Rabble and Throng

Most people hate crowds. Crowds push, pull, stomp. They’re unpredictable, abrasive and let’s face it, often smelly. Dried jasmine lady’s elbow almost always finds its way into egg biriyani man’s hip, who will then twist around to yell at sweaty armpits boy nursing his toe squished by whoever left behind the sharp cloud of pan-bidi that still stains the air. 

Common purpose is said to unite, but in crowds, it is common purpose that divides. Everyone in a crowd often wants the same thing—the last tatkal ticket, black tickets to Dabangg, a fantastic discount sale, a desperate glimpse of a celebrity deity at a behemoth temple, the door of the bus. Somehow, once in a body jam, everyone seems programmed to choose the most ineffective exit strategy. Every indistinguishable member of the crowd must pull the opposite way, swim to the front of the mob and grab that elusive whatever everyone’s aiming for.

Despite this, I mostly love crowds. Body crushing is often found around essential things, festive things, popular things, cheap & best things. All of which I too want. And well, if I have to brave determined elbows and shoving shoulders, so be it. Plus, even if tickets and discounts can now be got without diving into a sea of people, once in a while, my paranoid we-will-forget-the-old-way mind likes the manual option.  

Most recently, however, I was in a maddening people-mash that I did not understand.

Against the moss green walls of the Karnataka assembly, Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa’s face was especially white. Sitting upright in the first row, his arms folded tight across his chest, he surveyed the bedlam around him. Elected legislators—of his party, the BJP, and the opposition, JD(S) and Congress—were throwing wild punches that caught a shocked police commissioner in his jaw. 

Energized MLAs pelted stones at the glass windows. News cameramen barged in. Several reporters were inside too, some laughing, others visibly distraught. An independent MLA hopped mad on a bench, and in a screaming climax that will be his political legacy, he tore his shirt open. Accompanying loud protests of the pummellers and squeals of the pummelled, was a chorus of what sounded like, “Hey!” in response to which the Speaker said, “The ayes have the majority!” and walked out. BJP legislators beamed into the closest camera, their fingers thumbs-upping and V-signing. Yeddyurappa stood up, allowing himself a shaky smile under his perpetually furrowed brow. He had won the trust vote. He could be Chief Minister for another day.

Body jams for unreal democracy, I cannot bring myself to like.