March 25 , 2024

The weekend in Delhi was nothing spectacular, just stuck to my hotel room and visited two sets of friends for an evening meal and drinks. However, there were some points of interest- atleast to me. I seemed to feel healthy-ish after a long time. I had a gargantuan hotel breakfast two days in a row, although was careful enough to limit intake of unfriendly food items- say a Jalebi or similar.

I re-initiated an almost forgotten exercise regime and overall I felt good. However, this morning I am back in Dubai and somehow not at 100 percent again. I wonder if it is all in my mind. I feel tired and sleepy at work- and it could very well be that I slept late and not enough. However, I had not been sleeping any more than 4 or 5 hours for the past few days in India either. Maybe it sort of culminated in an actual physical manifestation which coincided with my return to home. 

It was not the best day to feel sleepy because we had a somewhat difficult Price Squeeze meeting at 9 followed by a somewhat difficult Executive Committee meeting at 11. However, those were navigated somehow.

It is Holi today, and as it stands, I am alone at home. I will not see a speck of colour this time around. This has probably not been the only year that this is so. Holi, to me, has always been one of those festivals that I have only been peripherally involved in. This is not to say I don’t have vivid memories of all sorts of Holi get-togethers I had been part of. Growing up in India, we used to be out on the streets fooling around with water colours and considerably unruly behaviour. This  has always been for me the most intriguing part about this festival. Yes there is a lot colour and singing and dancing that makes for an atmosphere that makes you break way from an otherwise dull reverie. But as you will admit, there are other ways to do exactly that. The unique additional feature of holi is that there seems to be a tacit contract with whomever you are playfully interacting with, and of any age and gender, and bearing any particular relationship with, that it is ok to be offensive- albeit playfully.  I have no idea of the origins of this controversial compact, but like anything hindu- I think it was designed to be a “release” valve in our humdrum existence that was otherwise laced with so much propriety that it indubitably took a toll on our authenticity. It also then means that our forefathers surmised that keeping an act on is harmful for health and builds up a sort of hydraulic pressure that then needs to be released once a year during holi. It sounds far-fetched but I doubt it is. It seems like a good idea on the surface, as being playfully offensive is not hitherto concerning. But as with all such motherhood policies, there is no official red line and therefore lines can and do get crossed. Particularly with members of the opposite sex. I recall so many instances of a random chap in the locality try to get physically intimate with a member of the opposite way above his league on the day of holi. By physically intimate I don’t mean copulation- just the increased level of tactility that is on offer on account of applying colour on another person’s skin. It seemed to be good enough for the relief valve to go off. But equally, I think in many instances this could well devolve into groping and thus firmly fall into the category of harassment- which is then obviously not merely “playfully offensive”.

All in all, I believe that the Hindus have an underlying strain of acceptance that is far more than other civilsations. Had this not been the case, with all the given problems that exist in India, one would have expected bedlam- every day and twice on Sundays. But this is not the case. You visit India, and everything seems to be tick-tock. People are just going about their business. There are a few untoward incidents- and even they are somewhat accepted.  Now you ask, what about the Muslims? They are not hindu- so why are they also ordained with this proclivity. Fair question, but I think such “proclivities” do not form in a few hundred years but rather are programmed in DNA of a few thousand or even more. And by this logic, all muslims in India are largely “hindu” from a DNA standpoint. I am conflating religion and culture, which is obviously not right- but I am doing it merely to make a point. I think this happens to be Hindutva’s point too. It is a good point in my opinion- although it has been used for political intention – which I have no sympathy for. However, like all hindus, I will accept this as well. Some will not accept and there will be some tension but overall people will accept and life will go on. There will be no Armageddon nor Apocalypse. These events are simply not ordained in the Indic culture.

This laissez-faireness is also the reason why it is inconceivable to me to compare India and China and expect India to grow and develop like China has. That level of development requires upending our current reality with a sort of violence that is fundamentally alien to Indians. It wont happen, it cant happen, not here in India. Hence we will develop, but we will do it slowly and we will be satisfied with a lot less as compared to the Chinese.  We know that this life is not the only life- there is time in the next life and in subsequent lives to get that Farmer’s reform bill passed, or build that hydroelectric power project that displaces three villages – and so on.

The question I suppose, at a very fundamental level, is if there is anything wrong with that? There is no need to measure India using an external KPI. We are not in an external market- some would say. But we are in an external market – people have finite money which they need to place either in India or say Brazil or Vietnam. India will perpetually lose out with its cultural predilection that I described. True. But, so what? We will still be around- forever and ever. Trust me