The Colours of Opposition?

On a gray and breezy morning, a thick and orange crowd of people were collecting outside Ramlila Maidan. This was the ninth of August. and the occasion was a demonstration of the right wing Opposition. The crowd was male, mostly. and as they ambled past the gates of Zakir Hussain college in their mass printed orange T-shirts, policemen in khakhi brown uniforms hovered around. They didnt look worried. or concerned. They were just there. Huge banners had been strung around the maidan. Most of them had Anurag Thakur, in a black Nehru jacket, looking into the distance with an outstretched arm. He looked unconvincing and unconvinced in this exercise. Thats where the oppposition falters in this state. They remain diffident and unpersuaded in the cause that they uphold. and that 'unconviction' speaks loudly. Most loudly, when they wear their orange t-shirts and collect on a gray and breezy day.

Inside the classroom, as the students settled in, I could hear cries of Bharat Mata ki jai from across the road. The students were unperturbed. A few smiled cautiously, the way they always do. they are shy, and sometimes diffident. (but I have noticed, that when I remember their names and treat them with the respect that they deserve, a certain light begins to shine in their eyes.

The lecture began. The year is 1914. The first world war breaks out. and after Germany invades Belgium, the true offensive begins. The soldiers in the French army, Michael Howard tells us, wore scarlet trousers. The colours of the revolution, or atleast, one of them. They wore them to their detriment, as the count of the dead would later reveal. but the tradition of politicizing colours persists.

And finally, I picked Lessing's To Room Nineteen from the library.