A Common Man or Woman (do not miss her) is the backbone of any civilized society. In our country story of rich getting richer and poor getting poorer is no new thing, thanks to the inflation, such stories will make you sleep. When you see a Common Man finding a place in the headline with his or her extraordinary effort, everyone sit up and forced to think –‘yes I can do it too, just need to do it’.Couple of week back director Priyadarshan tried to project Akshay Kumar as “Common Man”; I think director had no idea about a “Common Man”. It was just a mockery of great Indian middle class man, whose life is all about struggle and suffering than fun.
I grown up with R.K. Laxman’s ‘Common Man’ or can call ‘Common Couple’. Years after years, whenever I opened a ‘Times of India’, first thing I looked for was “You said it”, a cartoon strip appeared in the middle of the rightmost column in the first page. R.K. Laxman’s ‘Common Couple’, were a middle-aged confused looking couple discussing the current affairs with a great one-liner, unbelievable.
A common man has lots of quality, which may be very difficult to write, with my due respect to the great man, I am trying to inscribe a few from my kitty.
- Who stood in a ration line for basic commodity, found fresh stock disappear before he/she got their respective quota and one fine day got a coloured ration card to prove whether he/she is a BPL(below poverty line) or not, a option between poor, poorer and poorest.
- Who never lured by a “sabse sasta” advertisement from those big supermarkets and always preferred the neighbourhood grocery, because it given a chance to gossip with the age-old grocer.
- Who pained by the corruption, bribe etc. still ends up paying it.
- Who traveled in a second-class compartment and liked to share and bare all with a co-passengers
- Who mostly travelled by a bus, but whenever afford to take a Taxi, his/her heartbeat and pulse rate gives the meter reading a very tough time.
- Who goes to a school and college and always calculate what kind of job or rather salary he/she will draw.
- Who vote for a new Government and every time believed that he/she would get what promised.
- Who pray and often try to bribe the god.
- Who like to love, laugh and hurt by the rejection.
- Who always living under thousand burdens but never succumbed and willing to live another day.
- Who, once in a crazy and weird afternoon found standing in a queue to feed spoonful milk to a Ganesh idol. (Ha! Ha! Ha! Believe me or not, I did it too and successfully).
- Finally, the common man always sleep well.
I also liked take the opportunity to mention his elder brother Late R. K. Narayan. One of the first English writers from our country, who can forget Swami from his “Malgudi Days”. Certainly, they inherited some of their respective quality from their father Dr Shivaram. He was a doctor by profession and also was an eminent humourist in Kannada.
While talking about “Malgudi days”, it will be unfair if not mentioned the director Late Shankar Nag, a wonderful and talented director, who died young in a car accident. This page is a tribute to the Karantaka trio.
In current situation, there are no takers for the value of a Common Man when there is other option alive I mean “Con Man”
!!!So, let us see who is going to last long, the planet or the Common Man.!!!
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