Liberalisation and its Malcontents

Around 1985, my parents realised that they needed to buy a house. Till then, they had never saved, and my father made it a virtue of handing out cash to the needy. Now, as he was getting older, he had to beat the clock and earn some extra money.  His only capital was his brain and his ability to write. So, he began supplementing his sarkaari salary by writing for magazines and newspapers. He even wrote stories for a Doordarshan soap.

Soon, he was earning quite handsomely, and money started leaving patches of affluence on our middle-class socialist lifestyle. It left us feeling more entitled, and I suddenly found myself adopted by the elite group in school. I was still awkward and somewhat frayed at the edges. The rituals of everyday life through which the elite form their distinct practices did not come naturally to me. I had to observe, emulate and imitate. To retain my place, I had to acquire every element of coolth that would mark me as a member. My hair, my clothes, my speech – nothing could be left to chance or habit.

One day in the years of my metamorphosis, my mother took me to F.U’s – the coolest place to buy clothes in the mid-80s. I chose a pair of exaggerated baggy pants and a floral shirt. As I tried it on and came out of the fitting room, I could see the girls looking at me with interest. I was looking Duran Duranish, like the cool guys from the Frooti ad on TV. My mother, who had lived a life counting each paisa to ensure her children could be fed and educated was furtively evaluating the price tag.

“How much discount will you give?” she asked the smartly dressed snooty shop assistant.

The man-boy looked bewildered and answered with raised eyebrows, “No discount ma’am. One price. No haggling.” Then he turned and walked off.

I was deeply mortified. “Ma, please. This is not Janpath,” I hissed. I made up my mind that I will never take my mother to shop for clothes again.

“Ok, ok. Buy it” my mother said with a grin to hide her hurt. The world was changing very fast then, and my mother couldn’t keep pace. To ride the change, in the late-80s, you needed to have a clear command over spoken – not written – English. My mother was simply not good with languages.

I wore those baggy pants and the shirt to my first after-school evening party. Everyone invited was part of the school’s elite ‘in’ crowd. I was a new recruit, but, just as every new assimilation erases all traces of its difference, my history had been forgotten too. But, I still remembered that I had to assimilate. I had to perform the rituals of this party without revealing that they did not come to me as naturally as it did to everyone else in the room.

Around 8:00 PM, I panicked.

“I have to leave,” I said. “I forgot my keys and my parents will be waiting up for me.”

“Don’t go. It’s too early,” said a girl who I fancied fancied me.

But, I was adamant. I couldn’t face another minute of this terror of performing. I would be exposed for the charlatan that I was.

“I must go,” I said and stood up.

“What a wus,” said a boy who I never liked. By then, I had already walked out of the party.

I could see my bus approaching the bus stop as I walked out of the gate. I ran as fast as I could and made it just in time. The bus was empty, it was dark outside. I was relaxed now, but strangely anxious to get back home.

As I entered, my mother looked up from her book and exclaimed “what happened? Why are you back so soon?”

My father who was in the kitchen came out and peered at me over the top of the reading glasses he always wore when he was cooking. He raised one eyebrow and jerked his head upwards asking a silent, worried question.

“Oh, the party is over. I left with everyone else,” I said with a straight face.

“Good,” said my mother, turning to my father. “That’s why I like this school. It is holding on to some values. The children are different.”

I followed my dad into the kitchen and silently watched him cook. The familiar sounds of my dad stirring and scraping left me with a deep sense of security.

It has been more than 25 years since then. Over those years, I have managed to learn most of the rules of the game. The memory of my difference has gradually disappeared from my own mind. I am now more comfortably ensconced in the world of the elite, and my children were born into it.

One day, in the recent past, I went through photographs of some of those school parties that I never went to. I saw the youthful, comfortable faces of people I now know, but hardly knew then. They walked on the main street, while I took the side lane. At times, the side lane merged with the main street. At those moments, at those sites, the traffic of the entitled overtook me and dragged me on, shaping me in its own image.

I am just one among the hundreds of thousands who were changed and homogenised by the tide of liberalisation. Once in a while, photographs from the past draw us back to that origin, the point when our difference was obliterated.