AN ORDINARY HUMAN'S EXPERIENCE OF "TEMPORARY INSANITY DAY (FEBRUARY 16, 2020)" IN D-MART IN TILAKWADI AREA OF BELGAUM:

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AN ORDINARY HUMAN'S EXPERIENCE OF "TEMPORARY INSANITY DAY (FEBRUARY 16, 2020)" IN D-MART IN TILAKWADI AREA OF BELGAUM: 😂🤣😅🙃🙂😌🙂❣️

Last Sunday, we drove to D-Mart located inTilakwadi area of Belgaum city. The highway in front of the building housing the departmental store is dug up for fly-over construction to decongest vehicular traffic at the railway level crossing gate number three making it difficult to park our vehicle in D-Mart's subterranean parking lot and had to park the car at the road near the building(inset photograph).
There was a curtained kiosk at the entrance to security check ladies/women shoppers. The lady security guard quite diligently pressed my pelvis and buttocks as part of a security check that made me wonder why she did not press my chest/breasts as part of the process.
D-Mart in Tilakwadi area is notorious for bottom pinchers and bottom brushers, who do the commercial meme creators huge favour by making people the women/ladies in particular as a "BADASS!" I, therefore, was aware of my cousin-sister's, Mother's and Aunt's discomfort in shopping at D-Mart. L.O.L.!!!! 
My cousin, Joshika Gupta was relieved of missing out on being graced with "ignoble touch". While she was paying for the purchases (Pani Puri mix, Pani Puri Water mix and a couple of packets of Tang.) I slowly made my way through a non-operational POS area. Just then, a store attendant left his post at one of the POS moving swiftly towards me brush past me touching my right arm, and his hand touched my right lap. I turned around and tapped him on his shoulder. He turned around and sheepishly blurted out "Sorry!"
 I replied to him, "I did not tap on your "Shoulder" in demand an apology, but to tell you never do anything disrespectful. Gentleman, do not deliberately disrespect anyone and invariably disrespect yourself."

Once my cousin and I had cleared the security at the exit and were walking towards the make-shift vehicle parking area, she suggested we have Pani Puris from a Pani-Puri vendor "parked" on the pavement. My Aunt and cousin-sister like Pani-Puris very much and whenever they see a Pani_Puri road-side vendor they always make a beeline towards it. My Aunt and cousin stood to the right of the vendor's Pani-Puri stand while I stood to the left with my back to the afternoon sun for a while till Aunt urged me to be with them. While the young Pani Puri vendor was busy preparing to serve us I asked him whether the street lights lit in the evening. He said "No". I reiterated my question only to receive the same reply with the explanation that the street lights did not work because of fly-overs' construction work. I explained to him that the construction work could not and should not hamper street lighting and they should be aware of it. Just then his elder brother hurried to the stand and asked his younger brother to hand him over the plastic glove he was trying on. In the flurry, they damaged the glove and still used it. Meanwhile, a group of young ladies had joined us to the left of the stand enjoying their chatter while waiting for Pani Puris. At elder brother's behest, the younger sibling moved to the left of the stand to take onions from a container and chop them. He was grinning from ear-to-ear as he approached the side of the stand and deliberately brushed his arm on my stomach before I could move away from his way. He grabbed the knife and onion and looking at me with the grin still stuck on his face he stood behind us to do his brother's bidding. I saw him looking at the girls while peeling the onion. 
I asked him whether he could read and write. He shook his head in affirmative and hung his head so low that it literally touched his chest. I simply told him and his brother, if we are literate and ignore reading to be aware of our rights and responsibilities as a human, a national, a citizen and above all as a literate individual then, we allow ourselves to be exploited and make it a valid reason to exploit and abuse anyone else. We give vent to our frustration through hooliganism and then justify it as a backlash to abuse and exploitation. We become the oppressed and the oppressors too. Its example is the blatant misuse of media and social networks. Both the brothers and the group of young ladies stood silently rooted in their place. I earnestly hope I did not ruin their celebration of "TEMPORARY INSANITY DAY!"
My experience of Kalyan, Maharashtra, and Belgaum has made me wonder whether there are "two groups of masses":
1. ONE: who is obsessed with chest and breasts and never miss an opportunity to ignobly touch that part of your anatomy when they walk past you or are standing in front of you.
2. TWO: who is obsessed with the pelvic region of your anatomy and never misses a chance to touch you there.

We, misconstrue self-discipline to be a straight-jacketed existence of abstinence; dignity to arrogance and humility to be timidly passive. This happens when parents, teachers and senior members of human society ignore the fact that they are responsible for the youngsters to be aware of the biological changes and sexual urges and how they are to responsibly respond their queries and not manipulate them to their selfish gains resulting in immorality and social hypocrisy. We are invariably responsible not only for the strength of our character but also of others if we firmly believe in yours and mine instead of ours..."Our World...Our Planet Earth."  For evidence, look at all the memes and viral posts in social networks.
I am not a "NATIVE" of Karnataka state of India. I may be part of the so-called "migrant population" like the two brothers earning their livelihood selling Pani-Puris from their road-side vending stand eventually becoming a cynosure to the NATIVES giving an opportunity to the law enforcers to fleece them for allowing them to use the pavement to earn their living if they are not skilled enough to formal employment: sweating it out at a sweatshop like restaurant, road-side dhaba, construction site, retail outlet, workshop or an industry. The constant hammering of one's existence in a social milieu to be more of a bane than a blessing invariably triggers them to act in defiance to such innuendoes both overt or introvert. This invariably exhibits the fact: "WE ARE LIVING IN A PARADOXICAL VICIOUS CIRCLE: EVERYONE IS A VICTIM: OPPRESSOR IS THE OPPRESSED!"

Should we not introspectively question the reason why mega and metro cities and towns have immigrant populations? Should we try to delve deep within us using our #compassion #education #respect #ethics #wisdom #rationality with full awareness of #sustainability #diveristy #resilience and sans #bias #prejudice
Be generous with your comments and thoughts on this post.
THANK YOU! for giving your precious time to read it. 🛐☮️✝️☪️🕉🌳🍀❣️

Source of D-Mart, Belgaum's Image: https://www.justdial.com/photos/d-mart-belgaum-belgaum-supermarkets-eav78aqsx1-pc-131259884-sco-992uqa6y2qe

Ponder

I wanted to rush to the office, so I opted to travel by auto rickshaw than B.M.T.C. (Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation) bus. The auto-rickshaw driver was aware of my anxiety, so he dexterously negotiated the traffic on the road to avoid getting stuck in the jam; while doing so, he narrowly escaped brushing passed a car that suddenly appeared on the left hand-side without honking its appearance. The auto-rickshaw driver lost his cool and yelled at the driver for causing the confusion. In order to avoid further delay, I requested him to move on and explained that there are better ways of making  erring drivers aware of their follies. I broke into conversation with him and realized that all those who are behind the wheels on the road break the traffic rules at some point in time, but they tend to generalize and blame those who make them feel as the underdogs  to be the guilty party. For instance, the auto-rickshaw drivers consider the private car owners as the bullies, who consider the roads to be their private property, while the private car owners consider the auto-rickshaw drivers to be the dare-devils who don't even bat an eye lid to violate traffic rules; therefore the blame game continues. 

This made me aware of the fact: the road traffic of a city very much depicts its urban character, its personality. It shows how urbane the inhabitants are. 

The topic of discussion eventually changed from private vehicle owners versus auto-rickshaw drivers to the roads and traffic in Bangalore and how much the vehicular traffic had increased within the past ten years. Sayeed (that is his name, owner of the auto-rickshaw, who was ferrying me to my office in Gandhinagar, Bangalore) a young lad in his mid twenties seemed to be quite well versed in the arterial system of the city roads and also had expert comments on the methods Bangalore Metropolitan Corporation had devised to DE-congest traffic on busy routes. When I further probed him to find out if he had a better solution than the one implemented, I was amazed to also receive some rather innovative solutions from him. He pointed out that most of the traffic congestion near Bangalore race course was due to sudden spate of high rises springing up on the Race course road. Neither Race course, nor the high-rises that house many offices have adequate parking space make the car owners park their vehicles on the road causing traffic congestion. The problem could be solved through multi-tiered or underground parking lots. He also cited the congestion caused by the underpass and fly-over at Maharani Collage Circle that added to the massive traffic problem at K.R. Circle. This could be solved by extending the fly-over and deviating the private vehicular traffic from Gandhinagar area through the connecting roads to de-congest traffic at K.R.Circle. 

I recalled that I had also come across a mason (brick layer) working at a construction site close to my place of residence who, through his years of work experience in construction, had some innovative ideas, but did not have the opportunity to hone his skills and formally blue-print his ideas  as any trained professional can do. Many of the construction site workers have rural background with ample knowledge of indigenous construction especially adobe homes and when they are trained in modern techniques of architecture, they will be able to contribute effectively in innovating indigenous designs suitable and better adapted to the local climes, rather than we aping the western architecture that are ill-suited to the environment and add more to the ecological problems such as unusual warming up of the environment due to excessive use of glass as facades of the buildings.

Similarly, our farmers, sons of the soil, have generations of know-how of the land they till and crops they grow. When they are trained to more scientific approach in honing their skills to improve methods of cultivation and the crops they grow. We will be able to improve our indigenous methods of cultivation and reduce the plasticity of western technology that has alienated us from the natural means of producing crops and through profuse use of chemicals has affected the arability of land.

Are we not depriving ourselves of potential talent that remains untapped and unfortunately disused in the form of unorganized workforce in the form of farm hands, construction site workers, foundry workers and industrial workers, who are to blindly follow the methods to eke their living, rather than train them on the job, hone their skills to use their ingenuity to improve the techniques oriented to the environment: climate, land and the inhabitants. Then we can say that we have innovated and the whole country has evolved and not just grown organically and developed materially.

Do all the inhabitants contribute in planning and improving the village, town or city we live in to eventually develop a sense of belonging so that we can dispel the feeling of alienation that we try to diffuse through blame game? This is the question I asked myself when I paid the auto-rickshaw fare and started walking towards the office building. 

A Conscientious Voter

Any citizen of a country is responsible for its wellbeing and can eventually take care of it by conscientiously exercising ones voting rights to elect representatives for effective and progressive governance, reflecting the voters’ will and efforts to social progress and national development at large. To make this happen, every voter should (irrespective of origin, gender, religion, caste and creed):
· Freely and easily identify self with the nation as its citizen. Be proud of the identity.
· Be educated and literate with knowledge of the country’s Constitution.
· Be aware of Duties and Responsibilities as a citizen of the country as well as ones global responsibility too.
· Be aware of the Rights and Privileges as a citizen of the country.
· Be aware of the National Heritage and its resources (natural, infrastructural, cultural, financial, human, etc.) and above all the ecology.
· Be aware of the National Objective (not only in terms of own well being but that of the neighbours too, both nationally and globally) considering the previous point.
· Be aware of the ways of organizing and conducting effective governance to meet the national objective.
· Be aware of the political groups and their political agenda in terms of fulfilling the national objective.
· Be aware of the members of the political group and their credentials in terms of their personality traits, their qualification, their achievements in the past and how all this will help in achieving the national objective. Functional transparency followed by the political groups as national representatives.
· Above all, should be aware of the fact that self interest or any vested interest should not be above national interest, therefore both the integrity of the voter and the members of any political group is at stake in terms of commitment to national development as well as global harmony along with ecological balance.