Dear rationals

Does it even make sense to demand resignations?

What after resignation?

Should NEET or the present education system even exist?

What if this is all funded?

Is this BJP’s plan to mask something else?

Is there a greater game afoot which we cannot even imagine right now? 

Has Sonam Wangchuk been managed?

Why are they making it political?

What will come out of this anyway?

Good questions, dear rationals. Let us keep at it. 

But while we are at it, please let us try to enlighten ourselves by visiting a protest near us, or if that’s not very near, by watching the sea of protest footage by random individuals. Let’s install Instagram if need be. Let’s not watch any of our usual, famous, known people. Let’s watch footage from the protest sites uploaded by the people there. (We may also soak in the meme and reel rain intermittently.) Either visiting a protest nearby or watching this footage will take up about 4 hours of our time. And then… Then we think. That won’t take long, if we allow ourselves to.

Oh and by the way, we do this for us. They really don’t need us. We do this for our own enlightenment. Mainly to understand what’s possible in today’s world. 

Since we are actually going and experiencing a protest or watching a lot of unedited raw protest footage, simpler questions such as- which video is real and which one is AI, aren’t the protestors going violent and hitting the police, aren’t the police being brutal, why are facial records of the protestors being made, why are there plain-clothed police people, why are there police cameramen, etc get answered easily. So these questions aren’t listed above. More difficult questions like, is this protest funded, are handled beautifully by genZ reels, but if we don’t like to laugh out loud, we may get back to being our serious thoughtful rational selves-

Even if it doesn’t make sense to demand resignations,

even if nothing major happens after the resignation,

even if this education system itself needs reconsideration,  

even if this protest is funded,

even if BJP is masking something else,

even if there’s a greater game afoot which we cannot even imagine right now,

even if Sonam has been managed,

even if they make it political,

even if nothing life-altering comes out of this, 

what we experience in the actions of these youngsters (if you are visiting a protest) or what we see in the footage by lakhs of individuals is unignorably precious. 

The vibe is real. The creativity is extreme. This isn’t a serious-faced slogans-chanting agitation that we are used to. They are real and funny. They are angry and laughing. They are careful and cheerful. They are shaking the system and dancing. They are right and left, rich and poor, Hindu and Muslim, brahmin and dalit. Their speakers are announcing and telling the crowds to take down all other flags except the Indian national flag because they want no other ideology other than love for the nation and the crowds are happily complying. Their speakers are taking the mics away from other invited speakers if they are making provocative speeches and reminding the crowds again and again to protest peacefully, in a Gandhian way, without any violence. They are enjoying their part. Very seriously.

 

We, who have been trained so well about there being two things, and then about the two being opposite things, and then about the impossibility of their coexistence; can really learn a lot from this. And even if we don’t learn, the fact that this can happen, that it really happened, should be enough to bring us one step down from our pedestals.

With their lack of focus, short attention span, huge screen time; they are trying to crack the system, which includes us, by cracking jokes. We better crack open and laugh heartily and bask in their glory, or else… Or else we lose. We lose out on growing up. They don’t care. They’ll make a bigger joke out of us and move on.