Freshers and Recollections - IV

Ten years ago, the concern was for feeding the unquenchable faculties and scoring well in the monotonous exams. It has changed for many today. For me, it has digress out of the mark scoring game to extend beyond and outside the annual affairs. Besides the proletariatquest for bread and butter, the inevitable life's struggle has brought us in confrontation with things that ought to matter. Rights. Plights.Under-reported as well as unreported issues.Reasoning vision.Visioning reason. Unrepresented people. Unaccounted people. Juggled lives. The youthful dream of "settling down" in the old man's manner took a backseat. It would be a dead man's choice from the depth of the pond to repeat the blunder as the ideal one. New time. New generation. Everything new. That's what awaits the fresher's today. CCR would call us fortunate sons and daughters. No time for war. No call for war even. Not ready to become a warrior even. The bloody battle cannot fit into the new consciousness to seduce anymore. The war and battle lines and scenes have changed. We have stepped into the new war. Now we are already part of it too. Bloodless battle. Colourless war. We have arrived. Have we? The question still has to be asked. However, coming to Delhi alone is not a fit case to announce our arrival. It takes more than seeing a congested city, big and wide metalled flyover, metro train or eating ice-cream from McDonalds to have us arrived. Arriving is an endless journey where, at times, it is more difficult to say where we are. From the royal-game of peacock hunting to cyber-romancing and getting the Book translated and making the seat of the white and brown Mughals into our own's nest, the journey is taking us to certain arrival points. From the "dark" "head-hunting" days to the speedy cyber transitions, the shift is already outside the stagnation. Cross- cultured Eves and resilient Adams are the new offspring.From withstanding the angered "Bahadur" or "Chinese" phase to educating the ounce of the billion race about us with our presence, we have come to a point where we could say that we have seen them all. Many a times i told myself that the billion race resembled the Biblical Thomas. They still could not believe us to be from the other parts of India even after seeing and hearing about it. Ignorance is not blissful always.
Our arrival to the Capital city and other metros coincides with the Chinese dumping of commercial goods that still flood Indian markets. Sometimes i wonder if the cheap and easy availability of Chinese goods has anything to do with the others perception of us as a "cheap" or "easy" tribe. The hurdles that freshers today may not get to experience was negotiated with a harsh bargain. It was negotiated the rough and tough way. If we could add colour, it was more than the black and white or grey. It was red too. Too red that it becomes racist. Despite the decades that it has taken, it would be too early to say if it was a win-win situation or a give and take barter that we have carved out of it. Many a times, the exchange negates humanity or any human touch. Sometimes it is a wonder how we could afford to exercise them without reminding ourselves of the human we are. The new generation bear the responsibilties to stress on living a more human life. Imagine life without the need for a barrelled justice. Without hate and threat. Without poking differences to make a bruise and scar out of it. It is the fresher's turn to make a beautiful change.