"Chat" in a bus

Date: 16th November 2009
Location: In a BMTC bus from Silk board to office on the Koramangala Inner Ring Road.

An elderly lady climbs into the bus, pushes everybody aside with her “Excuse me” and “Swalpa jaaga bidi”, goes to a seat where two men were sitting in ladies' seats. She makes them get up and beckons me to sit next to her.
Me: Thanks, Aunty
Aunty (pointing to another lady standing in the bus and a couple of guys sitting in ladies' seats): That lady should also ask those people to get up and sit down. These men, you know, they wont realize until they are told that they are sitting in a ladies seat.
I nod and smile.
Silence for a few minutes.
Aunty: Where do you work?
Me: Yahoo in EGL here
Aunty: Software-a?
Me: Yes, Aunty
Aunty: How is software industry now? Has it improved?
Me: Its slowly improving.
Aunty: You get to go abroad?
Me: Not everybody aunty. Only the higher level executives get to go.
Me (tired of only answering questions): Do you work, aunty?
Aunty: I work in Vijaya Bank here only. You know the banking sector also has become very difficult nowadays. Ofcourse, job security is there but you have to keep learning, managing so many things...
Me(very grateful for the extra information): Hmm....
Silence for a few minutes again.
Aunty: You've done B.E.?
Me: I've done M.E Aunty.
Aunty(completely puzzled): What is M.E?
Me: Master of Engineering. Its post-graduation, done after B.E.(Ah! Now everything seemed clear to her)
Aunty: Which university?
Me: IISc.
(After observing the puzzled look is coming back) Indian Institute of Science, Aunty. Its in Yeshwantpur.
Aunty: Okay
Aunty: Which community to you belong to?
Me(after getting over the shock of being asked such a totally irrelevant and seemingly rude question): We are Brahmins, Aunty
Aunty(with a slightly 'put-off' look): Brahmins is a vast community. Its easier to find people for marriage, no?
Me (trying my best to control laughter and keep a straight face): Why, Aunty? Are you looking for someone?
Aunty: Ya, for my son. But we are Christians (Thank God she clarified that else wouldn't I immediately start dreaming of her in place of my future mother-in-law!).
We can go through profiles on the net but I believe in finding someone known to us(Yes, she did know me for the past half an hour!)
Do you have any Christian friends?
Me(wanting to maximize on the fun element): Yes aunty...(after a few seconds pause and observing her face glow) but they are all married.
Aunty(clear look of disappointment on her face): Oh
Aunty: How is Mindtree? Is it a good company?
Me (while racking my brains about the sudden interest in Mindtree): Its a good company. I heard it is very well-managed.
Aunty: Okay. Actually there is one girl who is working Mindtree whom we are looking at.
Me: Okay...its a good company, aunty.
Another few minutes of silence.
Aunty: Do you have fixed timings in office? You also must be having shifts and all , right?
Me(partially glad that the 'M' topic is over): We do. 8:30 to 5:30. But we rarely go back at 5:30...there is always enough work to do.
Aunty: Do you people get time to look at profiles and think about marriage? (There it comes! The 'M' topic again).
Your parents only must see no?
My son is a doctor. He is working in St. Johns. He doesn't have time only. He has a lot of work to do. (I was imagining the poor fellow trying all means to find work and escape the torture of having to look at the girls' profiles his mother brings.)
Me: My parents want to look aunty but I'm not interested right now. (I know...I lied...but I wanted to hear what would come next if I said I wasn't interested).
Aunty(with a look of shock and disbelief): Why! You must be some 25! Its high time you got married(Yes, this is what I heard many many times and still find it very funny. I always thought the time for marriage should be decided based on the maturity and readiness of a person rather than one's age).
My son is 30. I feel that its pretty late for him only, but there was no other option. He wanted to wait till he finishes his PG and gets a job. (And nobody else has the right to have such issues, right!)
Me(smile on my face): Hmm....

And then we “chit-chatted” about ordinary things like the traffic on Ring Road until my stop came.
Aunty(as I got up to leave and said bye): Bye! Have a nice day!

Personal choice - where art thou?

"Islamic group bans Vande Mataram, BJP fumes"

The Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Hind on Tuesday supported a decree against the national song Vande Mataram on the grounds that some of its lines were "against the religious principles of Islam".
The move drew fierce criticism from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which termed the move "anti-national".

One group says it is against the religion to sing a song which was the source of inspiration for our freedom movement. It forbids its people to continue to sing "Vande Mataram" since Muslims are not "supposed" to bow to anybody except Allah. Another group fumes at this statement, says that such resolutions should not be allowed and decides to enforce the song on the people by putting up posters of "Vande Mataram" all over the place. All of a sudden it becomes a "Hindu-Muslim" issue.

But if we really think about this, how does it matter whether a person sings Vande Mataram or not? Why should saluting to the motherland become anti-Muslim or anti-Allah? Fine, maybe it does. It still doesn't have to be enforced on all Muslims, does it? Can't it be left to the discretion of the individual?
And then again, even if such a resolution has been passed and is followed ardently by all Muslims, does it really matter? How does a group of people refusing to sing Vande Mataram become anti-national? As it is, isnt the song sung only on rare ocassions? Why should it become a raging issue and become part of the front-page news almost everyday? Its all a political power play and a tactic to grab public attention but how many people will recognize this?

Then, one thinks, is this the only ocassion when such a power play became front-page news? Is this the only time when politics interfered in the personal choices of the people? No. One gets reminded of the moral-policing event by political groups which became extremely sensational news. The political groups decide it is against Indian culture for women to go to pubs and therefore starts a movement against them (which "incidentally" takes the form of assualt on the women which is very much part of our Indian culture, I suppose).

Personal choice, in principle, seems to be disappearing from our society. A person is not completely allowed to decide how he wants to live his/her life. At every step in life, one is faced with a set of rules to follow. Yes, there need to be some rules in society so that chaos is avoided. But isn't society interfering too much off-late? A student cannot wear the dresses of his/her choice to college because it is against "college-rules". I was always under the impression that college is supposed to educate, not enforce. Something terribly wrong and against the rules of society must be going on if a man and a woman are seen together. There has to be something wrong if an elderly man is not staying with his children. Everybody around has to interfere and know what is the reason.

Somethings have to be left to a person's volition. But that doesn't seem to be happening. Where is our personal freedom lost?