Sorry, Seat is Reserved

Just as we walked in, Veer spotted the center 4 seats of row E at Naz 8 Cinemas screening Rang De Basanti vacant. For the oblivious lot, there are no row/seat numbers on the tickets and seats are open on a first come first served basis in all American theaters and this ordeal is blazoned to the entire world proclaiming their unbiased take on reservations. The moment we tried to settle down, we heard an elderly lady shrieking back with a heavy south Indian accent “these seats are reserved, my friends will be joining in some time.” That did it. Vivacious Veer immediately called upon the theater manager Salim (whom I knew well thanks to the weekend cricket games) and demanded a refund. He tried to convince us and told me that there is another screening in 30 minutes for which he can reserve our seats due to the inconvenience. We had now come a full circle! We chose not to take the offer and not even fight for our rights considering the lady was elderly. Though it was Fun watching DJ from the first row, the dialogues were drowned occasionally by my disgruntled friend. Now that brings us to the whole façade of seat reservations in colleges, offices and government jobs.

With Arjun Singh’s trip to hell now withstanding, a thought crosses my mind whether we truly are going global? Do we deserve to progress at this rapid rate and still hold hypocritical values when it comes to choosing between merit and anyone on the street?

Yes, we want everything western, our lifestyle American, our accent English and our cars German but we just can’t shed our 5000 year old cultural baggage. The baggage of castism. It’s not that the west does not have flaws. They too have their fair share of handicaps and minorities. They too have people who are financially incapable but they consider it an insult to even ask for help let alone beg. It’s been imbibed in the nature of the under privileged to accept this kind of mercy and most of them shamelessly enjoy this too. What is the difference in today’s India and the India that practiced superior castism before the 19th century? It has turned on it’s head and the then exploited have now become the exploiters.

To add to the misery, the cause is fuelled vigorously by our politicians and their selfish motives and hidden agendas. One thing I have learnt is that in the attempt to choose between two evils, the world always hunts a third one and we are paying the price of the garbage we’ve created. Lalu’s fodder scam is too big to be covered by his recent heroics which the media highlights and the elite folks at IIM appreciate. Unfortunately, the media across the world, thanks to the commercialization have very convenient memory and extremely “TRP” driven agendas.

I know at least a dozen people I’ve met who decided to pursue their careers outside of India, me being one of them thanks to these meaningless reservations. In fact even while selecting my vocation, a wonderful career counselor pointed out that if I took the HSC route, there will be 33% reservations for the backward class versus the diploma route where there are none. That wasn’t 100% mukti by a long shot but I could still live with the reservations of free versus pay seats.

We may self proclaim ourselves to be the world’s largest democracy but in reality we have diminished to a democracy that is limited to states or rather religion. To add to the misery, politicians take absolute advantage of this weakness to push their diabolical agendas.

So what is the solution? The only way we can save our selves of the embarrassment in the global arena is by eliminating the reservations and by rewarding merit with financial aids. That means, don’t have reservations rather have minimal fees for candidates who belong to the backward class and are really underprivileged. Like the adage goes, “Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day, teach him how to fish and you will feed him for a lifetime”. Giving away a seat to undeserving person is like throwing him to the wolves for the rest of his life. You have set him up for failure and merely achieved your vote bank quota on the way. Waking up is one thing. Arising is but a distant dream!


Bhavesh Lakhani