“He is a criminal. Sapna, he has a heart of stone. What is wrong with you? Why don’t you understand that he’s wrong? and we can’t support him for long this way…“,Sapna walks up to her mother and holds her hands.Its dark outside, the same way as it is dark in the hearts of Politicians in Urban India. Cold wind struggles against the window to push in and chill those alive to the bone.”Mom, he is my husband., I know him well and when Baburam(her husband) was charged with drunken driving following an accident on Mumbai-Goa Highway, didn’t we know he was innocent. Don’t we know who played smart there,..and escaped punishment?“, sulking under her voice, and rubbing those red teary eyes with heavy bags underneath due to lack of sleep, Sapna this 36 year old stood there, her face glowing as a million ignitions took place in her heart. She knew, that her husband was a criminal in every one’s eyes. But then, above all she was the one who can see beyond what others see.
Yes this woman, does not belong here. She belongs to that world where there is life beyond right and wrong. People are all treated equally, none is a slave to the other, and there they are what they are. No one puts up definitions of sin, or righteousness.Thereby eliminating the need of people being judged by Law or convicted for their conduct.
That dark night in Dharavi, Mumbai, in a slum where nothing but Sapna’s unwavering faith in her husband lit up the room, is the story of millions here. 37 % of India’s population is below the poverty line, the many drivers, domestic helps, gardeners, watchmen, doormen these men belong to that world. Baburam had assassinated his Master Mr. Maety, who was an MLA. And that was because of the fury that took root after being blamed of the accident, the many sleepless nights he spent in jail and the way his family survived in bare minimum resources awaiting his return, he knew he was not wrong. He had crossed the line containing these norms, as it never brought justice to the poor, to the sufferers. He was just himself, Baburam, driver and a family man.
That dark night in Dharavi, Mumbai, in a slum where nothing but Sapna’s unwavering faith in her husband lit up the room, is the story of millions here. 37 % of India’s population is below the poverty line, the many drivers, domestic helps, gardeners, watchmen, doormen these men belong to that world. Baburam had assassinated his Master Mr. Maety, who was an MLA. And that was because of the fury that took root after being blamed of the accident, the many sleepless nights he spent in jail and the way his family survived in bare minimum resources awaiting his return, he knew he was not wrong. He had crossed the line containing these norms, as it never brought justice to the poor, to the sufferers. He was just himself, Baburam, driver and a family man.
Shakespeare puts it in this way in his play Hamlet -
In this act, when Hamlet calls Denmark a prison he draws parallels to the fact that he is a prisoner of his own mind.He is mentally and physically confined by the gaze of the king and his agents, and he feels trapped in the court’s general degradation. He is aware of his knowledge that his stepfather is a fratricide and his mother incestuous. This is evident by the use of the statement “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so,” he’s not indulging in ethical relativism as much as wishing for blissful ignorance.
Hamlet:
What have you, my good friends, deserv’d at the hands of fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?
Guildenstern:
Prison, my lord?
Hamlet:
Denmark’s a prison.
Rosencrantz:
Then is the world one.
Hamlet:
A goodly one, in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one o’ th’ worst.
Rosencrantz:
We think not so, my lord.
Hamlet:
Why then ’tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison.
Hamlet Act 2, scene 2, 239–251
What have you, my good friends, deserv’d at the hands of fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?
Guildenstern:
Prison, my lord?
Hamlet:
Denmark’s a prison.
Rosencrantz:
Then is the world one.
Hamlet:
A goodly one, in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one o’ th’ worst.
Rosencrantz:
We think not so, my lord.
Hamlet:
Why then ’tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison.
Hamlet Act 2, scene 2, 239–251
And my intention behind publishing this post is therefore a humble request to readers., before you judge anyone as ‘Right or Wrong’ you need to know that what you see or know of them might turn out to be just a reaction to life’s injustice inflicted upon them. Every dark cloud has a silver lining.
No comments:
Post a Comment