People are listening to the fiddle while Rome is burning

My office isn’t very far away from my home so I don’t usually commute through metro.  But I can’t say how I feel about it. It’s a good thing that I don’t have to witness a sample of population explosion every day but back when I used to travel to Delhi every day from Gurgaon (Sorry I just can’t), I could read, at least in those 40 minutes. Now sometimes I don’t read even a single page in the entire day.

Delhi Roads before Diwali go crazy. Everybody has gifts and sweets to send to somebody, their relatives, friends, customers, bosses, enemies, strangers, or any god damn body. So it was better to take a metro when I had to go to CP this Sunday. As soon as I got into metro at Saket, I found a familiar face standing against one of those poles; it took me few seconds to recollect that he was the guy I travelled in the metro with, the last time.

I walked to him and extended my hand, “Rajesh ! We met in the metro the other day.”

“Off course, the preachy guy” He replied.

“Preachy guy? Me ? wow !” this guy never fails to surprise me. “Anyhow, I couldn’t get your name that day.”

“Forget it, I heard some actor saying Insaan naam me bhi Majhab dhoond leta hai. (Like it was too hard to guess after the last discussion).”

“Man finds religion even in the name, says the guy who starts his every political opinion with the opening line: I am Kashmiri Hindu.”

“So what, being a Hindu is matter of proud. What’s wrong if he says it out loud?” (Boy, stop giving me clues, I am trying to guess it on my own.)

 “So where will you be getting off” He tried to change the topic.

“Why are you interested anyway, Today I don’t have a seat to offer. Btw I am going to CP, Actually I have to shop a little, or a lot or not at all may be.”

“ahm ahm … Festive shopping ?”  It was so friendly that it gave me major ‘bro let’s party’ vibes.

“Yeah Man, Halloween is coming and I haven’t finalized my dress yet.”

“I know that was sarcastic and supposed to be funny but you really need to be little more respectful to our culture and festivals.” He appeared really concerned about me. (He gets sarcasm. we can probably be friends someday.)

“Dude, you literally don’t get tired of this moral policing. You don’t have to tell people how they have to feel about their culture, country or religion and a little humor never hurt anybody anyway.”

“These things are not law but everybody should do it voluntarily.”

“Does it occur to you that why these things are not law? These are personal choices and everybody is free to decide their personal choices on their own. How it can be voluntarily if you will be lynched to death if you don’t follow them.”

“You just have a leftist mind set. But this ideology is going to get extinct pretty soon. The way ruling party is winning every state election shows how people have started thinking now.”

“I am pretty much apolitical guy. So this left, right and center thinking doesn’t really make sense to me. But the political scenario in the country is undoubtedly scary. Have you heard of Roman Emperor Nero?

In A.D. 64, 70 percent of Rome was consumed by fire. People helplessly watched it burn for a week. (It’s hard to even imagine the pain of watching your home burning helplessly in front of your eyes specially when there is no Khaleesi coming out with three baby dragon at the end of fire).

There were rumors that the emperor, Nero, himself set the fire.  He wanted to rebuild Rome in his own way and he used the fire as an excuse for new construction. (By the way the technique always works. As a child I had to tear down my old shoes to get my latest favorite shoes). But most disturbing rumor that came out was that Nero was playing the fiddle while Rome was burning. However the myth is busted because violin wasn't invented for another 1,500 years after the fire. But the idea that Nero fiddled while Rome burned isn’t that unbelievable, because Nero was unquestionably cruel. There have been many examples in history after that how unempathetic a ruler, in madness of power, can be. There have been Hitler, Zedong, Stalin and even in present day politics there are leaders who have idly watched thousands of people die.

“I am History honors student from DU. Obviously I know. What about him” He replied excitedly flaunting his university and knowledge.

“A mad tyrant who preferred to play music rather than offering succor to his people, the current situation of country is even worse.”

“Now you are not making any sense at all. How can something be worse than that?”

“Because now Nero is playing the fiddle and people are enjoying the music. The fire is silently burning the whole country.”

Right then metro announced my station and I waved him good bye, “I hope at least the concept of cracker free Diwali makes sense to you. Happy Diwali.”