Civic sense? In India?!

In its October 27th edition, The Telegraph of Calcutta carried an editorial titled Stubborn Stain, covering the highlights of the first ever survey of civic behavioral attitudes in this country, and ranking the states according to how they fared overall. The survey was carried out by India Today. Look up this link before it vanishes. 

The subject of the survey has always been close to my heart, and I have written again and again here, much more scathingly than the editorial writer does. I have very firmly held since I just stepped out of teenage that in order to ever truly become a 'developed' nation, India should concentrate far more on educating and policing a civic-minded citizenry, and not just obsess with capital accumulation, technological advancement and administrative efficiency. Next to the monstrous burden of overpopulation, it is a pervasive lack of good manners and civic sense at every social stratum  that has been holding us back all along (we steal mugs from train washrooms and towels from posh hotels with equal insouciance, so for heaven's sake don't blame it all on 'lack of education'), and it is so hardwired into our genes (or social tradition for choice) that only the rare individual is different from the herd, and suffers tremendously in an atmosphere where virtually everybody is rude, noisy, aggressive, shameless, grasping, ostentatious about power and money, and completely uncaring about social responsibility of any kind. Most certainly the kind of 'education' we give our children does not even aim to make good citizens, regardless of which social background they come from. In fact, mummy cares only that her son may get ahead in life, and is actually delighted if the neighbour's son falls behind!

The survey is based on responses given by 9000-odd citizens from 21 states and one Union Territory. They were questioned about their attitudes to all kinds of unsocial (not to say anti-social) behaviour, from ugly gender-attitudes and public littering to open urination to flouting traffic rules, jumping queues and 'enjoying' themselves regardless of all the noise pollution they cause (I wish they had asked a question about cheating in exams). I am sure that if a hundred times more respondents had been quizzed, the findings would only have been more strongly reinforced. India is, overall, a very ill-mannered country, very difficult and even dangerous to live in: but there are wide variations among states. I am glad, and a little surprised, to see that West Bengal ranks pretty high on the list, i.e., reasonably well-behaved - as compared only to other Indians, mind you. Knowing WB as well as I do, I could only roll my eyes thinking about how bad things must be in the states which ranked lowest.

Two questions arise - two questions that every  minister, MP, MLA and city councillor should think about as much as every parent and school headmaster and examination board: a) why are good manners and civic sense important, nay essential for national progress, and b) how can we ensure that future generations will grow up much better in these respects than their parents and grandparents?

The answer to the first question is so startlingly, embarrassingly simple that most people just don't get it (though many of them have PhDs). Virtually all of us, except the most deluded and perverted, want others to treat us well, right? - keep appointments on time, check our exam answer scripts mindfully and honestly, give us just the right medical treatment without trying to fleece us, not  push us aside in queues, not make us the victims of their road rage, not insult and humiliate and hurt our womenfolk, not overburden our streets with garbage and worse, not steal whatever valuables we leave behind in a moment of forgetfulness, not disrespect our privacy and right to peace and quiet, not insult or threaten us when we have done them no harm... etc etc? Well, why on earth can't we see that if we don't give that kind of courtesy and consideration to others, we have no right to expect the same from them? And if this most important of all social lessons is not drummed early and daily into children's heads by parents and primary school teachers, how on earth can we expect them to grow up into anything better than civic nuisances and menaces, with their conception of their 'right' to ignore and offend and discomfit and hurt others increasing in proportion with the rise of their self-perceived 'importance' (I am the local dada with fifty goons under my command/ I am a doctor-IITian-IPS-MP/I am a cricket- or movie superstar/ Do you know how rich my father is? That is all the licence I need to misbehave, that is what democracy means to me).

The answer to the second question derives directly from the first. If our rulers, thought leaders and parents took the matter as seriously as it deserves, they would arrive at a consensus over two things at once: a) that 'education', from now on, must mean above and beyond everything else a training in good manners and consideration for others (and parents must be held to be just as culpable if things go wrong as everybody else in charge of youth), and b) the laws, and the way people are policed must be reasonably, democratically made, but rigidly implemented without fear or favour, with the elite (meaning everyone from prime minister to headmaster to parents at home) setting examples by humbly obeying the laws and paying the penalties for breaking them exactly like all ordinary folks (remember Rishi Sunak quietly paying a traffic fine to a humble police constable? Can we even imagine an Indian PM doing the same? I have heard that when there is a railway accident in Japan, the chairman of the railways publicly apologizes and resigns. In India, we at most suspend or dismiss a poor signalman. Maybe that's the most important reason why we have accidents so much more often than in Japan?). That is the only way a real democracy can survive and flourish. Otherwise, we shall implode sooner or later, when everybody, frustrated beyond toleration, begins to take the law into their own hands, and society dissolves rapidly into anarchy, to be followed inevitably by some sort of tyranny.

I can vouch that all my life most of my suffering, other than from illness, has come from people treating me rudely, cheating me or trying to push me aside from getting my dues. The worst consequence of this is that even the individual who is instinctively quiet, shy and gentle gets a raw deal, until he is forced to become harsh and pushy and threatening himself. That, to a large extent, is my life story. I wish it were otherwise: I was not born that way, and I am not proud that so many people have learnt to fear and avoid my tongue-lashing. A soft bodied animal has to grow a hard and prickly shell for self-preservation. 

Let me end with a little story. I was standing in front of a bank manager as though I had nothing else to do that whole day, waiting for him to sign me off with a new cheque book (in those days you couldn't get these things done online). The fellow, well aware that a customer was standing in front of him (with a large picture of Gandhiji on the wall behind saying 'The customer is God'), was chatting away merrily on the phone about utter trifles with some family member. He didn't have the courtesy even to ask me to sit down, let alone ask me what I needed. Familiar experience for many readers, isn't it? Finally, exasperated (and since I was running out of time for doing all the other chores scheduled for that morning), I cleared my throat and said, rather loudly I'm afraid, 'Excuse me, my name is Suvro Chatterjee, known as Suvro Sir, can I...?' Believe it or not, the man jumped out of his seat, cut the phone line, ran around his table to pull out a chair for me, and bleated, 'Ehe Sir, agey bolben toh' (So sorry, why didn't you say so earlier?') and yelled to some peon to bring me tea. My job was done in five minutes. The reason for the magical transformation? He had apparently registered his son's (or daughter's) name for admission to my class the next year, but never met me in person. So that's how we decide whom to behave well with. As for whom to ignore or grind under the heel, we all know how we decide that, don't we?

As I said before, knowing India as I do, I am very cynical about whether we shall ever reach true democratic civilization. But I am sure glad that some people are at least taking the trouble to bring these issues out in the open. It's not just me any more.

What's your work/life balance?

There has been a lot of chatter lately on - where else - social media about how important the idea of work/life balance is, and how relevant it is to being 'successful' in life. GenZ appears to be particularly interested. 'There should be only four-day, thirty hour work weeks for all', some are clamouring, while others want you to work 90 hours or more. 

I found the discussion rather pointless, not because there is anything wrong with the idea itself, but the fact that most people who are offering strong opinions seem to have forgotten that this is a very, very personal thing, and there is no one-size-fits-all prescription that could work for everybody, no matter what every 'influencer' seems to think. This is not to say that I don't have a very definite opinion about it myself (and I have held firmly to it since long before the first GenZ kid was born); it only means that I should not want to impose it on anybody, just so long as they don't want to impose theirs on me.

There appears to me to be several different categories of people with definite opinions on the subject, depending on their psychological orientation and their own life experience. 

There are first, the workaholic millionaires and billionaires, who proudly ascribe all their worldly success to their working non-stop, virtually until they drop dead. I admire some of them, especially if they are doing something meaningful and still at it into their eighties and nineties (Bernie Sanders, Clint Eastwood, Sir David Attenborough), but of course I don't see eye to eye with them. Firstly, it is not true that you have to be a slogger in order to become very rich - a lot of people have done so by inheriting fortunes or winning lotteries or getting lucky at the stock market or only occasionally producing masterpieces of art and scientific inventions and so on. Secondly, most sloggers still die poor - witness all the labourers and farmers throughout history: that's a sad fact, but life gives very few people a fair deal. Thirdly, it's dangerous: I know, and have heard of, far too many people who have actually dropped dead or become invalids early in life through over-exertion. And fourthly, it all applies to only a very narrow band of (ignorant? unconscious? silly?) people who limit their whole idea of 'success' to making money, not even thinking of keeping time aside to the necessity of enjoying that money (what will I do with a vast fortune if I cannot eat and sleep and travel and rest all I want, maintain good health for a long time, have good conversations and read a lot of good books, watch a lot of excellent movies, listen to a lot of fine music, be at the side of loved ones when they need me?). I find them pitiable at best and disgusting at worst, no matter how much money they have. Besides, it's usually their wives and children who get all the fun...

Secondly, there are the rascally tycoons who want you - the miserable plodder who keeps his nose to the grind to earn at best a modest middle-class living with no long-term security - to go on working harder and harder so that you have no life left to live, and their vast piles of  filthy lucre can grow larger and larger. Without mincing words, they are vermin, true enemies of the people; keep a long list of their names for the time when the Revolution comes.

Thirdly, there are people who are caught in soul-drying, dead end, seemingly pointless jobs (usually ill-paying to boot) - I'm sure I can put thousands of jobs in that category - and find even a 9 to 5, six days a week schedule suffocating and increasingly intolerable: if they are too timid or unable to find better alternatives, I shall only sympathize with them, not advise them to work more. Those who enjoy the work they are doing will automatically work hard: you don't have to tell them; sometimes you should tell them instead to slow down and smell the flowers.

Fourthly, there are people who are inveterate shirkers, bone lazy, people who hate the very idea of having to work. Unfortunately - in this country at least - there are far too many of them, and they can only be whipped into working at all, so in this case all my sympathy is reserved for the managers who must keep slave-driving them. Their ideal work/life 'balance', after all, would be, if possible, sleep all through the day when they are not chatting or revelling or getting stone drunk, while daddy or mummy or the wife keeps slogging to put food on the table...

Even those who in their youth are working hard and doing well, materially speaking, need occasionally to hear a word of caution: don't work so hard at your job that time flies by and many of the most important responsibilities, such as raising children well and attending well to old parents, are not properly taken care of. And if you have worked hard and saved well throughout your adult life, the work/life balance should tilt further and further towards enjoying your leisure and fulfilling many of your long-held dreams - if you have anything like a decent pension, going on making more money in your old age is a sad frittering away of all the opportunities that life throws at you.

You could think of a few more types, but I think I have made my point: the same formula does not suit everybody; we are not identical and simple robots. Some readers, I can visualize, will scratch their heads and say 'I didn't think so much about it!' Exactly. That is why it is not good to dwell too long on social media 'debates': better learn to think and decide for yourself. It's your life.

The hills once again

Beginning 1971, when I was all of eight years old, I have been visiting north Bengal continually but after long intervals. This year I did it twice. I went visiting the Dooars in late February, and I have just spent a week in the hills again. 

As always, I begin to grumble three months before the pujo that I am having difficulty deciding where I should go to escape Bengal's annual madness, and which of my favourites I can take along for enjoyable company. This time round I couldn't confirm with anybody other than Arka Choudhury (who had accompanied my family on a day's road trip along with his batchmate Saikat back in 2010), and though I made all the bookings in late July to be on the safe side, the outgoing tickets on the Vande Bharat Express were put on the wait list, and I had to hold my breath till ten days before the journey to learn that they had been confirmed. Then, after sending off my mother to stay with her brother and some friends in Kolkata (more and more I hate to leave her alone for any length of time, though there are a lot of people around to keep an eye on her), I set off at dawn on Sunday the 28th September (shoshthi), and took the train from Bolpur, arriving on time at New Jalpaiguri. The station, being reconstructed, is a mess right now, and the sun was blazing. The pre-arranged driver dropped us off at the oldest homestay (large and lavish enough to be called a hotel, actually) in Teenchuley just after sunset. 

The room was big and cosy, with a sun lounge looking down on the twinkling lights of Kalimpong; the surroundings were quiet, clean and lush green, with the forest beginning within a hundred yards from the gate, the sky alternated between overcast and azure, the food was mouth watering, the service was excellent, so I would have been in seventh heaven had it not been for all the chatter from the adjoining rooms, clearly audible through the paper thin wooden walls. But there was some compensation: my next door boarder complimented me unasked about the quality of my voice that he had overheard, and, a little taken aback, I couldn't think of a better way to thank him than to send him a link to my YouTube storytelling channel via Whatsapp. The host - probably my age, but cheery and sprightly - treated us to beer and a few songs one evening, and I made friends with two young locals of my daughter's generation whose courtesy, English and general knowledge of the world won my admiration. We spent the days eating, sleeping late, chatting and wandering about the very steep roads or getting our breath back sitting on tree stumps inside the pine forest. It was as relaxing and enchanting as could be.

Around eight on Wednesday morning we drove off to Tukvar. We had to pass through teeming and hyper-congested Darjeeling on the way, and it was a nightmare: of the three-hour journey, just crossing the town took an hour and a half. All our old and classic hill stations are now bursting at the seams; I have heard it's the same in Nainital and Mussoorie and Shimla, and I had exactly the same experience at Ooty last year. Anyway, Tukvar is a steep climb down from Darjeeling, and it was beautifully unspoilt and quiet and clean again, nestled among tea gardens offering fleeting views of mighty Kanchanjungha when the clouds cleared. This time the homestay was a humble affair, but the host was most decent and friendly, and the hospitality was earnest and very good, so the two-day stay was once again very pleasant, especially every time I recalled the crowds and traffic and noise that I had escaped. On Friday we rose and left early to avoid the Darjeeling jams and drove off to Bhalukhop on the other side of Kalimpong, which I had liked very much the last time, and spent another peaceful day among the clouds, though there was a bit of unpleasantry over dinner, which I shall gloss over.

On Saturday we left early again, because it was very foggy and overcast, and drizzling all the way. The weather app predicted heavy thunderstorms. Our luck held, and we arrived early at NJP, which was already waterlogged. A plain and leisurely lunch at a streetside eatery, squelching through the mud and slush, then we were on the train. It arrived at Bolpur only a few minutes late, and Firoz brought us safely home, though ugly and cacophonous bhasaan jatras held us up on the way and even late at night. But we were very, very lucky: that same night the hills and roads we had traversed were flooded, and as everybody has heard by now, landslides have claimed many lives and injured far more. Evidently Ma Durga was looking after me, or I have accumulated a lot of good karma!

I must thank young Arka for being a very good travelling companion. I only pray that his snoring problem goes away! And also many, many thanks to my old friend Subir Dubey for suggesting such lovely places to visit. I only so wish he could have come along with his magical flute and harmonica.

These breaks are vital to my well-being, but travelling during holiday times is becoming more and more irksome every year. I wonder what I am going to do as I grow older. Perhaps taking refuge in the rural homes of people who care for me, with no amenities whatsoever beyond the peace and solitude they offer, would be the best option. Meanwhile, one thing is certain - excessive 'development' is ruining this country and bringing us closer to danger and disaster. I have read about locals in old and scenic towns all over Europe beginning to protest loudly against the tourism 'invasion', and I won't be surprised if the people of the hills in India join them in the not too distant future.

For photos, click here.