Age of defence personnel be increased

The story was coming to an end. Gloria Stuart, the old version of Rose, had just dropped the coveted diamond into the ocean and after panning the old portraits and her sleeping face the camera slips from reality into her cherished dream.

There is darkness on the screen for that fraction of a second. Oh, that was enough, the people put the final stop on the movie and stood up. There was a bunch of young men in front of us. Without realising the relevance of the romantic music that was still on, they got into a heated argument. Over what? If this picture were made in Bollywood, how they would have ended it?’ My irritated request to them to shut up and the sudden lighting up of the screen made them realise that the film’s final shot was yet to come.

This is a standard pattern here. Why is this great hurry to leave the hall? When you have bought the tickets and have decided to sit through the film, why not extend it for another few minutes and relish the culmination?

For when you are in the last scene, you get transported into a different mental frame. But, unfortunately, that is the time for the clink-clank of bottles, the clap’ of the chairs and the discussion to erupt. All these when the winding-up scene is in progress on the screen. Film-viewing is a serious business unless it is some slapstick like Deewana Mastana’ or a thorough formula film like Aaj ka Gundaraj’. When you are out there to watch a serious film, have a little more patience for the director and the actors have spent months, even years as in the case of Titanic’, to put forth a human interest story for you. Your patience will make you enjoy the film more as you can partake each aspect and detail which can be relished later on. But for that you have to get rid of this contagious disease of impetuousness.

You can detect this impatience on the road too, the same urge to reach somewhere as if there is no tomorrow. It is more evident at the traffic light interjections. The light on the other side has only to turn yellow, before your red becomes green, for people to move ahead, risking themselves and the remaining drivers from the other side, and for those behind to start their honking business.

Once a Norwegian pillionrode on my scooter and after crossing two such traffic lights, his shocked reaction came, “Why are they honking like this? It is dual-way-system. If we do such things in Norway, our licences will be revoked.” I told him, “My dear friend, this is India. The whole country is run in this bulldozing manner. See, ours is a poor country, so it is survival of the fittest.”

You may have been victim to such hurry on the road many times. I have often been witness to many accidents wherein a little more caution and yes, patience of course, could have resulted in saving a life or two. But then some people are so incorrigible that their irresistible itch to race off at the traffic lights cannot be curtailed by a screaming you or me, but by only an effective police. In Kerala, we have a funny query to anyone found dashing on the road, especially the youngsters on their mobikes. When I was in college, our gang’s favourite pastime used to be this on freaky evenings.

We would stop such a racer and would ask, “Are you going to buy Vayu Guliga‘ for your mother?” Now, to enjoy this small joke, let me explain; the Vayu Guliga’ is an ayurvedic tablet, small white one that melts in the mouth, which is given to a dying person to ease the last breath. The expansion, on seeing the girls, and the contraction later on of his face would set us off into peels of laughter.

Now as I look back at this impatience, a byproduct of Manmohanomics and PV’s liberalisation drive, it is Rose’s comment regarding the elite class passengers in the Ship of Dreams’ that keeps coming back. “You know these nouveau riche, they just flaunt their wealth but do not know how to enjoy life.” I hope people in this City of Indian Dreams’ will take cue and enjoy life with a little more patience, please.’