Dear Mr. Chief Minister

Dear Mr Chief Minister,

Good Evening Sir. Hope you are doing fine. It is 6.45 pm as I sit in front of my 22’’ LCD computer screen in my one BHK apartment and write to you.

BHK means Bedroom, Hall and Kitchen but don’t let the word ‘apartment’ mislead you with any illusions of grandiose. The kitchen and the bathroom are there but the bedroom and the hall are the one and the same. I like to use the word apartment as it makes me feel rich.

My name is …

Oh god!! ‘Belan wali aunty’ is at it again! No respite from this woman! The rhythmic motion of the belan pounding against the wall and the orchestra of vessels being thrown around create mild tremors in my eardrums.

‘Belan wali aunty’ is actually a late 20 something didi who looks like she is touching forty like most Indian ‘aunties’ who have gone through the vagaries of a housewife’s life at an early age.

Through my open window I can hear the screams and screeches of the neighbourhood children who are trying to untangle a kite which has got caught in the mass of wires which mark the electric pole. Numerous mother-in-laws and daughter-in –laws have also assembled outside their respective houses to discuss and exchange recipes, menus and gossip. The bhel puri wala and the golgappa (or pucchka as we call it) wala are the new entrants in the scene.

Sorry, so as I was about to say, I am one of those many youthful nobodies that left my state long time ago in search of some golden elixir of life and I am a resident of inconsequential galli in nameless nagar in one of the metro cities of the country.

I live in a one BHK apartment with two lizards, a computer, lots of porn movies and little peace of mind. Now before you make up your mind that I am a horny bastard, let me tell you that in a world full of glib talkers and fake health insurance sellers, the only honest profession left is pornography. No hassles of caste, creed, language, religion or nationality. Cum and leave. No questions asked. Porn stars are the only true diplomats left in the world.

Let me formally introduce myself now. My name is … actually why should my name matter? You can rightfully assume that I am just nobody. At least till now, in name and deed I am nobody. I haven’t won an election nor have I won any reality show or ‘talent hunt show’. I am not terribly good at anything since childhood and now since I pushing towards the thirties the hopes of becoming good are also fast fading. Perhaps with your grace and favour, I will soon become somebody. I have heard that you have turned many nobody’s into somebody’s.

However, at the same time I do not belong to that exotic breed of species called ‘common man’. I am very uncommon because I think for myself and sometimes for others too which are definitely not characteristics of the common man.

I haven’t told you about my profession. Just because I happen to have a computer please do not mistake me to be one of those IT guys or worse still a MBA guy; the real ‘desh ka bhavishya’ and the ‘youth of the nation’. - The ones with those shiny cars, rolex watches and trophy wives / GFs whose idea of recreation is to go sightseeing to malls on weekends or visit some fancy restaurant. I try to write and I struggle while doing so. Hence, let me designate myself as a ‘struggling writer’.

It’s been ten years since I left ‘sonar asom’ in search of ‘greener pastures’ like many lucky northeasterners. I work 12 hours a day in hopes of minting money and going up the ladder in the rat race. There are many others like me. We were lucky. Some have escaped for good. Some like me are in two minds. With a little help from you I could make it back.

My Assamese is not too ‘refined’ if you may call it. Nor is my Tamil, Telegu or Marathi for that matter. Sometimes I want to be cool and say “Yo bro, am glocal”, but after eating wada pav and idli sambar for a week I am compelled to change my mind.

Once a year, I visit my home. It is like one of those aerial surveys of flooded areas that you and your colleagues do every year. I come, survey the changes in my city, make noises and go back. This year after an eight year long ‘break’ I went home to see lot of changes.

Numerous steel bar making companies, cement companies and ‘world class’ educational institutes unheard of in rest of India welcome me to Guwahati.

There is an influx of unknown educational institutes just like our ‘foreign friends’ from the friendly neighbourhood country. The three room ‘MBA colleges’, the numerous edu-fair hoardings tell me what a marvelous achievement you have made for the state.

Going by the cement ads in the city, it won’t be a surprise if any new visitor thought that the minute a shovel hit earth, gleaming grey cement would greet your eyes. The land of the red river and blue hills is fast becoming land of grey hills and Grey River. The ads of steel bars that dot the city every 100 meters desperately try to convince me that Guwahati is THE next big place. There is already a steel city in India. Perhaps we will become ‘steel bar and cement city’ of India. Twin honours for us. I am eagerly waiting for that day.

TV reporters blurt out ‘news’ at an orgasmic pace 24x7 and the couples sitting on the steps of the malls remind of the metro cities in the rest of the country. The sprawl of wannabe multiplexes, malls, eateries and high rise buildings tell me that we have ‘arrived’. The defining traits of a city are all fast appearing here too. People don’t know know any prominent landmarks nor do they know their next door neighbours.

Before you jump to the conclusion that I am a sympathizer of some red coloured party, let me make myself clear. I am all for full fledged development and amenities but half- baked things like unknown educational institutes , malls without elevators and AC and in short poor replicas of similar establishments just stand out for what they are, poor replicas.

Oh this reminds me… while we are on the topic of ‘landmarks’ let me congratulate you on your visionary tourism development plan. Some time back I saw this ad from your government about the progress we have made in tourism development.

Tourist lodges a.k.a ‘Jatri Niwases’ have been set up like ‘ shulabh sochalays’ all across the state and you have given fertile land to private entrepreneurs to set up hotel management institutes. Such foresight is really unparalleled.

However as they some things never change. These things are familiar and dear to me. The Bharalu nallah or should I call it river, still mesmerizes Bharalumukh with its intoxicating, hypnotizing odour which can act as a tranquilizer for wild elephants. Everytime I pass the place, I carry some of its fragrant memories with me. There are still no street lights on the roads just outside the 'main' city' in the evenings and Guwahati still resembles Venice in monsoons. There are still seven hour long power cuts and I still have to run around for a minimum of two months to get a telephone connection or a dead telephone repaired. I love such connect with my past.

As I write this, I read that we have also bagged the 29th position out of 30 states in the 20- point program under the National Common Minimum Programme so I believe that we will progress hand-in-hand. I am sure we will top from the bottom in the coming years.

Oh shit! I am sorry but will take your leave now. My tummy is cringing. Must have been that blasted Dosa I had in the afternoon for lunch. I will keep writing to you and hopefully we will meet soon. In the meantime, I have attached my bio-data along with this letter. Please see if you can provide some employment opportunity in Guwahati. I also want to come back and take part in the spoils.

Yours Sincerely,

Mr Nobody

Written in 2010

'Them' versus 'us'

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN IN 2010 and updated a  little now in the context of the ongoing reports about 'discrimination against northeastern people'.

 It was after the rape of a lady from some northeastern state (the media was confused about which state it was) that I started getting these mails.

‘Voice your protest’, ‘Sign the protest petition’  ‘We condemn this heinous crime’ etc etc

The words of such mails are always similar and the timing seems to be similar too.  Every time a rape or molestation of a Northeastern occurs in the capital or a metro city, these chain mails and perhaps other social media campaigns become more vocal and active.  I don’t know where they are the rest of the year or why we can’t hear them.

Coming back to the mail, this particular letter voiced its contempt and condemnation for the incident which is all fair and good and also asked ‘concerned’ citizens take part in some protest dharna organized in Delhi.  At the same time there was a list of steps which the NGO demanded that the Delhi government take in order to prevent such crimes.

Two of these steps really caught my eye.

“Immediately provide better street lights and police patrols in all areas, and bus stops.

More effective mechanisms must be instituted to ensure the safety of women in Delhi, especially women from the North East.

 The question that immediately came to my mind is why seemingly educated people ask for measures like “Immediately provide better street lights and police patrols in all areas, and bus stops. Oh! really?  Do you seriously think this will deter rapists and firstly, is this feasible? According to a report by Human Rights Watch, there is just one civil police officer for every 1037 Indian residents, far below the Asia’s average of one officer for every 558 people and the global average of 333 people. You don’t need to read a report to realize this.

 Now of course, we can wait for the police force to increase its numbers OR we can take some matters into our own hands and start on our own.

Secondly, they ask that ‘more effective mechanisms must be instituted to ensure the safety of women in Delhi, especially women from the North East’. - What are these more effective mechanisms? What are these vague statements supposed to mean? The tone of the sentence projects Northeastern women as some kind of endangered species that needs special protection.

Measures like these can be only stop gap fillers aimed at temporary relief but the root issues persist and one of the root causes for these crimes and prejudices is ignorance.

Now I don’t have a M.A. in social work but why don’t these wise NGOs and intellectuals start targeting the root causes of the problems?

I proceed to offer some starting point towards serious work in terms of awareness generation and steps to gradually bring down the rate of such incidents.

The first step to dispelling this ignorance could be concentrated efforts on part of communities to build goodwill and understanding. Now how to go about building it?  Education, I believe is a key to solving problems and also dispelling ignorance.  Why don’t we for starters build a social media campaign on introducing Northeast India in the different school syllabuses as a long term goal.  63 years after independence there is still no mention of Northeast India in any geography or history textbook in schools and colleges other than the respective Northeastern state education boards. The result is that many people think Assam is in South India and Nagaland is in Nepal.

For taking immediate measures; introducing programmes of a recurring nature, students can be motivated or guided to start community outreach programmes where the ‘locals’ get to interact with their Northeastern tenants and so forth in their respective areas. Northeasterners can also interact with locals and take part in community festivals or events.

 For e.g. In Delhi, Mukherjee Nagar and Vijay Nagar are areas that immediately come to mind.

There is no bridge or a go-between among the various communities right now. Local NGOs can play a very important role in this regard.

NGOs could tie up with government and private schools to have talks and awareness classes about the history, culture, geography and people of the northeastern part of the country.

Groups of Northeastern students can participate in interactions in schools and colleges and increase the knowledge of the students there. Once the awareness is there I am sure the mistrust and suspicion will also give way to some level of understanding which will bring down this wall of ‘them’ and ‘us’.  

I am sure there will be some hurdles that will be faced at the outset but what great purpose was ever achieved without a bit of pain?

There is a school of thought that also says that in metro cities not only Northeasterners but people from other communities are also victimized.  I do agree that northeasterners are often discriminated against because of their physical features but crimes are overall not directed at only one community in metros or even the capital. According to a report in the Times of India newspaper, there have been 433 rapes in Delhi this year[(2010) In 2011, 568 rapes were reported].  It would be naïve to suggest that a majority of them were directed at only one community without a proper study of this. We should probably reflect a bit more on this and do some self introspection. Are we doing enough to mix with people?

There is also the media that is obsessed with the idea of painting the picture of ‘them’ and ‘us’ which also plays to popular perceptions.  Keeping that in mind, it is time that we took a good hard look at ourselves and our socialization skills.

It is the onus of Northeasterns who go outside to try and mingle as much as possible with the locals outside.  . As they say, to clap you need to use both your hands.  One sided measures are not going to help. When you go outside your home, there is no point in being aloof from the people and the place you go to. You have to adjust.

I studied in Delhi University myself and do know for a fact that, forget interaction between locals and Northeasterners, there is hardly any interaction among students of the eight states themselves. As they say charity begins at home. We should stop being Nagas, Assamese, Manipuris, this and that and start interacting with each other. Of, course this is easier said than done.

Simply sticking to your own group and forming a ghetto sort of environment won’t help which was the case till 2 years back in my knowledge. I doubt if it has changed. The Nagas stay in their own group, the Manipuris in their own, and so on and so forth.

There seems to be a section of people that simply want to have cannon fodder from time to time to show that “we are also there and “we are trying to make a change”. Certain groups of people seem to be making their living since eternity by raising these ‘issues’ and ‘voicing their protest’.

The point is not to single any one particular NGO or entire community of NGOs and take them to task.  The lesson for us here is that people are talking nonsense about us perhaps due to ignorance or perhaps due to opportunism and it is time we started taking some remedial measures.

 Simply paying lip service and artificial short term and hollow measures won’t help to genuinely solve these problems. It’s time, we as citizens, took matters in our own hands and started to think differently from the herd. It is also time we sent out a message that we don’t need special treatment or someone’s graces but just recognition that we are same as the ‘others’.