Flight ya rail ka general dabba? Ghālib and Shakespeare on Thai Smile Airline Brawl

 

The video of a brawl between passengers on a Bangkok-Kolkata Thai Smile Airways flight went was viral recently, showing footage of some men engaged in a fist fight. While the airline tried to downplay the incident, the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security has sought a detailed report from the concerned authorities. Questions were raised why none of the passengers involved in the brawl were offloaded as the plane had not taken off yet. It was learnt that a passenger refused to make his seat upright before taking off, leading to other passengers complaining about him. An FIR was later registered against this wayward passenger.
 
Like a quintessential Indian, I too derived some pleasure from the video clip. I viewed it repeatedly to see who started the flight and extracted great vicarious pleasure in seeing one of the guys getting thoroughly bashed, even as I cursed the fact that the fellow who recorded the incident did not make a decent video. Unable to get to the bottom by deciphering the media blitz, I was a great deal flustered. But my confoundment did not last long as, thankfully I could eavesdrop on this tête-à-tête between my great-uncle Shakespeare and the youngest uncle Ghālib. The insightful dialogue between the two brought out all the temporal, historical and spiritual aspects of the incident and I now share their sagacity with the readers, reproducing verbatim whatever exited their galactic estuaries.
 
Shakespeare: My dear Gaulib, have you come across that terrific monologue in All’s Well That Ends Well by Helena, one of the most compelling  characters I created? No? I knew. Well, she says, among other things, “…Thus, Indian-like, Religious in mine error, I adore The sun that looks upon his worshipper, But knows of him no more.” She loves in vain against any hope of requital as Indian worshippers whose devotion is all in error, like devotees who love the sun but the sun does not care two hoots for them. My impression of India was that of an opulent land of milk, honey and gold with docile faithful people, as my many references speak in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Why, go recall Mortimer in Henry IV Part 1, who likens something copious as Indian mines when he says, “…And as wondrous affable, and as bountiful As mines of India…”. What have you made it into? I feel so bad that we allowed you to rule yourself but I must repent as I see these uncouth barbaric ruffians indulging in base fisticuffs.
 
Ghālib: Wah bhai (Bravo brother)  Sheikhpeare, I mean ShaKHs-e-Peer (Old man). First, your successors come to India to loot and plunder, leaving it in a wretched condition and now this spiel, this lecture.
 
Kī mire qatl ke ba.ad us ne jafā se tauba
haa.e us zūd-pashīmāñ kā pashemāñ honā
(qatl: murder, jafā: cruelty, injustice, tauba: renunciation, zūd-pashīmāñ: swiftly repentant. After destroying and annihilating me, my beloved now forswears all her ways of cruelty and injustices. Woe is me, such mercurial metamorphosis to penitence, what remorse and repentance of this facile-repenter!)
 
Bārad bhai angrez (brother English bard), you forget your exit from Hindustan:
 
Nikalnā ḳhuld se aadam kā sunte aa.e haiñ lekin
bahut be-ābrū ho kar tire kūche se ham nikle
(ḳhuld: paradise, eternity, aadam: Adam, be-ābrū: disgraced, kūche: lane. You may be familiar with the disgraceful exit of Adam from the Garden of Eden but you were thrown out of our street with greater humiliation.
 
Wait till you meet Shashi Tharoor, the great buster of colonial myths, someday.
 
Shakespeare: Do not delve in the past, my dervish friend. Have you not turned your airplanes in the third, I mean second, class coaches of Indian Railways? See the English, sorry Italian, way of controlling such brawls, as I spoke through the Prince, with some clever oxymorons like ‘civil brawl’, admonishing the Montagues and Capulets after their scuffle on the streets of Verona:
 
“…Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word,
By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,
Have thrice disturbed the quiet of our streets…
…If ever you disturb our streets again,
Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace….”
 
Ghālib: Ba.De bhai (big brother) Shekhu, first do not malign Indian Railways (IR) which does yeoman service by carrying its vast populace like cattle in Cattle, I mean, General class and second,  zyaada phenko matī, lapetnaa mushkil ho rahā hai (Do not spin a yarn, getting difficult to wind it up). Keep your assīmārān (oxymoron!) to yourself or I will lambast you with the poles of my abode in Ballīmārān (the poet’s mansion in located here in Delhi). Assīmārān, indeed! Like this ambivalent nonsense spoken by your faaltuu marduud aashiq (useless loser lover), Romi (Romeo), to another masKHara Banwario (Clown Benvolio):
 
From now on this pestilence is guaranteed not to recline any seat ever, be it hajjaam ki dukan ya daa.nto.n ke dāktar kī kursī (barber’s shop or dentist’s chair).
“…O me! What fray was here?...
Here’s much to do with hate but more with love.
Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate,
O anything of nothing first created!...”
 
This fight has much to do with hatred yet it has more to do with love? My right foot! The so called brawl was a fine example of responsible Indian citizenry, helping the airline crew to teach the wayward passenger a lesson.
 
Shakespeare: My dear Acid Owl La Caan, (Asadullah Khan Baig), first you beat this guy to pulp and then lodge an FIR against him alone. What justice! I had Angelo declare in Measure For Measure , “…The jury, passing on the prisoners life, May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two Guiltier than him they try…”
 
Ghālib: Billy urf Barad ji (Billie the bard sir), no try-shry, we punish the guilty then and there. No half measures in India, no kid gloves, pure comeuppance. Our philosophy is enshrined in:
 
Bahrā huuñ maiñ to chāhiye duunā ho iltifāt
suntā nahīñ huuñ baat mukarrar kahe baġhair
(iltifāt: kindness, mukarrar: repeated. I am hard of hearing so unless you shower kindness repeatedly, I do not listen)
 
 
Shakespeare: I thought falsehood never works, converting justice into strange nothing can never too. I spoke through Berowne in Love’s Labour’s Lost, “…Sowed cockle reaped no corn, And justice always whirls in equal measure…” but you desīs (Indians), you dispense such kangaroo justice in full public view.
 
Ghālib: Arre chughad firangī (Oh foolish foreigner), why are you so hung up about this rascal and what you think is misplaced propriety in justice. Spare some thought for the simple gentlemen who had gone on a clandestine visit to Bangkok for some sensual pleasures but they now stand exposed to the whole world, thanks to this trashy video. What crime have they committed except trying to realize their erotic fantasies in this otherwise holy land of 40000 temples? What face would they show to their families? Ghalat hai (it is wrong), so I empathize with these folks:
 
Khultā kisī pe kyuu.n mire dil kā mo.aamla 
is napaak video ne rusvā kiyā mujhe
(dil kā mo.aamla: matter of my heart, napaak: impure. Why would ever the desires of my heart come out in the open but for this impure uncouth video has sullied my fair name and repute?)
 
Shakespeare: Be happy in your own world, sire, stab yourself with no recognition of human values, like my Othello who “…Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away…”. Adieu.
Ghālib: Aamiin, behtar, mere KHabiis dost (Amen, Very good, my mean friend). Vamoose at once and make me happy.

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