Outliers are seen as goody-two-shoes, making their righteousness cast shadows on the shortcomings of others. Each time I take a flight, unwrap an icecream lolly from its wrapper, use toilet paper, put the air-conditioner on, enjoy a large portion of fertiliser-grown French fries, I see Greta Thunberg‘s face ready to hex me into Nordic shame custom-made for the tropics. When so many upright, law-abiding, tax-paying citizens of this country have come to terms with 11 convicted rapists being garlanded upon their release after being pardoned – it did leave a bad taste in the mouth, notwithstanding the paneer, though – you think your high-minded outrage helps in any way except to make the rest of us look wicked?
I can only imagine the collective groan that must have emanated from the ranks and files when Lakshmibai exclaimed ‘Mein meri Jhansi nehi dungi!’ One batch of folks must have rolled their eyes and said, ‘Boss, she’s going to make our lives hell. What’s the big deal if the English do take over? It’s not as if the Mughals were any better.’ Another batch would make them out to be publicity-hungry social activists obsessed about being seen to do the right thing and effectively calling everyone else wrong. Essentially, woke folk who have no clue how the real (read: inlier) world operates.
After all, someone who relishes spicy food must be out to demean people who can’t tolerate masaledar khana. Which is why inliers have the following filters installed in them so as not to be accused (by outliers) of condoning wrongs:
- It’s not as serious as it’s being made out to be
- What’s new? This has happened so many times before
- Turning this into an issue is someone’s agenda
- Everyone’s not going bonkers about it, so why should we?
- Frankly, it’s about time they got their comeuppance
- You really want to stand up against the unstoppable
- Chhor yaar, let’s not get into this
- Arey yaar, you want trouble or what?
- It’s all Nehru’s fault
Making a molehill out of a mountain – or, in this case, making a front lawn out of a molehill – was on full-on display earlier this week in Patna. The word ‘Patna’ itself conjures up wrongdoings we are not meant to linger over. To worry about some misdemeanour there is supposed to be like getting worked up about wickedness in Gomorrah. Things ‘like that’ regularly happen there. But despite my discomfort at playing an out-of-turn Dharmaputra Yudhisthir, I have been perturbed by last week’s incident in Patna and seek [flourish of trumpets] justice.
Last Monday, hundreds of aspiring teachers were protesting against the delay in recruitment in government schools in Bihar. Enter additional district magistrate KK Singh. Sporting a blue cap and borrowing a nearby policeman’s danda, he took on the role of Captain Sarkar by thrashing one of the protestors. The police looked on enviously, while a whole bevy of inliers – journalists, or as the term now goes, mediapersons – focused their phonecams, cameras and videocams on the writhing chap on the floor.
And the young man being assaulted by the probably RRR-inspired KK Singh was holding a national flag. A total ‘freedom fighter being beaten up by a British Raj cop’ style money shot for social media, news channels and the next day’s papers.
Why didn’t anyone among the gathered-in-a-ring spectators, noble mediapersons all, intervene to stop Singh from thrashing the anti-national with a tricolour – or patriot without a job? Perhaps, the job of the thrashed outlier lying in the middle was to get the publicity he was seeking in the first place for which intervention would have spoiled matters.
Fellow inliers, I am happy to end this rant and report that a probe has been ordered into the unfortunate incident. In any case, these things happen in Patna, in India, in… Let’s not get all judgy, shall we?