CONFESSIONS OF
A COMMON MAN
By A.V. Dhanushkodi
FOUR -- The
Key Question
I have often wondered why we, the common
people, condone corruption. We read,
almost every day, of corruption at every level of functioning of our nation,
right from the central ministers down to the sweeper on the street, not
impersonal events far removed from our lives, but events which happen every day
in our own lives, affecting us in so many ways.
Yet, we do not take them seriously.
Possibly, either because we do
not recognize them as corrupt practices or, even if we do identify them as
corruption, we brush them aside with a casual gesture, as common occurrences. One may call it resignation, resulting from a
sense of helplessness. There may be some
truth in that interpretation but, going a step further, I would ascribe that
attitude to be rooted in an awareness, conscious or subconscious, of our own
behaviour, corrupt to a greater or lesser degree. I do not mean monetary corruption only, I mean
by the word ‘corruption’, a broad
spectrum of behaviour in every one of us---business and non-business in
nature---crossing the boundaries of legality, morality, and all norms of social
behaviour, which have evolved over centuries,
meant to benefit the largest number of people.
Recently,
I went to Cochin,
to stay with my friend for a few days, just to relax and do nothing; not that I had a hectic time otherwise in
Chennai. He was living in an apartment
in Tripunithura, on the outskirts of Cochin. The area, where the apartment was located,
was rather thinly populated and close to open fields, some of which were
cultivated with paddy. As he was living
alone, we had the two-bedroom apartment all to ourselves. Although he had a spotless kitchen, equipped
with all the modern gadgets to prepare five-star food, he did not cook for lack
of time, in spite of the fact that he had hands-on qualification to be the Chef
at any of the five-star hotels. One of
the reasons I agreed to visit him, when he invited me to stay with him for about
a week, was the irrepressible temptation to taste the outcome of his culinary
expertise in action every day. I was
rather disappointed when he told me, on my arrival there, that he had almost
stopped cooking and was getting food from a nearby caterer. However, the
word ‘almost’ meant that I should not lose hope. It was heartening to learn pretty soon that
the food from the catering unit was not bad really.
Most of
the time we chatted, recalling incidents and events from the good old days,
when he used to live in Madras
(as Chennai was called then). Often we
would listen to music, of all kinds, including those composed by him, as he is
a music composer of outstanding merit.
When we ran out of such indoor indulgences , we would take long walks on
less populated roads and streets, some of which skirted along narrow waterways
and paddy fields. I had taken my Kodak
digital camera with me, which I put to good use during those walks. We seemed to have a tacit understanding to
talk less while walking, which set our minds free from the windowless prisons
of our thoughts, to be able to look at the natural beauty around us, the trees,
the birds and their calls, and feel the air and smell the fragrances of the
myriad flowers, plants, and the earth.
A week
went by in such a languid passage of time. When the day of my departure arrived, I was most
reluctant to pack. Nevertheless, when it
was time for me to leave for the station that evening, which was within a short
distance, I was ready and came down the
steps with heavy luggage and an equally heavy heart.
Stepping
out of the apartment building, we spotted an auto parked on the opposite side
of the street, and hastened towards it.
A few paces off the auto, two men were standing and chatting in a casual
manner. One of them, on seeing us
approach the auto, turned to us and looked at us, enquiringly. Obviously, he was the auto-driver. As I did not know the local language, my friend told the driver that we needed to
go to Tripunithura station to catch the Trivandrum Mail at 6.30. Without a word the driver nodded and gestured
that we should be seated in his auto. We
sat in the auto with my luggage and waited for the driver. The time was five past six.
We
waited for the driver to close his conversation with his friend any moment, but
he did not. We waited, but he went on
chatting and laughing, unmindful of our urgency. The time was ten past six. Still there was no sign of the driver making
a move. I was getting nervous and we
were losing our patience. My friend
called out a couple of times, but the driver gestured that we should wait. Finally, furious and losing patience
completely, my friend suggested that we took another auto. We got down and walked away, still the driver
was chatting with his friend, with his back turned to us. The friend did notice us walking away and
alerted the driver, but the driver dismissed the matter with a casual sweep of
his hand.
As we
walked briskly away from the auto, I told my friend I could not understand the
auto driver’s behaviour. He said he
could: the auto driver was not willing to take us to the station, because the
distance was too short and the fare would be the minimum for the ride. “But he could have told us so”, I argued.
Before my friend could answer, we saw another empty auto going in the
direction of the station and we hopped into it, shouting, “To the station!”
As the
auto picked up speed, I saw my friend throw something into the gutter running
alongside the road. “What was that?” I
asked. “A bunch of keys”, came the
answer. My friend’s action was as
puzzling as the behaviour of the auto driver.
“What keys? Whose keys?” I
demanded, agitated. “The auto driver’s
keys”, answered my friend calmly, with a smug smile.
A.V.
Dhanushkodi
December
9, 2010
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