"Echuse Me"

The title is the distorted version of ‘excuse me’ – culled out from a once- popular malayalam comedy (film), which I had seen many years back. A non-speaking protagonist, tries to get the attention of the girl who he has been eyeing by saying ‘echuse me.’

The term still exists in the local vocabulary, and has even crossed the ocean and has settled among a few in the nearby island. It has travelled from a Malayalam film to the movie-going local community, and outside its boundaries through the galaxy of Mallus (malayalees) scattered all over, who use it to denote embarrassment, mistake or to hell with it… lighten a situation!

Call it globalization or universalization ( if that means something) . I have two feet. You will not deny that I know! But I like to be figurative here. One of my feet is in the land of Ravana, the Usurper (if only Valmiki knew how heavenly this land is) ; and the other in the land of the Usurped. India. Now, should I say, which India, as we have more than 20 Indias packed into one democratic package? So while I hop between the two, I get to see a few changing shades…

Needless to say, we have humour – in our movies, literature, our lives…

But my brethren, I have a few things reeling in my head.

I was at the Hyderabad airport a few weeks back. My first visit. Having heard about the state-of-the-art airport since its inauguration, I was looking forward to landing there. I was rewarded for my expectations. There was order – a break from chaos; passengers too looked quite content, and patient. No yelling by those in the uniform. No staring. No confusion. This is another India. I had just left from another India, Trivandrum. Each time, it takes me by surprise – can’t complain! But one thing runs common at all times – the fleecing.

My comrade, I am not against your –ism, but I sure have a problem with your fleecing policy.

Your –ism speaks of a classless society. My utopian thoughts just get on wings with this, as I also hope for such a society. But you behave in a way that distances you from the public, from the people, from us. Your attitude creates a new class – the fleeced. This includes tourists, people returning homes, those who help run the economy through remittances, those who leave their loved ones and go far away, not necessarily by choice, but by compulsion, not because they love to, because they have to…. When they touch your land, and come under your skies, you put a prize to them. You don’t even ask, you demand; you fleece. Politeness is not your forte at those moments. You decide the fleecing fee by the size of the baggage. The larger the baggage, greater the fleece! Isn’t this an organized form of crime, done in a nicer manner? And dear comrade, I am not talking only about the airports… you are at your worst at the railway station where the passenger does not even get a chance to get down with the luggage – you snatch and put a price for snatching and, thereafter, for a self-imposed luggage carrying!

More than a decade of regular landing and taking off from Trivandrum airport, have only seen me witness this phenomenon increase and that too blatantly. As I land now, by default, I take extra-precaution not to get into the fleecing lobby. Please don’t get me wrong. I am willing to pay; but hesitant to be fleeced.

With a brain attuned to this lobby, my fleece-resistance program was re-booted on landing at the Hyderabad airport. ‘Keep a watch.’ A helper, took out my luggage and my fleece-resistant heart started to pound. Now, what next? How much? Will my luggage be kind of forcibly lugged out for a price? The next moment was one that made me so small and him so tall! After carefully keeping my luggage on the trolley, he smiled. “Have a safe stay madam, you may go ahead now.”

Having felt being slapped on both cheeks simultaneously, I walked out like one who was just publicly embarrassed.

This kept me thinking, my comrade.

I respect the lofty ideals of your doctrine. Its philosophy. Its philanthropy. But are you not practicing something different?

Is the cost of living to be blamed for your fleecing? Are we not equally affected by it so? I too wish to have a society with equal rights, dignity and respectability. Don’t you think, for this, one of the primary attributes is to accord dignity to a vocation? Shouldn’t we forget the collars and their colours? Shouldn’t we think your job is as important as mine? Why would you think mine is better than yours then, which gives you the right, the freedom to fleece mine and others? Why can’t we respect each other and why should we always fall into a class? Can we standardize the rates for your labour, just as my employer gives me a wage limit? Why won’t you let someone from ‘another India’ drive into my garden and unload the stuff I have trucked from miles away?

If you and I are on the voters list, if you and I get to live close by, if you and I get to travel in the same bus seated together, why should we be antagonists in a changing, moving society? Echuse me, comrade….