Society, Class, and The People Within

The division of our society is explicitly visible in the products people living within it make. A train comes with coaches divided into upper-class air-conditioned private coaches to lower-class messy and sweaty ones where people rely on air from the door and windows. This means if the train is not moving, its "AC" is not working. Buses follow a similar pattern where there are air-conditioned, high-tech Volvo buses which are often looked upon by people sitting in a lower-grade bus with hopes and desires, and often followed by abuses such as "rich brats". These lower-class buses are termed "ordinary" in the government booking portal, glorifying the fact that you cannot expect something lavish here, or to just portray that the other bus is "extraordinary". Maybe "ordinary" is an alias used for a bus but signifying the current societal status of the people sitting in it. I become "ordinary" when I sit in an "ordinary" bus, but when I step onto the blue carpet of a Volvo sparkling with LED lights and a complex driver's dashboard, I have been uplifted to an "extraordinary" status automatically.

It is not a hint to point towards communalism. It has far more problems than capitalism in any way you can imagine. But it shows how people have carefully but cautiously divided themselves in these imaginary boundaries, which they won't speak about because that makes them rude and insensitive. But, reflect their thoughts in their work, such as a train and a bus. However, there are times when an "extraordinary" person converses with an "ordinary" person and takes a sneak peek into their mind and tries to figure out what they think when they know their rankings have not been great for ages, including their parents and grandparents, and maybe further more down the line. 

I had an opportunity to talk to two security guards in my society at different points in time. One of them stopped me and said, "My phone is not catching any network here. I want to call someone. Can you look at it?" He had already applied the hard-proven method of restarting any device that stops working, hoping that it would start behaving as expected. They often wish, like most of us, that we could do the same with our lives as well. "I think my phone is old, I need to buy a new one, only then it will work", he said this multiple times while I investigated as if someone had already given him strong evidence of such a method. But that was not the problem. He had put his SIM card in slot 2, keeping slot 1 empty, which prohibits connection requests in many older and outdated devices. "Thank you", he said and connected the phone to start talking.

The next day, we met again at the same spot. I asked whether he is facing any problem with his phone, and he said that sometimes the network doesn't come to his home, but here they do. Again, for the umpteenth time, he said, "Maybe I need to buy a new phone." Something engraved so deeply in his belief cannot be erased, just like when some people have already believed that the other person will cheat them in some way, they start to find negativities in their behavior and satisfy their belief in the end, even if it includes multiple assumptions.

"Where do you live?" I asked him to guess the reason the network doesn't work at his home.

"There", he pointed to a small slum with a tin shed where my cook used to live before. I knew that place and the architecture inside, thanks to the cook. But also, I remember she told me that only Jio and Airtel caught the network in her home, nothing else. She had decoded the answer to this small problem, but the guard had not. I told him the same, but with a two-second pause, he said, "When my salary comes, I will buy a new phone." Ah, I wish love were as strong in our society as his beliefs are towards a new Android phone. I did not answer.

"My legs pain sitting here for long hours. I don't want to do this work at all."

Who wants to? I thought to myself. At least, I have never found any security guard who had dreamt of being a security guard when he was a child. This must be the case with every blue-collar job. But I did not react to him.

"Don't get me wrong", he sensed my thought, "I am a runner. I can run to any place from any place you want and for a long time. My legs and body that you see used to be a lot different a few years back. I could lift anything and do anything. I went to the army admissions and passed all the tests with so much time to spare that the invigilator couldn't believe."

"Then, what happened?"

"They asked for five lakh rupees in donation, and I did not have it. So I came here from West Bengal to do this job."

I had so many reasons not to believe him, especially the one where I have never heard any such thing in army processes because of the reputation they hold. Also, I don't think anything can surprise an army invigilator who might remain unaffected by the worst of things in his experience.

"Here I am, I have to live here with people I despise."

"You live alone?"

"No, I have a wife and a son."

If I had to guess his age, I would never cross the number 30. But in any case, he had given up too quickly on his life. I know this circle. I have heard it and felt it many times. A man who gives up too quickly on everything settles down with a wife he doesn't like and a son he always wanted, who will fulfil his dreams, even if it means forcefully. I have seen people who failed 12th grade beating their children to get excellent marks because that's the thing that will make them "successful". In reality, they just want them to do what they always wanted and couldn't do because they were too scared or gave up without trying anything else. I mean, who in this whole world will understand the pain of cramming the textbooks without an interest than the person who failed? They should be the torchbearer of their children's lives, but instead, they push them in the same tunnel through which they once went. I knew what the guard would say next.

"I am here to earn for my family. One day, my son will become a big guy like you or join the army." Ah, I wish he didn't say that. I wish nobody had to lift the burden of another person's dreams. I ended this part of the conversation.

"Who do you despise?" I asked.

"There are people who live there. Fucking Bangladeshis. Don't know how to live, how to eat, how to keep their place clean. Brother, they don't even wash their utensils. They just lick it and keep it in the kitchen."

"I see! What do they do?"

"They work as guards in other societies."

I see him placing himself on the higher pedestal even though his opponent has the same job, comes almost from the same place, speaks the same language, and earns the same. I see thin lines beneath the "ordinary" class. I see that it has its own layers, just like a tree's bark.

He talked to me for some time, putting down his disappointments towards his low salary and long hours. He referred to me and the people living in the society as "bada log" multiple times in his sentences, but never said anything bad about us. He told me how he feels empty and lonely all the time, longing for someone to talk to. I asked him how is that possible when he has a wife and a son here, to which he said, "We don't talk much. She keeps the house clean and makes food. I will go and eat food and go to sleep. That's all we do." He knew he lived with a stranger who would possibly remain a stranger even after they had spent more than half of their lives together.

A few days ahead, on a nice windy day, it started drizzling while I was out in the garden. Thinking this rain would stop soon, I did not take shelter and remained there. A security guard said, "Thand lag jaegi, hawa bahut tez hai". 2 seconds later, the rain stopped, and I saw him coming towards me. "It's so cold here in Bangalore. I always have to wear a jacket," Maybe he is from a warmer place, I thought. 

"Where are you from?"

"Tripura. It is never as cold as it is here.", he said on a day with 21 degrees Celsius on the scale.

"I mean it is, but it is not as windy, so we don't feel it. It is less windy there."

"I see."

"I hate Bangalore! Have you seen the roads? They are not even good for walking, let alone driving a car. Tripura has smooth roads. There are no potholes, no cracks, nothing."

"That's nice to hear."

"Yes. And the people here are extremely rude."

"How come?" I asked.

"They don't like us. We, the lower-class migrants. They look down on us and often shout that they will kill us, as they are in Karnataka. Why is that? We work and we go to sleep. That's all we do. There are so many "Biharis" working in Tripura, and they live there like it's their own state."

"I think Biharis live everywhere like it's their own state."

"Haha. That's true. But they sleep on anyone's farms, and they do whatever they wish to do. People of Tripura never say anything. We are the people of the forest and nature. We welcome everyone with open arms and look here."

"People of nature, you say?"

"Yes. You see so many people here rushing into the hospital. In Tripura, we don't go to the hospital. We have our own methods and techniques. People here stick to their beds after getting Malaria. We have a special tree for Malaria there. We eat the leaves to cure ourselves. You will never see a death from Malaria in Tripura.  Here, people get a plaster for minor fractures and cracks. We don't have plasters. We do our own paste. You won't believe me. A guy had the lower part of his leg hanging out, totally broken. No doctor would have agreed to cure it. They would have simply cut it as they always do. But our village doctor, "Baid Ji", made the paste, stuck it to his leg, tied it with a rope, and in 7 days his leg joined back. But here, people do not understand this. Nature has everything in it. All the cures and all the medicines. You just have to figure out which works when."

"That's so true.", I said, and saw his eyes fixed on a guy going from in front of us. I knew him. He was our society's plumber. 

"This guy told me he would kill me."

"Him? He is the plumber."

"Yes. One day, somebody raised a complaint about their pipe to get fixed, but he didn't come. Then they started complaining to the security manager a couple of days later. The manager told us to let him know when we see him. One day, when I saw him, I told him to meet the manager, and that because of him, we are getting scolded unnecessarily. He told me to behave properly and said that I am in Karnataka, he can kill me, and nobody would know."

This time, the plumber jumped the "extraordinary" level from ordinary and separated himself from the class of the security guard. He made sure the guard knew that they were divided. It is not about Karnataka. It is just to show his upper-level and his power over him.

"Then, what did you say?"

"I did not say anything. I called my boss. He is also from Tripura. He is in the government service and currently resides in Bangalore. We used to talk a lot when he was in Tripura and I worked as a guard for him. He was the one who called me here and got me the job as a good gesture."

He did not work for him now, but still calls him "boss", accepting their nature and relationship for life.

"Then?"

"Then he called here, and this guy got an earful. He has not been to me since then."

The security guard reclaimed his level that he had lost for a few minutes. Maybe the plumber, too, realizes that the fine line that divides both of them is only a line until someone from another upper-level comes in between. But he had won. I could see the glare in his eyes, and how the plumber stole his glance clearly depicts who is "extraordinary" and who is "ordinary" among them. I was confused. I thought this small incident was not about the class but ego. They both belong to the same class of society, but their ego made them pull the other person down, not silently but with so much noise that both of them heard and settled on it. I could favor my security guard on it, whom I thought was different than the other guard. I never heard anything like "bada log" and "hum to chota log" sentences. He did not provide any references, like a lack of money to become successful, which would make him look smaller. Maybe I found the person in this "ordinary" bracket who looks beyond the societal structures, or just doesn't care about it at all, except for his ego. 

I settled on my thoughts and asked him, "Where do you stay?"

He pointed at the same location as the first guard.

"Oh! You live with that guard?"

"That guard? No! Never! I can't live with him. "Hamari aukat wala nahi hai who!"

I sighed. I left.