In the “middle” of everywhere and yet nowhere!

After spending nearly 4.5 years in Singapore, I came back to my base, Delhi, on a transfer, 3 months back.

I must confess that settling back into life – at work and home – has not exactly been a cake walk! – the weather, pollution, traffic, total loss of my space and my time and the endless deadlines and pressures of being back in the HQ – et al…..yeah, I sound every bit like one of those snotty, spoilt NRI’s returning to motherland.

But I am not totally off tack.
My angst, especially evident since then, driving around Delhi, which has given me more than enough time to think of my own class, the middle class!

Not that driving gives you time on hand, but traffic jams do.
These jams and traffic lights and the endless wait has given me enough time to ruminate on the sad spectacle that is the Indian Urban Life.

And that leaves me with a lot of anger towards the middle class and the government.

Just merely living in Delhi one may not notice the kind of things that would detain unless you really hit the road.

The most noticeable is the way people, these middle class drive – these people invariably do not like to wait at traffic lights; they are the ones who will make a right or left turn without bothering to indicate and yes these are the same middle class who will straddle lanes and overtake from the wrong side and that too at high speed!

Oh and not to miss the jams that the middle class are confronted with and the ease with which they swing out of the lane and drive to the top of the queue in the way of the coming traffic !

And yet we young, middle class are amongst the most self-righteous and complaining – and yet this is the tribe that believes in high speed drunken driving killing anything coming in their way – even the mighty Delhi Cop is not safe these days!

Yes these very urban, educated middle class, often well-travelled citizenry of our great country will park where they are not supposed to, they will ignore or quarrel the traffic cop directing some semblance on these horrid dug up Delhi roads, or in some narrow colony lane, their fancy cars will be parked protruding making sure no one can pass or they will in the name of greening their immediate environment make flower beds or build a canopy for their chowkidars – taking up half the public road space !

I really wonder why do we the middle class behave in such a inconsiderate and often dangerous way? Is it out of a sense of entitlement and impunity that we have stopped caring, caring about each other fellow human beings?

And despite all that we have achieved, we the middle class love (its almost fashionable) to blame the government or the disadvantaged for everything, without any self-consciousness.

No I am not another Arundhati Roy in the making, fighting for the no-cause!
I am certainly not claiming that the disadvantaged are above any blame – what about the defacement of buildings, public property, spread of refuse, peeing in public (an Indian male fantasy) – don’t these people realize this is ugly and unhygienic?!! But then why blame them – it’s the government (rightfully for this class) to be blamed. Ordinary people are truly disadvantaged.

The ordinary class do not have a sense of ownership of public spaces, where we the middle class think, we own everything and have a sense of impunity because we pay taxes and money can buy everything else that we don’t own! But is this justification enough for us the middle class?

The government does not prosecute the middle class when it breaks the rules and neither does it provide the ordinary class – then why blame them then?

After sixty years and 1 trillion worth an economy, the government is still cowardly, complacent and cruel; the ordinary class is still remains less than ordinary and the middle class ? – has just about lost it all!

This is the sad bitter truth about everyday life in this great country of ours.