A few days
ago I started watching Revolution. It is a series about the lives of people in
a world which does not have electricity anymore. The treatment of the matter is
quite macabre and it shows how the civilized people turned into clans of violent
warriors who would even kill others for a very few resources. To even consider
such a behavior from us ‘sophisticated’ people was a bit appalling for me. I
convinced myself that what has been depicted in the show is a hyper-exaggerated
version of fiction. But what I chose to ignore was that every piece of fiction
derives itself from morsels of reality. Each story however fantastical it
maybe, has to have some roots in truth.
It was the
time of Diwali and I had gone home to visit my parents, who incidentally were
invited to this function in the club with some of the other very respected and
high standing people. Naturally I tagged along and it was that day that I saw
how primal men can become. Everything about that evening was curt and
pretentious until the dinner was served. It was the event manager’s lack of
foresight which caused the food being prepared only for about 150 people while
the actual headcount exceeded 400 people. The servers and waiters foresaw the
epic ruckus which would ensue soon and they conveniently disappeared somewhere.
And that’s when it began.
The one
thing that I have mention here is that the people who come to these shindigs
are generally very suave and very gentlemanly. So it was nothing short of
cultural shock for me to witness the behavior of these ‘gentlemen’ later on
during that fateful evening. The food was short. The few people who were
fortunate enough to be first in line grabbed whatever they could and snuck away
into some private cove to enjoy their spoils away from the eyes of a few
hundred hungry men and women. Once the food was gone, people started getting
antsy which led to a pandemonium of people breaking all decorum and raising
their voices (which is considered a cardinal sin). I have never seen a
container of food being so clean. People always leave some tit bits here and
there, but on that day they were spic and span, almost as if no food was ever
there. I watched these “sophisticated” people licking their plates and silvers.
Later on as the mayhem progressed, I saw people actually snatching food from
others plates. Some of the people began trading, one piece of tandoori roti for
a chicken piece and so on.
That whole
night was not infuriating for me (as many people later described it) but rather
amusing. It was a prime example of an aberration in human anthropology. Since
the advent of civilization, people have found it necessary to portray their best
behavior in public. We hide behind the veil of expensive suits and nice ties
whenever we are going for something important, just to trick the others into
thinking we are evolved social beings devoid of any primal urges. We try to
live every day in denial of the fact that we humans, like any other animal are slaves
to our basal instincts. Even Maslow’s theory of needs supports this argument.
We advocate to anyone who would listen to our advice to be themselves, yet we
ourselves live a life of concealment and deceit. Isn’t it a bit hypocritical?
So why don’t
we not be ashamed of being a savage? The reasons are far more complex than simple
logic. The above view is nihilistic and unrealistic. The very basis of our
society and the civilization are those lies and deceits and in order to
maintain the order and harmony, we have to follow those rules. Everybody knows
in their hearts what will happen when push comes to shove and things spiral out
of the ‘established norms’. But until such a time comes, we put on a smile,
wear nice clothes and try to keep our basal instincts at bay to maintain the dirty little secret of us “cultivated
people”.
