Do we need a government?

“Do we need a government at all?” That was my introductory question in a class on Vikram Seth’s poem The Tale of Melon City. I intended to provoke my self-conceited students into some shape of wokeness. The only time their consciousness seems to awake is when they can detect some error in my pronunciation because a few of these students lived in some English-speaking country including America for a brief period and hence think they know English better than anyone in India. Interestingly, every time they question my pronunciation, I google it and prove to them that I am right. My ego! The class becomes a battleground of egos in spite of my age.

I am a middling sexagenarian. So, one day I decided to put an end to the ego battle and apologised to my students for being their teacher. I didn’t deserve to be their teacher, I told them. Forgive me for the grave error of having accepted the offer from the school management to teach you. Just a few more weeks. I cannot dishonour the contract. That’s why. Just put up with me for a few weeks more. And they didn’t care. I mean nothing changed on their faces. No expression. You would think you were in a class of inanimate statues.

And I turn to YouTube for help.

Seth can be deceptively simple, I tell my students to justify my switching over to YouTube. Otherwise they may complain that I’m wasting their time with irrelevant video clips. They want to sleep or live in their own fantasies. Classes are not required. They will learn the lessons from YouTube videos which are very concise.  

But not the kind of YouTube videos I show them.

Seth can be deceptively simple, I tell them hoping to gain their attention. We’re going to watch a video clip from a Hollywood movie. I expect some big gasp from the class. A gasp of expectation, if not excitement. I’m such a fool. Nothing happens. I play the video clip anyway. From Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Here’s the video for you, if you’re interested. It’s worth your time, a few minutes, I assure you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2c-X8HiBng

My students yawn. A few fall asleep.

I draw their attention to the conversation between King Arthur and the peasant Dennis.

Dennis: What I object to is you automatically treat me like an inferior!

Arthur: Well, I AM King.

Dennis: Oh, king, eh, very nice. An’ how’d you get that, eh? By exploitin’ the workers, by ‘anging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic an’ social differences in our society! …

The scene goes on. It’s mesmerising, as far as I’m concerned. But my students are asleep, nearly. I will go out of this class apologising to myself for sticking on to this profession. I am helpless. There is a contract with the management that I have to fulfil for the sake of my integrity.

Dennis’s wife tells King Arthur to get lost. “I didn’t vote for you,” she says.

Arthur: You don’t vote for kings.

Electronic Voting Machines do all the voting, I tell my students. No reaction. They don’t even have a political view. Once I asked them whether they were aware of the Gujarat riots of 2002. Their answer: “We were not born then.”

Well.

Korean music and Korean drama mean a lot to them, I know.

I return to Vikram Seth.

The kingdom in his poem chooses a melon as their king because that was the choice of an idiot who got the right to make that choice by the custom of the country. Custom, tradition, ritual, religion…

Where are we going with all these? I raise the question to the group of 16-year-olds.

Who cares? Their indifference intimidates me. They will all go to some English-speaking country and find a job there. Whatever job that comes. Whatever!

“The principles of laissez-faire,” Vikram Seth’s poem ends, “Seem to be well-established there.” The citizens are happy because their King is a melon. My students are happy too with that. Do we need a government? Who cares?

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