"Strange feeling of opening up as you reach beyond the conventional touristic borders. Down in the metro well cut suits and thin-lipped faces slowly start to give way...first, an older gentleman, perhaps from Chad, dressed in complets of pearl white, with a baby blue kufi atop his shaved head. Two more similarly dressed men at the next stop, a little younger this time. Smells are changing too; we are dipping above ground- roar and soot of a 2-stroke from before living memory, warm enveloping scent of falafel, gyro and Kati roll stands carry the friendly appeasing yelps of their proprietors, an imam's call for Duhur rides just behind the beat of an Afro-pop song blasted from a speaker on the corner... An Algerian woman and a toddler get on at the next station. She hums dreamily to the child, bouncing him lightly on her lap..."
The above is the description my then 17-year-old son Dhani wrote of his last ride in the metro across Paris...Yes, the morning before he was to take off for New York, the host family decided that it wouldn't be fair if he left without experiencing the life of the 18th arrondissement. Also known as the Goutte d'Or, the 18th arrondissement has developed into the immigrant quarter of Paris. It is here that the monochromatic/achromatic trends of the fashion metropolis of the world relents to colorful Agbadas with bright floral patterns, and flowing kaftans and kangas.
It represents the other side of this City of Light, the one that most tourists are warned against. Paris, without its legendary chic-ness; without its outdoor cafes, yet still Paris, and yes, still impressionable, if not even more unforgettable. In this part of the famous city, 24 percent of the people live below poverty line...this side is replete with figures and statistics, making it a mecca for the modern sociologists.
It was as though not enough to stand in the shadow of the Eiffel tower, saunter around Champs-Elysées, enjoy a picnic by the Seine, spend a day at the Louvre, visit Musée d'Orsay, take a selfie at Arc de Triomphe, and light a candle at Notre Dame...The experience of Paris wouldn't have been complete without an exposure to the life in the 18th arrondissement.
I was somehow reminded of Rev. Martin Luther King's speech delivered at Stanford, a speech where he spoke of The Other America- black vs. white, free vs. restricted, affluent vs. poor, educated vs. unprivileged...It was the first time, here, that he used the term 'the two Americas' to capture the cultural and economic divide with all its ugly connotations. In a few months this historical speech will mark its 55th anniversary, reminding many of us that we are still jogging on the spot, yet more and more reluctant to acknowledge it. The fact that Vir Das, the stand-up comedian was crucified in his home country for having closed his set at Washington’s Kennedy Center last Friday with a heartfelt reflection on the “two Indias”, highlighting the country’s many paradoxes and tensions:
"I come from an India where we take pride in being vegetarians and yet run over the farmers who grow our vegetables," he said, referring to a deadly incident last month where a vehicle linked to a government minister mowed down seven people protesting against controversial agricultural reforms.
Das, the Mumbai-based comedian, besides the farm protests, also touched on other sensitive topics such as the battle against COVID-19, cultural duality vis-a-vis women, and the crackdown on comedians. His six-minute clip compellingly encapsulated our polarized society and the dichotomy between its ideology and everyday reality.
The reaction from various quarters, split between admiration and support to outright outrage, once again brought into the limelight the nation's sharp political divide, almost as though to prove Das's point. While Shashi Tharoor, the opposition parliamentarian lauded the speech, saying Das reflected the thoughts of millions of Indians, Ashutosh Dubey, a legal adviser to the ruling right-wing party not only accused Das of “defaming” and “spoiling the image of India” he also filed a police complaint against him. "Freedom of speech has a limitation that stops when we go against national integrity,” said Dubey to a media outlet.
Statements such as Dubey's render abstract concepts that have saturated our media -"bringing India into the 21st century" or "onto the world stage", for example - as highly dubious, if not downright laughable. How can anyone contend such things, when ruling party affiliates still cling to ideas more reminiscent of Stalinism or the Third Reich than any so-called 'developed' nations of today? It is when the individual's freedom of expression becomes subservient to the State that we had better watch out. For, we may have inadvertently veered off onto the Red carpet; and I am not talking about the red carpet that PM Modi is accustomed to walking down on his visits abroad, when he is selling India as the biggest and oldest democracy in the world.
Mr Sibal, a senior leader from the opposition also did not mince words when he tweeted, "none can doubt that there are two Indias… It is just that we don’t want an Indian to tell the world about it. We are intolerant and hypocritical."
Or do we just want to forever stay in denial instead of addressing the issues? It is decidedly easier to build castles in the air than to recognise that we have problems at the grassroots level. And who cares if the air is polluted?
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