Tyranny of the Majority

This happened in april...even the date comes to mind-19th april 2007, because the next day was my birthday! Some people came to my mother in this park who foto you see up here. This park is right outside my house. Ahe was exercising there and they complained to her about me- about the fact that my dogs came and ran around in the park and the dogs pooped there(made the park dirty)

Thanks to the fact that I had dogs that i wanted to run in the park...I had started waking up at 4:30 in the morning- to give them their due of running and exercise. Not a single light in the neighbourhood would be on then- we would run and play fetch, chase one another and so forth. That was the sole moment of their joy in the day I thought and their joy was mine. Our timetable was that i would wake up anytime after four, depending upon the alarm or my wakefulness before or after the alarm went off. I would first walk them around so that they would ease themselves- not a single day did I take them inside with either of them having a full bladdar or bowels.

Ginger is the primary dog that ran. Being a retriever she loves to fetch or even run. Raga was too small and Nikki just injured her leg, so i did not want her to hurt herself further. We had not even made Raga step out of the house till then (as she was not yet three months) So all this ire was probably directed towards Ginger or towards me for my aloofness. But why deprive me of my few moments of happiness...with my dogs...I really wanted to ask these people.

After a 'delegation' of responsible people met my mother- and mom never really told me who all came to her- my parents told me to not take the dogs to the park. They also said that they had lived in that neighbourhood all their lives (from 1950 onwards) with great dignity and regard and now i should not 'imperil' it (my words) In the light of the defenceless-ness of my parents and for the continuity of their 'dignity' I withdrew...once again into the garden of the soul where i dwell, as opposed to the garden of men- where cacaphony abounds.

Someday if i have the heart i will write down how we (my family) had 'built'(if one can build a park) this park who foto you see up here. If you were to touch my hands just now, it still bears testimony. My hands are so hard, tis difficult to believe that i am not a woman who works with her hands to earn a livelihood, purely because i am a gardener.

At that point in April, only my family in the entire neighbourhood had dogs. Four of them. Now seeing us or due to the coaxing of their children or for reasons of superstition some neighbours too have got dogs for themselves. And I see them violating the very park they took away from me and my dogs. I do not have a voice, neither my dogs. I wept a lot. Believe me. Not because of my inability but because i knew the time had come for me to leave this neighbourhood. And soon someday I might be making another blog entry from another city, another neighbourhood. Till I do I will keep noting down all that i have to, here.

The picture you see here is that of two of my girls running on a stray day (in july 2007) when I took them to the park around ten in the morning...to shoot pictures! Just see their happiness, their sense of freedom and fun. The picture you see at the head of this entry is dated 24th september 2007. An evening when all the men in the locality got together to sit in the park to watch the cricket match (2020 final between India-Pak) Imagine the tyranny of the majority when so many weighty people can sit into chairs that sink into the grass and keep sitting there for hours and create loud cheering sounds, in unison with the loud sounds blaring out of massive electronic speakers...in a supposedly decent neighbourhood. So just because a majority of them are together, they can do anything-including descrating public resources, abusing them and causing a sonic hazard to those in the neighbourhood. What if we had elderly people who couldnt tolerate the noise? We just might be having them. I know I have my elderly granny at home. Who knows their neighbours any longer?

We are a neighbourhood, dare I say nation of worthless people. Please see the foto. This is Monday evening- not the weekend. The ones who are playing the game are getting paid...But look at this lot of idlers and worthless men, still in their primitive tribal games- they have been this way for centuries now- cheering gladiators to cock fights and then modern cricket, baseball or football- not only live in stadia but also the televisions and giant screens. And then the ones who tend to lose are the voiceless people like me...with our sense of quiet and peace that is constantly plundered by living in urban, uncivilized (the polite may call them 'civilizing' ) neighbourhoods. onwards ho!

In the last picture here you can see both the retrievers on a heap of freshly mowed grass. Don't they love it? And why would they want to desecrate it like the humans...they belong to the earth more than the humans do; who are constantly surrounding themselves with electromagnetic chaos. It is the same day as the one above in which you see them running free. When we curb the freedom of a species what are we doing to ourselves and them? I think it is worth a few minutes of your time...