...but is that the answer? And if I do get off, where will I go? Aside from the Moon, Mars or... there are no desert islands left to run to any more!
I look around me at a world gone mad... taking me along with it... I am bombarded by moments and memories - conflicting and surreal, contradicting each other - leaving me exhausted trying to make sense of them all.
Which is the real India? Will the real India pleeeze stand up?
The in your face auto driver who speeds past my standing toes with millimetres to spare? Or the one who regales me with stories of how he is putting all his earnings into building a future for his three sons, one of whom is working and married at age 19; one who is going to college so he can become an IFS officer; and the youngest who will join the army.
Is it the mayhem in Mumbai? Those searing images of burning buildings, the iconic Taj and Oberoi exploding into the drawing rooms of millions of Indians, unctuous politicians, TRP hungry TV living off the public's hunger for information, sensationalism and the rage for retribution and justice?
Is it my 34 year old maid who got her daughters married off at the ages of 16/17 but is sending her young sons to boarding school so they can make something of themselves and are protected from the drug dealing, the violence, the disease and the corruption endemic in the chawls of our big cities?
Or is it India "shining" - with her urban youth running helter-skelter, at warp speed, hungry for fame and fortune leaving in the dust the controls and traditions beloved off their parents, into a bright, golden future which is now collapsing around them in glittering shards of broken dreams?
Or could it it be that India, populated by a people who still believe in making vows to the "powers that be" if their son, daughter, husband or any other family member is saved from a death dealing illness and who do the rounds of dargahs, temples and self-serving, saffron-robed holy men to ensure that their dreams come true?
Or is it the star-spangled denizens of Bollywood, the Page 3 movers and shakers, around whom acolytes revolve in ever faster circles pulling vast swathes of Indians, young and old, into a maelstrom of idol worship and adulation?
Or finally, is it the India that has been suddenly reborn, that has emerged Phoenix-like from the ashes of the death and destruction that has rained down on all of us; young, angry, justice-seeking, won't put-up-with-all-this-crap-any more India, that has taken to the streets, roads, lanes, parks and highways... demanding answers, action, a complete over-haul of the body politic; a young, vibrant, finally coming of age India asking that the India of all our dreams (for the last 60 plus years) finally become a realty the way our founding fathers had envisaged it to be at the midnight hour of 15th August, 1947?
Which is the real India? And is it now time for her to actually emerge from the shadows and take her place in the sun? Are we finally going to keep our tryst with destiny?
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It’s like a leitmotif in your blog… this unique feeling described only by the headiness of teetering between deep despair, the desire to destroy [there should be a more potent, more wholly destructive word for it] and a helpless neediness for Delhi auto drivers, na?
Clearly, there are bombs because somewhere, someone was traumatised by a Dilli autowalla.
But what shall we do when you run away to Dubai, Rita darling? No rusks, no Obama updates, no Delhi roadway chronicles and no tales of neighbourly suspicion from the heart of mini Bengal! Gah.
-- H, with a heartburn [literally] from the desk across.
[I meant to be more erudite and intellectual about The Real India. But. Breaking news today has me all weepy over rusk :-( ]
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