Disorder, In the Middle

How often do you understand something about Life ? By ‘Understand’ I don’t mean being able to deal with the situations that rise out of our everyday existence, but Life in itself, being able understand a human or humanistic condition. In my opinion, not very often.

I mentioned in previous posts about me travelling frequently now, for photography. Well, if you want to photograph people you should be among them, which in travelling means using the public transport system. I must confess that in past years I’ve been softened by the ACs and exclusivity at work & at home, progress makes you richer which in turn brings luxury. I’m not against luxury but when you travel in a ‘UP Roadways’ bus after 2-3 years of travelling in peace and comfort, it hurts, A LOT !! The pain isn’t just physical but mental too, not to mention the ‘Hygienic Horrors’ which happen to you. If I was to remember the 5 hour bus ride, I’d remember the stench of sweat mixed with random human bodily gases(it’s what you think it is !) & strange smell of oil in which all the bus stand ‘pakoras’ are fried. Nevertheless you can’t complain, for others are travelling too in the same situation and it isn’t constructive anyways, you do what you have to.

When I warmed up to this fact I started to notice other things, things that were happening all around me. The chain of reasoning started with an argument between 2 men over who should sit in the middle on a seat for three. Both of them didn’t want to be in the middle and after few minutes I started to wonder what was the reason no one wanted to be there. Apart form the obvious reasons of being squeezed and unable to move I realised the being “in the middle” of anything is a stress in itself. After all isn’t ‘Middle Class’ the worst affected by any and every social or economical change ? Later came the people who boarded from many towns which were en route, they were the loudest and had probably the worst journey because all the seats were taken and fare wasn’t that less. So they argued with the conductor about the fare and why they should pay more when they don’t have a place to sit, in short they were miserable. It made me think of everything else too and I realised, the least satisfied people with their lives were ‘middlemen’. It’s the mid tier which seems to complain and throw tantrums everywhere, not to say they don’t have problems but its a double edged sword for them, which in turn scares the shit out of everyone.

After-all the low level guys, be it the society i.e. the BPL people, or the professionals i.e. freshers, and equivalents in almost everything have no pressure, and why not ? They don’t have anything to lose, next to nothing at least. And the top level ! I don’t need to mention what their woes are, not being able to find the matching belt for their shoes and what not. They can do it because they Can, Period. Now lets take a person stuck in the middle. He is the one who has to maintain the balance, because his actions define the body of every hierarchy. He must be efficient and not extravagant, spend neither openly nor too wisely, his kids should be talented but curb their talents so it may go along with the budget, and if the paradox wasn’t enough he must progress and gain wisdom but never and I mean NEVER, challenge or discard the stupid ethics which have been imposed on him by society and several branches of it. If he does, he must be prepared to be an outcast and that means even by his/her own family.

This was the beginning of the journey and I started to build on it. I thought no matter how miserably the middleman is treated he has to have something going for him. Apparently there is, he is the one who is promised everything and made to believe and sometimes feel that its his world. How the masses are middle class, the modernisation is for him and he is the one who along with others like him is going to take everyone to a new ‘level’. The irony starts when you realise that middle-class itself has many sub levels and each level runs its own propaganda. The whole sense of depravity and wishfulness takes an ugly turn here because now you have people of different calibre and means competing with each other. This is the reason of education coexisting with hypocrisy in India.I noticed how the conductor swiftly moved the bus from depot but screamed his lungs everywhere else to get more passengers, promised them seats but there were none. They were conned, and funny thing is they knew they were being conned but still boarded. This is how we are fooled today, made to feel that all the shiny little balls hanging in the air are reachable but when you try to grab ‘em, it turns out they aren’t really there. We think we are in control of our destinies and lives but all we have is the illusion of it. The corporations use it to get richer and politicians use it to fool everyone. I don’t think I even need to mention the propaganda run by politicians and their partners.

How should a person stuck in the middle of things deal with it ? How must he fulfil his wants & his needs, find a way to prioritise & rationalise them ? Rationalisation is inevitable, because unless you are a cold hearted loner, someone or the other will ask for it and the vicious circle would continue. The answer is: I don’t know. I don’t have a solution for this condition, I just realised it’s there. After all no matter what I believe and what my illusion is, I too am stuck at some level in the middle. Which is not a condition anymore its a social disorder which I must work hard to eradicate.