Of selfies at the Jallianwala Bagh behind McDonalds
I remember reading about the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in my Social Studies textbook as a child. The description was rather vivid and I have a visual imagination. Had felt perturbed and extremely sad then. But 6 months ago, I happened to visit Jallianwala Bagh the first time. My expectations stemmed from the imagination I'd made as a child. I expected to see a peaceful, quaint place where people maintained silence, imagine, introspect, respect, possibly shed a tear or two.
At the entry of the Bagh, I was greeted by this respectful structure, which had a lot of faces carved on it and the names of all the people who died that horrible day. As I stood gazing at the monument wanting a rather profound feeling clouding my body, I couldn't help take my gaze off the McDonalds board from the towering outlet just behind it. Close by was a Subway, then Lassi shops, Parantha, clothes, saffron headbands for the nearby Golden Temple. These sights screwed up my expectation of profoundness. I proceeded to enter the Bagh expecting something closer to my imagination. There was a water tap right at the entry and consequently muddy wet floors all around. As I skipped past, I saw a crowd gathered around a cage. I walked up to it and realized that the infamous martyr's well has a cage all around it and all the people around it were trying to sneak a peak with their camera phones. Further down the same path, I saw another crowd gathered but was unable to make out what they were looking at. As I neared it, I realized that a few bullet holes in the wall there have been preserved till date and a sizeable crowd had gathered clicking selfies laughing their guts out in front of it!
With yet another wound of disgust with humanity, I turned around and started walking away, erasing that long held part of my imagination once and for all. This infuriating and disgusting apathy, the hollow nature of our people, complete lack of respect and understanding for their surroundings or for other people never fails to get my goat! And you come across this so often. For example at movie halls, when a very touching and profound moment is ruined by idiots laughing with amusement and sarcasm or when men laugh when a girl gets harassed on the roads or the several videos where someone is getting thrashed or hanging on for dear life and people film it instead of helping!
Interestingly a lot of the same people get very irked, concerned and emotional when it comes to matters of religion or nationalism. What are the reasons for this behaviour I wonder? Is it deep rooted prejudice that tells them that patriarchy, disrespect etc are acceptable but nationalism and religion cannot be challenged? Is it that they have such fundamental problems and are so frustrated with their lives that compassion, respect, discipline are luxuries for them?
On the flipside too, a lot of educated, rich people, especially on social media are on the other end of the spectrum. They're a little too dogmatic, a little too conscious about everything, everything has to have a label, everything is black and white, they're waiting to brand you or attack you. Perhaps they use this as a coping mechanism for the miseries they've suffered or they have made this their business model.
Regardless, in a time and place where most people are hollow and unconcerned and the ones who claim they are, are dogmatic and far away from reality, where do we place our hopes?