Of cartoons and clowns

Aseem Trivedi is young, brash and angry.

His artwork is direct and confrontationist and no less obnoxious than a poster with the Ashoka lions, each morphed with heads of national politicos - that is currently going viral on Facebook.

He is young, he has a point of view, and like angry young people his age, he is vocal and strident about it and may not just listen to another point of view.

So here is the young man with ideas and a pen, who has given expression to his thoughts. Not many people actually saw his drawings, let alone knew he existed even a few days ago.

Today, thanks to the sedition charge, he has been catapulted to the national political arena, and is telling every television channel who want his bytes, his thoughts on ‘freedom of expression’.

Life could not get more comical or more surreal.

Before talent can hone or talent can mature, here is this young man who is convinced his ‘cartoons’ are bang on target.

Perhaps they are, for no middle-class Indian who views them would turn away – they reflect the anger perfectly. Very typically, every angry Indian is hoping to find someone who would stick as the poster boy of an ‘anti corruption’ movement, someone who would put themselves forward to reflect their collective ire. So far though, no poster boy has sustained the course.

Marie Antoinette may never have historically said, “...let them eat cake.” But this government is saying it, again and again, bumbling into ludicrous ‘cartoon’ situations.

How else will a young man with views that many young people in this country may have, find platforms to vent one after another? – it’s only thanks to a sedition charge; and thanks to the hunger for drama rather than news that drives television today.

I have spent today, my 9pm daily dose of the ‘news’, channel hopping, hoping to find an Aseem-free channel. He makes for great television, even out-shouting Arnab at the mike. Forcing a galled Morparia to mutter, “If he continues to draw this way, two years down the line no one will look at his cartoons.”

It is a sign of the times that in a time when a bill advocates promotion on the basis of reservation and not merit, that it does not take talent to take centre stage.

The political class has first to clear its court of jesters and find its misplaced statesman or two. They have entertained the country long enough.

Stuck in the middle

By all guesstimates, the middle class probably constitutes 30-40% of our population in India. The middle class is the one that consumes all media – yet, peruse the papers, watch television... other than sporadic outbursts on inflation and price rice, this voter community is largely a silent mass. This is simply because they are so busy working to earn their living, battle through the everyday business of budgeting so that they can live ‘decent’, honourable lives.

This middle class battles through great hurdles in every sphere of life, be it education, healthcare or housing or just living. This class also aspires and is the target for a majority of advertising that happens. Having said that, who really represents their concerns?

Anna Hazare was bang on when he touched upon the core hurdle that this class faces. But now, he is an icon with feet of clay. He showed the middle class hope and a light, then went on to dash the very same hope and put out the light faster than fast.

The middle class educates itself, saves something of its earnings, travels abroad to study, travels abroad on vacation, consumes, connects and... wishes to stay away from anything that could disturb its placid life.
Unable to handle the roughness of corruption and conversation on ground level, this is the class that is active on blogs and twitter, that thinks, converses and has gone virtual.

For a media that is largely disconnected from ground zero, the horror stories that poverty generates is TRP ratings, forgetting that for the majority in poverty – these are not one off stories – this is the story of each of their lives, one mirroring the other with no way out.

It is easy from the confines of an air conditioned studio, to exclaim on the drunken husband biting wife and child; or of the farmers taking their own lives tired of the circle of debt that cannot be ridden.

With no efforts to reclaim the promised claims of education for the poor, no efforts to create the beginnings of the easing of corruption, the political class is now creating totalitarian spaces forgetting that come elections – the unpredictable could happen.

The current generation in their forties now has consumed like never before, aspired and has allowed in some sense, a personal ‘greed’ to fuel their success stories. Perhaps this is why, in this quest for better lives, better homes, better lifestyles, better cars, better brands... the list is endless... the generation in question allowed itself to be swept along without scruples, into the new era, even while several demons raised their heads in this journey.

These demons now threaten their next generation, many of who eschew this vicarious quest for ‘success’ and are treading new paths.

But the biggest demon that has been created in the last two decades has been the political class, who have in some sense walked this path alongside the success stories and who have exploited the means to the end.

The change may be beginning – many cannot see the big picture as yet, but there are little pockets of thought that are growing bigger as communities catch on. Media has just to catch the change correctly to create the big wave.

Taking the easy way out

The RTE this year had the Supreme Court ruling that ‘all schools, except unaided minority institutions, will have to admit at least 25% students from economically weaker sections in the neighbourhood’. This on paper is a fine thought – the government in its complete inability to administer its existing ‘government’ school system is taking the easy way out – ‘reserving’ 25% for underprivileged kids in neighbourhood schools.

So what are they going to do to the government schools? Are they going to be run in the same inefficient way for decades to come? (Check out http://www.bba.org.in/news/images/RTE-2011.pdf.) Will simple basic education the way it should be, be denied to children who, despite the 25% reservation, will not have access to these ‘neighbourhood’ schools?00 Schools today are crunch spaces, with little seats and more applications than admission space. While the RTE as envisaged is going to squeeze these already ‘gold’ seats, it’s certainly not long term vision on the part of the government or the Supreme Court, if their goal is to see every child born in India to have access to education. You can also read a point of view at this link http://www.livemint.com/articles/2012/02/22223606/RTE-and-some-realities.html.

Let’s face it, there is a paucity of vision, will and of course, discipline. The vision to actually understand and utilise the urban and rural wealth in its people – the mass of the population lost in politics and political manoeuvring. Why is not there a concerted effort to restructure and rebuild the government school system? If the government schools were well-structured, much of the middle class would find relief as well, without the pressure of acquiring a school seat by hook or crook. The RTE in its true spirit, would find its feet as it should.

In every field, the government (not this particular one especially, but successive ones), have shown themselves incapable of running institutions. Be it an airline, a healthcare system, an education system... there is nothing we can show that we have built for the common people as a nation post independence, that has grown in stature and spirit. Most of what we rely on are legacies of the British that we have piled bricks on – even the law is a legacy and many of its edicts have no bearing on the ethos of modern India.

As one wise chap who should be doing things to make things work said on TV(news as entertainment of course), ‘private school premises should be thrown open to children in the neighbourhood as play areas’. What was and is this gentleman and his ilk doing when real estate is gobbling up space like there is no tomorrow, government or no government? Why is it that every one of our cities, growing at terrific paces, sees no effort by any governing system to plan for play areas for children? Without that planning or that effort, or the mere execution of that job, the easiest thing to do is to pick on someone else to transfer the pain to.

A good idea lost in carbonated bubbles

A new ad to make the rounds on television shows a group of young boys on dry arid terrain, enjoying an uninhibited game of cricket.

The voice over tells you that they may not have a coin to toss(they toss a Coke bottle top instead) sport footwear, etc. etc., but that this is enjoyment of the game of cricket for the sheer pleasure of playing cricket.

The visuals are captivating, the children featured even more so. Smiling faces of your average boy on the street, obviously the poor and the ‘underprivileged’. The visuals are in sepia.

Cut. The shot moves to Sachin wearing bright colours of the brand, new hairstyle and all, guzzling down a bottle of Coke, which the aforementioned boys of course, cannot even afford, thanks to their lack of even a coin to toss.

Insensitive? Yes. Lack of empathy. Yes, yes.

My pleasure in the visuals of the boys playing cricket has been completely wiped out. What a waste of a good idea.