Ripples on the brain

“No sir, that won’t do”, she said. “But, I have checked the measurements online. This is 35 by 45″, I protested. “May be, but the face is not prominent enough. Look at this”, she fetched a specimen and threw it in my direction. “Oh, I see”, I accepted defeat and followed her instructions.

“It is 35mm by 45mm for S, the same as that for the U, but the nature of the photos are different. While for the former, the face needs to be more prominent, the latter needs to be till you collar”, she smugly explained. “Oh, isn’t that similar to that for the U (a different U this time)?”. “No, that is 50mm by 50mm, totally different. Now why don’t you stop wasting your time and mine? Just get the photos done and come back, I just cannot accept the ones you have right now”. I didn’t have many options and had to fall in line.

At the photo studio: “I want photos to be taken for visas to S and M”, I tell the photographer. “Yes sir. That can be done”. Once the photos were done, the photographer demanded twice the amount I expected for the photograph. “We need to develop two sets of photographs, sir - one for M and one for S”. “But as far as I understand, the measurements and the nature of photographs are the same. Can’t I use the same set for both the countries?”, I protested, again! “No, while the sizes and the nature of photographs are the same, the required finishes are different. S needs a glossy finish, whilst M requires a matte finish”.

I couldn’t but wonder why different countries have different requirements for such a simple thing like photograph for visa. The need for a photograph for visa applications is universal and uniform. Then, pray why so many specifications? How is one specification superior to the other? The agents and the photo studios seem to be having a field day with the information overload that visa applicants need to handle while filling out forms after forms.

I came back to the agent lady and lamented, “The photo studios and you are the ones benefitting from this”. “Yes, we give them a lot of business”, she replied, with an unmistakable pride in her voice!

P.S: “feet” in the title refers to the unit of measurement, just for the alliteration.

I remember using this title more than once for my earlier blog posts, but I guess I cannot come up with a better one to write about what is happening in Maharashtra. Indian Government expresses solidarity with the migrant workers’ rights in Malaysia, our hearts go out to those 1200-odd, mostly Indian, construction workers in Baharain fighting to increase their daily minimum wages, but the nation as a whole is almost ignoring the monstrous human tragedy that is happening in Maharashtra, where under similar conditions, lives of thousands of people are being threatened for no reason.

Thousands of migrant workers, all poor and from North India, are being forced to return to their respective native states (even though they have been in Maharashtra for generations) just because one fine morning a miserable individual decided that he needed some national publicity to end his political obscurity. Trains after trains entering Bihar bring loads and loads of migrant workers, each of whom has a personal tragedy to recount - leaving behind life’s earnings, being forced to give birth in train toilets, family being threatened in the wee hours of the night and so on.

Amidst all these pictures, a rather beaming Police Commissioner of Maharashtra, assures everyone in the state (and then corrects himself to include the country; I’m grateful he didn’t go beyond it to include the globe) that no unlwaful activities will occur and his department is in control. His department then proceeds to arrest the individual(s) helping them get more attention than their own actions can fetch them.

It is so sad that all natural (earth quakes, tsunamis, floods, famines etc.) and all man made disasters strike the poorest of the poor. The original target of the diatribe didn’t lose anything (not that I want him to, but to just point out), nor did the well-off migrants in Maharashtra. It is always the poor who cannot defend themselves and who have no one defend them. If you really think your argument is sound, why go against only poor North Indians? Why not against all non-Maharashtrains including South Indians?

I know I’m restating the most obvious things, but I really don’t know what the solution is. Not so long ago, we believed education is the panacea for all these radicalism. “When the society gets educated, it elects responsible representatives” . I realized that the belief is so hollow when I posed a question to my Mumbai aunt a few years ago on whom she votes for. “Shiv Sena”, she beamed with pride. “We don’t even think of any other party”, she went on to explain. Not that the party in power now is able to do anything better, but her answer revealed just how much irresponsible educated individuals are when it comes to exercising our franchise.

I read a piece by Harish Khare in the Hindu which seems right for the present situation:

…Nor are we free of the “fundamentalist” forces whose presence we find so ominous in Pakistan. For instance, a few months ago, the killers of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi were deified as “martyrs” in the Golden Temple. Yet neither the Punjab government nor the Centre nor the BJP (a coalition partner in Punjab) can dare raise a voice of protest against this extraordinary concession to the extremist. There is no real ground for us to feel superior vis-À-vis Pakistan, a presumed “failing state.”

There is no reason for us to feel superior over any country in this matter. All forms of religious/regional fundamentalism and racism exist in India in the ugliest of forms.