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Kamala Das

The Lost Planet

Each and every cultural association in India is busy organising a reception for Arundhati Roy. It is true I released her book in Kerala but that fact has not conferred any proprietary rights on me.

Yet, almost every day, someone or the other phones me to find out Arundhati's whereabouts. Each caller wants to invite her as chief guest for some bash planned with care. A prestigious organisation wanted her to the celebrity judge at a beauty contest. Arundhati said she was not interested. Any thinking person could have anticipated such a response.

Arundhati can afford to snub anybody in India right now. She is the most talked about celebrity. Despite daily bulletins in The Times of India, Diana Hayden remains irrelevant. In a subcontinent where women walk 10 kilometres each morning to fill their pitchers with water meant for cooking, beauty contests are irrelevant, puny events that delight a meagre group of selfish morons.

I remember once, at a feminists' gathering, the delegates from European countries talked with intensity of the need to get an orgasm, as if that silly thing was the first priority! When the Indian delegates' turn arrived, I told the grim audiences that until each hungry child in India was assured of two meals a day, I would not bother about an orgasm.

The affluent sections of society all over the world set their own rules for living.

When the meeting of the environmentalists and futurologists took place at Rio, there was no one to represent the poor who were going to be the most affected lot. In Bhopal, when the gas leaked, the poor who had not been provided with oxygen masks died.

Dying comes so easy to the poor. Their deaths are taken lightly, taken for granted. They swarm all over the cities, the small towns and the villages. In the metropolitan cities, they become invisible. They are denizens of a another planet. They fall down dead on the pavements but the passers-by will not even notice.

People rush to their chosen sanctuaries, not looking left or right. The fashion shows are on. The beauty competition are on. Girls with skimpy clothes offer themselves for scrutiny. The judges look for the warts and blackheads that mar the comeliness of the skin. The politicians strike deals in Delhi, the journalists smirk. Where is the time for garnering food for the poor?

The poor have haunting eyes, especially the children who follow with their eyes the movement of the ice cream cart, and the slow movement of the jaws where a privileged person sits eating at a hotel table behind plate glass windows. The poor have grimy skin and hair reddened with the dust of the roads they walk on. They have emaciated limbs. When they speak, their voices lack modulation. The poor have no truck with government officials, members of the cabinet or even God. They keep their woes to themselves, wisely and with immeasurable dignity.

Illustration: Dominic Xavier