The Liberal Conservative

Don't know if the title is an irony while being an antithesis though I am completely sure that it is plagiarised

On my way to Bhopal to meet my cousin for the weekend, I shared two and a half hours on a bus ride with an IT professional also employed at my plant site here in Madhya Pradesh. What makes this journey and my company distinctive is that my co-passenger is the Indian equivalent of a Cowboy from Texas;he is Haryanvi, 6ft 2inches(apparently average height in his town!) and the son of the soil kind of a guy.

Between discussing my line of work, the best way to exercise, forming the perfect wrestling hand grip which he learnt in an akhada(this information was much to the dismay of my wrist), how to classify good looking women with primitive animal and bird names and everything under the sun we also discussed a few social issues.

I mean I was comfortable doing so. What radical new thoughts could I encounter? May be a few dark truths about India which I could read anyway. You see I fool myself into believing that I am the iconoclast in a conservative world, filled with liberal ideas and thoughts that a new India is geared up for. So when he told me, on my insistence what a Khaap and a Khaap panchayat meant I wasn't too surprised. Did you know the Khaap defines your brotherhood and everyone in it and also an area where you can't get married into. This includes a unit formed from 12 villages, everyone who shares your father's surname, your mother's maiden surname and your grandmother's(father's mother) maiden surname. And well yes there are still people left who you can marry then.

I then learnt the origins of the surname Tyaagi, well its more of a debate you got to chose which version you believe in: brahmin descendants who gave up all land thus sacrificed (Tyaag)or Brahminical descendants who gave up (also tyaag)their ways, either way one more cast defined fun fact in the Hindi Hinterland. The topic moved on to honour killings which my guide thought was alright if someone teases and tries to hit on your sister or tries any inter-religious love marriage.

So far so good, along expected lines, conservative and well medieval almost. But here is where he surprised me, on the question of marrying (arranged marriage) within your own khaap,he said "when people marry into their own Khaaps the marriage surely takes place with the blessings of all the elders and panchayati heads around? but why do they not check the Khaap thing then and there? instead of waiting for a decade when the couples have kids and then declare that they are now siblings and can't live together. It is stupid and a down right shame."

Critical commentary on a social practice. Not that it was a radical thought but I was impressed none the less, only to be disappointed again by some unfortunate Mohammedan bashing which was crude, stupid and condemnable. And then every fibre of my Mumbai bred apple pie (don't know the Indian equivalent of this american phrase) life started to get agitated. I mean it is irrelevant if there is a religion you belong to or not, hey it is even irrelevant as I think whether there is A god, any god or anything but anarchy and chaos controlling the universe (this all dramatically changes while praying to get India to win a cricket match though). So I almost shut out and then he hits me, mentally that is.

'You must have a girlfriend, so do you smoke? You must have smoked occasionally, does she know?'

To all this I give a nod of the head which while it doesn't say no also doesn't say yes, and that is where I leave it dear readers I am not giving you any answers. And just as I leave it to you to decide my friend decided that the nod of the head was in fact an affirmative declaration.

"Why don't you tell her? So if you do tell her why don't you smoke in front of her or better yet smoke with her?"


This is when it hit me now of all the things I don't have any problems with women choosing and doing; clothes, profession, curfew deadlines, drinks, sexual orientation the major turn off apart from being high handed, incapable of holding a conversation and being part of a satanic cult, is when they smoke!! I do not know why.

If you can smoke surely she can too, he said. I mean does she not have the rights to do so??


So the cowboy from haryana with his rustic thoughts on life dealt a blow to the liberal Mumbaiite. Isn't considering something a turnoff as good as an ill conceived prejudice and more importantly isn't it as good as those other conservative statements which I seem to abhor?? What makes me be so condescending towards his thoughts?

Well may be yes but may be no. While I am no expert on the principle of lassiez fair or a proponent of unabashed neo-liberalism I think the idea behind it all is that I can hold on to my thoughts just as much as he can hold on to his beliefs. As conflicting as they may be, as much as I wan't to oppose them my right and my wrong are well just mine and not applicable to any one else, just as long as it does not harm people around us in any way.