When I was a kid , my neighbourhood had a hero. He was your conventional good guy- convent educated, his dad worked to the bones at a welder's shop, his mom an ideal example of a caring housewife. When we used to complaint of humidity and boredom on powerless, summer evenings, our mothers used to point in the direction of hero's terrace, where a single kerosene lamp stood as the beacon of hope and struggle against the apathy of a failed state called Bihar.
The hero validated the reasons why people quoted him as an example. The hero strove against what held him back, fought his way through the milling crowds of the great Indian Engineering Bazaar - those were not the days when private colleges sprouted by dozens everyday. He made it to RVC Bangalore ,an achievement considering that his dad did not have enough money to send him to one of those purportedly meritocratic, exorbitantly priced coaching institutes in Delhi or Kota. He passed out as a computer engineer, landed up at IBM (when narrating the enormity of this achievement, his dad always had to append a short introduction to what IBM was to the ignoramuses around us). They had tears in their eyes when he sent them their first Air Deccan ticket from Pune to Bangalore,and even the fact that they would have to scamper for seats and book them by placing their handkerchiefs and water bottles was not a deterrent.
Here was the man who had made the first transition. One who till yesterday, like us lived in the world of kerosene lamps and serpentine queues in front of municipal taps. He does have company in the hall of fame. Like him, there exist many such heroes who rose up from less than $2 a day existence to the young urban professional bracket. Thirty of them come each year from a single coaching institute in Patna and hundreds of them put up in rooster coops without a clear demarcation between living room and lavatory in "guest lodges"of Bokaro.
We are a liberal society, free market is our new gospel. Yes, indeed this is the age of choice, of thin possible chances. It is the age of the possible, whatever the motivations of those who make it possible may be. A random police constable from the north-east can turn into a celebrity singer and a sweeper-woman's son who does not know who his father is can become an IAS officer. The chances still are slim though. Maybe one in a thousand. There is a world that beckons you beyond the chasm that separates the fortunate and unfortunate. The odds at you succeeding are no better than that of a male Salmon that traverses the Pacific into the river streams of Canada in search of mate. A finite probability for the provincial middle class is an overwhelming incentive over the grudging compromises they had learnt to make for centuries. Yes, the pioneers in the other world may just be the marginally better servants of the people who still call the shots, but hold on! - we are compromising, tolerant and adaptive people.
Consider scenario B, the Hero kid passes out as an engineer and comes back to suburban Bokaro.
He makes a crazy decision. He is not going to let another kid wear eye-distorting lenses exhausting his vision in feeble lamplight. He rallies against the rampant power theft and negligence of the State electricity board. He files and RTI , turns an activist.
- Case 1: He gains superficial sympathy for his intent but is told in firm tones to desist from indulging in fixing what can't be mended.For the lure of a better life to motivate kids in the community there must be a worse life they ought to live through, right? He falls out with his family, loses credibility in the marriage bazar and finally slips down from the status of a Bechara Bhala Aadmi to Eccentric jhola chaap activist. He is no longer somebody you should emulate.
- Case 2: The hero is a bit more adventurous. Wants to pull down the curtains on a lot of shady things in his feudal universe. He knows far too much . He is bumped off. Bechara bhala aadmi had turned sanki and it couldn't be held. Adventurism has its limits and needs to be channelized in proper directions. Like preparing for CAT or getting a high paid job.
There would be no one who would be encouraged to take up the alternate scenario. We are risk averse, non-confrontational people.The risks we intend to take are the risks are ancestors have taken.Bearing it all with equanimity.
There are rewards for this risk too. Visible rewards of a world of cosmopolitan cities, quick dollars, splurge happy markets. Our heroes are not just doughty warriors, they are great escapists too.
Every culture has its heroes. Ours are ones that have risen over their limitations, the ones that left behind the spectre of a crumbling world behind.
The problem is in the strait jacketing of our idols. We fete anyone who made it through the middle passage between the two worlds and surely, nothing can be taken away from their achievements. They are inspirational in their own right. But it is our pity at the naivete of those who stay behind to change the world they lived in that frustrates me. Escape along the well-worn paths is the only path to glory and social respect.
No wonder, this system is self perpetuating. Since nobody wants to stay behind and fix it , our chances of producing a hero remain in thousandths or millionths. And since one who succeeds is one among those millions, his status as the champion remains sacrosanct.
Signing off
Shailesh
