Should I stay or should I go?
The Clash asked that, rhythm and rhyming the approach-avoidance
syndrome, backing it with a driving incessant beat, and…leaving the question
unanswered, now that I think about it; which doesn’t help me a lot, or any.
See, the thing is, I’ve remained in India for the
past decade and half in highly addictive expat comforts. This in spite of the
best efforts of the Foreigners Regulation and Registration Office and its
bureaucratically brilliant systems for making life just that little bit more
pebble-in-the-shoe-ish. I shouldn’t be surprised. I mean, you take bureau… I
beg your pardon, Bureaucracy, which India has had for a lot longer than most
other places, and you clothe it in the Eton-Harrow-OxBridge pomposities that
pass for governance and administration, and what you get is the FRRO, and their
ability to trigger ‘screw it, what’s the travel agent’s e-address, sorts of
thoughts and impulses. But, I digress.
The FRRO is not the reason I’ve bookmarked Lonely
Planet and know where my passport and traveling pants are. [Aren’t cargos
just the absolute tits?] For the first
time in 15 years I’m starting to get uncomfortable with the smell of teen
spirit. An appreciable, increasingly aggressive, portion of India’s youth, the
generation that Narendra ‘BigMo’ Modi has so assiduously wooed and won, have
embraced the concept of Indian National Cultural Values (INCV) (All concepts in
India are labeled and acronym-ed. It’s a cultural thing) and are looking to
impose the same on the rest of India. As an example let me cite the attempt by some
of Young Modern India (YoMo’In) (concept again) to exercise their perfectly
reasonable right to show affection, one for the other, in public and with due
regard for the decencies necessary. Towards this end a ‘Kiss-in’ was organized
and announced. This did not meet with the approval of the Religious Right (RR)
(also a concept), who, in short order deployed their youth wing. There are altogether
too many upper case concepts of that wing for me to list. Suffice it to say
that they are manifold and are, without exception, large, testosterone driven
and ready to rumble. Pumped with ideology, righteous anger, and, I suspect but
cannot prove, steroids, these myrmidons of INCV were able to intimidate the
local police into backing their play in preventing the Kiss-in from happening. The
cops must have figured that worst YoMo’In could do was kiss them in protest
while the RR youth wing was armed, but I’m guessing.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that things have
reached the twin lightning insignia stage but one gets the feeling that saffron
shirts and khaki shorts are being bulk ordered and stockpiled. Certainly
saffron is starting to replace the admittedly condescending Congress white in
the halls and seats of power, bringing with it the stench of faith based
governance and reminding me of the reasons I left home, hearth, and health
insurance to remain in India. But now…
I wonder if the FRRO in Vietnam has better manners.
