NON-VIOLENCE, MY FOOT!

I want to tell you that I spent last night at the police station.

But that's not what I want to tell you.

I want to tell you why I spent last night at the police station.

I want to tell you that last night, well not exactly the whole night, but for over four hours for sure, I was at the police station.

Reason: I had hit an elderly man, a senior citizen.

I had boxed him in the ears, my right fist landing on his non-existent right cheek, the impact so strong that the poor old sod's false dentures rattled and had yanked; ultimately coming off and falling on the cement floor below.

But that's not what I want to tell you.

I want to tell you why a perfectly normal, otherwise cool and composed, well educated and genteel to boot 54-year-old man who wouldn't otherwise ever hurt a fly leave alone a human being, lost his cool and attacked a near half bent tottering septuagenarian for a mere car parking issue, an issue which was a non-issue in the first place.

Can a slight dispute nee disagreement over ‘car parking space’ ever be allowed to escalate into a full blown slanging match, and ultimately end up with one person, (yours truly, in this instance!) jutting forward and giving a couple of hard jabs under the ears in what was a clear cut case of false machismo meeting an elephantine hubristic ego that decided to go the whole hog?

Well the answer to that question lay in the near past, to be precise a good 24 hours before the said sorrily avoidable incident.

You see, me and my better half were sitting as usual on the sofa, sipping what else but tea on what was my off day, a languid seemingly inconsequential Sunday to boot.

Suddenly, out of the blue, wifey opens her trap and in a tone that was 24 carat declarative, spat out, her high pitched decibel smashing against the four walls of our living room at a force that would put a Mike Tyson right fist jab in the upper lip to utter shame.

‘Comfortable but stagnant status quo!’

A what?

She looked at me, rubbed her aquinine nose a wee bit more than the usual, squinted her eyes, and shot back, her thin as thin could be lips pursed together, the words coming out in a manner I hadn't heard her before, its deleterious impact sending me near reeling to the floor.

Grabbing the inner edge of the sofa, I somehow regained my senses and stared back at her, a quizzical expression framing my usually stolid visage.

"What do you mean, darling?", I volleyed, the lovable epithet devoid of all sweetness, lackluster to the core.

‘You prefer comfort to status quo is what I meant.’

I wondered what she really meant.

I knew she held a Master's in Philosophy and wondered was it one of those fancy high falutin theories of her that she loved dishing out at periodic intervals to lesser 'evolved' souls as yours truly.

Was she really defining our marital life, or was she alluding to a larger, philosophical subtext whose underlying truths I was woefully oblivious of, I wondered?

My curiosity aroused, I now turned around and gave my full frontal benefit to her.

She didn't disappoint.

And this is how she had rattled, a continual ten minute diatribe against all that she meant when she said what she had said.

And here are the offending words, reproduced verbatim for your eyes, dear reader.

'You are a spineless, non-actionable, self-aggrandising, non-interfering, passive nauseatingly irritating irksome conformist who lives multiple long deadened dictums including "Why change what cannot be changed" and 'don’t rock the boat ever for the boat is anyways going to sink' and status quo any day over risk". Guys like you are the torchbearers of conventionally and...'

I had kept a quiet face for much too long and faced such a barrage of accusations, I had volleyed back

“You say I'm a peace lover and that I shirk away from taking tough decisions and I say that I'm not. I know you have always found me unwilling to take up cudgels, that I steer clear of any kind of disagreements and disputes. That I dither to voice my opinion or take a definitive stand when the need arises, that I am afraid of..."

The retaliation was fast and furious.

“Yes, I say so and I meant it. I stand by what I say.

How many times has that 'evil' man parked his car on our space? How many times has he simply jerked his head and flippantly laughed it off every time you had approached him and requested him in that soft as a feather baby voice of yours, near pleading with him to park his elsewhere?

And how many times thereafter when neither he nor his equally nonchalant car had budged an inch, you had acquiescence and parked your car in the one space outside the colony gates notwithstanding the huge risk it were considering that the area was a den of car thieves and burglars who didn't think twice before stripping a four wheeler to its bare essentials?"

As I looked on, a blank expression mapping my shell shocked visage, she delivered the final nail in the coffin.

‘You are a status quoist who is risk averse and prefers staid comfort and anonymity as opposed to excitement even if it were laced with aggression’.

Enough! I muttered under my breath and dashed out of the room.

The next morn, when I saw the evil car was parked as usual in my space, I went over to its owner's place, called him out and hit him, my fist smashing into his jaws.

And that's how I, Shailendra Jha, 54, Professor of Linguistics, Delhi University, one who had never ever even hurt a fly, landed in a police lock up for the very first time ever.

I did it only to prove my better half wrong.

That I was no weakling.

That I was not a shirker; not a ‘anything for peace kind of guy’.

That I was no pushover.

That when push comes to shove, I am as violent, as aggressive, as revengeful as the most vile human to ever walk on Planet Earth.