Maxim Gorky’s Mother is a prototype of affliction, assisting an under-privileged section of society (proletariat in Gorky’s Russia) to see their own worth as well as their political and ideological immaturity. It is through her that the revolutionaries of the time sense their true brotherhood, and are fired with an invincible faith. Our battered mother (read motherland) hardly spurs in us a sense of compassion for those who desperately require it.
They are known by assorted names. Invisible underclass. Beyond Society. Scum. Or the most beguiling, Fifth Son of any nation. They are bonafide unsung creatures. The deprived lot, preordained to be bogged down by every kind of hard luck that strikes the realm.
Death knocks on their door first. Life steals away its appeal from them only. They moan for each and every one. They endure for all and sundry. But, nemesis assails them alone.
We identify them as orphans, widows, wounded, disabled, indigent sufferers. We have nothing for them except sympathy. Our ‘data bank’ is sizzling with its unquantified tears and sobs. The colossal sponsored outlay on the research labor and empirical impact studies about their plight has lent them only just any respite. Of course, reporters and researchers do make their name and carry the day. Their job finishes there.
The scores of NGOs engaged for their ‘welfare’ have managed to augment at least their own organizational well-being. The publicity acrobatics, especially on social media, in the form of what they call charity exercises and photo-ops do certainly endow an acknowledgment to their existence. The whole dexterity fosters the rehabilitation of some retired officials, the socialites (or even “social influencers”) and a few jobless youth, if not precisely the needy. Perhaps, the Fifth son is doomed to be a scapegoat for lots of ‘better worlds and comfy forums’! The short-lived Hilal-e-Ahmar euphoria and its unceremonious fate remains the most abhorrent instance of our beleaguered past.
Accountability and say-so of conscience possibly never carried any bearing for us. We never pondered over the plight of Fifth Son for whom the closure of school means the closure of the world while for the rest of us the world is the limit. The recent survey conducted to explore the children enrollment in schools and the access of children to smartphones has depicted a digital divide among the students across J&K. The report reveals that only 40% of students in J&K have access to smartphones for studies. Besides, as per the survey by Mumbai based business information company, Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), J&K has the highest unemployment rate of 22.2%. Pathetically, there is a reasonable chunk amongst the Invisibles who are reportedly falling prey to substance abuse. In the last three years, Kashmir has reportedly witnessed a more than 1,500 per cent increase in drug abuse among youth.
We never realized Fifth Son’s vendor desperation as he fails to fetch his daily earning. We never imagined his sickness as he critically gasps for medication. And, to cap it all, we never felt a need for remorse as we push him for awful suicide.
The fifth son has got bumped off at our hands, often. We had by chance no one to receive kickbacks for coffins since we, by and by, manufacture them indigenously. However, we don’t dither in selling corpses for paltry dollars and pounds. A solo snap of blood suffused face and mutilated body fetches us an easy buck. Rustling up shots of gory bedlam qualifies us as ideal brokers of agony. Irrefutably, we are ‘ambassadors’ in our professions but mostly it’s a dramatization that decoys us. And bleeding dramas never go waste! They are reciprocated duly and, for sure, heftily.
One branch remains unscathed by us. We haven’t yet grilled a best-seller narrative out of the viscera of Fifth son, even as a few insiders and also some outsiders are taking a crack at it untiringly. Some coffee table books, a few tearjerkers, and in the least a gashing storyline: the sketch can be anything heartrending about the dauntless and resilient Fifth son who is a helpless mute spectator of our dereliction. Victim of illogical and insane politics. Bloody fuel to fracas. Cannon fodder of conflict.
Even as we cash on everything allied to him, none among us is correctly aware of his abject state. If only we can imagine how he expends his every breath, survives in piecemeal, yearns for just a little at a time, cries for zilch. And overlooked, moves amongst us, resolute and staunch.
We are wordsmiths, currency cravers, and pretentious people. Fatigue licks our national continuation, and compassion is not exempted from this malaise. Perhaps, the misery around us is retribution in itself. However, only Fifth Son seems to savor its fury. The rest have proved no more than self-seeking trailblazers, so far.