The relevance of Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party and modern Indian youth.

 Abstract:

            Harold Pinter (10 October 1930- 24 December 200) was a famous British playwright, screenwriter, actor and director and winner of Nobel Prize. Pinter through his plays influenced twentieth-century literary men.  The Birthday Party (197) was his most popular play. The Birthday Party is his first full-length lay.  It is an expository play where very title The Birthday Party is verifiable. Its characters are contradictory and ambiguous and make it absurd play.

The Birthday Party is a straightforward plot of characters now holed up in a non-decrepit guest house. Behind the surface silence and symbolism, the characters and their dark world, the plot leads to another world: the part of hidden within but we all aspire for it.

Keywords:

            1-counselees. 2- addiction. 3- startup. 4- absurd play. 5- polarisation. 6- precious. 7- drugs. 8- Bollywood. 9- stakeholders. 10- endeavour. 11- Urbanisation. 12- industrialisation.

Introduction:

            The Birthday Party is a highly relevant play to all the ages and people. It is a deeply political play with the character's resistance for survival and identity. It is also a private play in nature where characters struggle to find out the vanished world.  The puppeteers or the jokers of the church-state machinery, Pinter's description of a metaphor of a weird party dealing in life and death.

Famous play The Birthday Party by noted playwright Harold Pinter is highly relevant to modern  Indian youth. Like the 4G generation youth, they have all the modern gadgets but hallow inside.  It is destroying them but they fail to realise that destruction.  They are not reading this message, despite seeing the devastation every day.

Famous play The Birthday Party by noted playwright Harold Pinter is highly relevant to modern  Indian youth. Like the 4G generation youth, they have all the modern gadgets but hallow inside.  It is destroying them but they fail to realise that destruction.  They are not reading this message, despite seeing the devastation every day.

MEG. Is it good?

PETEY. Not bad.

MEG. What does it say?

PETEY. Nothing much.

MEG. You read me out some nice bits yesterday.

(The Birthday Party, Harold Pinter, Faber and Faber, London, Act-I, p.10. Hereafter refers as The Birthday Party.)

There are many counselees to guide such confused youth but all have failed as if the message has even reached to them.  All the youth lost in phones, playing video games,  watching senseless videos, chatting with aimless friends, discussing booze parties,  commenting on social media, just scrolling the pictures of hot celebrities, etc.  They fail to understand that life is very important and it is about their happy future.  Life cannot be seen in phones.  This is the luckiest generation in India that has access to smart-phones and easy data and they are wasting life on it.

MEG. I knew it was.

PETEY. (Turning to her). Oh, Meg, two men came up to me on the beach last night. 

MEG. Two men? 

PETEY. Yes. They wanted to know if we could put them up for a couple of nights. 

MEG. Put them up here. 

(The Birthday Party, p-13).

Check their time, which often averages 5-7 hours a day or in some cases, more than that for young people wasted on parties and phones. For retired or settled people, it is tolerable but for a young man that has to plan his/ her future life and career, just unimaginable. Almost one-third of their useful working hours or one-third of their life is lost. This addiction of parties, booze is like addiction to drugs and sex, eating away a big part of life. It's damaging to career scenario and messing up life and thinking. If it stays in this manner, an entire generation will become a spoiled generation, an entire generation addicted to parties, worthless in their life and naive about the society and nation. These are the negative effects of this party addiction.

 

STANLEY. I didn't sleep at all.

MEG. You didn't sleep at all? Did you hear that, Petey? Too tired to eat your breakfast, I suppose? Now eat up those cornflakes like a good boy. Go on.

------

-----

-----

PETEY. No, no, I wouldn't say it was cold. 

MEG. What are the cornflakes like, Stan? 

STANLEY. Horrible.

MEG.  Those flakes? Those lovely flakes? You're a liar, a little liar. They're refreshing. It says so. For the people when they get up late. 

STANLEY. The milk's off.

(The Birthday Party, pp-14-15).

People waste their valuable time on parties, wine and games which could be better utilized in career building and more useful things in life. Envisage saving five hours a day from parties, friends, wine and phone and spending it with family or anything –  like studies, exercise, skill development, job search, startup etc. Think if one did this Imagine if you did this without fail, one would be another Bill Gates or Indian Ambani, Adani, Tata.

Making mindless friends dulls the cognitive brain. The human brain has two parts – cognitive and emotional. The best brain is where both work in harmony. When one indulges in junk, the cognitive brain disengages and is used negatively and used less. Such people cannot reason, think or argue logically and intelligently. The person loses the vision to understand points of views evaluate pros and cons, face multiple situations, or take the quick and right decisions.

Stanley very aptly summons this dilemma of modern youth:

            STANLEY. You know what? To look at me, I bet you wouldn't think I would lead such a quiet life. The lines on my face, eh? It's the drink. Been drinking a bit down here.             But what I mean is...you know how it is...away from your own...all wrong, of course....I'll be all right when I get back ...but what I mean is, the way some people look at me you'd think I was a different person. I suppose I have changed, But I'm still the same man that I             always was. I mean, you wouldn't think, to look at me, really...I mean, not really, that I                 was the sort of bloke to----to cause any trouble, would you? (MACCAN look at him) Do you know what I mean? 

            (THE BIRTHDAY PARTY, ACT II, p-40).                                

Emotion brain alone functions as the cognitive brain remains numb. The constant hypes in parties and conversation, the polarisation, the intense liking and disliking, the popularity of certain hot-spot, all point to a confused and muddled generation where the emotional brain is hyperactive, and the reasoning mind is unsound or not used. People who use only the emotional brain don't generally perform well in life. The only remedy-----stop freezing the brain and use the mind in the best possible things.

Three, regular hours in the parties or with friends kill enthusiasm and energy. Fixed goals and targets ensure success in life and they motivate to work hard to achieve goals. However, wasting time in parties with friends, strangers kill motivations and makes us lazy. Unknowingly, deep inside, depression and fear of failure make space in mind and life and one is not able to concentrate decisively anymore. 

STANLEY. You'd better be careful.

GOLDBERG. Webber, what were you doing yesterday?

STANLEY. Yesterday?

GOLDBERG. And the day before. What did you do the day before that?

STANLEY. What do you mean?

GOLDBERG. Why are you wasting everybody's time Webber? Why are you getting in everybody's way? 

STANLEY. Me. What are you-------

GOLDBERG. I'm telling you, Webber. You're a washout. Why are you getting on everybody's nick? Why are you driving that old lady off her conk?

MACCAN. He likes to do it.

GOLDBERG. Why do you behave so badly? Webber? Why do you force that old man out to play chess?

STANLEY. Me?

GOLDBERG. Why do you treat that young lady like a leaper? She's not a leaper Webbner?

            (THE BIRTHDAY PARTY, ACT II, pp-47-48).     

To cope with this problem one should try to go for self introspect why one failed in life. People should try to find out the weaknesses and ---bad party goers, bad past friends, parties, institutions, relatives, businesses, professions which are villain responsible for one's life not being what it ought to be. They must understand, life is very precious and the world is very complex. However, wasting time on parties, booze, get-together and dates won't help in life. Managing time and working for the self-will.

Youth should stop complaining. Learn creativity and positivity Design a happy and better life for your and family and be a better person. Think about whether doing best and maximum? Are you working maximum as it possibly can? Shun those pitiful parties away until you get something of your life. Remember, winners, find a suitable way out of every difficulty. So, I can too.

GOLDBERG. Which came first?

MACCAN. Chicken? Egg? Which came first?

GOLDBERG and MACCAN. Which came first?  Which came first?  Which came first? 

            STANLEY screams.

GOLDBERG. He doesn't know. Do you know your own face?

MACCAN. Wake him up. Stick a needle in his eye.

GOLDBERG. You're a plague, Webbber. You are an overthrow.

MACCAN. You're what's left!

GOLDBERG. But we've got the answer to you. We can sterilise you.

MACCAN. What about Drogheda?

GLDBERG. Your bite is dead. Only your pong is left.

MACCAN. You betrayed our land.

GOLDBERG. Who are you, Webber?

GOLDBERG. What makes you think you exist? 

MACCAN. You're dead.

GOLDBERG, You're dead. You can't live, you can't think, you can't love. You're dead. You're a plague gone bad. There's no choice in you. You're nothing but an odour! 

            Silence. They stand over him. He is crouched in the chair. He looks up slowly and kicks    GOLDBERG  in the stomach. GOLDBERG falls. STANLEY stands. MACCAN seizes a    chair and lifts it above his head. STANLEY seizes a chair and covers his head with it.           MACCAN and STANLEY circle.      

            (THE BIRTHDAY PARTY, ACT II, p-52) .

Unlike drugs, parties are legal. Only a fat purse is needed. Time and resources are immensely important---for life, career, and happiness. It is very difficult to earn. But it can also destroy a person if not used properly and even an entire generation, which today's world is witnessing. For it is the people where they want to go. Imagine the people and our elders those have very thin recourses but gave pleasures to this new generation. How cool and sensible were they? They were struggling to make us happy.

Think about past generations. The people cared for welfare issues. Today, do people care about what truly impacts society? Or do they genuinely and emotionally react to needs based on how important, essential, precious or senseless it is? The super significant and urgent priority is to make us happy safe and successful. Some people are highly successful than others. Google pictures the empires and acts of such people to the world. Everyone should do so much to attain that. People should focus on that. We should not show the hollow pomp and show. People should focus on life and career and they should not waste time on never-ending parties and loitering on the seashores flirting with the opposite sex. They are just fake thrillers like Bollywood nonsensical thrillers.

GOLDBERG. We'll make a man of you.

MACCAN. And a woman.

GOLDBERG. You'll be re-oriented.

MACCAN. You'll be rich.

GOLDBERG. You'll be adjusted.

MACCAN. You'll be our pride and joy.

GOLDBERG.  You'll be a mench.

MACCAN. You'll be a success.

GOLDBERG. You'll be integrated.

MACCAN. You'll be given an order.

GOLDBERG.  You'll make decisions. 

MACCAN. You'll be a magnate.

GOLDBERG. A statesman.

MACCAN. You'll own yachts. 

GOLDBERG. Animals.

MACCAN. Animals.

            (THE BIRTHDAY PARTY, ACT III, p-83-84)

People of today, have to decide the issues and questions pertaining to their lives and happiness. No economist, no reformist, no preacher, no leader, no party, no outing will do it for anybody. Think about yourself and your future where you want to move. Don't misuse your time and resources to make you poor and fail. Aim to make yourself and your family successful and contented. Forget about parties, friends, sex, outing and engage your mind in creative and productive ways and things and be an achiever and giver to the family and society.

Be the people that forge you ahead. Don't end up as the forgotten people. These parties are made for television shows. However, people chase them for years. When an academician boldly exposed the mind of the people, asking them basic aims of life, to which they gave very non-serious and clueless answers, nobody should have been shocked. For all the antecedents essential to lead up to this feeble situation have been on packed exhibit for years and decades.

LULU. ( with growing anger). You used me for a night. a passing fancy.

GOLDBERG. Who used who?

LULU. You made use of me by cunning when my defences were down.

GOLDBERG. Who took them down?

LULU. That's what you did. You quenched your ugly thrust. You taught me things a girl shouldn't know before she's been married at least three times.

GOLDBERG. Now you're a jump ahead! What are you complaining about? 

                        Enter MACCAN quickly.

LULU. You didn't appreciate me for myself. You took all those liberties only to satisfy your appetite. Oh, Nat, why did you do it?

GOLDBERG. You wanted me to do it. Lulula, so I did it.

            (THE BIRTHDAY PARTY, ACT III, p- 80)

Everybody must have seen the annual scenes of hordes of New Year's party-goers, people and relatives climbing the boundary several meters high outer walls in order to enjoy the party without the entry charges. And though most visible in every part of the word, no single place can be singled out where this happens. It is very unfortunate that on this issue nobody is trying to counsel the people which is become more and more common. Whenever something wrong happens, but with some repentance, and statement of a partial policing.

" The nature of language and dialogue is also central to the theme of menace in The Birthday Party (1958). The dramatic image of Pinter's play is based on the individual search for security in a world filled with unease, fear, and lack of understanding between people (Esslin, 1963). The uneasiness and anxiety in The Birthday Party (1958) arise from the threat of invasion from the outside menacing world. "

('The Written Word', by Natasha O'Brien, Harold Pinter, The Birthday Party).

Harold Pinter has raised a very serious issue and the decline in particular which has been evident from social appalling and depressive statistics, not to reveal the government's reactions to this problem. The most infamous incidents of such type debacle are by now very widely known. Nobody can blame or rank any country on top or exclusive. 

There can be no excuse for risking life. The excuse given by the governments was that since they have to generate the revenue and create employment, necessary for all the countries and their economy. Socio-cultural harmony between the people and nations is another reason for such parties. But that hardly explains the discontent performance by people in all parts of the world. There is an isolated example. Year after year, believable national and international stakeholders expose such alarming party scenario.

            STANLEY ( to himself). I had a unique touch. Absolutely unique. They came up to me.    They came up to me and said they were grateful. The champagne we had that night, the          lot.    (Pause.) My father nearly came down to hear me. Well, I dropped him a card anyway.         But I don't think he could make it. No, I----I lost the address, that was it. (Pause.) Yes.      Lower Edmonton. Then after that, you know what they did? They carved me up. Carved me up. It was all arranged, it was all worked out. My next concert. Somewhere else it was. In winter. In went down there to play. Then, when I got there, the hall was closed,         the place was shuttered up, not even a caretaker. They'd locked it up. ( Takes off his            glasses and wipes them on his pyjama jacket.) A fast one. They pulled a fast one. I'd like to know who was responsible for that. (Bitterly) All right, Jack, I can take a trip. They want me to crawl down on my bended knees. Well, I can take a tip...any day of the week.            ( He replaces his glasses, then looks at MEG.) Look at her. You're just an old piece of rock cake, aren't you? (He rises and leans across the table to her.) That's what you are,   aren't you?

            (THE BIRTHDAY PARTY, ACT I, p-23)

In this gloomy scenario, The Birthday Party of Harold Pinter gives a very apt and necessary message. It is important to recognise the inner strength. In the past 100 years, this has become a big problem in society. In the play, the play write has seen dramatic and fast changes in the behaviour of people and society. There has been a sea change in the attitude of people, new recreational laces, and even the prototype of people. However significant problems have been created., especially among the youth and the neo-rich, such as the fights, rapes and even deaths in many cases.

"Under Dermott McCann's heavy-handed interrogation and Bennie Goldberg's fascist scrutiny, little Stanley withers. Goldberg and McCann, 50s slurs on Jewish and Irish immigrants, attack their hopeless victim. Scott Wentworth makes a wonderfully threatening and self-important Goldberg, as he sets up the ominous birthday party for Stanley. Cruelty, mystery, and terror rule."

(THE BIRTHDAY PARTY, 'SHOCKS WITH POLITICAL ALLEGORY,' ACT, S.F.  January 22, 2018, Bdhorwitz Harold Pinter's 'Common Man' Manipulated by Mom & Mafia by Barry David Horwitz)

In any way, the majority of the people feel the party and recreation part of life is necessary, but they fail to understand that not sufficient to bring results. There are many other problems to face, not the least of which is the overconsumption of liquor.

A tourism study concluded that one out of every five party-goers is usually had the experience of violence, accident or physical harm. No solution has been proposed for this problem. Even cash incentives for guards, and monitoring with cameras, failed to address this issue, while others have said this is not a big problem to worry.

Harold Pinter's play The Birthday Party enacts and reflects the middle-class futility of human endeavour in the variety of aspects and laws. The Theater of the Absurd was written well intended which represents a deeper level of conflict in the mind. Its supporters believed making theatre focused sharply on the question of existence. Although its one's right to choose entertainment as individual liking and disliking However it is also important that parties or any other such activity should transform the individual and the sector in a better way. It is not activism. The reality has been distinctly different.

            (Intensely, with growing certainty) My father said to me, Benny, Benny, he said, come here. He was dying. I knelt down. By him day and night. Who else was there? Forgive,    Benny, he said, and let live. Yes, Dad. Go home to your wife. I will, Dad. Keep an eye open for low-lives, for schnorrers and for layabouts. he didn't mention names. I lost my life in the service of others, he said, I'm not ashamed, Do your duty and ee your observations. Always bid good morning to your neighbours. Never, never forget your family, for they are the rock, the constitution and the core! If you're ever in any difficulties Uncle Barney will see you in clear. I knelt down. (He kneels, facing MACCAN.) I sore on the good book. And I knew the word I remember---Respect!           Because of MaCann--- (Gently.) Seamus---who came before your father? ...(Vacant---triumphant.) Who came before your father's father's mother! Your great-gram-granny.

                        Silence. He slowly rises.

            And that's why I've reached my position, McCann. Because I've always had as fit as a      fiddle. My motto. Work hard and play hard. Not a day's illness.

                                    (THE BIRTHDAY PARTY, ACT III, p. 78)

Some of the human rights utopian ideas have already fallen victim to the law of unintended outcomes, such as the lakhs of party-goers die in post-party mayhem. While the intention was to enjoy the life and infrastructure on potentially fly-by-night birds, the results have often been catastrophic for the many unfortunate souls those have nevertheless been expecting far better joys than their well-managed counterparts.

"He has felt that society has not treated him well. What has Stanley done to deserve persecution? The facts of his past are so unclear that his claim to be a pianist may even be false. He feels disgusted with the prevailing customs and conventions of society. He finds it impossible to continue to live amidst such a society. He prefers an isolated existence. He is brutally and inhumanly tortured by the intruders McCann and Goldberg who represent society at large. The society treats such an individualistic artist like Stanley as a danger and pulls him back from his isolation."

( The Turkish Online Journal of Design, Art and Communication -  'UNDERSTANDING THE ELEMENTS OF ABSURDITY IN HERALD PINTER'S THE BIRTHDAY PARTY' 1-Ahmed Saadon Azeez Al Hammadi, 2-Dheyaa Brer Alwan AL-Salih).

Urbanisation, industrialisation, confusing education, too much freedom and rights and easy money led to this hopelessness and frustration in life and people are always in search of such hollow activities to find happiness and identity. All these things have created the Theatre of Absurd not in literature but in life too. This theatre has been an effect on the loss of spirituality in life.  It is trying to tell a man his true realities of his status. The attitude of modern man towards life is artificial and negative. Characters of Pinter are from ordinary life behaving like everyday humans. Their pains and pleasures are very real but the characters are with real identities. The distinctiveness of The Birthday Party lies in his strange and real way of using common man's language.

"Pinter's work is not the product of the "angry playwright" that the popular media chose to designate him as.1 From an early age Pinter himself was engaged in the politics of the world around him, at eighteen he registered as a conscientious objector displaying a disgust at Cold War politics and The Labour Party's endorsement of American nuclear presence on British soil.2 As a citizen, Pinter became a member of an anti-apartheid organisation and was horrified at the events he saw taking place in Vietnam and South Africa."

(INQUIRIES, Naomi Garner, 2012, VOL. 4 NO. 02 I PG I 1/4 I (Google)

The real existential dilemma of his characters is the peril to their individual autonomy. The characters are continuously struggling in an existential resist to preserve and show their reality. Despite getting material progress and comforts, they found the life as purposeless and aimless. This is very true to the Western world in post World Wars. The characters of Harold Pinter are true representative of the psychology of modern disturbed man.

GOLDBERG. Lulu, you're a big bouncy girl. come and sit on my lap.

MACCAN. Why not?

LULU. Do you think I should?

GOLDBERG. Try it.

MEG (sipping). Very nice.

LULU. I'll bounce up to the ceiling.

MACCAN. I don't know how you can mix that stuff.

GOLDBERG. Take a chance.

MEG to MACCAN). Sit down on this stool

            LULU sits on GOLDBERG's lap.

MACCAN. This?

GOLDBERG. Comfortable?

LULU. Yes, thanks.

MACCAN (sitting).  It's comfortable.

GOLDBERG. You know, there's a lot in your eyes.

Lulu. And in yours too.

( THE BIRTHDAY PARTY, ACT II, p-58)

The Birthday Party did not give any solution to the frustration on the argument that it is a disparaging way to counsel mature man. A section of the people opposes any restriction on their freedom provided to them by the constitution which they observe as excessive and hurtful to individual freedom. But there appears to be little or no governmental appetite to reform them that, especially since freedom and rights are the biggest constitutional and legal rights.

Nevertheless, much is tried to be addressed by Harold Pinter in The Birthday Party, though that characters themselves are facing their own share of problems and controversies and even rapes. Of far more worry should have been that most youth and educated people are involved in this misadventure. But it is good to see that the playwright has tried to highlight the big issue emerging from all areas. The big test remains to address the problem adequately and keep it free of the pressures that are oppressive to them. It is a matter of time to be seen if this point is looking to fiddle or transform.

MEG. Where's Stan?

            Pause.

       Is Stan down yet, Petey?

PETEY. No... he's ...

MEG. Is he still in bed?

PETEY. Yes, he's...still asleep.

MEG. Still? He'll be late for breakfast.

PETEY. Let him...sleep.

            Pause.

MEG. Wasn't it a lovely party last night?

PETEY. I wasn't there.

MEG. Weren't you?

PETEY. I came in afterwards.

MEG. Oh.

            Pause.

            It was a lovely party. I haven't laughed as much for years. We had dancing and singing.    And games. You should have been there.

( THE BIRTHDAY PARTY, ACT III, pp-86-87.)

Reference.

1. The Birthday Party, Harold Pinter, Faber and Faber Limited, Bloomsbury House, 74-77 Great Russell Street, London.

2. The Turkish Online Journal of Design, Art and Communication - TOJDAC, ISSN: 2146-5193, March 2018 Special Edition, p. 625-632 'UNDERSTANDING THE ELEMENTS OF ABSURDITY IN HERALD PINTER'S THE BIRTHDAY PARTY' 1-Ahmed Saadon Azeez Al Hammadi, 2-Dheyaa Brer Alwan AL-Salih, 1General Directorate of Education in Babylon / Iraq.

3. THE BIRTHDAY PARTY, 'SHOCKS WITH POLITICAL ALLEGORY,' ACT, S.F. January 22, 2018, Bdhorwitz, Harold Pinter's 'Common Man' Manipulated by Mom & Mafia by Barry David Horwitz

4. ('The Written Word', by Natasha O'Brien, Harold Pinter, The Birthday Party).

Love, sex and perversion in Girish Karnad's 'Wedding Album'

 ABSTRACT:

                Girsh Karnad was an Indian playwright, actor, film director and a scholar. He was a left winger by ideology. For almost four decades he composed plays and using Indian history and mythology but distorting them according to his ideology. His plays have been translated in many languages. In the Indian cinema, he worked as an actor, director and writer in Hindi and Kannada. He also occupied many high positions and earned many awards.  In the Wedding Album he has very satirically described a fat Hindu Brahmin wedding.

KEYWORDS:

                1- Yearning, 2- Quest, 3- anxieties, 4- conjugal, 5- empowerment, 6- hoodlums, 7- sensuousness, 8- Brahmin, 9- wedding, 10- ideological, 11- Marriage. 12- values.

INTRODUCTION:

                Girish Karnad is a leading Indian playwright but he remained entangled to his ideological compulsions and gave dimensions to his creative work accordingly. He tried to convert the historical truths and folk themes into existential plays but the pulls of his ideology are discernible everywhere. Multiple influences pulled Karnad into different directions and there were direct clash between his left and Indian ideologies.

"Yearning for money, desire and reputation have made man crazy and he finds himself in solitude on the dull shore of incompleteness without any glimpse of life– providing water, suffocated and caught in his own ambitions battling with the question – “To be or not to be”. Globalization and scientific research have damaged our cultural and moral values to a major extent and we are on the edge of ‘Gone’. Existentialism, Lust, craving for money, women’s emancipation, and liberation have been the topics of priority of modern writers, whereas Karnad exceeds expectations here by having the framework of mythology and history and looks over the problem of an individual in the modern setting."

(RJELAL, p-1)

Wedding Album is also not an exceptional play of Karnad. He tried to use myths and history but failed. In the play Karnad has taken so many issues and popular topic for activism like conjugal relationship, sex, class, caste, attitude, self-interest, obedience, family authority, bureaucratic corruption, chastity, business, etc all intruded into the marriage institution of Hindus, rather he has tried to demonise the Hinduism.

Karnad has tried to weave all these issues into the plot and theme of "Wedding Album." This modern age is an age of socio-economic-political changes. It is a very complex age and struggling to find out the answers of the puzzles of the past. This age is burdened with pressures and tainted issues of life. On the one hand there is materialistic fulfillment and on the other hand loss of values and spiritual ecstasy.

VIDULA: I got bored. If I come to the US, will I need to work? I am not really not very good at it.

ROHIT (offscreen) : Why don't you smile a bit? Look cheerful.

VIDULA: Am I looking depressed?

ROHIT ( offscreen) No. No. But cheer up. Look happy. Shall we start again?

VIDULA (aghast) : Again? Absolutely not. This is the third time.

ROHIT ( offscreen): I know. But remember, you are trying to show your best face to him.

(Wedding Album, Sc-1,p-5)  

Quest for money and name have made man wild and in search of peace and roots. He is incomplete within. Mindless freedom and confused education have damaged our moral and cultural richness and we are almost a lost generation. The playwright has connected all this with Existentialism. Lust, greed, women's empowerment, and liberation have been very popular topics with the modern writers but Karnad has exceeds the depiction of mythology and history in the setting of his ideology.  In this manner he has distorted the Indian culture and history in literature and brings negative views in readers about India’s cultural and  historical splendor. Creatively he failed on the sensation of existing pressures. In his plays he deals with the issues of doubts, envy, loneliness, frustration, gloom, hunt for identity, thirst for money and celebrity, and other contemporary issues like caste disparity and status of women in a patriarchal society. He has tried to discuss the old dead issues and projected himself as modern.

"Girish Karnad‟s Wedding Album is a blend of anxieties and resentments deep rooted in Indian marriage institution. According to Amrit Srinivasan, the play is a constellation of sexual, conjugal, cast, class and age related behaviours and attitudes of selfishness and sacrifice, chastity and commerce, obedience and authority, all integral to modern Hindu marriage institution."

(Lapis Lazuli, p-1)

 Wedding Album, the latest play written by playwright Girish Karnad in 2009, is a humorous that is intensely revelatory about Indian lives today. The main theme of Wedding Album is South Indian Brahmin marriage and family system. He has tried to show ----'very directly invokes the repressed half of my devadasi, or 'Wife-of-the God' story,...' (Foreward, p-vii, Wedding Album). Karnad was very critical of strong ideological bonds of Hindu marriages which is one of the strongest and most sacred institution that new India, continue and assertively follow with. They try to protect and project this as a way to self-fulfillment and bliss in an rickety confused world.

VIDULA: I'm glad my wedding is giving everyone a chance to let off steam.

MOTHER: It has nothing to do with our wedding. She is always like that! It's the same story, every year. For the first few days after her arrival, she is normal. Happy. Laughing....

(Wedding Album, Sc-2, p-14)

In the play the playwright has described sex, conjugal love, class, caste, family relationship and age related tensions, sacrifice and selfishness, commerce and chastity, authority and obedience as the integral part and  the narrative unity of Hindu marriages. Karnad is very satirical to Hindu way of life and sees it as cultural blind system. He undermines the religious liberties and may not stand the test of freedom of faith. It is the mandate to everyone that everyone is free to practice any system. His views weakens individual liberty and free will, it also encourages hoodlums. It is the right to choose a partner in any manner. He should have supported this tenet of personal liberty. 

Karnad is very scandalous in his depiction of simple, safe, enjoyable and a very real event of a pending marriage in a middle-class, Hindu, Saraswat Brahmin family-- the Nadkarnis. He tried to portray the concern for the safety of Hindu girls with vigilante groups and branded them as communal elements of Hinduism. This ugly portrayals can be compared to South Africa under apartheid. Karnad termed it as 'cultural amnesia.' With the presentation of ideological-charged mind of gender and body, sexuality, domestic tension and violence and other such radical themes and he find all at one place, 'Hinduism.'

PRATIBHA: Let me put it this way. They may believe it, but they won't like it. A girl from an educated middle-class family--a graduate--agrees to consider marrying a man whom she has never met. The boy turns up, all ready to jump to the altar, without having seen her. In this day and age.

ROHIT: They were not total strangers. I mean, they had exchanged video tapes. SMSed. And he belonged to our caste. 

PRATIBHA: She had no boyfriends? no affairs?

ROHIT: No, no. She was a nice girl.

PRATIBHA: That is your definition of a 'nice girl' then?

ROHIT: Why not? She was a genuine innocent. No one stopped her for having boyfriends. I had a girlfriend. Catholic. No one minded.

(Wedding Album, Sc-1, p-9)

Girish Karnad has shown the Hindu marriages--a very different one from the real ones in life. He has shown marriages as abused relationships at all the levers, father abusing children, wives abused by husbands, raped, sexually abused, and or else dis-empowered women. His marriages are lately coined concept of 'love Jihad' or women in Muslim families.

The playwrights forgot that community  marriages must be celebrated not laughed. Families, grooms and brides are enthralled by their marriages. The blessed and dazzling couples are well protected by celebrity status and social respect. Influence by his ideology, he tried to demystify middle class South Indian Brahmin marriage but failed. He became confused with the institutions of marriage as a stage or narrative plot.

But his views are very different for inter-religion marriage. Hindu, Pratibha is married to a Muslim man, much older to her. But she is very happy with him. She never faces any problem. For the likes of Karnad, inter-religion marriages mean Hindu women marrying Muslim men. It is freedom to women. Types of Karnad see women as 'hamaari bachchiyan..' or tedious infantilised  those are in the grip of patriarchs if they follow their own religious and social practices. For them only Muslim man can give liberation and enlightenment from orthodox marauding 'enemy'. The proponents of liberation and revolution cannot tolerate that love and surrender socially magical force across region, caste, community and even gender.

(Pratibha picks up her handbags.)

PRATIBHA: Rohit, I am forty. I am from Orissa. I came to Banglore for reasons of my own and build up my business. Three years ago, I married a man ten years my senior. A Muslim. I married him when the anti-Muslim riots were at their worst. Because he offered me affection and security.

(Pause)

There's is nothing I don't know about harassment.

(Sudden smile.)

You must let me know when Tapasya is back. You two must come and have dinner with Irfan and me. Bye.

(Wedding Album Sc-V, p-61.)

Perhaps this is the happiest description and most ideal situation in Wedding Album for Girish Karnad. Marriage choices are personnel decisions. Family institutions and customs do not destroy liberty. He painted such marriages as improper practices by Hindus to enslave girls. Families use fake claims to lure women. Very intentionally, Karnad located Wedding Album in the Nadkarnis' living room. They plot is about the Hindu wedding, the bedroom is evidently gone. The playwright ignored the freedom verses the pressures of the traditions on the one side and partisan ideologically obsessed mind to impose a collective identity on individuals. Women's empowerment is an vibrated mantra yet there's organized denial to allow her to choose her partner. She has to suppress her feeling or sexuality.

MOTHER (from inside) : Oh, good you haven't left.

(Enters)

Listen, I was kneading the dough and thinking. you have to buy the stamp paper, get Appa to write out an affidavit, then get it notarised--all those headaches. How long is it going to take?

ROHIT: God alone knows.

MOTHER: That's why I am asking. Would it matter?

ROHIT: Would what matter?

MOTHER: If we left things as they are.

VIDULA: What do you mean, Ma?

MOTHER: All that extra running around. Talk of forgery and bribing. What for? All these day's we didn't know what was in the Corporation files. So why can't we continue--with Ramdas's name on the certificate?

VIDULA: Ma!

(Wedding Album , Sc-VI, p-51.)

Mother and Ramdas have hidden feeling for each other but they have to hide them. Even Ramdas mentioned his name in the birth certificate of his niece, Vidula, in place of her father. The reality about her biological father was known only either to mother or Ramdas. They must have drawn to each other but they have to suppress their feeling. They have no liberty to choose one's own partners. According to Karnad, society should have no role who a person choose to love. If an person chooses to change his/her partner, for either love, sex or even playful reasons, social powers have no role in personal choice. There must be freedom and diversity in love. It is unrestricted by society, region, community and religion.

On the one side Girish Karnad is against the fat Hindu weddings and on the other side he is very critical to the identity system of 'saat pheras-- or seven circlings around the fore by bride and groom should not be forced. For Karnad such weddings are like: ‘Hum aapke hain koun?’

He laughs at bride's bedazzle large number of unknown people with multiple weddings attires but no sexual satisfaction. For which she has to flirt after marriage with others, whenever she gets a chance. Grooms also struggling to make a grand entry but fail to satisfy his partner. families have to appease the wedding guests to get high cutoff marks.

(Vivan, aged thirteen, comes in, carrying a book)

----------------------------

VIVAN: There is a letter for you.

HENA: A letter for me? In this book?

-----------------------------

VIVAN: I saw you yesterday. I immediately sat down and typed it out on my laptop. Very personal.

HEMA (still flabbergasted by the letter): But...but...my god! This is... you can't...

VIVAN (showing her the book): I'll finish this by tomorrow.

(Takes out another letter)

                Until then, here. Anoth one. THis one is even more personal.

VIDULA:-----------

                'Darling, you don't know how I desire to crush you in my arms..."

HEMA (snatches the letter from her hand); Don't!

-----------------------------

VIVAN: Go ahead, I'll also tell her I love you. The moment I saw you the other day, I fell desperately in love. I want to die kissing you. I want to die with my hand inside your blouse...

---------------

VIVAN: The touch of your hand fills me with ecstasy. I,m crazy about you.

(Wedding Album, Sc- II & IV, pp-17, 18, 19, 45.) 

In the Wedding Album, Karnad pictures all her women characters like any other so called modern, confused, unhappy, sex starved Hindu girls. They lead a secret timid life. Wheather willingly of unwillingly submitting themselves to the disembodied voices in the dark world, or transmuting their guilt at being caught into hysterical rage, crying 'sexual exploitation' to make themselves victim or pious--but clever enough to find a resourceful Irfan, rich and flashy trader to make them enjoy their way through heightened desires. The preferred subjugation they seek in their secret, erotic world can well serve man, woman and marriage and to higher purpose.

VIDULA: Quite, Yamuna. They lived in a village. They were so oor that the daughter---Yamuna, came to Banglore looking for a job. And found a good one. Used to send a fair amount back home. Then Radhabai's husband died and she too came to Banglore. Too k up a job as a cook with a family in Malleswaram. The day after her arrival, a massager turned up and escorted her to daughter's house and what does she find? Her daughter is being maintained by a rich trader.

(Wedding Album, Sc-IV, p-92)

Hindus wedding is a blessing to so many people involved in arrangements and other works. Mehndi artists, beauticians, musicians, decorators, caterers and the band has been big ortunities in the band baaja baraat. The traditional ‘bidai’ ritual – or the bride’s farewell from her father's home – is a very special ceremony in tears. The ‘joota chupai’ ritual – when the bride’s sister hide the groom’s shoes – is also very attractive ritual down the groom at heel.

One the one hand Karnad was very critical to the concept of big fat Hindu Wedding and on the other hand he was almost at ease in carrying the extramarital relations in the society. A natural question comes to mind that should we stop celebrating traditional marriage? Karnad left this to the readers to decide. All enjoy to dance and sing “Mere yaar ki shaadi hai.” Karnad shows  not merely intolerance but also ignorance about the great religious traditions.

Girish Karnad could not understand the Hindu way of life. For him love and marriage mean only physical and business like deal. Read any ancient Hindu scriptures like Vishnu Purana, Bhagavata Purana, Kama Sutra, Jayadeva's Gita Govinda, Kalidasa, Bilhara, Bhartrihari, Bihari, Vidyapati, Chandidasa, and even Tulsidas where all describe the power of love and Kamadeva -- and a number of ancient Hindu classics which celebrates ad adore desires with sensuousness throat has no parallels in world literature. Unfortunately Karnad failed to describe and understand this sensuousness or 'shringar rasa' in his the 'Wedding Album.'

He was a silent supporter of western concept of sex without marriage and love. Rohit the main protagonist loves Catholic Christian girl, Isabel. Karnad could not gather courage to show the marriage of a South Indian Brahmin boy Rohit with a Catholic Christian girl. This would have clashed with his ideology. However, he has no inhabitation that Rohit still wants to meet her.

PRATIBHA:  You know Isabel has been in Banglore for the past six months. But you phoned her ten  days ago. And invited her home. To dinner. On the day your wife left for Hyderabad! You didn't mention that you were alone at home. But she guessed. She knows you well, she says. Since then you have asked her again. Twice within ten days. In spite of her refusal. What's she to make of it? You know she is vulnerable.

(Wedding Album, Sc-VI, p-61.)

However, right understanding is not everyone’s cup of tea. Then, they could take some time off from their useless ideological intolerance to try and appreciate the amazingly impartial view of love and life that Hinduism has always promote. In the Hinduism the four goals (purusharthas) of life are dharma, material well-being (artha), action (kama) and salvation (moksha).

The Thirukkural, the Tamil Veda, is divided into three parts, namely righteousness (aram), wealth (porul), and love (inbam). Hinduism is the greatest religion which mentions, as element of the highest objectives of life, legitimacy to the objective quest of aspiration, and celebrates its expression with an self-confidence.

In the 'Wedding Album' boy and girl both are almost coercion to marry the right. Karnad blamed it a Hindu civilization practice in their sleeve and called it heresies fate of Hindus.  He mocks it as the moveable, generational heterosexual Hindu family tradition  that marriage gives legitimacy. Karnad failed to understand the pious and important Hindu way of life.  Due to his pre-conceived notions he became just like porn Hindi writer Masta Ram.  His understanding of Hinduism is highly flawed like those people who describe Khajurah and Konarak and mis-understand the philosophy about the temples  adorned with stunning erotic sculpture as sex depiction. Entire world  including British rulers failed t read the mysticism and spiritualism hidden at Hinduism’s honest but sensible recognition of the sensual.

The modern thinkers demonize the Hindus as ‘fixed to vile, horrific beliefs and traditions – proscribed thoughts’; their world of obscurity was packed with ‘lust’; their culture had ‘ immoral codes’; their way of worship was ‘ sickening and even immoral’; and,  accused them f suffering from ‘unparalleled sexual  perversion’.  Even the Christian Literary Society in Madras  filed a case in 1862 against Krishna himself for cheering ‘adultery and fornication’. But the case was dismissed as the court could not see any merit  and evidence!

VOICE: First I'll strip you. Then I'll rape you.

VIDULA: I can't wait. I can't.

-------------------------------------

VOICE: Now unbutton your blouse.

VIDULA: Not blouse. It's called the kameez.

VOICE: I don't care. Just take it off.

VIDULA ( mimes the moves to get the timing right) I have.

VOICE: Now the bra.

----------------

VOICE: You are bare bodied, baby?

VIDULA: Yes.

VOICE: Caress for me.

-------------

VOICE: Now take off your skirt.

VIDULA: Not skirt. Trousers. Salwar.

VOICE: Don't give me the ails, darkie. Just take them off.

((Wedding Album, Sc-VI, pp-65-66.)

The missionaries, intellectuals and Karnad himself were ignorant opinion of Hinduism’s enlightened theories of kama and surrender as element of a insightful study of the highest spiritual wisdom and truth.  Surprisingly, in a really paradoxical twist, the Hindu ultra-left, parroting the reforms of ignorant western   morality, is finding fault, and cheering about western ignorance certainly makes very bizarre bedfellows!

Here it would be in the fitness f things to mention the Hindu Upanishads story of Gargi, who was firm in her bold debate with great Hindu sage Yagnavalkya, and Maitreyi who held her own views about her intricacies of metaphysics of relationship  with her husband. Ubhaya Bharti questioned the great Adi Shankaracharya on the ways of making love. Mirabai, Andal, and Karaikkal Ammaiyaar of the bhakti period followed their own path of total surrender oblivious of all usual traditions.

The brilliant Mahadeviyakka in the 12th century renounced her husband and shunned her clothes and covered herby  tresses. She had a incredible discourse based on equality with Basavanna and Allama Prabhu, saints of popular Virashaiva Lingayat society.  

Karnad  defamed Hindu women, with the clear aim of spreading anti-Hindu views. The trouble with the ultra-left is that its hostility is in contrary proportion to its ignorance. These self-anointed  revolutionaries of reforms are trying to make it run on ideological diktats. This kind of degradation of Hinduism in general and Brahmins in particular, , and it’s nuanced boldness of thought, is not at all intellectualism and is like the Turkic invasion or the British colonialism. .

 1- Wedding Album, Girish Karnad, Oxford University Press, New-Delhi, 2009.

2-  Research Journal of English Language and Literature (RJELAL), http://www.rjelal.com; com ISSN:2395-2636 (P); 2321-3108(O) Vol.6.Issue 4. 2018 (Oct-Dec) 314,  Dr.VENKATA RAMANI CHALLA, 'REFLECTION OF MODERNITY IN GIRISH KARNAD’S “THE WEDDING ALBUM”.

3-Lapis Lazuli, (LLILJ), Vol.2/ NO.2/, Autumn 2012, URL of the Issue: http://pintersociety.com/vol-2-issue-2autumn-2012/, URL of the article: http://pintersociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/ Sangeeta –G-Avachar-14.pdf © www.pintersociety.com 1, 'Exploring Girish Karnad’s Wedding Album as a Blend of Anxieties and Resentments Deep Rooted in Indian Marriage Institution,' Sangeeta G. Avachar. (google)

 

An ancient, crumbling city Delhi and City of Djinns by William Dalrymple

 

ABSTRACT:  

                William Darlymle is a very famous Scottish writer, critic and historian.  His travelogues and books won many awards. The City of Djinns  is such an attractive narration. It is all about the historical capital of India Delhi and New-Delhi. In the book he narrates real tales of his stay in Delhi and explores the history, geography, sociology, politics, administration, corruption, perversion, eunuchs, ancient ruins of temples, partition violence by Pakistanis, etc in Delhi. The book follows his grand and established style with real historical digressions, connected magnificently with real contemporary event and other any tales. 

 it has never been told before, unfolding a timely cautionary tale of the KEYWORDS:

                 1- glitzy, 2- juggis, 3- Mughals, 4- nawabs, 5- encroachments, 6-  traffic jams, 7- medresses, 8- drainage, 9- millennia, 10- Exxex Man, 11- namaste, 12- Corruptions.

INTRODUCTION:

                In most of his writings, fascinating books to date, William Dalrymple narrates the story of invasing  Moguls, East India Company and crumbling of ancient Indian cities and cultures in a very fascinating manner done never before, telling a timely advisory tales of the deadliest invaders and  first and the strongest global business power. In the City of Djinns he has described the fall of Delhi. He is very apt and relevant in describing the various facets  of Delhi. Till date nothing has changed and Delhi is crumbling.               

Notwithstanding with all the ruling party leaders'  tall claims about the glitzy and high-ranked metropolitan city, Delhi is, but still, the city is without an efficient link of drains, it is always on knees during every change of season. 

Delhi, usually calls to mind images of Islamic invaders, nawabs, and Britishers on one the hand and juggis, slums, unauthorized construction, illegal colonies and information technology aptitude on the other hand.

"It was precisely this gift for judgment that makes City of Djinns such a mournful, witty treat. When Dalrymple came to Delhi in 1989 at the age of twenty-four, he found a city full of people mourning their pasts—albeit very different pasts. He wrote movingly about the Punjabis, who had been dispossessed by a partition; the Anglo-Indians, still aggrieved by the loss of the empire; and the Muslims, who felt their once-proud culture had entered irreversible decline. He was also quick to show that these people hated one another to death. At a remove from these factions, who were busy bickering over the ugly corpse of modern Delhi, lay India's peace-loving Sufis and the figures of the British Raj who had gone native in the eighteenth century, adopting Indian costumes, languages, religions, and wives—men like Kirkpatrick, the subject of White Mughals, who had briefly brought everything together before it fell apart again. It was in these figures, seeking a multicultural ideal, that Dalrymple found a reflection of himself."

(BOOKFORUM, Karan Mahajan, FEB/MAR 2011. (Google)).

But for the last many years, the metropolitan city, notorious for its traffic jams, has made it to the international news for all the wrong reasons. Pollution, encroachments, traffic jams and road accidents have FEB/led to the loss of many lives besides causing immense miseries to the citizens. Nothing has changed. William Dalrymple, noted historian and travel writer, has witnessed the same almost three decades back. Nothing has changed.

" In both Delhi, it was the ruins that fascinated me. However hard the planners tried to create new colonies of gleaming concrete, crumbling tomb towers, old mosques or old Islamic colleges-----medresses-- would intrude, appearing suddenly on roundabouts or in municipal gardens, curving the road network and obscuring the fairways of the golf course. New Delhi was not new at all. Its broad avenues encompassed a groaning necropolis, a graveyard of dynasties. Some said there were seven dead cities of Delhi, and that the current one was the eighth; other counted fifteen or twenty-one. All agreed that the crumbling ruins of these towns were without numbers."  

(City of Djinns, A Year in Delhi, pp-2-3. )

Delhi has always been a big attraction to Islamic invader as well as a vibrant city for big industrial houses and multinational corporations as well. All alike want to set up afoot.  This is due to rich surroundings, easy access to other parts of the country, and good systems created by the people that attracted all including foreigners and their plunder and investments. Plus, being the de-facto centre of power, wealth and knowledge of the country, the city has a plentiful supply of manpower, talent, and wealth. These features are serving the city high points over other established choices like Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai and  Bengaluru.

Not only invaders, traders,  migrants, families, politicians and individuals, corporations too, are more and more preferring to settle in the city their home. However, Delhi has been rated among the poor Indian cities according to various surveys including one by the Mercer's Quality of Living Ranking survey. Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata are ahead to capture the label. Almost the same results were supported by other surveys of 34 cities including done by holidify.com that put is behind other big cities to live in. The survey tinted the pollution, traffic jams, encroachments, slums and juggis, crime although the charm of a metropolis steeped in rich past diminished all the attractions and facilities of world-class new development like the Financial and political power city and NCR HITEC Cities.

The other changes in the city were less promising. The roads were becoming clogged, pollution was terrible. Every day the sluggish waters of the Jumna were spiced with some 350 millions of raw sewage.

"...there was also a great increase in poverty. Every week. it was said, six thousand penniless migrants poured into Delhi, looking for work. You could see them at traffic lights along Lodhi Road, hand outreached for alms. The juggis - the vast black cloth cities in which these people lived - had quadrupled in size since 1984. New juggi outposts were spreading along the dry drainage ditches, ..."

(City of Djinns, A Year in Delhi, p-22.)

Moreover, the old part of the city, popularly known Old Delhi, that is whirling now and the root cause of the ills in the city which was the otherwise a splendid city during British rule. The new residential, industrial and commercial areas of Delhi have for all time designed better civic infrastructure but all have been ruined by the corruption and encroachments. The civic infrastructure, electricity and water supply, drainage and sewage system all have been crumbled. In papers and files, all made tall claims of improved layout plans and civic facilities like the hollow claims made by the NGO those are in millions in India but nothing been done.  Now, Delhi has low-lying colonies, encroached river beds and water bodies, green belts full of illegal colonies and unauthorized construction. As a result of this during the rainy season, water enters colonies.  The old city areas are worst maintained and the water, drainage and sewage infrastructure is still unchanged which was built by the Britishers. It seems citizens are also not bothered and they are satisfied on the relics of the British Empire era which has now completely crumbled.

The situation has gone from bad to worse which William Dalrymple described in the City of Djinns three decades back: "Delhi, it seemed at first, was full of riches and horrors: it was a labyrinth, a city of palaces, an open gutter, filtered through a filigree lattice, a landscape of domes, an anarchy, a press of people, a choke of fumes, a whiff of spices." (City of Djinns, A Year in Delhi, p-2.)  

The New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) has relatively done a slightly better job of managing the civic infrastructure of New Delhi areas.  But the unauthorized and unplanned colonies, illegal construction, encroachments, slums and juggis has come to stay and haunt the entire metropolitan city today. There was free-for-all encroachments on the river Jumna, constructions in the lake beds and other old water bodies those must have otherwise been free of encroachments, slums and juggis.

The river Jumna, it's catchment areas, the other water bodies, wetland, green areas those works as the margin spaces of a city and absorbs the surplus or excessive rain waters. They also protect the biodiversity and ecosystem of the city by spreading the green cover and control the road dust.

"The reason for the structure was that the central idea is that Delhi does seem to act as a sort of flypaper on time. Time doesn't seem to have its destructive power in Delhi in the way it does in some other places. …What was lovely was that you could—and this is what travel books often do—tell the story of the past through bits that are still alive but do it in reverse chronological order. You can go backwards and see living fragments of each, not just that there was an old building here which was from the fourteenth century, but there living nearby or reflecting some aspect of that was a guy who in some ways related to that fourteenth-century building. There is a lot of this sort of play of time in Djinns, but while it contained 5 years of research,..."

(Journeying and Journaling, (Ed.)  Giselle Bastin, Et-, p-5.))

However, all these bodies have been encroached by slums juggis, illegal colonies, traffic jams, pollution and urban floods are the apparent outcome. Over the last few decades, these big metros and national capital has experienced the painful reality of environmental degradation, pollution, traffic jams, slums, juggis and urban flooding. This is the story of every year.  The reality that the city observed such huge paces of unplanned and chaotic development has not solved its problems of encroachments, pollution and floods.

"Delhi was unique and it still holds that uniqueness, this quality is scattered all around the city, there were human ruins too. All the different ages of man were represented in the people of the city. Different millennia co-existed side by side. Minds set in different ages walked the same pavements, drank the same water, lived in the same surroundings and returned to the same dust. "

( IMPACT: Harshita Rathee, pp-189-92.)

Another side that is making situation unbearable for the disciplined and civilised citizens is the lawlessness and anarchist nature of people of Delhi that is accepted wave that proliferates. These disturbing and assorted levels in the city's speak volumes about city's social life and behaviour of the people resulting in the law and order problem on the one hand and sense of insecurity in the mind of the people on the other side. The women feel highly insecure due to this attitude of the people. The New and Old twin cities need to quickly shun this anarchist tendency and knock out this tag to handle the high expectation of the masses. Since Delhi is the capital of the nation, so people have high expectations.

..., he has never seen the necessity of giving way to the tiny new Maruti vans which, though taller than his Ambassador, are not so heavily built..., a warrior, and lie his ancestors e is keen to show that he is afraid of nothing. He disdains such cowardly acts as looking in wing mirrors or using his indicators. 

,...Olivia is quick to point out that Mr Singh is in many ways an unattractive character. A Punjabi Sikh, he is the Exxex Man of the East. He chews paan and spits the betel juice out of the window, leaving a red 'go-fast' stripe along the car's right flank...He leaps out of his taxi to urinate at traffic lights and scratches his groin as he talks. Like Essex Man, he is a lecher. His eyes follow the saris up and down the Delhi avenues; plump Sih girls riding side-saddle on motorbikes are a particular distraction. Twice a week, when Olivia is not in the care, he offers me to drive me to G.B.Road, the Delhi red light district: Just looking, ' he suggests.' 'Delhi ladies very good. Having breast like mangoes.'

((City of Djinns, A Year in Delhi, p-12)

Corruptions, inefficiency, irresponsibility and unaccountability are big issues those not only affects the image of the country but the economy of the nation. It is a big hindrance for the economy and the nation reaching new heights, but rampant incompetency and corruption have eroded and the reputation of the country. 

The government of India needs to resuscitate the image of the nation and the government by eradicating the inefficiency and corruption. Additionally, all the government departments and system must be interlinked with the other departments so that all the work is seamlessly channelised and customers are not harassed and cheated by the employees, agents and middlemen. This will save the resources, time and money of the government and the customers as well. This enhance capacity can afterwards be utilised in nation-building and people will be more positive for the nation-building and society. 

The government will do well to take lessons from other developed countries that faced and handled similar problems but not almost wiped out corruption and inefficiency. Many western countries and including America have now almost completely overhauled the system and the governance of corruption and inefficiency.  This has also strengthened the democracy and the patriotism of the people without any undue stress. No matter how glitzy or well-ranked a nation is, without an efficient and honest network of governance and the system, it can be brought to its knees by it's corrupt and inefficient bureaucrats. That is what is happening to India. has happened in Hyderabad.

Surprisingly, this issue was raised very forcefully by William Dalrymple in his travelogue the  City of Djinns, A Year in Delhi. The description is very honest and firsthand experience.

"More depressing even than Shastri Bhavan is the headquarters of Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited..., and around this certainty has been built and empire dedicated to bureaucratic obfuscation; the collection of bribes and, perhaps more than anything else, the sinning of great glistening cocoons of red tape."

"As if in deliberate subversion of Mahatma's message, Mr Lal held in his hands 'The Times of India,' open at its sorts page. The paper formed a barrier between Mr Lal and the asylum of supplicants who were bobbing up and down in front of him, holding out chits of paper, arching their hands in a gesture of namaste or wobbling their turbans from side to side in mute frustration. A Punjabi lady sat weeping in a corner, repeating over and over again... but I have a letter from the Minister of State for Communication..." 

(City of Djinns, A Year in Delhi, p-17)

Nothing has changed, even after three decades of the visit of the writer of the City of Djinns, A Year in Delhi. The situation has gone from bad to worse. It is also the failure of the system and governance. Such stories of harassment by the government machinery are not new. The biggest epic of the world can be written on the corruption in India. This malaise is very deeply rooted in the system.  In every elect, zero tolerance to corruption is a big issue but after the election, again all indulge in the corruption. Many action plans are prepared but nothing is achieved. 

The issue of unlimited rights and benefits for the employees are underlying the good and honest governance. Moreover, there are no incentives for honest and sincere bureaucrats. The bureaucrats are so powerful that they are almost law to themselves. The system has rotten so much that nobody is afraid of law or high powered enquiry. Even the much-hyped reforms initiated by foreign-educated economist and reformist and his team, fail to check the corruption and inefficiency. His initiatives like outsourcing, disinvestment, Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) model also failed.

Corruption in India is an issue which affects the economy of central, state and local government agencies in many ways. Not only has it held the economy back from reaching new heights, but rampant corruption has stunted the country's development.[1] A study conducted by Transparency International in 2005 recorded that more than 62% of Indians had at some point or another paid a bribe to a public official to get a job done.[2][3] In 2008, another report showed that about 50% of Indians had first-hand experience of paying bribes or using contacts to get services performed by public offices, however, in 2019 their Corruption Perceptions Index ranked the country 80th place out of 180, reflecting the steady decline in the perception of corruption among people.[4][5]

........

The causes of corruption in India include excessive regulations, complicated tax and licensing systems, numerous government departments with opaque bureaucracy and discretionary powers, monopoly of government-controlled institutions on certain goods and services delivery, and the lack of transparent laws and processes.[11][12] There are significant variations in the level of corruption and in the government's efforts to reduce corruption across different areas of India.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_India

Reference:

1-William Dalrymple, City of Djinns, A Year in Delhi, Penguin Books, 1993.

2- IMPACT: International Journal of Research in Humanities, Arts and Literature (IMPACT: IJRHAL) ISSN (P): 2347-4564; ISSN (E): 2321-8878 Vol. 6, Issue 1, Jan 2018, 189-192, EXPLORING HISTORY AND CULTURE: A STUDY OF WILLIAM DALRYMPLE' S CITY OF DJINNS Harshita Rathee, Sonipat, Haryana, India, 27 Jan 2018.

3- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_India.

4- BOOKFORUM, Karan Mahajan, FEB/MAR 2011, Hauser & Wirth Publishers. (Google).

5- Journeying and Journaling, (Ed.)  Giselle Bastin, Kate Douglas, Michele McCrea and Michael X. Savvas,  Wakefield Press, 1 The Parade West Kent Town South Australia 5067, 2010.)

Pray in Peace

I pray in silence the noise will so away; 

And not disturb my hamlet month and day.  

Have closed my ears and door, 

when it appears, I fail to endure any more.  

The fault lies inside me and thee, 

As we fear their might and flee. 

There is no strength in our hands and word, 

As we want all pleasure and they use the sword. 

Be like a warrior, halting the noisy flight; 

 Don't keep your weapons light. 

Nobody has a special voice to croon; 

God has given all the equal wing to zoom. 

A sleeping race cannot dream at all, 

The lands and fields will always fall.