Shh…don’t talk about the orange man, the man with the orange flag and the man with the orange face and all the other little orange men. Don’t sing about them either. Don’t gather in a Kamra and make jokes about them, or listen to jokes about them. Don’t write articles about the money they stole from you, don’t speak of the betrayal, don’t tell the people how they stole power, don’t talk about the rigged elections, don’t talk about the starving people, the miserable people, the sick people, the poor people. You cannot discuss the prisoners, the unlawfully prevented, prevented from what? From speaking the truth. Don’t speak the truth. They will send you to jail. If you write it in a book they will burn the book. If you say it on a stage they will break the stage, if you say it in a school they will hurt the students, if you shout it out in public, they will wring your necks.
Shh…don’t make jokes. The jesters are thrown into the sea if the king feels bad. Don’t insult the king, or his deputy or his deputy’s deputy’s deputy’s deputy, or any of the men on the throne. Don’t talk about the demolition, the houses being turned to rubble, the bulldozers and their power. They are hunting voices. They are finding the loudest and clearest and the fearless and they are stringing them up on the market square so everyone shall see them and shut their tiny mouths. Quell the dissent. They don’t like art, oh no it makes them very angry. They don’t understand it, they don’t enjoy it and they’ll tolerate it if they have to unless it’s about them. It’s not easy being the butt of every joke, you know. It hurts.
Shh…don’t hurt their feelings. They don’t like it and they don’t know how to cry properly so they’ll pick you up, yes you, the young students, the trannies, the women, the Muslims, the Dalits, the artists, the reporters, and the dissenters. The question-askers and the answer-tellers and those who listen to them. You are only excluded and marginalised and untouchable until it is time to throw you into jail. Then they will grab you however required and shove you in a box.
Shh…don’t wake the people. They want to discuss the temples in the sea and the temples underground and the temples in the mosque and the comedians and the actors and actresses and their divorces and the gods and the goddesses and which one is sad and hurt and how one god is better than the rest. The people are sleeping, the people are gossiping, the people cannot see how the thieves have entered their houses to steal their food and take away their freedom but do not wake the people. They want to be asleep. If you wake them they will still ask about the temples and sad orange men and about which flag is better and who wore what when and they will watch the thieves take everything and they will let them. They will let their children be snatched and their houses be broken and all their money taken away and they will wake up and ask where the temple is, where the temples went and where new temples shall be built.
Shh…don’t ask questions. They will ask you to keep your mouth shut and they will turn you against one another and the blue will fight the green and then the orange wins. But this is a democracy after all so the only king you can question is the one who died more than 300 years ago, and the one that died 61 years ago, and all their children because there is a statute of limitations on these things. You can uproot their graves and celebrate your festivals in their houses of worship and say whatever you want about them.
Shh…don’t talk about Palestine. Of the hungry children, or the missing children, or even the parts of the children, the ones severed from their little bodies. Don’t talk about Palestine, because don-don and Mr. X and all their friends will get very sad and then they’ll get very mad and then they’ll lock you right up where all the naughty children go. Is that where the children of Gaza went? If yes then I want to go there, I want to play with them and I want to eat with them and roll around in the mud with them and race them to see who’s faster but it’s always them because hiding from guns and running from bombs gives you speed like no other. No they won’t send you where the children of Palestine went because even in confinement even in death they will not let you be together.
Shh…enjoy your freedom. You can break the rooms where the people are heard, where songs are sung, where poetry is recited. You can kill your neighbours, you can rape their women, and rape your wives, you can hate the colour green, vandalise their property, break their shops. You can bring back untouchability, be proud of your superior identity, eat your cow dung, beat the farmers, kill the students, send those with a voice to jail and abandon your wife. But you cannot love. You cannot love your wife and you cannot love your neighbour and you cannot love art and poetry and you must cheer when the jester is beheaded and you must bow to the king and celebrate his wars. You can criticise kings of the past and disrupt their graves but the kings that sit today on their throne of lies must not be hurt.
Shh…for silence is golden and violence is platinum and cow dung is a treasure and if you fall in line, keep the gold, wield the platinum then they will stuff your mouth with the treasure and it will replace all the love, all the freedom, all the art you’ve ever wanted.
(The author is a student of law in Mumbai and can be contacted at parulekarpriyanka02@gmail.com)
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