It was quiet a mercurial day in the sporadic rains of Delhi, much unlike the unbridled romance of new lover, more like the restrained affection of long married wife, some rare drizzle in the morning, and long period of unapologetic bright sun. It was Rakshabandhan, the festival celebrating the love of a sister for a brother, expressed through the sacred thread tied on the wrist of the brother, an ancestor to Friendship Bands popularized by Messers Archies, with a sisters way of protecting the brother from the dangers associated with protecting a sister, in turn. Sweet occasion, which I would dare not call orthodox in today's world with every calender day marked as mother's day, father's day and even the cute-little-bird-on-my-balcony day; you name a day, they have it, but that is another discussion.
As we have it, my friend did not turn up, as he did not find my proposition of travelling to Rishikesh in line with his idea of a vacation, so I slept late, and eventually when I did get up for too much of sleep (yes, there is something like too much of good thing like sleep), I kept myself on the bed working on a presentation for an upcoming tender. Eventually, my cousin sister, arrived after half the day was lost in sleep. Good to see her happy and confident, after continued occupation for eight months, sweetened by an inter-Alia salary hike. So we went through the solemn event, she putting vermilion on my forehead and once through we set out for lunch, a Chinese lunch at Chi-bar. It has a college canteen like feel with wooden tables.
Post lunch, decided to go watch a movie, and settled on Aarakshan, starring the great Amithabh Bachchan in a towering performance. Little mild, if compared to Khakee, but still miles ahead of his other co-stars. It was striking movie, handling a complex topic, though slightly simplistic in its attempt at resolution. However, unlike what the name promised, it touched the matter of reservation only briefly, and touched more on the Commercialization of education. But then with reservation as mainstay, Prakash Jha could release movie with some protest, with Education as theme, he probably would have faced defamation from renowned director of renowned institute, through without regulatory approvals, currently busy suing search engines. The subject is timely, looking at the current case happening in Bangalore wherein an institute proposes to offer engineering degree..hold your breath..on line. Only argument I had was when Amitabh says that reservation is the only way out given that no work was done in initial sixty years. But then no work was done on communication network for first sixty years, so all who did not have phone should have got it free or should it have been done the way it has been. Sixty years is too small a time in the life of the nation, and if we have missed something for first sixty years, we must not offer our leaders a short-cut way to escape the responsibility. If the educational infrastructure was not put in place in initial sixty years, there is no point in offering reservation as an apology. It means, it is the time to start with the hard work, politely walk out of CWG and spend 79000 Crores to public education so that reservation becomes redundant. Anyways, it is a complex matter, and I have comments which will take more space, given the imaginary Don Quixotic fights that our dalit leaders have undertaken on national and state and college levels. I have been told by people of caste-wise downtrodden class and economically affluent and socially powerful class, that they do not want to work in private sector as they will not get good job due to their surname, I do not carry a surname, which would denote a caste and it has never been hindrance. In light of which, I can not but doubt their contention and would rather believe they are trying to hide behind it because essentially their interest was more in getting a government job, and strictly not for the Miss India like reasons of working for the "poor and down-trodden." All I wanted to put in here is the question which kept on hitting me as I watched the movie, which is the title of the blog.
I looked at Deepika Padukone, and every time she called out to Amitabh, her father in the movie, as "Baba" the memory of my twinkle eyes floated before me. The twinkle eyes, pinky toes child of mine so terribly engulfed my mind and that I could no longer watch the movie as a political narrative that it is, but rather as a movie dealing with the story of a daughter's relation with her aging father with the spine of a young man, with political questions a merely a backdrop to it. I have no idea if the movie was like that, or it was my thinking which made it so. What will my daughter think of me as, will she remember me as a supplicant member of a decaying society, or will she think of me as a principled, unyielding man. On scene which particularly touched me was when overwhelmed by her father's righteousness she fights with him, only to later realize and come back and embrace him. Will my daughter embrace me thus, in spite of my idiosyncrasies, when she grows up? I do not know if it is right to have those questions, every young soul grows up differently and has different way of looking at things. But I do believe, it is important for every father to look at himself from the eyes of his child as it will definitely make him want to be a better person, and if every father were to do so we will have a society of gentlemen. I think, my daughter has touched lovingly every part of my thought and that shows in the way I think, because, even when I had watched "The Mask of Zorro" couple of days back, I was touched less by Zorro's fight against injustice, but more by older Zorro's relation with her free-spirited daughter. I love you my daughter, for you make me want to be a better person, and am so blessed to have you in my life
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