Love, Academia and Prisons: Reality at the Gates

Jan 2017 Print Issue

जिंदगी ख्वाब है, ख्वाब में, झूट है क्या,
और भला सच है क्या
सब सच है ..
दिल ने हमसे जो कहा, हमने वैसा ही किया
फिर कभी फुर्सत से सोचेंगे
बुरा था या भला ..
Life is dream, In dream, What is Lie?
And even what is truth?
Everything is truth
Whatever my heart told me, I did
In leisure, I will think
Whether It was bad or good..

–Song from movie Jagte Raho, (Shailendra, 1956)

Have you ever met a person, who said something just before two minutes, and then denied it? Or say in span of one week, months or year? It happens definitely with politicians, political party’s manifestos, but what about our friends, family members and lovers!

Imagine when someone counters your reality and calls it fiction or madness. And you start thinking, what is wrong with you? Did I hear, saw, felt correctly! Are my senses working fine? May be I need to understand society and work on my senses to understand. But come on! You just said it. Our relationship is not a NCERT history book, which government from different political party can alter according to their ideology. And it is not even history, it was two minutes before. Why do people do that? Is it only about their Prestige? Do they have pressure valve built in like prestige cooker, to siphon off truth and cook reality? Jo biwi se ‘sachmuch’ kare pyaar wo prestige se kaise kare inkaar! To maintain prestige of a kind, you just deny the truth? Or to keep truth away you keep supplying data? Like when you don’t know how to be with your lover, or in relationship, you have 1TB of hard disk full of movies and soap operas; or the layer of credit card to send you partner for shopping, with your mother and father, you need television. What does it take to spend time together, without representation of someone’s else mind? Can you be with your family, friends or lover without external media? With your reality and theirs. Or will it open flood gates of truth?

Our prestigious Academia and Prisons does have ‘truth gates’ too. Prisons which are supposed to uphold the law, does not follow it, and social science institutes theorises reality to be away from it. To escape truth in reality they need to create another narrative, and supply datas. And if you cross the truth gates of Prison and Academia, you can see the difference of law, civility and reality.

In Bhopal fake encounter case where CCTV was off inside the gate, the Madhya Pradesh CM went on news camera to call the eight killed accused as terrorist outside the gate ( the silence of one camera was more audible and visible). In Delhi, the university students can shout Inquilab and Azaadi inside the campus gates, but have to hide away from non-academic citizens outside the gate. What is this Gate?

Let us first talk to the people beyond these Gates. Bill nahi lagega. It is free. Free Macrohard conversation. Why prisons make it difficult for a prisoner (undertrials) to meet their family members and lawyers if not social workers and journalists? Who are these undertrials beyond gates? Why can’t Academia face reality beyond the gates? So have you become more civil than non-academia? Or just arrogant? Can students talk to people outside Gate? May be they also have some issues? They need to replace english language class in the university for SC/ST/OBC with local language for upper caste academicians for a start.  And… and can you love without constant external data supply? May be you need to learn to talk in real terms.

Realities in Love, Academia and Prison Laws are different than truth, or in other words Love making mein, Law making mein aur Theorising mein thoda jaada galti ho gaya.

Par sab sach hai!