The capital. New Delhi. A different time and place. Job profile changed drastically to copy-writer. Let me tell you, the difference between television advertising, and print advertising. It’s really very simple. In the former you get to stand in the sun for hours on end, or just stand hours on end without the sun, if your lucky, looking at the light reflectors being adjusted, and endorsing sports drinks. In the latter, you get to freeze your backside off in an obscenely cold, artificial environment, regurgitate lines, and endorse tissue paper brands.

So while I was swimming in an ocean of copies to write one morning, the creative director (the old CD-Rom) tells me he needs images of ‘youngsters.’ Read: adolescents, teenagers, basically the ‘Generation-Why.’ It (the subject) had to be convincing as a middle-class Indian kid and would be photographed with a phone,  talking to government counselors regarding his/her examination stress. This task proved Herculean. All the kids I found on the net were, too good-looking, too well-proportioned, too dressy, too dark, too up-market. At one point CD-Rom even suggested taking a picture of me, in such a pose, making me wonder if my clothing that day had blurred the thin line between casual and shabby.

Finally I thought I’d hit the jackpot! A teenage girl from Manipur, intently talking into the receiver of a big, red pay phone. She had just the right expression and appearance, or so I thought. CD-Rom took one look at it, and proclaimed, “Cannot use a ‘chinki,’ ad has to come out in Delhi newspapers, must have an Indian face.”

So NCERT is not the final word on Indian education and democracy after all. And I propose a toast to our country where our freedom was won at great cost and to our functional democracy where justice, liberty, equality and fraternity are for all our citizens and for all the ‘peeple.’ So what if some of us are more Indian and more equal than the others.

Amrapali Hazra is a design, art, literature and life enthusiast. Now pursuing a career in design, visual art, and occasional writing, she finally feels she is ready to take the plunge into her first novel.  A self-proclaimed philosopher, she ponders history, anthropology, mythology, esoteric and metaphysical questions. She keeps her eyes, ears and mind as open as possible, and hopes for a day when only the connections between human cultures will matter and not the differences.