Bans!

Ever since the age of ten, this author has watched with fascination, governments banning something or the other, completely ignoring their ability, or the lack of it, to control or predict the outcome.  He had grown up in a very 'lively' town in which petty rivals used machetes and sickles liberally and whimsically to separate chosen limbs from bodies, over-ruling objections of the owners, who obviously preferred to stay whole.  Consequently, the earliest ban he was blessed to witness was under the oft-used Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which prevented unlawful assembly, including that of dangerous urchins lurking with deadly weapons like marbles, plastic bats etc.   Sec 144 was always the topper of monthly charts by a long distance, as bans went those days and one must admit that there was a woeful lack variety in bans in general.  Probably because the governments of the day in the 60s had to do some real work and also were not as imaginative of the current ones.   People who fancied consumption of mouse-meat or monkey-meat (now, please don't start a riot, this author is just being creatively fanciful!) were at liberty to indulge in their favourite gourmet dishes without riling Ganesha or Hanuman devotees and the authorities had better things to do than monitor the dietary habits of the citizenry.

There has been an electrifying transformation in the `ban' scenario since those days and the repertoire has widened in scope dramatically (tracing this important historical development has to wait for a while because the body of research into this entertaining subject is still work in progress due to severe funding constraints) with multiple parties being added as regular 'ban'ners, besides governments.  Any political outfit which has mustered three goons and thirty aspiring goons under their tutelage or any unknown disgruntled group from a sub-caste of an obscure religious sect or just a band of an aggrieved community demanding (of course, unreasonably) immediate relief for something festering for a couple of decades, can declare a ban and enforce it much better than the government agencies. Such bans, when declared and orchestrated without any accountability for the consequences, by seemingly non-state actors, are called 'Ban'dhs - as you can see, it is just a small variation.  It is rumoured that various such organizations desirous of pursuing the high-profile business of bans, have hired full-time-equivalents with a wealth of relevant prior experience, speciously designated them `Event Managers-cum-Mentors' and tasked them with successful execution of the weirdest of bans.  Now, the timid and innocuous lay-man can probably comprehend why there is a sudden spike in bans - against a particular scene in a movie or a dish in a restaurant or thirteen isolated words in an eight- hundred-page-tome,  protesting a commercial ad, objecting to a pseudonym used by an erring author, whatever.  Mind-boggling variety has arrived.  This sowed the seeds in the feverishly creative mind of this author, of an urge to experiment with a ban of very limited proportions within the confines of his own home, so that violence is limited, if not completely averted, knowing fully well who the eventual victim would be!!

Nobody is perfect when it comes to eating vegetables; some like this and some avoid that.  There is no shame in owning up that as a mere mortal, this scribe also has his aversion to one vegetable, which shall remain anonymous as a measure of abundant caution.  Leveraging the intervention of our housekeeper who sources vegetables, with some astute molly-coddling, I contrived to impose an unannounced ban - I smugly decided that it paid to be subtle about these things.  After a couple of weeks of deprivation, my dear wife who just loves that vegetable, wondered about its mysterious disappearance and was given some excuse by my wobbly co-conspirator.  After a month of agonizing over this, she brought in the supply herself and I persuaded the housekeeper to cook that after five days when I would be out on a trip.  But disaster struck when he retrieved the stuff to improve its edibility - it had rotted in parts. All hell broke loose when he, stripped of all flimsy defences, pointed not only one finger but a whole fat hand in my direction accusingly.  A sinister, withering look from that mother of all sinister-look-deliverers and a few chosen admonitions later, the objective of my attempted ban was stood on its head effortlessly! I was forced to eat that abominable vegetable some twelve times in the following two weeks - some kind of a record I was told by the pleased-as-punch housekeeper.  Moral of the story: Do not think of ban, if you cannot enforce it!! If only other `ban'ners are administered such swift and merciless retribution, why would the next ban come about??  If only there is a way of bulldozing the law enforcement agencies to come around for some coaching classes!

A senior American colleague of mine, who was a strict disciplinarian and an avid enforcer of rules was very annoyed by the employees eating their lunch in the open office.  The result, the entire space constantly smelled like the interiors of a frontier restaurant which prided itself on its meat specialities, prepared with generous doses of butter, onion and garlic.  A peremptory order was served, banning the office from doubling up as dining room.   During the next two months, overtime ballooned and unfinished work piled up because most of the mule-headed old timers decided to go for long lunch breaks outside and cited crowded restaurants as reason for delays.  Obviously, a very meek surrender occurred, no different from that notorious case of the ban on an undesirable vegetable.  I have also heard that similar overturning of thoughtless bans was required to quell unarmed rebellion in other places - (1) An insensitive foreigner-manager questioned and banned multiple visits to the prayer room daily in a Muslim-majority country; he was hyper-critical of females taking additional time, without realising that they had to remove their make-up before praying and then restoring status-quo-ante.  (2)  An almost puritanical Englishman decided to impose a ban on the leisurely Spanish practice of merienda, that enjoyable filler of time between two meals and triggered a revolt and (3) An ignoramus of a boss banned employees from their visits, armed with toothbrush, paste and towel, to rest rooms after each snack or meal; he was completely clueless about the damage to the quality of air in closed spaces in the office, resulting from people's love for abundant garlic in their meals, which could be countered only with periodic brushing of teeth!!  So, never ban something without a clear understanding of the reasons why your predecessors have never attempted that.  You will be the unfailing target of the boomerang!

Those who were in Madras in the 70s would recall that it was very fashionable for students to hang out of buses, hanging on the railings near the entrance and exit.  No denying the fact that there was no space inside the bus to accommodate the spill-over, but students, as a class, also wanted to enhance their macho appeal to the girls in the bus, by doing some circus en route.  Doubtless, this resulted in a few accidents and some casualties; so the police promptly banned what was euphemistically termed `foot-board travel'.  But, when each bus during the peak hours had some twenty reckless youth perilously attached to the railing by a crooked finger and resting one toe on the foot-board, what can the police effectively do?  When one bus was stopped and twenty students booked for the offence, some twenty more buses went by; the booked students screamed blue murder because others were going scot-free.  There ensued student strikes with the usual assortment of soda bottles and stones being thrown about and colleges being closed for a few days.  Finally and tragically, `good sense' prevailed among the top brass of police and they lifted the ban, letting the suicidal tendencies of the boys continue to maim and kill themselves.  Sad, but again, a case where implementation of a well-intended ban going awry.

But there are a few bans which will be appreciated by the public at large, will be of immense relief to long-suffering people and will be welcome measures to enhance the image of India and Indians:

@Ban all political activity, especially the mindless and painful bandhs, hartals and all other disruptions, in public spaces used by others.  Set aside specific arenas (grounds far away from the city/town) and specify times for participants to hold their protests there, nowhere outside.  Video-tape the activity and show to admirers and followers who longed to but could not be present.
@Ban all religious activity outside temples, mosques, churches, other specifically denominated religious places.  Not even a single loud-speaker should be facing outside from these premises to broadcast anything; if required, let those be turned right back into the faces of people inside, who love high decibel preaching.  Let them enjoy.
@Ban all disruptions in parliament, assemblies etc  Stop the rot which has set in amongst parliamentarians who besmirch the idea of democracy with their repugnant actions.  Ban them from breaching time-honoured protocols and traditions and punish them if they refuse to fall in line.

You see, this author is not against Bans.  Just that he prefers to pick and choose the good ones!!