Vande or not to Vande?… Shakespeare and Ghālib pow wow part II

Vande or not to Vande?…  

Shakespeare and Ghālib pow wow 

Part II

In the first part

(http://anindecisiveindian.blogspot.com/2023/08/if-vande-be-food-of-bhakti-ride-on.html),

I reproduced verbatim a part of the enlightening dialogue that ensued between my great-uncle Shakespeare and the youngest uncle Ghālib on various curious news items concerning Vande Bharat express; they talked, inter alia, of the lady with the Vande ticket who got robbed as also the man who got on the train merely to relieve himself. Their descant had also included Yoga on Bhopal-New Delhi Vande, a man in Kerala shutting himself inside Vande washroom for hours and, the coup de grâce of this barrage of news about this guy who boarded the Tirupati Vande Bharat ticketless and could not resist the urge to smoke in the toilet, activating the alarm and aerosol sprinklers. So I continue my reproduction from where I had left of:

 

Shakespeare: Hey Gaulib, what true words I had Portia say in Julius Caesar, “...how weak a thing the heart of woman is...”, creating a storm in a tea cup. Unlike my chief beelzebub Iago who deceives Othello saying,  “...Who steals my purse steals trash. 'Tis something, nothing:'Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands...”, a Vande Bharat ticket may not be trash but is it such wealth? Is your Indian Railways also not looting the passengers by charging such high fares for a simple train? But I guess your people are all such bachts (bhakts, worshippers) that they are like Othello who lamented that he did not see his wife’s disloyalty as he tells Iago, “...He that is robbed, not wanting what is stol'n, Let him not know’t, and he’s not robbed at all.”; if someone who is robbed does not know what has been stolen, let him not know that he was indeed robbed.

 

And what is this drama about Yoga in train? Will that make your country a Wishgooroo (vishwaguru: mentor of the world)? Did Ulysses from Troilus and Cressida not tell them, “The amity that wisdom knits not, Yoga may easily untie.”.

 

Ghālib: Janab ShaKHs-e-Peer (Sir, Old man), Khāmosh (Be silent), You talk like an ill-mannered KHabiis (mean). Yoga on Vande Bharat? The train has a perfect balanced ride affording great flexibility and emulating Baba Ramdev is a facile activity for the passengers. I am more worried about these lunatic happenings around the train, a mad man locking himself in a toilet and another smoking a sig-rate (cigarette) in there.

 

Ishq mujh ko nahīñ vahshat hī sahī

merī vahshat tirī shohrat hī sahī

(vahshat: mad frenzy, shohrat: fame. So be it if you think of my emotions as madness and not love, my craziness would be the cause of your fame.)

 

But do we want these dotty demented people making Vande Bharat famous through their fatuous acts? It’s a nice train but why is everyone its enemy?

 

Ham kahaa.n kī bullit the kab the maanind-e-TGV

be-sabab huā ‘Vande’ dushman āsmāñ apnā

(bullit: Bullet train, TGV: French railways. I was not as speedy or beautiful as Bullet or TGV trains so why has the sky become my adversary?)

 

Shakespeare: Good chap Glibhoy, I had Polonius say in an aside in Hamlet, "Though this be madness, yet there is method in't..." and had these Vande hype-builders in your country bothered to read Much Ado About Nothing and follow Beatrice, they would realize that “...There’s not one wise man in twenty that will praise himself”; in praising the train they blow things out of proportion like a balloon in a hurricane, mainly to glorify themselves. As for smoking, while these mortal earthlings still wonder if The Merry Devil of Edmonton is genuine or apocryphal, do remember that there are things ‘more chargeable than cane-tobacco’.

 

Ghālib: Bhaiya Barad (brother bard), spare me this harangue on tobacco. We smoked many divine flavours in the dignified huqqa (hookah) till your Purtgaali (Portugese) brethren brought the uncouth tambaku (tobacco) and later the boorish sig-rate (cigarette). This train is so savvy that it can detect a man smoking stealthily, ring an alarm and sprinkle aerosol powder cloud to douse the fire.

 

Bū-e-bii.Dii  sig-rate ya dūd-e-cigar-e-mahfil

Jo bhi is train meñ niklā so pareshāñ niklā

(bū-e-bii.Dii: smell of a crude cigarette rolled in tendu leaves, dūd-e-cigar-e-mahfil:  smoke of the cigar in an assembly, pareshāñ: dispersed, worried. If you smoke bii.Dii, cigarette or cigar in Vande Bharat, emittance of their smoke would be worrisome for you.)

 

Of course, there should be some empathy for the poor smokers! Why deprive the musaafirīn (travellers) of simple pleasures? I modify another sher (couplet) of mine:

 

Sig-rate jalī to kyā train bhī jal rahī hogī

Kyuu.n bajā rahe ho ghantī justujū kyā hai

(bajā: sounding, ghantī: bell, justujū: quest, search. Would the train start burning if I light a cigarette? Why do you ring a bell, what do you search for?)

 

Shakespeare: There I do agree, Buddy Gaulib.  Let me invert what Romeo, in Romeo and Juliet, tells Benvolio, “…Smoke is love raised with the fume of sighs; Being purged, a fire sparkling in smokers’ eyes…”

 

I had said earlier that If you did not wish to be pissed on, take a train. But on the other hand, if you do wish to piss,  or smoke for that matter, you have to ask yourself, “Vande or not to vande?” 

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