Insider-Outsider

It was raining heavily. I was standing at that wretched bus stop for more than an hour. And eyes were fixed at that ‘Red’ bus of PMT. But it was not to be seen!
At last one arrived after some good tadasan for legs. But this one was crammed with people. In fact the bus was so loaded that it precariously tilted to one side :). I decided to venture in. But the moment I stepped in I could see the resentment on the face of people inside. They were all making long constipated faces at me. As if they did not want me in, as it is the bus was loaded to its fullest capacity. I kind of ignored them.
At the next stop, another horde of office goers made their way in. Phew! I was taken aback. How can they enter this jammed bus? It is as it is full to its capacity. Now I was the one who was resenting the new comers.

Above mentioned is not my story alone. Even you might have experienced this. This is what I call “Insider-Outsider dilemma”. A moment back I was the outsider, but after sometime I was promoted to be insider (or rather got promoted to one).
Every now and then we hear opportunistic popular leaders making the son-of-the-soil, Marathi manoos (in Marathi), Manning Maga (in Kannada) etc their election hot topic. And I have seen good educated people falling in to their charisma defying all logic and human values, and thus supporting the belligerent attitude of these leaders.
Who decides who is insider and who is outsider? Can such a distinction be made? Given the fact that place of one’s birth is a sheer accident, to which you absolutely don’t have any control. Migration is out of necessity- a means to survive when conditions for living become hostile at the place of birth. This is some kind of natural instinct, which is there even in animals, who migrate freely from place to place. So logically speaking there can be no insider-outsider, as no one can claim to be an insider.
To emphasize my point, let’s go back to Geology. Geologically, humans are the last species to have appeared on this planet earth. If complete Geological time is represented on a clock showing time in 24 hour format, then it can be said that humans appeared in the last two minutes!
So now can we, as humans, when compared with other species, claim to be insider? Certainly not! In spite of being an outsider, we had the audacity to threaten the insiders, drive them away from their home, and become de-facto owners! Good for humans that animal kingdom never had the leaders like ours :D

A famous( rather eccentric) Malayalam novelist Vaikyom Mohammed Bashir once revealed, in an article titled bhoomi yuday avagaashigal meaning “The inheritors of the Earth”, that he never disturbed the hordes of insects like cockroach, lizards, etc living in his residence, as he believed they are the true inheritors of the earth, and it would be injustice to drive them away!

"Specified cast is not valid"

Being a white collared cheap coolie, I get opportunity to work with some latest products of Microsoft. Of this my latest project demanded me to work on BizTalk Server 2009. Few weeks’ back I got a God-Damn bugging error with the name Specified cast is not valid. After some googling hacked out the solution for this.

But meanwhile I kept wondering had this landed on to some of our popular leaders in India, this error would have created havoc. Not to say the least, caste wars. Dalit heartthrob Mayawati and the Yadav duo surely would have problems with this message. To such an extent that, MS would have had to close their shops in India, for reasons they surely would not have anticipated while writing this error message. Not to say the least there is a difference of 'e' between Microsoft's 'cast' and India’s ‘caste’.

'Caste' has been one of the most intriguing social concepts to me. My tryst with caste was, way back when I was somewhere around 4-5 years of age. In those days we lived in some shanty government quarters in a village called Ozar some 20 kms from the pilgrimage city Nashik. There we lived in a 'salad bowl' society which actually represented India in true sense. You could see a Malayali, Sindhi, Tamil, Maharashtrian have a joint of cigarette together or A Sardar, Moslem, Christian or Hindu being a good friend (as shown in some Manmohan Desai flicks of 70's). The multi-ethnicity of my childhood society is subject matter of another blog post altogether.

So it happened that I was playing cricket with a boy of my age. But (as it usually happens while playing galli cricket) we ended up in a small altercation. This in turn resulted in each one calling his parent. So my dear Mommy came up for me on the ground and my adversary called his father. At that time his father yelled on to my mother " aap ka ladka 'caste' kay baray main bolta hain" Your son has insulted my lad by abusing him on his caste.

It was all Greek-Latin to me. What the heck is Caste? I never knew that until i learned about it in Social Studies much later when I was in eighth standard. My mother duly apologized the gentleman, and pulled me from the ground to home. She was pretty indignant at the happenings. She was all the more pained. How the hell can a 4 year old hurl humiliations and that too on some ones caste?

Switch on the "Head-Lights" first!

I had just been to celebrate one of my friends birthday at night; at a far-off place from the city. As I entered city on my bike I was met with the usual chaos and traffic. So much of pollution, pot holed roads, unruly traffic, corrupt and pot bellied RTO’s, a.k.a mama ...the feeling sucks even now!
As soon as I entered city, there a bike brushed me at lightning speed. Gosh! I was saved by skin of teeth. I thanked God and moved on. I just mumbled “Sons of those wretched wealthy business men enjoying there time on high end bikes and creating trouble for others!” But then in another two minutes two cars again went nicking me at 100 KMPH. I exclaimed "What’s wrong with people? Everyone is just coming and trying to hit me?” I was just thinking over it. Why people cannot follow simple traffic rules? Why cannot they drive carefully? I was cursing all those people who break traffic rules and make life mess for people like me!
Zoooooooooom!!! One more bike moved past me leaving me perspiring, only thing that I could hear was, was my heart beats…exploding like bombs. Then a Good Samaritan on another bike shouted “Switch on the head lights, you fool! Don't you understand that?"
Damn it! It struck me so late that I did not even start my headlights. Immediately switched on the headlights and reached home safely.
Sometimes in life we forget to switch on our "Head-Lights". We go on complaining that people are so bad, so cruel. There is no place for humanity. How can God be so heartless? How can he leave me on this cruel place to bear such ordeal?
We go on cribbing and cringing about everything, about the society, the corrupt system, the politicians, businessmen, bureaucrat, Boss at office, "Boss" at home, western culture and what not. At the same time we never bother to switch on the "Head-Lights". "Head-Lights" meaning asking yourself “Am I going wrong somewhere? Were these situations manifested by me? Did I attract this mess towards my self? Am I the actual trouble monger?” . In Buddha's words "Aatma Deepo Bhava" or be a light unto yourself. Being a light unto yourself means to light up Head's light. To contemplate, doubt the one who doubts the whole world outside. To question the one who always criticizes someone or the other i.e your mind.
Nature is constantly sending signals to switch on the "Head-Lights". Alas! To wander in wilderness has become our second nature.
P.S Actually I realised very late there was a typo in the name of the blog. It should have been Cogito ergo sum meaning "I Think therefore I am" and not codeto ergo sum. Because of the typo now it means "I code therefore I am :)". Nevertheless I would stay with the wrong one!