mumbai Archives | Page 2 of 7 | For The Public Eye

September 15, 2015November 5, 2019

Justness or Absurdity?

A police officer showed no more interest when a train passenger complained about being spit on by a man while she was travelling in the train. The complaint was put forth to catch the accused while he was stationed on the railway platform, with the help of CCTV cameras, to identify the indicted male. Would it really change anything if the police would have caught the accused? What else could have the police done other than charging a heavy fine for spitting on running local trains and the passengers on it? The stain remains on both the question and the answer. Why?

Because India has had a reputation of not changing gears in mentality when pressed by the police.

This incident doesn’t change anything, other than a modification for a safe, and clean train travel: wear raincoats that cover your entire body; even your face. Regardless of health advisory posters pasted on railway platforms and near ticket counters, both men and women are going to chew pan masala, and/or tobacco, to spit on the walls; leaving disgusting red stains as a mark of human existence. It’s the way spitters leave a mark to autograph their dirty habit, like a dog pees on a car tyre to leave a mark for fellow folks. It’s still a stain when it’s on a wall and it’s still a stain when it’s on humans.

The question: Can one spitter’s punishment change other spitters’ habits?

The matter is not about the police refusing to comply with the complaint. It is that policemen are unable to change the mentality of other spitters in public because nobody scares easy, and nobody cares enough to change one dirty, disgusting habit. To put forth a complaint about such an incident isn’t justness in any common sense. It is an absurdity. Complaining about being stained by someone else’s’ filth is as ineffective as complaining about being a woman and stared at by uncouth men, while travelling by train.

It is a matter of mentality, and not behaviour that needs to be refined. Complaining is justice for an act such as this or is it absurd? Would you complain when you know that finding the accused is not likely to change anything at all?

This post was originally published on This Week Mumbai

August 28, 2015December 28, 2015

Visual Musing: Sometimes art is very big. It’s everywhere.

Art isn’t a puzzle that is only understood once it’s solved. It’s art that I don’t need to find anymore, it comes along and it finds me. Art is an exploration to me; when I watch the sea, the sky or even look at cars passing on the road: that’s art for me. The movement of things around me, the way each element around me is placed may seem customary for others but for me it’s a canvas that I need to capture.

The movement of things around me, the way each element around me is placed may seem customary for others but for me it’s a canvas that I need to capture.

In my opinion, men and boys who use “no homo” following a share of emotion are still in the dark. Everyone can express feelings like everybody else, it’s a human possession, not an individual personality trait that only a few people can carry.

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August 19, 2015November 5, 2019

The Man Who Can’t Be Moved

Eloquence is expressiveness, as expressiveness is privileged. It cannot take one’s expressiveness to change another’s thoughts but it can take one’s eloquence to persuade another’s way of thinking.

Human mind is a strange box of insanity; we think what we ourselves discover, and mind those whose ways of thinking is no same as ours. The interval between changing from one’s today and tomorrow is a long journey of discomfort, struggle and then harmony.

Can man change for himself ?, Or will he change for the world in which he is destined to live in?
We’ll never know.

No matter how conscious psychology is, it cannot fathom one’s direction of change and its drift. But what psychology dictates is a different tale of circumstances that lead to change in one’s life. The push, the effort, and the animosity of the situation that we’re in, defines that reasonable interval of our past and our present. We want to learn everything there is to know; we do not regret of that we don’t know, but, we remorse when we’re wrong about something we know. That is what makes us change. The lacking of correct direction that leads us towards the mistaken road, even if it’s not discovered by us. The expressiveness is being able to communicate with mind and soul, by one’s own strength, and passing the energy to those whom you want to make feel a difference; to those whom you want to feel a change. That’s eloquence that changes a man into a life that best suits him.

August 19, 2015December 28, 2015

Rocks To Sea

It is the absence of what we need that makes us think, that makes us wonder and experience as we do now. We pressurize the world to be there for our benefit, and when that happens, we transform our viewing into vision.

We understand that lacking is an addiction that we use to slowly drift away from the unchanged. Only when we learn to live somewhere between the lives of others and our own, can we accept reality.

August 10, 2015November 5, 2019

The Time When Personal Life Became “Public Indecency”

Nobody likes intense loathing, and neither do we love to place blame on India as an abomination in terms of solitude and privacy. But lately, issues have been rambling on that are brutal and unnecessary.

We see this stuff in movies and television serials that we don’t support but for us it’s all hypothetical and we tend not to think about it much because that’s never our reality. But now it’s reality for people who are stained to suffer the blame of being an evildoer or an adulterer by those who swore to protect this country, when in truth it’s not even by their rights to place blame. It’s easier to believe that India is failing to prosper in any field when we speak of people and their lifestyles. But it’s even harder to believe or even witness otherwise. Because then, while good things are happening in this country- initiated by those same people whom we criticize on social media, we will hope for something to go wrong, as it always does.

The recent case that happened in Madh Island and Aksa region was as unmannerly as it was embarrassing, especially for those residing in the hotels where the apparent raid took place.

People (mostly couples) residing in hotels in Madh Island and Aksa region were bombarded by police officers, who came knocking on their hotel room doors for a “clean” check up to prevent indecency being spread from within closed rooms out into the atmosphere (really?). And to think that they asked for ID proofs and even physically marred some who even dared to speak in front of them, questioning their fault in spending time with their partners in a nice and not so expensive hotel room, away from the city on a weekend?

Doesn’t this sort of an arrangement sound familiar to “country care-takers” living in a metro city like Mumbai?

After the raid started, the hotel rooms were searched for everyone residing in them and this went on for more than 5 hours, during which some couple’s parents were called and fines were to be paid (how could they not ask for money?). People don’t mind flashing their ID proofs to police officers once in a while to make the police officers feel that they’re utilizing their duties correctly. But being humiliated in front of people, on a weekend, with no harm done, for something that’s one’s own business and not the government’s, is absolutely nonsensical. When did having a physical relationship with your partner become a hate crime and since when did hotels room become the target for this? So, now after all this, you’re not supposed to even reside in a hotel room with your partner at a nice place, unless you’re married.

All that happened, only because of pressing charges like prostitution were to be looked into? Is this what has happened to this country? If you officers want to swipe off prostitution in a city like Mumbai, don’t target hotels (no no), start from the roots. By executing such an offensive act of sheer stupidity, you’re forcing us into thinking that you’re incapable of handling a complicated task.

The most mind-numbing statement of the news article explained the reason of the raid as an act of someone’s private life being an act that causes indecency and adulteration in public. Why is sex such a bad thing? And even if it’s bad, according to some thick headed officials who claim they know “stuff” and are experienced, let it be bad for those committing it, don’t make it a public hate crime issue that’s deemed bad by the law. It’s healthy to let people decide what’s bad for them unless it’s hurting some other person’s property, money, physical or mental presence.

If this country needs anything to make it better, it needs a complete personality and “moral policy” check on each and every government-man working under the law. And if that’s not enough, try making issues such as sexuality and personal life and choices a school subject, supporting rights in terms of freedom. Let’s not forget that India is an INDEPENDENT COUNTRY.

This topic must have definitely taken flight before the published time of this article but there are never too many opinions to voice amongst those who are willing to listen and understand, and those are should listen to understand.

This post is originally published on This Week Mumbai