Everyday Musings > Arrested Day

My maid usually tells me the local news, even before I get to the papers. Her husband was a driver for a Congress leader in my area, and thus, he's in on all the news. She walked in today and said "Raj Thackeray ko police pakad ke le gayi, ab Mumbai bandh ho jayega." I sleepily muttered and shuffled my feet back into bed.

A lazy few hours later, I stepped out. It was quiet, few people on the streets, a little tense. I caught an auto to office. Not many had come to work. The LCD's were tuned to the news. Flashing the same footage over and over again. Raj is led out of a car, flanked by the police, walks up the stairs to the Bandra Court and disappears. If he had to really walk it up and down as many times as in the breaking news, Raj and the pot bellied policemen would be a few kilos lighter. The program breaks for ads. Back again. The title flashes 'Raj Thackeray haazir ho!' Back to car, walk, gone.

Another channel flashes 'End of GoondaRaj', grin, some pun they must have thought it'd be. The office is buzzing with conversation. Some debate on how what happened in Kalyan with the railway examination students was wrong, but Raj's arrest is wrong too. Some are too busy laughing at the media portrayal of it, switching to see who's got the cheesiest taglines. Some are glad for the holiday like mood it's created at work.

I watch the riots in Thane and Navi Mumbai, where shops are being trashed and windshields are being broken and wonder about the ones affected by that. The car owner who's probably paying off EMIs. The shopkeeper who was just doing what he does everyday. The rioters, mostly unemployed youth, who find a way to release pent up frustrations. Everyone is affected. The perpetrator and the victim.

The news channels are back in action. Raj's bail plea has been rejected. Aaj Tak says, 'Jail me diwali!' The drama continues, the venue changes. The mobs that rioted outside the Bandra court will now get a new place to throw stones at. The Dombivili police will get to wield their laathis on them, and the press will rush about trying to squeeze in more of a story to fit the 24 hr News format. Meanwhile, the normal junta, with and without political views, lives a restricted life, and initial excitement wearing off, wait for a normal tomorrow.

Raj Thackeray will probably come out of this stronger, and turn martyr after a week in prison; the Policemen would have got a conviction, even if short term; the shop keepers will be back in business; the car chap will probably fix an insurance; but the frustrated rioters, what do they really gain?

Martin Luther King Jr said 'Riots are the voices of the unheard". He added, " The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility." Yes, futile. Just the word for today.