“I think Parrikar should make compulsory
military tenure for persons between 18 and 24 years of age,” I said, one very
wet afternoon, to no one in particular. I didn’t mean anything by it; it was a
‘just like that’ sentence, meant to go by in a flash. But in my house, things
get from awful to horrid in seconds.
“You’ve started thinking,” Shri
Husband growled, the usual trace of meanness detected in his voice. “Why?”
I immediately confessed, stuttering: “Not
my idea at all. Countries which have compulsory military training do well
economically and on most parameters like health, sports, education…”
Shri Husband
and Bai Goanna pounced (not literally, we’re civilized like that) on me about
anything compulsory other than basic education and health being a bad idea.
“Where do you
pick up such ideas?” Shri Husband wanted to know. I wondered what I’d said
wrong. “How does running around with heavy boots and knapsacks and camouflage
gear get reflected in good commerce or better universities?”
“Just
something she read from a magazine,” quoth Bai Goanna soothingly, kind of
taking my side. Then to me she snapped: “Read the entire paragraph, please, and
don’t say something out of context.”
Shri Husband
added: “Give examples and details. This sounds like t-shirt single-line
philosophy.” I didn’t know what was wrong with t-shirt single-line philosophy,
but didn’t want to start a side-drama.
Bai Goanna,
turning towards him, asked: “Who’s she comparing our democracy with?”
Both looked at
me expecting an answer. No matter what I’d say, there’d be a retort. I knew
that, so I shut up.
“Say, say,”
Bai Goanna coaxed. “Talk, talk. You said that compulsory military training will
help our country. You read it somewhere, didn’t you? Is that not true?”
“Yes,” I said,
the good ‘shut up’ sense of a few seconds ago giving way to impulse and an instinct
to prove myself right.
Bai Goanna:
“How? Why is compulsory military training good for us?”
Me: “It will inculcate
some discipline in us, teach us to stand in queues, get us to be physically
fit, help us catch trains and buses and cling to their windows and doors
without falling out, also teach us to live with people from other states and
castes without having hang-ups about eating, playing, praying, working
together. It will teach us about honour, integrity, finishing a task, being
properly groomed at all times, less sensitive, more professional…”
Shri Husband’s
interruption: “… and to make and handle firearms? In times like these? You are
naïve. What if the government sends us to fight our own people and tell us to
shoot pellets when we’re hit with stones? And do the duties of the cops and
disaster management teams when there are riots and floods? Maybe there should
be compulsory training for citizens in the Police academies and for dealing
with natural and other calamities. There are other ways to teach how to stand
in queues and pay your bills on time. Even then, wonder whether our citizens
will accept the compulsion. People will object. We’re a democracy. The debates
on television will go on and on.”
He took a breath, then continued: “These
days, it’s the tv channels that run the country. They decide what foreign
policy to follow, how to run educational institutions, and decide who’s
murdered whom even before the judges get to see the evidence…no, before even
the FIR is filed… or earlier, before the cops get to the scene their reporters
and camerapersons are at the site, getting interviews of family-members,
neighbours... This country has a long way to go. Compulsory military training
you say? Naa.”
Negative
outlook, I thought.
“But,” he
said. “We could have something similar to the National Cadet Corp. Instead of the
NCC, we could have an MCC.”
“What on earth,”
Bai Goanna and I said in unison, “is MCC”?
Sounded like a cricket thingy to me.
As always, I was wrong.
Loftily Shri
Husband said: “Municipal Compulsory Curriculum.”
Lecture-baazi
shuru, guessing his mood, and I was correct.
“We must think
out of the box,” Shri Husband said. “Prime Minister Modi gives Monkey Baths to
the country on certain Sundays. We citizens should present him with ideas that
will benefit India.”
Only Shri
Husband and heaven knew what he was talking about: Bai Goanna and I raised our
brows, rolled our eyes, shook our heads and did an invisible palm-forehead
gesture.
“This,” he
said like he was addressing a crowd at Shivaji Park, “is my Monkey Bath. I’m
going to write to NaMo about it. I have the link to the mygov website which has
on it information about how citizens can participate in the governance of
India.”
“I thought
that had competitions to design postage stamps on dead VIPs, write slogans to
declare how smart your city is and to create posters on how tobacco/dowry is
bad,” I said.
Bai Goanna
nudged me with her elbow. No point getting Shri Husband into a worse mood, she
warned. I shut up again.
“If we have a compulsory MCC from
ages 18 to 24 as you said, the Swatccha Bharat campaign might really get successful.”
Shri Husband goes off at a tangent sometimes.
Nil comprehendo. More silence.
Then began lecture-baazi Phase Two:
“Young men and women must be forced to clean up their homes, neighbourhoods,
localities, villages, talukas. They must handle garbage, the different kinds of
waste and learn to manage it. They must enforce, military style, the mantra
Reduce-Reuse-Recycle and be empowered to fine spit-urine law-breakers. No
matter how many treatment plants are constructed, no matter how reputed the
consultants or how much money the government spends, no matter how many
photographs are taken on and banners put up for swatchh-events, the stink and
litter piles will increase, as will disease…”
He inhaled and fidgeted. We left the
room before lecture-baazi Phase Three began. His day-dreaming can be a heavy
load to bear.
Feedback:
sheelajaywant@yahoo.co.in
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