Salim and Devika

                                                             Salim and Devika



My third story is about one of my classmates from my under-graduation days. His name was Salim Nuhani, but we all called him Sandy. He came from a very humble, lower middle-class background and wanted to make big in life. He was a fairly good cricket player but trusted his abilities and destiny, way too much. He thought that he would become, if not Sachin, then at least Irfan Pathan. But he was a great player in my college in, many different fields. In the cricket ground, the balls would follow his fingers like a snake dancing on the been (a flute like musical instrument used by snake charmers) and in the bed rosy lips and sensual curves would follow the magic of his eyes, like a hypnotized princess from Arabian nights.

His magic on the cricket field was his gateway to fame, glory, whisky and glamour in college. His dream was to play for IPL and join the league of glamorous cricketers going out with bollywood models. His motivation came from the riches associated with cricket, not from the thrill which one gets by playing for a country. A dusky Bengali girl, Devika, from South Delhi fell in love with Salim. Her father was a high profile civil servant with strong connections so Salim also found this relation a great opportunity to chase his dreams.  With that began his journey of parties, pleasure, weed and lust. Devika slithered into his life in such a discreet manner that his conscious self could never feel it. She became a tremendous life force controlling each and every thing in his life. Now his life was confined or rather stuck with just two things. First one was Devika and her seductive eyes and second one was the money and fame of cricket. In fact the 2^nd one became the most important dream to be chased as Devika’s father would never marry her daughter to him unless he got selected in the national cricket team. But he trusted and relied heavily on the mysterious and seductive magic of Devika’s eyes. Devika’s obsession with Oscar Wilde, her renderings of  Romeo and Juliet and a burning sticks of Marlboro lights in her fingers had trapped Salim’s mind, body and soul.

 I had heard a lot about Bengali beauties and their witchcraft but never saw them in action. I was seeing Devika’s eyes and her witchcraft, which was absolutely amazing and even I had a strange fancy inside my heart to fall in such a trap and intoxication, but fortunately my fear of the unknown and the hidden Brahmin conservatism saved me (although I always claimed to be a Marxist).

With the passage of whisky and lust down his existent being, his performance on the field and bed both, began to decline but he tried his level best to get a birth in the national cricket team. Even then he could not succeed. After that his frustrations increased and with them, the dosage of weed and alcohol. But, with this increase, something decreased as nature is always about compensating and offsetting the imbalances. Devika’s visits and the number of poetic nights decreased. Her passion for Salim began to dwindle. Suddenly she found him a lustful maniac, a loser and an opportunist and also a very non-classy middle class, religious wastrel. One day Devika left for London to study Masters in Post-Modern Gender Development at London School of Economics. Salim had to be sent to a rehabilitation center. 


He is now, back to his home in old Delhi after two years. He is often seen with his Tableegi friends. Last time he was held by the police for distributing some hate pamphlets. He does not party anymore and mostly sitting in the local masjid with his rosary.  Devika has married Rodger Batliwala and is working with Oxfam.
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                                                                 The Real Story

These three stories sound very common place and peculiarly depicting the life of an ordinary middle-class Indian. Although, the characters come from a varied time and space contexts, they have some obvious similarities. The most interesting thread that runs through all three of them is the quest, a passionate desire to escape from the humdrum life and get into the alternate reality of riches, luxuries, happiness and stability. These are the stories of seeking a vent to another reality. These are the stories of dreams, hopes , constant torturing of one’s mind to the extent of imposing a different mental construct of reality and complete suppression of the real existence.

My question is that why, in India babas, bollywood and the balls never stop? Why do they regulate our social and political existence so much? Why do these things play the role which wahabism plays in the life of a new Al-Quaida recruit ?

Babas, bollywood and cricket are like opium in India. They are the safety valve. In a country, where there are millions residing, with always, and historically a ruthless, careless, callous, corrupt, degenerate ruling class, the ‘vents’ and ‘safety-valves’ have an extremely important role to play. The common man has to stand in line for hours to get a simple plot of land registered. He has to face every day inflation, land mafias, increasing socio-economic disparities. When one has to travel in  an overcrowded city bus, laden with the venomous mixture of sweat, bidi smoke, smelly Indian hair oil  and,  dirty, spicy, toxic and radioactive Indian farts, in a typical june afternoon with unbearable humidity and heat then, he wants to get out of that messy and chaotic hell. The common man has very common existence marked with a nagging wife who has completely lost interest in all kinds of romance and simple desires like sending  his son Nayan to Jhamaklaal engineering college. For a simple transfer he has to bribe the whole army of pan-chewing clerks in the ministry. In such a scenario he wants release, a vent to the virtual reality of pure bliss and pleasure. Similarly, in villages, dried parched lands, mosquitoes, open drains and sewers make life dull, dreary and dead. On top of it one has the huge army of relatives to feed. This social milieu makes one long for the pathways and vents to alternate realities.

 Besides, when the millions are residing with diverse faiths, cultures and religious traditions the fault lines are bound to exist and conflicts are in the DNA of that society. The turbulence and frictions are inherent in the historical-cultural making of that society and nation. In such a scenario the vents and safety-valves are immensely important social and political assets. They become extremely important to manage the conflicts and frustration. Once the right fault lines are identified, it becomes even easier to place and institutionalize such vents. These vents release the anger and frustration with state of affairs and in turn give you a sedating opium of hopes and dreams, the dreams of happiness in some distant or near future. These vents are provided by bollywood ,babas and the balls. These pathways are like shock absorbers and safety valves.

Religion has always acted as a shock–releasing safety valve in different societies. In Hindu society,  it has always promised a future utopia through rebirth. Even the traditional scriptures like smritis(hindu law books) specifically mention that the most important duty of the king is to maintain Varnshrama Dharma( cosmic order of keeping all the classes in their place in social hierarchy i.e. keep status quo). Today babas like Asharam ji and Nirmal ji are doing the same thing. The common people who find getting success thorugh hard work an unpromising ideal, seek a refuge in the magical powers of Nirmal babas. With the globalization and advent of money as supreme ideal, people’s anxiety and restlessness for quick success has increased multifold. And with that, the number of babas, their Mercedes benzes and socio-political clout. In fact I have personally observed that religiosity in my grandfather’s time was very different. They did not believe in short-term success and miracles performed by babas. They believed in penance. Their ideals were renunciation, abstinence and spiritual upliftment . While the present day babas assure you material success and prosperity and spiritual consultancy to make it big in life. Hence, the young technocrats, politicians and merchants are approaching babas in large numbers.

Similarly, bollywood is also a vent. In a middle-class life marked by a 3-room apartment, a boring wife whose only interest is in cursing her daughter and bitching about neighbour’s daughter for her alleged affairs, Katrina Kaif(pretty Indian actress) in her swimsuit is a blissful trance. Some people go a step further and run away from homes to become Amitabh Bachchan and Shahrukh khan. I never saw anyone succeeding but saw a good number ending up in brothels, escort services, slums, crime world and rehabilitation centers.  Same is the case with cricket. With that, there is one other national duty done well. In a country where real nationalism gets always branded as naxalism or Marxism and ends up in a police encounter, cricket provides a good platform to display nationalism and feel nationalist without the risk of annoying the state power.

I feel that these safety-valves are necessary and much needed. When you do not have them, you have naxal violence, rapes, communal frenzy, civil wars, rebellions and a general, broad societal lunacy and bipolar disorder. When you do not install such safety-valves then they automatically arise, following the nature’s dialectics. But they are often of a very poor quality and sometimes devastating like Al quaida, Taliban, jamaat-e-islami, lashkar-e-taiybas. 

Such shock-absorbers are needed for the smooth functioning of any society. British rulers realized the importance of these vents in the Indian subcontinent. So they propped up A.O. Hume, Congress and Mahatma Gandhi. 


Hinduism with all its dances, garbas  (religious dance of Hindus in which girls and boys get a chance to dance and interact)), festivals acts as a great shock-absorber.  In fact it is not just a shock absorber but also a great agent of change. In Indian society all big and successful socio-political movements like namdharis, sanyasi and bhakti movements began as religious reform movements. British rulers could not perceive this elusive and mystic power of Hinduism to bring revolutions. This failure gave rise to Gandhi baba and brought the downfall of British. The shrewd Brahmins of congress knew this secret and they used this wisdom to successfully prevent Anna Hazare from becoming Anna baba.

Before I conclude my story, it deserves mention that these religions can be very dangerous as shock-absorbers. It is like riding on a tiger. They could boomerang on you anytime. This has happened with Sikhism and Islam. Initially they promise respite and relief from the exiting sorrows and then they charge you the tremendous power of faith which is blind and if that power is not channelized that steam gets dissipated in different direction causing a lot of mayhem. We can see that in the form of muslim league(it created Pakistan), lashkars and jamaats, killing of shias etc. So, religion itself needs to be regulated in terms of its structure and ritualistic set-up. It is beyond the scope of this article to delve into those waters of religion.

To conclude I will say that the Indian subcontinent is primarily a spirit existing on the spiritual strength which, unlike material existence, keeps getting rejuvenated and repressed. Hence, there is no reason for gloom. Some radical, revolutionary messenger following the footsteps of Nizammidin auliya, Birsa Munda, kabir, raidas, Vivekanand and Gandhi ji will come in a spiritual and saintly disguise claiming or at least rumored to be ordained with supernatural powers and mobilize the teeming millions of India and will create a new reality, from its beginning as  the so-called ‘vent’ or virtual reality.

Is not all this sounding like a new mystic theory of political philosophy or some kind of elusive magical realism happening around you and I, in our commonplace, humdrum life ?