A HAIR IN THE COFFEE

I am sitting with a group who call themselves Tomorrows. My friend has invited me to this meet. They are like a family he says. They have met each other over the years at a common hangout at the city's one of the cultural centres, Nandan, where they have devoured Godard and Tarkovsky every year at the International Film festivals; been baptized by the Communist manifesto; sworn by Tagore, Ray and Hrithik Ghatak; drank tons of tea over world politics; burnt effigies; walked holes in shoe soles and boasted unemployment as a source to an active thinker's mind. My friend was happy painting some odd posters and directing theatres, till he got married at 30. He always said he is an artiste and a corporate life will make him a doggone slave of consumerism. Now he has joined a corporate after much reluctance, 'family pressures', he says ruefully.

The objective of this group is a cultural and social enhancement, a cultural hegemony in unison, as art, according to them, is always a communal effort of people with similar thoughts. They ensure that they meet up regularly for discussions on topics and current situations. I am introduced to all the members of the group and I figure they all spoke of the same ruefulness as my friend. A group pathos I can term it as.

The meeting is held at Coffee House, the oldest coffee shop in the city, a carry over from the colonial days, very gothic interiors- still kept gothic; the waiters still wear turbans, still move at the same lackadaisical pace as they have been doing for years; and every corner still boasts of bellowing clouds of smokes from cigarettes as everyone out here claims to be a creative genius and cigarette is always a butt in between two fingers mightier than the sword. Legends like Satyajit Ray and the likes have had done it once upon a time so they keep the faith burning.

The agenda says the group will discuss polemics today but we start discussing on the latest happenings in the state as everyone is seeing it as a violation of human rights and socialism our country preamble and the ruling party of the state preach. I am talking of Nandigram, a village around 200 km from Kolkata, where the state was to come up with an industrial project and the local farmers were promised due compensation and occupation once an entire township for the industry was built.

To the farmers, a plot of land is just not a land, it is a matter of great pride too, their sole bread earning source, a child they have always nurtured and reared fertile for years. The farmers were uncertain about the proposition. The state government agreed to wait and discuss it out with the representatives of the village and the opposition parties' leaders. They chief minister announced unless the farmers were convinced the industry would have to wait. The villagers still in the dark, as no information surprisingly reached them, stood relentlessly guarding their village with sickle, axes, brooms not letting a single outsider in the village. Seeing the uncertainty the opposition struck. The opposition leader went on hunger strike for 26 days and still survived the hunger unscathed.

The local goons of all political parties, started accumulating near the village, creating reasons for further trepidation for the villagers. The catharsis was when the police lathi charged (after an announcement that they had orders to march within the village) on the villagers and mostly the women and children died or got injured as the villagers were using them as the armor for the protest. The state was apologetic but stayed firm to the point that they needed to stop the hooliganism that developed in the area and cases of rape and other abuse that frequented. The media kept pointing to a photo shot where women were open fired on their backs, and the retreating villagers, especially women and children, were mercilessly being beaten up.

The villagers in terror of police and the goons, were still not able to get back home. The state immediately announced the land would not be taken away from the farmers and they would accommodate the industry in some arid, unfertile part of the state. The opposition leader went to the concerned district hospital and fainted again seeing the agony of the villagers. Over 20 women died in the carnage but no one came to claim their bodies, fearing the lives of those still living and over 60 stayed clammed in the hospital that was not equipped enough to handle bullet wounds and severe emergency cases.

The court wanted an investigation in the matter. In a week, the investigation bureau found bullets from sources that were not only of the law keepers. The local farmers, living a hand to mouth, would not have been able to afford such expenses.

The state capital, Kolkata, was agitated and all parties and people were out on the streets in protest of the entire situation. Banners, slogans and even songs were added to the brouhaha in the city. There were strikes, road blocks and gheraos protesting against the state government's astute decision. The entire city had one question in mind: how did the state order a merciless attack against distraught villagers, despite a promise of prioritizing the farmers' demands in the entire deal.

Today, we, the conscious social humans beings of the city, are all sitting and discussing what is the solution for an agricultural based rural population where the growing population sustenance will need more industrialization in the state. Some said cottage industry is the only solution while some said we have to learn from history that a change is brought about only through an autocratic intervention.

I get my coffee, one hour after I have ordered. I see a hair in the coffee. As a guest I am asked to contribute too. I find it best to be silent as somewhere beyond a need for rapid change there is another villager still trying to get back home, another fight for human rights of basic physiological demands, another progress again stopped for a deadly greed of power. And how do we strike a perfect balance of economic growth, employment generation and an agricultural based society. Is blaming the state and forcing an industry to stop from developing a solution. Or do we keep our basic society agriculture based. Then how do we sustain this unemployment crisis. How much of land is actually available that we strike a balance between agriculture and industrialization and environment.

Or is it just easy for us, erudites, salary earning urbanites, to speak a lot, either blaming the system or citing history to prove a point. Can we go back again to our youth where we dreamed a
scientific socialistic state. If I am asked to leave my work and ablaze the dream once again will I
be able to do it, or for that matter, will anyone of us be able to? Or was all concepts of change and betterment just a passage of time of every youth of the city's universities and colleges till we secured our own boundaries. Are we just best portrayed as sitting in front of big, colonial windows, watching dark grey clouds, with pen in hand and table full of papers, thinking of obliterating the economic differentiation of the world. I concentrate again on the coffee feeling a vapidness as I concentrate hard on the human hair floating on the froth.

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