Travelure
By Hugh & Colleen Gantzer
Anyone who has travelled on the London Underground System will remember hearing the words of this title. They blare over loudspeakers whenever trains pull into stations where there is a gap between the trains and the platforms. The very pragmatic British did not spend in realigning the platforms but use the announcement to warn passengers. Such a credibility gap also yawns in a so-called assassination attempt on a former US President. But we will let the Republicians handle that one. Sadly, in our country, too there is a growing gap between civic concerns for the right of the rich and those of the poor. Recently telecasts have brought this out in cruel contrast. On the one hand there were the glitzy Ambani-Merchant Wedding celebrations; and then there was the heart-wrenching visuals of the grieved husband, devastated by the death of his wife in a traffic accident.
Nakhwa was driving his two-wheeler at 5.30 a.m. at Worli, Mumbai, when the BMW hit him. His wife, Kaveri Nakhwa was dragged by the luxury car and then run over when the car backed.
The marriage of the superrich, the death of the poor: that is the gap that exists in our society and that is the gap when we assess the success or failures of our land today.
Then there is the matter of the 14 highest Civilian Awards being received by our Prime Minister. These range from the little Solomon Islands and Bhutan through Greece, France and Russia. To this proud 52 inch display there should be space left for the Presidential Medal of Freedom from the USA. and the Nobel Peace Prize. All these boost the ego of an individual, they do not honour a country. We should mind THAT GAP.
There is also a yawning gap between the promises of the NEET and its performance. This is domination proposed by the Central Government and introduced under the present regime. It has quite clearly resulted in a number of rich people getting much richer. We now need to MIND THAT GAP! It would be particularly fascinating to probe the allegation that students from Bihar flocked to Gujarat to do their NEET Examinations in the language of that Western Indian state.
As we write this, our TV Screen is doubling with triumphant bhakts of the Alliance and tongue-tied BJP supporters. Obviously, there is a surprising gap between presumptions and performances. Members of the BJP are squirming to explain their fall from grace. The answer is simple: hubris. They had an unjustified belief in their own performance. They seem to believe that they were the privileged courtiers of an All-Party Emperor of India. The Samrat did his best to bolster this image. We saw a person dressed in turbans with flowing tails clearly attended by a dizzy professional staff of turban-folders, hair dressers, wardrobe masters, make-up artists and script writers. Having been primped and perfumed, the netas sat in their imported, bullet-proof, automobile, guarded by their security detail and deigned to give their supporters a transient glimpse of themselves. They then mounted high, air-conditioned stages and with tele-prompters rolling, they harangued their sweating audiences who then broke into orchestrated cries of rehearsed ecstasy.
In marked contrast, Rahul Gandhi projected himself as a self-confident man of the masses. This is the image that all Indian leaders need to cultivate. The average age of India’s population of 1.45 billion is just 28.2 years. The avuncular, finger-raising, pontificating Vishvaguru is passé. We have an aspirational youthful population who respects the past but will not be governed by it. Gandhi showed his physical fitness by walking from one end of India to the other. Rahul tapped into this aspirational image.
He rested in a truck converted into a caravan. He did have security guards but they were almost invisible. Like his great grandfather, he waded into the masses fearlessly. It was an image building exercise that won the hearts of thousands. His opponents might have called him a pappu, a baba, and a person filled with his sense of entitlement, but his behaviour and appearance smashed this caricature.
We are not bhakts of anyone. We feel that such fawning adulation should be left to puppy dogs and is demeaning when indulged by humans.
In short, the bottom line is that if you indulge in that overweening act of self-confidence called hubris then you will not be able to MIND THE GAP.
(Hugh & Colleen Gantzer hold the National Lifetime Achievement Award for Tourism among other National and International awards. Their credits include over 52 halfhour documentaries on national TV under their joint names, 26 published books in 6 genres, and over 1,500 first-person articles, about every Indian state, UT and 34 other countries. Hugh was a Commander in the Indian Navy and the Judge Advocate, Southern Naval Command. Colleen is the only travel writer who was a member of the Travel Agents Association of India.) (The opinions and thoughts expressed here reflect only the authors’ views!)
