Our patterned spectacles

India today is a confluence of values and ideas - new and old. We are imbibing new values while at the same time trying to keep our conservatism intact. We are shedding our decadent notions and striving to be forward looking and liberal. We fight to live by our new found principles, at each step fending off taunts from the society of being too "fast" or "modern". And we all are proud of our audacity to stand as islands of modernity in an ocean of ignorance. But there are moments when you realize that your principles are a farce and they will not be able to survive in the turbulence of the ocean. In fact, we have never really faced the ocean, always comforting ourselves within the glass walls of our city homes. We look at the world in a certain manner when in our cocoons and with the same ease don our patterned spectacles when faced with the heat of the wilderness.

Just a couple of weeks back, I visited the hill station of Manali with a friend and her husband. The entire trip was planned by her and I just tagged along. Since we were three, she booked a seat for me in the ladies quota which meant that only another lady could occupy the seat next to me. This was bad news for the bus operator since there was no other single lady apart from me travelling that day. Initially he was polite and asked my friend to shift next to me but when she refused, he raised his tone. It came to the point when there was an open altercation and he asked me to get down after paying some token amount. And all this while, he never talked to me, he was always addressing my friend's husband, making me feel as if I was a non-entity just because I was a lady and it was the male member of our group who was responsible for my decisions. I was quite shaken aback by his behavior but what shocked me more was my reaction to the entire episode. Somewhere deep down, I felt a sense of relief that there was a male in our group and I didn't have to deal with this crass bus operator. I was not angry at him for treating me like a nobody and I gracefully let him do that because I found myself incapable of even reasoning with him.

I have always been a person who makes all efforts to uphold and live by my liberal principles and supports freedom of choice. And in my foolish idealism, I sometimes act just to test my depth of conviction. But, most of the time these experiments are within my comfort zone. So, I have traveled alone before, on a leisure trip, but by air consciously not choosing a cheaper media like a bus. Does that mean that all my talk to idealism is only within the confines of my glasshouse? And once I face an alien world, I comfortably slip into my old spectacles looking at things the same way as others do.

And if that is so, then I am a hypocrite who changes stance to suit the situation. I am a coward at some level, refusing to confront the toughness of the world.

It is true that in life one has to be flexible with the way one reacts to each situation. That is pragmatism. An idealistic approach in life is not practical. Sometimes, we should let the situation dictate our reaction. Deep inside, we all know how strong we are. Maybe I was not strong enough to be able to confront the scene that unfolded in the bus, so it is totally fine to let the situation take control. Sometimes idealism does not help solve problems and instead complicates matters. But yes, we have to judge when to confront and when to back off.

That incident on the bus, apart from causing us a moment of discomfort, taught me a lot about myself. I have realized that each of us is layered and it is through these occasional forays in the real world that we uncover those layers. We say that we don't understand others but the truth is that we actually don't know ourselves. So, let yourself be free, come out of your cocoons and discover yourself!