Fat Pigs on a Farm

On my way out to enjoy a little R&R on a random Saturday at 5 in the morning, I passed by a host of women gearing up for the Inrinni Zing Bazaar. 

I was up early because I wanted to enjoy a cup of dark, bitter coffee in a rustic old steel mug, with hot water from my brand new vacuum bottle, on a hilltop, just staring out at God’s good earth before humans wake up and spoil the day again. And, of course, take pictures that might end up on Instagram.

The women were up because they needed to make a living. 

We were not the same.

I started to think then what I think often about: how all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. And how sometimes I am less equal than others but dear lord, how often was I so much more equal than yet more others.

I never wish to be defined solely by the circumstances of my birth and I also do not wish to be limited by it. However, I have always been acutely aware of how privileged I am. In contrast with others, even more so. 

In my line of work, I often dine with people for whom a lakh is pocket change. But I also often have tea with people for whom a thousand bucks is good money. It is interesting to navigate between the two and try to think of ways to solve all their problems. The only conclusion I have come to is this: there is no one size fits all solution. To every single application of Law, and even societal mores, there are exceptions. You cannot treat the outliers as the norm and try to change the entire system because often the system does work (except for them) but it would be a great disservice if you forced them to the same standards as everyone else.

In Political Sociology, we often say a hungry man knows no politics. I think it is an adaptation of some remnant Reaganomics from the 80s. I find it incredibly succinct. You can’t judge people from the comfort of a concrete building, safe from the elements and a comfortable few lakhs parked in the family accounts. Even the idea of how corrupt and unethical people are that they are easily bought by politicians for a small sum. But I have started to wonder whether or not this speaks more favourably of people who would take a mere 2000 bucks from party workers on Election Day, then go to anonymous voting compartments and decide that their words actually mean something. Unethical, yes, but it is a strange real world variant of principles. Twisted and bent, but principles nonetheless.

Therein lies the issue. Real world problems often cannot be tackled from ivory towers of theories and ideals in real time, no matter how well they do abstract it given some space and distance. People in the real world, be it policy makers or executives or ground beneficiaries often have to make non-choices. Choices between rocks and hard places, devils and deep blue seas, Sophie’s Choices, whatever you wish to call them. 

It would be irresponsible to believe that a strict moral code and adherence to it are all that people need for society to function. Even morals are biased to our lived experiences. How do you negotiate that? Things that seem so good on paper sometimes fall completely flat on ground. Pencil pushers would never understand how fieldwork works, in the same way ground workers cannot see the forest for being engaged with the trees. It is where we are planted where we get to specialize in topics. Perhaps an evening out of workers or at the very least, a commune of the two are necessary for a programme to work. Not accusatory snide comments thrown at the other for not knowing things.

The funny part is (well, not funny ha-ha, funny like hmmm) is that all these things are just burgeoning stereotype solidification. Clique formation, maybe. Created evil, you could even say. When you place someone in a more comfortable situation, very often because they suck up to you, they start to thrive. As they are wont to, unless they are complete wankers. In Mizo society, they may start dressing better, maybe use Minglish, raise their living standards, consume brands, develop an increasingly impressive social circle from hobnobbing that comes with being placed in optimum company, become “Mi Thil Ti Thei”… and then the same people who first indulged them start to be convinced they are more than they are, and start sycophanting to them. Vicious road.

We are to bloom where we are planted, we always say. But sometimes the soil we are given is sparse. And we can’t live on weeds and expect to be as fat as people living on sweet, sticky, multi-coloured maize. It is an unfair competition. We shouldn’t expect it of us to be on par with some other people, and in turn not expect others to be on par with us. There’s a really nice Mizo proverb that says even a boulder can’t stand unless propped up by pebbles. Maybe sometimes we are boulders, maybe sometimes we are pebbles. It is what it is.

I suppose in the end, what is really important is how much we contribute to this extra equality to pigs. In other words, how big a pig we are. No?