The Royal Enfield Bullet That Killed An Indian

What does the Indian youth's favourite bike today and the Indian freedom struggle have in common?

Ask any Indian boy or a self-proclaimed Indian gentleman from yester-years what his dream bike is, and he will tell you, 'The Royal Enfield Bullet,' with an air of pride gushing at his irrevocable matter of choice. It is a great bike, no disappointment in that, no matter what the model; people take pride to flash the acronym that reads 'RE', the emblem of the gun and the logo that reads, 'Made like a gun, flies like a bullet.' Girls like it too and often subconsciously connect a man riding a Bullet bike to masculinity.

Capitalizing on this craze and trend, this bike company has catapulted its sales volume and sells more than a million bikes a year at a price set understandably high from a pure economic perspective - more the demand, higher the price in today's market situation. Simple and wonderful!

Now lets go back a bit into some rotting pages of History. To make it more specific and even dustier; lets get back to a dark chapter of Indian History. The year was 1857, must have been a year of frustrations I believe, by this time, Lord Dalhousie's Doctrine of Lapse, an annexation policy of the British Empire was at its full swing - which basically said that the Brits would take over kingdoms that did not have a heir to the throne while refusing to accept prospective adopted children as legal heirs, this lapse of heirs, infuriated a few like Rani Lekshmi Bai of Jhansi who felt her adopted son, Damodar Rao would not reach the throne and also Nana Sahib a Maratha Peshwa who was earlier refused pension by the East India Company was now at the verge of losing the chances of inheriting a kingdom as well, as he too was adopted.
We (Indians) already had over 3, 00, 000 (Three Lakhs) sepoys serving as loyal British troops while the actual white Brit soldiers stationed here (in India) stood a head-count of only 50, 000 (Fifty Thousand Only) - a 6:1 ratio which tilted the scales for the Indian sepoys who in turn felt that they could demand better working conditions and could have their way - the thug way - with a mere display of majority in power. Sounds familiar isn't it?

Trouble was reported to be brewing in barracks and brothels visited by the soldiers and it only intensified and reached its brim when the Brits introduced the "Bullets" that were supposedly smothered in pig and cow fat that came straight from His/Her Majesty's "Royal" Empire that had to be bit (by the predominantly Hindu and Muslim sepoys who found it religiously insensitive to be asked to do something like that) before being loaded into the "Enfield" rifles. Rings a bell now? Yep, it is the same company that made those rifles and bullets that erupted the sepoy mutiny then that makes those much favoured bikes today.

The sepoy mutiny resulted in the death of over 2, 392 Brits and over 1, 00, 000 Indian sepoys and resulted in only a more oppressive rule and in the creation of an equally paranoid society - both ways - rather than any whiff of freedom for the Indian side. Each side demonstrated its barbaric side and there began a silently silenced holocaust at our side of the map. And to think that it all erupted because of the Royal Enfield Bullets...

Now you know why the word "Royal Enfield Bullet" that we feel so proud to possess today in our lapels and bikes and everything connected therewith, would not have appealed to our first freedom fighters and nationalists a few decades ago - no matter how subtly they announce where it is made, who makes it or how it is expected to fly.  Have we betrayed history or is this a historic betrayal by not knowing this fact?
Meanwhile, when an array of the Royal Enfield Bullet thumps its way past me with riders flashing their grin moving those wasted miles on the road - perhaps a symbolic representation of an equally purposeless and wasted life they have, each thump reminds me of a bullet from the white man's gun that shattered the counted and discounted Indians who laid down their lives for refusing to use the Royal Enfield and Bullets that day. Perhaps at the end of the day, for many, this sentiment is invalid and the bike is more important today. Well, ride on...

How To Deliver A Talk Like A Politician

To get quickly to the facts, the three main steps for making an impact in your speech like (or perhaps better than) a politician:

1. Create Discontent: This is the foundation in which your argument and the reason for your speech must be built. The audacity of a complacent crowd must be broken at the start to establish power and to grab their attention. This may have to do with their perception of an issue or perspective of a subject you are asked to bring focus on where you may see space for indicating a difference. Do your research, optimize on the chances of people to ignore or be apathetic about something - the third dimension to a subject which is usually only seen in black and white, right or wrong, true or false and step in the Discontent to make people realize the grey line in between that they so comfortably have missed. Creating Discontent is the foundation for any Social Action to be initiated as any Social Scientist would agree. What if...

2. Comfort Disagreement: 'Agere Contra' is an Ignatian spirituality that forces us to 'Go Against' anything. Disagreement is that which has built anything worth its cause to be established in the first place. Disagreement has been the sole reason for any kind of progress in our society. Perhaps the first person to have ever disagreed must have been the guy who refused to live in a cave; thanks to him, today we live in ginormous concrete jungles out there. Going by Agere Contra, we could test our beliefs before we embrace them for life by checking if they are worth our devotion by simply going against those beliefs; well, if they don't withstand our resistance, they are perhaps not worth our thoughtless trust. Give your audience the right to Disagree - even with you - perhaps a luxury they have not experienced so far - even if they refuse your case, they will end accepting you more. Why not?

3. Create Distance: Anything can be understood only when we detach rather than attach. Attachment causes us to become too blind by making us come too close to the subject and object and renders the idea blurry. We had to find distance to understand that the world is actually spheroid by shape and not as flat it seems up close. We need Distance to appreciate a relationship which might be suffocating otherwise because of its closeness. As with life, so with ideas; we need to deliberate Distance; a sense of detachment from the subject at the end to help us appreciate other limitless extensions in this world. Closing the talk with a vague sense of space creates the required vision-like (end)statement to establish an enigma of an ever-growing, never-meeting circle like the ying-yang by giving space for the conversation to continue well after it is over. Well, who is to so surely know!

Don't Disappoint.

Evan Maar'okkay

When you are an outsider, that ugly duckling, the other, you are seldom free from being targeted or being slammed from repeated attacks with an indiscriminately fixed slur aimed and shot to do the intended damage behind one's back when nothing more rational or logical can be done in an open and fair battle ground. It saddens me to find that these comments are received by certain people expected to deliver justice in such situations choose to rather add their loose comments and criticisms that are often very stereotypical, lacks sophistication and showcases a very low taste and definitely does not demonstrate nor substantiate a multicultural inclusiveness as they tend to often claim in more open forums. Blatant lies so confidently told by mongrels who thrive on constructed pseudo-reality thinking they have harnessed the protection of people with the same amount of prejudice, stereotyping and bigotry as themselves; possibly as low in civility and cultural exposure as well. The limitless abundance of such pathetic ophidians.  

Recently I was a victim to one such racial remark too. Despite trying to shed identities, identities don't seem as merciful with me. My regional, religious and linguistic difference are often spotted and spite raised in spite of me making every conscious step to avert such awkward attacks. Recently based upon some baseless comment by a mythomaniac, another sacrosanct religious mortal referred to me with an instant disdain, "Evan Maar'okkay..." (which by the way means, "All these people" in Malayalam - supposedly what they manage to say when their conclusive opinion of a person is to be understood on the basis of what they have managed to limit their understanding of a group they suppose a person belongs to be.) hahaha! What limitless plethora of mediocrity! Evan Maar'okkay...
From a point of reflection, what do those words 'Evan Maar'okkay' even mean at its deepest sense? Isn't this the vulgurest way of showcasing one's attitude and perspective of others with which one has decided to see the so-called "others" with stereotype, prejudice and bigotry just because one has failed to understand them or even sanction their liberty without a bit of conscience to speak anything about someone just because the 'other' has been patient and does not react? Isn't this the reason for ethnic cleansing in many parts of the world just as genocide and lynching that happen in some parts closer to us? Aren't these racial and regional slurs reflective of their thoughts(?) and how long before these thoughts become action? How different are they that kill from they that consider it right to think in the same line?
I just wanted to reflect and at the same time clarify as to with what perspective am I being seen in a different space among people different from me - (differences I haven't noticed till then)? It is very odd to be the oddest one out in such a beautiful golden pond - a reminder that is reinstated every time incidents like this happen around me. These odds are identities made and handed over to me to wear and bear time after time, incident after incident, from which I have no escape or a resort to go for seeking justice as these are oppressive mandates directed by those to whom I am supposed to go to seek justice again; these situations which rarely happen yet undeniably happen seem to be happening over and over again within the past one year repeatedly ever since a cleansing ritual has began in this place I have been. This has made me feel ridiculous when I have found myself helpless and unable to defend myself when not even give a chance when often targeted. In Tamil, I have heard that bullets taken on one's back shows the cowardice of the enemy one has been fighting with so far; going by that I have fought too many cowards I suppose. At the end of the day, we have two divisions of people; the one who divide and those who don't. Evan Maar'okkay...