The nation has a new resolve-prefixing ‘Chowkidar’ to names. General V K Singh may now be known as Chowkidar General V K Singh or General Chowkidar V K Singh, whichever catches his fancy ; the latter ,though, would seem a climb down for a retired army chief. Forgotten in the hullabaloo surrounding this fad is the quibble over the body count of terrorists killed in Balakot or where exactly to place credit for safe return of Abhinandan -the 56” of Mr Modi, or Trump, or Xi, or Prince of SA, or UAE, or.....Good that such a sterile debate is buried.
Today ‘Chowkidar’ buzzes in the hallowed precincts of power. If for a time ‘Chowkidar Chor Hai’ rippled ,now ‘Main Bhi Chowkidar’ convulses Bharat Mata. It seems Indians are in quest of a supra identity transcending all others, scrambling to onboard a voyage of re-discovery of self. And find all spiritual cues pointing to an unexceptional identity - Chowkidar.
The freshly minted Chowkidar Ravi Shankar Prasad , Law Minister, is understandably euphoric. His party’s boss is ab initio a self-professed chowkidar. And now , if the hashtag #MainBhiChowkidar on Twitter amassing 20 lakh tweets and 1680 cr impressions is any indication he has mammoth company. If a mere 10% of those impressions sufficiently impressed people to take up chowkidari not only the whole of India but significant number of chowkidars would still be left over to patrol rest of the world. Already , Chowkidar Prasad ,points out, one crore people have chorused with gusto ‘eureka ,main bhi chowkidar’. Never mind that the nation may not have that many chowkis to place them, a triviality to be sorted out in due course.
Anyway a most welcome lifeline has been thrown to the moribund institution of Chowkidar. Once upon a time , they counted. For the upper echelons in administration they were the first ‘port of call’ for goings-on in the locality, their eyes and ears so to say. With nose firmly to the ground, they kept mental notes of all happenings around them , reporting some , and exploiting most others for personal gratification in a game of ‘soft’ blackmail - silence for cash. Much as the Church in France’s ancien regime collected tithes from peasants, chowkidars collected ‘parbi’ on festive occasions , the modern day equivalent being ‘tip’ , reward for services rendered ,assumed to be rendered.
Alas ! extension of constabulary deep into rural interiors and emergence of Security Companies to safeguard private property sounded their death knell. Guards replaced them. But the change came with a loss. Chowkidari being a hereditary occupation generations after generations of them kept in touch with families in their beat ,something modern day guards can’t. Hence the leg up via #MainBhiChowkidar is terrific. The nation can surely do with a revenant chowkidar.
It sounds hugely comforting to have so many chowkidars suddenly erupt all around us. Our personal exposure to a chowkidar, though ,wasn’t entirely salubrious. Half a century ago, when my father built his house on a plot allotted by a housing society the fear of theft always hovered in the air. Before us lay a wild expanse of barren paddy fields sparsely dotted with half constructed houses ; more pigs and cattle than homosapiens infested the area. The society had to engage a chowkidar.
Every night the rhythmic whack of his stick on the road, ‘tuk, tuk, tuk ‘ accompanied by staccato bursts of the bellow, ‘Jagte raho, Jagte raho, Jagte raho’ would break Nidra Devi’s spell just as she embraced us. We remained awake till the tuk tuk and Jagte Raho sounds gradually waned and we could cajole Nidra Devi into re-enfolding us. He broke the stillness of night at least three times and interrupted our sleep that many times every night. Miraculously we survived sleep deprivation but kept asking the question if people jagte rahe and vigilant what for his services ?
However, he remained in employ and kept knocking on our doors twice a year on Holi and Durga puja demanding his customary ‘parbi’ in cash. One Holi he demanded double of what we offered. He refused to take anything less, we refused to shell out anything more, a stalemate that remained unresolved. He left in a foul mood muttering curses under his breath.That night we slept soundly, uninterruptedly. The morning however brought no cheer for we found to our chagrin all the four cane chairs in the balcony gone, stolen. Too trifling a loss to report to the police we put in a word with the secretary of the society instead to inquire from the chowkidar if he doing the rounds had seen any suspicious movements.
The chowkidar, he revealed, had not reported for duty the previous night. Eureka, that is why we had slept soundly. He was never seen again. Whether our loss of chairs had anything to do with his disappearance we shall never know but the coincidence lay heavy upon us for a while. Did he recoup the forgone parbi from our cane chairs ?
Yet, the quiet servile dignity of a chowkidar appeals. His battlecry ‘jagte raho’ was borrowed for the title of a blockbuster Bollywood classic featuring Raj Kapoor and Nargis. Bollywoodian plots created his stereotype and featured him in many films. Though infrequently, he shook it off to assume more melodramatic , even amorous roles . Dressed as a chowkidar, a botany professor, Parimal Tripathi, ‘chupke chupke’ fell for the charms of an irresistible dimpled, dulcet, chuiyee-muiyee, Sharmila Tagore. The 1974 movie ‘Chowkidar’ revolves around Shambhu ,the chowkidar, a character portrayed by Om Prakash with telling empathy.
But the chowkidar’s life is no bed of roses. Unnoticed, Sambhu ‘s sister living under his roof carries on a clandestine romantic affair with the village thakur and gives birth to an illegitimate child. Chowkidars like aam aadmi sometimes are amiss. However the millions of neo converts to chowkidari would like people to pay heed to Asha Bhosle song in the film.
थोड़ा सा एतबार कीजिए
फिर ज़रा सा इन्तज़ार कीजिए ......
If are queueing up to make the chowkidar self- declaration do bear in mind that whereas the chowkidar of yesteryear was a ‘parbi’ collector, the neo-convert is a ‘parbi’ dispenser. Where do you belong ?
No comments:
Post a Comment