Recently there was lot of ‘unrest’ created
by opposition parties and Leftist students in Delhi. They were protesting
against a series of scattered issues: some college hostel fee hike, against a recent
act related to giving citizenship to migrants, against police action against
protesters and also against police inaction in some cases. If you switched on
your TV and checked any news channel, it would be presenting a scene of havoc. Same
stuff, day in and day out. On one such days, on an evening walk, I came across
a family of laborers.
The family seemed to be returning to
their home after a day’s work. The man was walking on the footpath. His son,
younger and having more energy was walking in front of him. His wife was
walking on the main road on
their left, maintaining slight distance from these two. Was she
not related to them? I thought she was from the same family, because it is
common for laborer families to go at work together. Kids play along side the
construction site or road repairing work site and during lunch break, they all
eat together. In winter, if someone lights a fire on the roadside, they would all
warm themselves together. If son would fell playing on the bricks and hurt
himself, mother would come and make him okay. This way, entire family sticks
together and takes care of each other. Leaving behind kids is never a safe
option in big cities. In villages, it is a different story.
The family was walking in a straight
line. I knew that the footpath where the father and son were walking, was never
used by the locals. The only times it is used when someone brings one’s pet dog
for a walk and the pet dog wants to do something there. Otherwise local people
walk on the service lane (seen on the right hand side lane in above picture). But this family did not bother. They just walked. No
stopping by for the kid, to check on some trees or animals. No talk among themselves.
They walked as if they were machines or some moving sculptures. It should be normal
for people like them who lived a hard life.
Looking at their ‘detached’ behavior,
I clicked their picture using my cellphone camera. And I wondered what these
people would think about fee hike in some college, about some changed law,
about some migrants being able to come to this country. Would they care? Most
probably not. May be if talked with in private they would speak. But their ‘walk’
was simply trying to erase any other thought in my mind. Their walk was a force
of nature. It was as if branches on the trees moved with a wind. As waves come
and go in the sea. As birds leave their nests in the morning and come back in
the evening. Nothing can explain it other than a “force of nature”.
Then why are we so attached with all
the political debates and protests? Why have our TV News channels gone mad? Why
can’t we find peace with this world, as it is, like this family had found peace
with whatever came in their way? Society can learn tolerance and the spirit of ‘walking’
from people forming it. All good things need not come from a silver screen.
With these thoughts forming in my
mind, the family which was walking much faster, looked distant and smaller as
they kept going…
- Rahul Tiwary
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