Significance of a song!

In the highway, in the hedges, in the highway, in the hedges…. I’ll be somewhere working, I’ll be somewhere working…. I’ll be somewhere working for my lord.

Ok. I’ll not talk about the news. Bala Saheb, to Test Victory, to Ajmal Kasab and what now. The world it seems have been busy. But I have no feel of it. You know why? Because 6 months back, I took a huge decision of my life – to get rid of my TV connection. I can’t tell you what sort of a hell you guys are living in with that thing in your living room. I now know why the elite urban middle class of India can never enjoy nature, or empathize with the so called lower class – because they don’t see them, because they are busy watching TV, even when they are not watching it. Yes, yes.. you are right. I am a communist 🙂

Ok. I’ll not talk about politics. Politics is insignificant, like money. I see the bemused look on your face. Yes money is insignificant. Not because we don’t need it, but because the things we want are usually not significant. The traditional religious ones say “kya lekar aaye the, kya lekar jana hai” … but that’s not my point. My point is – money has very less contribution to my quality of life RIGHT NOW. No, not in the future or the past, not in the abstract, but right now, in tangible form – it has very very little effect on my “quality of life”. I realized this during my last-three-year-stint at remotely managing our family farms in Vidarbha. One of our on-ground managers, earns close to 60,000 rupees a year, lives in a 3000 sq foot house built on land, eats healthy fresh vegetables, has three cows giving ample milk and dahi and ghee. I earn some n-times more than him, but I’m poorer than him. And I want to be rich. But money is not the only thing I need to earn. Yes, yes.. you are right. I am retrograde. 🙂

Ok. Back to politics. Like money has very little effect on quality of life, similarly politics has very little effect on the country. That’s why they need the media. To make them ‘sound’ significant. Think about it. Without Indira Gandhi – there would have been no License Raj – people would have been free to enterprise, and we would have taken care of our good living. Manmohan Singh’s great deed of liberalization would not have been needed. The political forces just cancel each other’s effects. We people go on with our lives and make our own living environments (You can call them markets, communities, cultures – whatever). If there is something the state does, it hinders. I know, I know … you all are going to scare me with, the system breaking down, and chaos, and anarchy, and disease, and law and order situation and what not. I am too much an Indian to get scared by that. Keep a hand on your heart, and tell me – do you really think the law and order is okay because of the government? Do you really think human nature needs a 60 year old book to organize itself? Yes, yes … I am an anarchist. 🙂

If you are wondering why I started the post with that song, it’s because that song is from a George Clooney film. 🙂