Fancy Awakenings: September 2013

Thursday, September 12, 2013

The waiter who dropped the food.

Aah, I have a terrible writer's block since I haven't been writing in so long, so plz bear with me.

Hey there, middle-aged waiter with distressed look, scurrying about nervously. What's that, your badge says 'Monu' but your actual name is Jayadarshan Merkuku? They made you change it because it sounds too grand? Your hair is graying, and you squint at the tiny letters on the menus you bring for your customers. You seem more than desperate to do the job right, however, it can easily be made out waitering isn't quite your skill. You seem too old to be doing the job part-time to collect enough summer job money to visit your girlfriend in Meerut, and too young to be an arrogant humbug slamming menus on tables to earn enough money for a pack of cigarettes. Middle-aged Monu, did you ever think you'll be a waiter at a first class restaurant in a third world country, accustoming your aching eardrums with the melody of profanities from your employers?

Let's face it, Monu. Your meek self isn't fit for the steady restaurant business with its mean-looking employers combing their thick mustaches while lifting cash instead of weights with their left hands. Those employers gleam with pride at their owner buddies and say Yeh toh baayen haath ka khel hain, bhai (This task is so simple that it can be done with your left hand), and sneer at you, as your knees tremble.

But Monu, is it your fault? You have 3 kids and a baby to feed at home, and your wife is sick and tired of scouring the whole village for food. Your hair is oily and sickening due to the lack of the usage of latest hair products <did you guys hear of Beer Shampoo?>, but yet work you must. You have to pocket that meager salary and go to the chai dukaan (tea shop) to buy bread and butter for your family.

You are scared, dead scared of losing this job, because who wants unskilled, inexperienced people like you, especially in the allegedly fastest developing country in the world? You are just a tiny plant in the middle of the road- either get run over, or grow into a giant tree. Your tiny village failed to educate you, and your children are compulsorily being sent to government schools where they come home with a bruised lip and scarred brain by their corporal punishment followers, aka teachers.

Monu, uff, what's that? You dropped the food as you scurried towards the waiting customers? And what now, you received your manager's foot in return for your obviously unacceptable and disrespectful behavior? Tsk tsk, you are so bad, Monu. After all, Monu, don't you know it's bad manners to get your personal life involved in your professional life? Do your employers know, do your employers care if you lose your job? Do your employers care if you are shooed away whenever you seek work elsewhere? Do you think they will sympathize? You are only a burden to the restaurant. Quit before they fire you, live like a vagabond if you have to.

Ohh, Monu, can you please stop crying now? Losing those fluids will only make you thirsty- where will you drink water from? Through the dirty taps at the side of the roads, right next to the carefree peeing man and the mooing cow? You know what? I'll give you an advice. Go stand in the middle of the road. But wait! Not so quick. Don't be stupid now, get your family to stand with you! What are they to do if you get run over? And you know what, that is not enough. Call all your friends, all your relatives, all those around you that you see suffering. Now see, all you poor and ugly people, plant yourself in the middle of the road. What's that, a BMW is racing full speed towards you? Well, don't you bother, trust me on this, stand right there.

Fellow humanity lovers, do you see what happened here? Those beggars got run over, but their corpses remain. And now there is a giant tree with red leaves instead of that sapling that once stood there. Commuters obviously have a lot of trouble now. They will have to drive around the tree, and plans are being carried out to have that giant, shaming tree cut from the middle of the road. After all, that is the venue of the latest, most gorgeous *world class* race course. That tree is a barrier, it is ugly, disturbing, and completely unnecessary. So let's just cut it off, huh?

I live in a third world country, and probably only the residents of my country can understand the deep politics and development errors going on right now. Maybe it is not relatable to everyone. Maybe, I exaggerated a bit. However, you must agree that there is some relevance beneath the shade of that bloody tree I have made. India, I freakin' love you, you are such a beautiful country, but you are forgetting something very important. Being 'developed' does not mean race courses and five star hotels. Of course, that is part of the picture, but part of it is also eradicating the little problems in life that we overlook. Today itself, I witnessed a distressed waiter dropping the food at the restaurant and getting an air of profanities from the manager. Of course, he never got beat up. But ever heard of mutual respect, and some understanding?

And to my first-world readers, this is very much relevant to daily life as well. Most of us are constantly in a race to be the best, to reach the highest goals, the highest paths. That's when we overlook certain little things, get demoralized a little, because, of course, don't we all have our own problems too, to look at other peoples' problems? Towards our struggles to success, we push down a lot of people, and some of them are people we never intended to hurt. Though class difference is a more prevalent problem in India, discrimination is world wide. There is a difference between having a bad day and a bad life. Monu's employers had a bad day, but to Monu, his actions were completely the results of a bad life. Do you think Monu loves his job?

Again, due to class difference, in India, waitering is not considered a good job. It is not the same as your typical summer job, people become disrespected waiters out of desperation. But is this where we want to head? Is this what we want our children, our grand children, and our great grand children to go through as well? A whole legacy of shame and bloody trees?

Aah, I could go on and list a whole bunch of problems with this country, all the skepticism of India as a developing country. I could go on about humanity, and I could vaguely describe the disgust and awe I feel juxtaposed in the newspaper, which I have gotten sick of reading these days, just btw. I see a lot of Indian bloggers around me blogging away about corruption, rape, politics, poverty, and every root of India's problems and the slumping value of the Rupee against the dollar, the shattered hopes of students wanting to study abroad, and the absolutely non-affected rich along with the poor too worried about feeding their empty stomachs to think about the sensex and Aam Aadmi Party.

Aaah, I'm so sleepy. I promise you though, the next blog entry will hopefully be much more cheerful, haha.

Fancy Awakenings

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Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Penguins.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

The waiter who dropped the food.