Annie Zaidi: Spitfire civility

Ever been spat at? I have been. I’ve forgotten everything else — where, when, who — I remember an overriding rage. I wanted to hit the spitter even though I knew I just happened to be in the trajectory of spit.

There’s also this story about a friend’s friend who actually went a step further. He got spat upon while he was riding a motorbike. The traffic light was red. A passenger riding in a bus in Mumbai just poked his head out of the window and spat. Our friend was mid-trajectory.

As the traffic moved ahead, our friend accelerated, stopped his bike right in front of the bus and forced it to stop. Then he climbed into the bus, located the spitter in his window seat, grabbed his collar, and spat back at him.

The weird thing is, in our country, if you want to prevent people from urinating or spitting on a wall, the only way to do it is by putting pictures of gods and goddesses or some other religious symbol. All that worship and stated respect for ‘Dharti Maa’ and here we go, spitting at her all the time.

I have often wished that there was some technology that would make spit bounce back at the faces of spitters. Some kind of anti-gravity film with which we could coat our streets and walls. Perhaps some clever inventor will make it some day.

In the meantime, we spit at our own great structures — the landmarks that define our existence. Residential buildings, court-houses, government offices, police stations, railway stations, even the inside of (air-conditioned) railway compartments — spit, often paan or gutka stained, is all over the body of our republic. And it is, quite literally, corroding our structures.

Believe it or not, even solid structures like the iconic Howrah Bridge are in danger of collapsing. News agencies have reported that the gutka-saliva combine is eating away at the bridge that supports over one lakh vehicles and an estimated five lakh pedestrians every day. According to The Telegraph, Kolkata, the protective ‘hoods’ at the base of the pillars have been reduced from six millimeters to three. And the worst damage is along parts that are accessible to the great Indian spitting machine.

Officials were quoted as saying that though there are laws against it, they can’t catch and fine each spitter. And they’re right. We don’t have enough police personnel to tackle serious crime, so it is unreasonable and unfair to expect the state to deal with spit as an offense.

Civilians could and should help the police. This doesn’t require guns or detective skills. We just have to make it clear to each other that spitting and littering is not tolerated.

The trouble is that it is hard to be the only intolerant on the street. My mother was on a train a few weeks ago. She tried to tell a little boy sitting opposite not to throw food wrappers around. But then, his mummy took offense.

Instead of apologising or telling the boy not to litter, she actually ordered the child to throw the wrappers on the floor. I tried to point out that there were laws against littering but she told me to mind my own business. I tried to point out that this was my business too. She proceeded to insult my mother and yelled at her, saying that we had no right to be here (in the train) if we couldn’t deal with litter.

I suppose the little boy is growing up to become an accomplished spitter in public spaces. Howrah Bridge must be shuddering.

Annie Zaidi writes poetry, stories, essays, scripts (and in a dark, distant past, recipes she never actually tried)