Recently, numerous media debates and several articles have been
penned on the issue of racial profiling of the African citizens who are staying
in India. But the media, like it has done in the past, forgot to raise the
issue of another important allied subject, which in this case is the profiling
of a ‘Bachelor’.
People generally tend to focus on the thrills and enjoyment
in the life of a young earning bachelor, conveniently forgetting the perils that
come attached with it.
A quiet, normal guy, leaving his house early morning and
being seen by his suspecting neighbors only during the time when he is standing
in the gallery to lock his door, soon becomes an object of curiosity. Questions
regarding the antecedent of the lone mortal are soon raised. What does he do? Why
does he stay alone? Where does he go early morning? Why is he quiet?
Soon the questions are put to the house maid who has been
fortunate enough to land a job in the kitchen of this mysterious one. And playing to the gallery, the maids too tend
to use their own creativity to make the whole matter even more mysterious.
Last week, the woman who cooks for me, told me that one of my
neighbors, who is a lady police inspector, was asking her questions like what
do I do? Who comes to meet me?. “Mainu
unsey bol deeya ki bhaiya toh jyaada sirf phone pe hee kaam karta hai. TV aur
computer ke sammne beth ke”. Soon enough the picture of a Bookie and a towel
and Sreesanth flashed across my mind.
Interestingly this maid of mine was initially reluctant to
work at my place. She was referred by the society security guard. When she
first came to my house besides discussing her ‘pagar’(wage) she said that she was not very comfortable in working
in a house of a bachelor, “Sharab peete
hain, ladki aati hai, ghar ganda rakhte hain. Shuru mai ek hafta kaam kar ke
dekhti hum, jamega to sochungi”
It has been 5 months, and despite my threats of terminating her
services for taking too many leaves, she continues to cling to my house like a faithful
cow that ritually stands at the door of a Hindu priest every morning.
It is not just the maids who assume things of disproportionate
proportion. The next door ‘aunties’, as cliché it may sound, too have their own
‘narrow’ thinking about the guy living next door.
For them the guy is someone who is obliged to help them in
times of ‘kitchen needs’, more specifically in the times when their Gas
cylinder goes empty at the stroke of mid night when the whole world is
sleeping.
Twice I have been awakened by a smiling neighbor who is
standing on my door because her LPG cylinder failed her. “Book kar deeya hai, 2-3 din mai aa jayega, tab tak aap apna cylinder
de dijiye.”
I am sure the thoughts that I am also a mortal who survives
on food, rather than plain air, might have crossed her mind. Also must have
crossed, only to be forgotten, would have been the question that how would my
cook prepare if you take away the only PLG cylinder I had.
However, the cruelties of life come and go and rather than pondering
over it, a rational man moves ahead.
The biggest problem that a bachelor faces is when he searches
for a house to rent, to stay and to sleep just like an ordinary law abiding
Indian or foreign citizen. However, most of the house owner sees him as an
outlaw, a danger to the ‘bahu-beti’ of
the family, the harbinger of alcoholism in the society, a honeycomb which will
attracts similar ‘outlaws’, the young ruffians, in dozens.
When I came to Bhopal, it was only after two months of hard labor
that I could get a decent place to run my ‘den’. During these two months I learnt
that there are multiple hurdles for a bachelor when it comes to looking for a
house.
First the fact that he is unmarried is the biggest hurdle, secondly
he will be staying alone without the company of his mother and father is a big
letdown for many ‘makaan maalik’. If
one crosses these two queries, the final frontier is his job profile.
In many cases I was able to clear the initial two stages, but
when I told the owners that I was working for a newspaper, they would just give
me a polite smile and say no.
A retired army colonel, staying in Pune was looking for a
tenant for his house in Bhopal. I called him up, pleasantries were exchanged
and quite surprisingly he stated that he had no problem with my bachelor
status. The next question was about my job. Feeling confident, I enthusiastically
stated, “I am a journalist”. There was a silence of 2-3 seconds and then the
call got disconnected. When I called him
again, the monotonous reply that came from his side, san any past like pleasantries
was, “I don’t give my house to journalists”. End of conversation. At that time,
the only thought that crossed across my mind was a dialogue that I heard in
Hindi dubbed Tamil movie which I had heard in the recent past- ‘Koi goonda pet se bahar nahee aata, yeh society
usey goonda banati hai”.
I couldn't agree more.
