The Gagging Reflex

For the last couple of days, I’ve been reading all over Facebook about how people are being gagged by the government. The internet in general and Facebook in particular are my link with the real world. I sit in a corner, in my end-of-the-road house in a non-descript village, surrounded by jungle, away from sand, surf and tourists. Post after post tells me India’s being gagged. I narrow my search in the newspaper for ‘public transport’ and ‘garbage’ headlines, my areas of interest these days. No gagging of voices anywhere. Taxi-drivers/owners and passengers are both cribbing loud and clear. As are locals and tourists alike, regarding disposal of plastic bags, sanitary napkins, biscuit-wrappers, banana peels, half-eaten wada-paavs, etc. The gagging business has got me curious. Familiar faces shout out of my television screen in decibels whose vibrations scared away the two-metre monitor lizard that was sunning itself in our compound last week. Those voices have been unchanged for years and unchanging in their ways, ruled by the advertisers, day after day, 24-hours/day. To switch channels, one has to choose between insane yelling, vigorous hyperventilation and boredom, with program-repeats every couple of hours. Methinks, some form of gagging would be a good idea. I read some old opinions on military affairs in Kashmir and naxal-territory written by a novelist. Was impressed. The author should pronto be made a starred general. Those who do professional courses and put themselves at risk on crazy heights in miserable weather are wasting their time. All they need to do is check with her how to sort out complicated political stuff and convince the powers that rule, and the powers that divide, and some violence-happy guys, and make peace prevail. She hasn’t written for a while. If she’s been gagged, she should be un-gagged immediately. In a democracy, all PoVs should be heard, even absurd/irresponsible ones. I hear friends discuss how such-and-such politician hasn’t kept his/her word and is so-o corrupt. That’s what politicians do. And no one’s being gagged (in India) for saying so…yet. And no one’s discovered (anywhere) a method to gag a politician…yet. Over the phone two acquaintances from Delhi tell me about the happenings in JNU: one says the government has no business to stifle students’ voices, the other says students should get involved in politics after their studying years are over. This is life in a free country, everyone voicing contra-views. Gagging will kill that charm. An ex-colleague from the hotel industry tells me how putrid the health care industry is. Medical professionals say a few greedy ones are giving them all a bad name. Builders/industrialists say you can’t stop progress; environmentalists say you mustn’t destroy the earth. Such a cacophony. When irritated, I feel, gag ‘em all. Parents say dilute the school syllabi; the government says fail nobody, and when the school-children become young adults, they don’t get jobs because they don’t have skills. So many people complaining, so many complaints. More the merrier. Complaining is our birth-right. In calmer moments, I feel, gagging will destroy this national pastime. Actually, when I began doing homework about gagging, what should or not be gagged, I was expecting reporters, anchors, people around me to feel nauseated, be throwing up. Because gagging is what happens when an ENT surgeon shoves a spatula into my mouth to depress my tongue or a dentist opens my mouth wide and wider until my insides protest with a couple of unexpected, involuntary, violent consecutive jerks. (Doctors/dentists/nurses dealing with the likes of me get nightmares: of that another time.) Gagging is what I did as a child… when the thin cream that happened on the surface of cooling coffee/tea got inadvertently swallowed. Gagging is one reflex that recognizes whether a patient is unconscious or dead. And the health of Freedom in a nation. Nowadays, everyone in Delhi-Gurgaon is wearing masks and keeping windows closed. Some are not daring to even do pranayama in case they inhale too much of that dense fog of smoke and grime. When I listen to what’s making everyone wheeze and choke there, what makes me gag is the question “What has the government done?” We all know the government is irresponsible. It’s been like that for almost 67 years, nothing new about that. What makes me gag is that no one’s asking us citizens what we have done to reduce the pollution that’s causing everybody to cough and gasp. I don’t hear anyone insisting on having comfortable and reliable buses so that they don’t have to use cars. Or bicycle-tracks. My point: want single-use cars? Want multiple cars per family? Then learn to gag. The air clogs poor lungs, rich lungs, middle-class lungs, healthy lungs, ill lungs, domiciled lungs and lungs passing through. Masked and yet-to-be masked nostrils means a lot of money to be made for certain manufacturers. India’s on the move. A trillion-trillion masks to make. A billion-plus of us are ready to pollute, and in all parts of India, too. I don’t hear anyone volunteering to stop or reduce using air-conditioning, or burning crackers/sparklers. Using wood for cremating the dead adds to the smoke. Electrical burning pollutes less. Do we insist on the latter? Nah, tradition is more important, gagging be damned. Burning in the fields in another, major, problem. But not the only one. We’ll soon have packaged air. Some years ago we thought bottled water was not possible. More packaging, more plastic in the gutters, more burning of garbage, more fumes, more gagging. Some guru will invent and broadcast the gag-pranayama on tv. And we’ll have families/schools doing this together: “on-the-gag, get-set, breathe”. The media says: “The government must do something.” We have our rights, the government has the responsibility. To me the biggest gag moment of all is hearing a fellow countryman do ‘khaak thoo’. India has the distinction of being the only country in the world that has a problem with disposal of spit. Any ideas how we can deal with it? Want to start a Gaggers’ Group? Feedback: sheelajaywant@yahoo.co.in.

Addictions

Bai Goanna bought herself a weighing machine, which she calls ‘the scale’. She now weighs herself every time she goes from kitchen to bedroom, front door to bathroom, verandah to cupboard. No matter where she has to go, she takes a detour via the machine. This happens several times a day. She lovingly dusts it, adjusts the calibration, weighs herself again and sighs every time. No idea whether the sighs are triggered by loss/gain. No idea also whether the grams can thus change from hour to hour through the day. I tease her about any ‘gram-matical’ changes. At night when she wakes up… immediately remembers ‘the scale’ and finds her way to it. “It’s an addiction,” Shri Husband snorted. I kept quiet. He says I’m addicted to books and to my writing. Maybe. Wikipedia says, ‘Addiction is a medical condition characterized by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli, despite adverse consequences’. On analysis, I am compulsively engaged to reading whatever I can lay my fingers on, including shampoo-bottle labels, despite consequences like the daal on the stove burning. As always, Shri Husband’s not wrong. Poking his head over my keyboard, he read what I’d typed and remarked: “Say I’m right, don’t say it in a convoluted way.” That’s his addiction, to comment on everything I say/do. Going by the definition, medical or not, addictions are common. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have one. I know people who are addicted to finding out about what’s healthy and what’s not. It affects their lives. They stay away from white foods like sugar, maida, even milk. If they’ve read about oats/cornflakes providing required nutrients, they consume tons of those, cooked or raw. At other times, they switch to unpolished fov/nachni-satva. If probiotic and fruit yoghurt sounds better than dahi, that becomes the food of the season. If the latest hysteria says liquidise and drink papaya leaves to cure dengue or some other dreaded disease, that replaces their usual quota of freshly extracted karela/wheat-grass juice. What, I asked a friend who was on a satvik diet, would eating only fruits, sprouts and gourds minus onions, garlic and root vegetables achieve? S/he replied, “Keeps one heathy.” “What exactly does ‘being healthy’ mean?” I asked aloud, no one in particular. “Not being ill,” said Bai Goanna. “Having peace of mind,” added Shri Husband. “And no addictions.” Never mind gambling and consumption of liquor/ tobacco/ drugs, there are people I know who are addicted to shopping. Come bonus, come salary, come cash received as gift, and off they trot to buy something they just don’t need. Life is short, they say, why not enjoy it whilst one can? Mid-spectrum are friends addicted to hoarding: money in bank, buy-two-get-one-free items stored in their cupboards, neatly folded plastic bags in drawers, pairs of shoes under the sofa, pens and more pens in stands on shelves and so on. And at the other end of the spectrum are those addicted to not spending at all. Make do is their motto. If addiction has negative connotations, then this kind of miserliness could be considered a positive trait, more so in the days of dropping interest rates. “There’s a difference between habit and addiction,” Shri Husband said. “‘Habit’ is old-fashioned,” I informed him. “It’s like, these days, haircuts are amazing and everyone says everyone else is looking so-o lovely and fantastic even when they’re dull, stupid, boring and ugly. You don’t say ‘I love’ potato-chips, you say ‘I’m addicted to’ them. You don’t say you’re fond of your new phone, you say you’re addicted to it.” I further explained. “Addiction is the new interest.” There are people addicted to visiting doctors at the slightest discomfort, real or imagined, and those who will land up in an ICU when all the nature-cures, and alternative medical therapies have failed. There are spiritual/ity addicts, whose rapidly increasing numbers are such a boon for entrepreneurs and rogues alike. Wear a robe and an impassive expression on your face, stick on a beatific smile, rephrase what the old texts say and voila, you’re in business. Name, fame, money, politics… in the service of religion, addiction works for both the giver (person in robe) and taker (lay bakras looking for the ‘peace and happiness’ that has eluded mankind since religion was born). The wisdom/philosophy distilled through the ages doesn’t have a role to play in religion, not any longer. I’m addicted to stretching exercises. Call them yogic asanas or physiotherapy prescriptions, a couple of doses gives me my high for the day. And I’m addicted to the internet, that OMG-what’s-happening curse of the young, say the parents/teachers of this era. To them I say, it’s not the technology that’s evil, it’s the sites you choose. From the internet, I got these quotes that indicate the seriousness of addiction to mind/physiology altering substances. “The mentality and behaviour of drug addicts and alcoholics is wholly irrational until you understand that they are completely powerless over their addiction and unless they have structured help, they have no hope.” Russel Bland. “The unfortunate thing about this world is that good habits are so much easier to give up than bad ones.” Somerset Maugham. “At first, addiction is maintained by pleasure, but the intensity of this pleasure gradually diminishes and the addiction is then maintained by the avoidance of pain.” Frank Tallis. The one I found scary. Took me some minutes to understand it: “I admire addicts. In a world where everybody is waiting for some blind, random disaster, or some sudden disease, the addict has the comfort of knowing what will most likely wait for him down the road. He's taken some control over his ultimate fate, and his addiction keeps the cause of death from being a total surprise.” Chuck Palahniuk. What really happens: “Addiction doesn't kill the addict. It kills the family, kids and people who tried to help!” Anonymous. My chief addiction is writing. It doesn’t kill, maim or make me ill. I will not call it an addiction henceforth… diversion/pastime sounds better. Using the correct word makes a difference. Feedback: sheelajaywant@yahoo.co.in