Friday, October 13, 2006

G-Company

The G-Company has come up with yet another new rule - no wearing of the Khadas, the ceremonial silk scarves widely used. It has been said that the khadas are not part of the tribal culture and the hill people must stop using it. Woe the manufacturers of khadas and those whose sanity is still intact!
G-Company? Well, the Opposition describes GNLF as a private company but actually the underworld analogy is more apt. Because they are secret, operating behind tinted glasses and high walls. They inspire awe and fear, with their anal-tight demeanour. They have money and protection from higher-ups. They do not hesitate to eliminate and can draw up complicated plots towards that. Just like the D-Company.
Why khadas, and why now? Would G-Company have MPs in Delhi believe that hill people never used khadas, just because they stopped doing so last week?!! According to him, the bill to include DGHC in the Sixth Schedule will be passed next month. Confident? Then why make us change our ways now, at the elevent hour? Or does he fear that the Centre will ask us to become tribals with retrospective effect, so we might as well start voluteering?
Or does our tie-wearing Don have other things in mind? More long term. Like divide the hill society into small bits and pieces until they become so confused about their identity that they fade and finally disappear. The word "identity" has never been so much abused. First we were Nepalis, than we were Gorkhas. And now we are backward tribals. Next? All of us Tibeto-Burmese Brahmins? Why not? In Darjeeling we are ready to take whatever identity the G-Company gives us. Even the gods have to oblige here.
And when we are divided and disappearing who wins? Those who set the task out for G-Company. Those who perpetuate our political underworld. Those who think we are incapable of anything more than bearers, and read the lips, caretakers!

No comments: