For whom the flowers bloom: Tale of two Indias - different yet similar

There she stands, outside my car window. A little grimy girl in a bright yellow dress, starkly lit by the setting sun, forlornly holding a clutch of fading marigolds towards me. Hoping I will notice her. Hoping I will make eye-contact. Maybe even give her Rs5 or Rs10 in exchange for the little length of flowers tied together with white string. I bargain. Buy 3 such muzhams (~1 foot lengths) for Rs10. It's a good deal. But the lights have now turned green and the cars behind me are loudly honking their displeasure. I drive on.

I need the flowers for my new Honda CR-V - the car I've been dreaming about since I started working. Decked like a bride, she will be taken to the temple tomorrow to be blessed by the priest. I rush home and get ready. Meet friends tonight. A few drinks. Warm glows. Stagger over to the new multiplex at the mall for the latest SRK-starrer. The seats are amazing, and the audio simply spectacular. They had to clear a giant slum to build the multiplex - money well spent, I think. One more step towards the Singaporification of our Singara Chennai.

On our way home now. The city already slumbers. Supine forms are everywhere on the route. These people should really be cleared ou… A flash of yellow! Hey, wait! is that girl sleeping on the sidewalk, the same flower-seller from earlier today?

She sleeps out here, in the open? I’m suddenly sober. I wonder what she's dreaming about. I try to put myself in her shoes (was she even wearing shoes? I don't remember) for a peek into her thoughts:

If I was her, would I be as concerned about the Rupee's daily slide?

Dare I have a strong opinion about which of the two competing candidates would better serve the nation as the prime minister?

Would I share the general excitement about the new Bharti-Walmart superstore opening outside the city?

Would the Chinese incursions across those fluid, unforgiving borders fan my smouldering anger?
 
Back now in my own Nike shoes of educated hubris, I wonder for a brief moment if the little girl would even be as patriotic as me. I mean, why would she care about the abstract concept of India, really?

But then I remember her tired face and experience a momentary twinge of guilt at my presumption. Maybe if I were in her shoes, I would just want a full stomach. And a roof over my head to protect me from the natural elements. Maybe some help from the cops on the street to protect me from other, more human elements. Maybe I’d hope that the lathi-wielding security guard would finally allow me to walk inside that shiny new mall that replaced my shanty. Maybe I would like to join the gaggle of uniformed children in their daily auto rickshaw ride to school. If I were in her shoes, maybe I would not want to earn my living this early in life.

Her tired face reminds me as well, of the vast multitude of my compatriots for whom "India" is probably just another place and a hard place at that. A place where they need to somehow earn their daily bread. A place to somehow survive in.

I revisit my ideas of India in this light. What does "India" mean to me, anyway?

Does it refer to Bollywood and IPL and Alphonso mangoes? Check.
Is it the territorial boundary from Kashmir (including PoK and Aksai Chin!) to Kanyakumari and Rajasthan to one of those seven states on the other side? Check and check.
Does it include my neighbours and relatives, the friends I hang out with at malls? All Check!

What about the flower-sellers? Um.

I realise that the humdrum of my daily existence blinds me to the very existence of my flower-seller compatriots. A willful unseeing because the signs of their existence are everywhere. Their sweat and toil (and exquisite grace even with a heavy load on their head) built my apartment complex and the roads that lead to it. The electricity that powers my air conditioners is generated from their displaced tears and radioactive hearths. The rice I eat, harvested by their bent backs, runs through their hands first before it gets to me. Their children, who live and learn on the streets of congested metropolises, I buy my flowers from.

I am suddenly reminded of the powerful lines of the Englishman, John Donne:
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main [...] Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Although he wrote these words nearly 400 years ago, he might as well have been referring to my fellow flower-selling citizens and me. Our fates are just as intertwined.

I'm told they constitute a majority of the Indian population - our 99%, if you will. I see them everyday yet they are practically invisible to me. What do I really know about them - the flower-sellers of my country? Can I get a glimpse of the India that they see everyday? Do I even want to?

After decades of passionate struggle and sacrifice, our country finally discarded its colonial yoke. A free and secular India was born, dreaming vivid dreams of development and of establishing an equal society.

66 years hence, I wonder if it has those same dreams now. I wonder if my friends and I share those dreams. I know flower-sellers don't have starring roles (or even cameos) in my dream productions.

But I'd really like them to. I want to listen to their stories.


Pavan Vaidyanathan is a biologist, programmer and amateur photographer. Sometimes all at once. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at MIT and volunteers with the Association for India's Development (AID). He tweets as @pavanapuresan