Against It

The notice on the board read ‘blouses/shirts without sleeves are compulsory’. It further informed that any student- male, female or transgender- if found wearing sleeves covering the edge of the shoulders would be required to get an aggregate percentage of at least seventy-five to be promoted to the next year. Rumour had it that those who smoked a minimum of five cigarettes per day or downed three (small) pegs each evening were ‘maaf’ from this rule. Students participating in anti-government protests weren’t likely to get caught, since they weren’t expected to attend college anyway.

          “What? What? What?” was grandmother Aji’s reaction when Semnus told her about it. Semnus’ name might be peculiar to you, but it’s a very common genderless, casteless, regionless name like Sorius, Diyabetti, Hipertenzio, etc. You might notice, these names sound very much like the illnesses of grandmother Aji’s time: psoriasis, diabetes and hypertension. Semnus was derived from ‘same-ness’. It’s passé to have names like Manisha or Anita respelled as Mannisha or Aanita or other numerologically-approved variations. For a couple of years, during and immediately after the BJP rule, names like Siddhanand and Maharudhra were popular for boys; now in the year 2040, they’ve been archived again. In the AAP and regional-party interludes, other names became temporarily fashionable: every family had an Arvind or a Narendra in it.

          Semnus told Aji: “The final year female students were annoyed. They want to wear saris and salwar kameezes. The boys were annoyed because they wanted to wear long-sleeved shirts with cuffs.  The professors and management would have none of that nonsense.”

“Quite right,” Aji said. “This is the age to defy norms, be free, do what you want.”

“Exactly, Aji,” Semnus said. “We want to wear saris, dhotis. We want to study. And these Profs, they want us to have fun. It’s crazy, no?”

“Academics?” Aji couldn’t believe her ears. In her day, in the early 2000s, studies were for nerds. If a student wanted to study, s/he could go to the US or somewhere. If you stayed in India, college was for having fun. “We danced, we drank…,” she said dreamily, between puffs of her ancient nicotine-free e-cigar.

“How did you earn?” Semnus asked.

“That’s what our parents were there for, eh?” Aji winked.

“Which is why you are now not in a position to leave anything for me, eh? I want to slog, I want to work, I want to leave a nest-egg for my children when I die.” Semnus mimicked Aji’s tone but her words and expression were serious.

“Where,” said Aji looking at Semnus’ mother, “have you gone wrong? We spent, we had a good time. After all, life is short; we have to have a good time on the planet before we go. At almost seventy years of age, I don’t have too much time left. And this girl, whom we raised to eat out, party, watch movies, wear labelled clothes…she wants to fight to wear saris…what’s this world coming to…tomorrow she may want to, who knows, learn science?”

“Actually, Aji,” said Semnus taking a cue, “I do. I want to study modern technology; I want to know what’s happening in the world of micro and macro research. And I want to know more about the history of cryo-math and bio-physics. I want to learn how artificial intelligence was created.”

Aji hit her palm on her forehead. She mumbled to no one at all. “We learned the ancient Sanskrit texts that the Western world had hidden from us. Do you know, the Germans had more students studying Sanskrit in Germany than we had in our country? It was a shame. We made sure we blocked out every bit of scientific research…you see it was eclipsing what our ancestors had written in the shlokas. Our knowledge was kept buried. We, our government, our generation, changed that colonial mindset. We learned Sanskrit, unravelled the secrets of medicine, surgery, astronomy….”

“Aji, that’s why we’re still dependent on the developed countries for water, food, even air in many places…our ancestors didn’t tell us about harvesting rain, polluting air, preserving tigers. All your pranayams and asanas, your eating satwick food, your chanting mantras didn’t save a single person from the dying during the great drought, eh?”

“You’re getting too big for your chappals, girl,” said Aji half in jest, half afraid of what the future held for Semnus.

This was the story in many homes. The young were revolting. They wanted to reduce the garbage on the streets. “Get used to it,” was a refrain their parents said. “There’s no one to clean it.” And the young were refusing to use plastic. “My goodness,” said the Ajis to one another when they met in the malls. “This is ridiculous. They’re going backwards in time.” One said, “It’s the age. They’ll come around by and by.” Another said, “It’s our fault. We were too kind. See how they’re defying us?”

In all these conversations, the parents were missing. The grandmoms and the grandkids bonded because the parents had never been at home. That was the norm of the times. Now these children wanted to cook, clean, chop, dust, tidy…or study.

“What’s worse,” confided Aji in a neighbour, “she wants to get married and stay married.”

“Ouch,” was the troubled response. “We fought for live-in relationships, for getting illegalities legalized and now this….”

What the ladies didn’t realize is that, through time immemorial, it’s always been the young versus the old. As things have been, things remain.