The Indian Middle Class's Melancholy

Two traffic rules broken: triple riding on a motorbike and no helmet. But he does it with an air of sympathy he wish to evoke in a traffic cop who might stop him for his rule-breaking ride. He could use the 'family man' card that may strike a chord with the cop - who too would ride on his own bike with his wife and child(ren) on a Sunday evening. And that card may as well turn out to be a trump card that walks the man out of the intervention with the cop, lossless.

What is striking in that frame - the man with his middle-aged wife and his prepubescent daughter on his 100 cc motorbike - is an ethereal melancholy. A melancholy that's an underlying part of the Indian Middle Class.

What follows is a starkly fictional painting of the man-on-his-bike's life. It could be total farce in its authenticity but it stands for a sect (a humongous one) of people I've grown to know in my life.

That man might be an ordinary graduate with a nondescript job that makes him a tuppence above 30 grand a month. Staying in a single bedroom rented flat in an apartment complex in one of the ignorably sidelined neighborhoods of a metro's downtown, he leaves to work every day by leaving his wife behind at his house. His wife while earning her spot in the family by conscientiously catering to the daily needs of husband and daughter, looks forward to a Sunday of no household chores and one that ends on a high in a cinema theatre. She feels anxious every time a jewelry store's ad shows up on TV, in the short recesses of the daily soaps she religiously follows - soaps that are overdosed with melodrama (an antithesis of this woman's life). When the power goes off  suddenly but unsurprisingly, she takes a deep breath, straightens up her posture and leaves a sigh - reminiscing her teenage fantasies and their permanent inertness.

Reminded by 'teenage', it brings us to their daughter. Her hormones already might have begun getting the better of her but her family can't afford to buy her wings; and she's aware of that in some way. She suffices herself with inexpensive yet almost-unrecognizable frills to keep up with her peers. She's not yet to an age that is brand-conscious but wings, wings of freedom she knows about - about their existence and her family's unaffordability.

Talking of unaffordability, it brings me back to the man. I don't think he remembers the daydreaming from his youth about a plush life. Every day, life forges a slab of mediocrity on his brain that its memory sheets full of once-grand fantasies have evaporated long ago. His bike's servicing prods him for an extra expenditure next month, his daughter's approaching finish line of schooling in the near future and his wife's long due wish of a pair of modest earrings before it's already his daughter's wedding (this, the distant future) occupy his mind.

So there they stop, amid cars, the daughter safely tugged between the man and his wife. The man impatiently stares at the red light, the daughter peers into her father's thinning hairline and the woman looks away into nothingness.

An almost-made choice

It no longer surprises me - the facade of "i-got-it-all-figured" people put up. It's merely concealing their cluelessness to pretend they are a nick ahead of others out there. Because, "out there" is a notorious place and everyone is sound of that fact.

That takes me to the conflicting spot called "to be or not to be". Mind you, this is like poring over different spending models for a lottery, forget winning, even a ticket hasn't been bought.

So there's this conflict between: 'take my vision of societal contribution seriously and work towards it' and 'mind my own business and work on personal success' (again, I'm neither looking at a serious strategy for the former, nor working diligently towards the latter, yet).

It's just that I am taking a bit too long to decide: like taking a whole academic year to opt between math and humanities. I've been stifled with the narrrowness posed by these two choices. When so much satisfaction promisingly entails the prospect of being in a socially exposed job, personal cushiness seems like a petty choice. On the other hand, I've grown to believe that personal success is not a bad idea either. But that mostly involves turning a blind eye towards the former: focus on getting bigger as a corporate slave and climbing higher up the ladder with elevated lifestyle and financial sustainability as its rewarding byproducts.

I am a schmuck, a victim of the lifestyle I aspired and cultivated for myself. I am mostly drawn to things I've acquired and accustomed to, over time with my increased affordability. A giant leap towards the other side of the river - which looks like a real example of glorified living (for the others) involves un-weighing myself by shredding my plum possessions. An unloading that's too heavy and pricey to consider.

I recently let my wife in on the agony of this conflict and she reaffirmed that personal success is not a bad idea at all; and she agreed to my cynical wondering saying this place we call our society is being too deeply gnawed away by its infections that a mere topical pain cream lasts only as long as its moistness on one's skin. I smile to myself about the choice of marrying her - probably one of the very few right choices i have pulled off.

I almost decided to work up the ladder, or in other words, let this tricky word called 'ambition' run its course; while feeding my artistic aspirations with their regular supplies. Chips shall fall where they may.