I have often sympathised with the big jis. Shri Deve Gowdaji had to snatch the few hours of sleep he could manage at those long-winded public functions. Mahatma Gandhiji had to schedule his karmas to the minute. In fact, to the second.

But I, the private citizen, can choose to stay in bed till 11 am if I so desire. Or be up and about at 2 am without anyone except my wife worrying too much about it.

Shri Rajivji and all the PMjis who came after him could not stray out of the sight of their securitymen. When Shri Rajivji, probably fed up with his state of isolation, tried to mingle with the people, he had to pay for his indiscretion with his life. Dawood Ibrahimji, for all his luxuries, must often wish to take a stroll along the docks he once frequented. As an unknown citizen, I can take a quiet walk any evening, anyplace I like. During half a century of such walking, I have been endangered only once by a speeding car, which left a scar behind.

Shri Laloo Prasadji, Shri Jyoti Basuji and all the other important jis have to put up with constant sniping and frontal assaults. The most casual responses that drop from their important lips are headlined the next day. But I can engage in the silliest fights while travelling in a bus and no reporter, even if he is in the next seat and has a ringside view, would care to make a scoop of this mere human interest story.

While Shri Gujralji and Shri K.R. Narayanji might have to answer for doing (or failing to do) this, that or the other I, the real free citizen, can attend the meetings of all parties and even meet the local dada without anyone questioning my motives.

While Shri Seshanji might be queried about his vaunted integrity, which did not prevent him from travelling in a Reliance aircraft to visit his revered saint, I can quietly pay little bribes to get my pension papers moving, with no one getting the wiser or caring two hoots about it. The private interest litigation is yet to be invented, so I don't have to worry about being hauled to court for some long-forgotten peccadillo.

If this is not freedom, what is? But I wonder, did I pay too high a price for this freedom?

There was that matter of the pension papers. I worked four decades to get the pension and yet, did I get it in time? Would Shankar Dayal Sharmaji have to worry about his pension papers? I should think not!

And then I remember the running around (and toadying around) to get my children admitted to good schools and colleges. Would any of the other important jis have to worry about such unimportant issues?

No police posse came to escort me when I went to attend an important interview on a bandh day, and the interview wasn't postponed either. And no one offered me a petrol pump to compensate for the job opportunity I lost thereby. I was, after all, just an ordinary citizen.

My wife had to suffer far from silently the smoke from trying to kindle damp firewood in our hearth and the frustration of trying to cook an a dysfunctional kerosene stove because I couldn't get an LPG connection.

Incidentally, the stove was guaranteed, orally, to last my lifetime by the dealer who sold it to me. But lugging it all the way back to him and by public transport, at that didn't seem worth the trouble.

Finally, there was that incident when I had to watch a gang attack a gentleman with heavy wooden clubs. For reasons I couldn't ascertain, this lone gentleman had incurred their wrath, and he was beaten to pulp and his leg broken while I stood watching in fear and helplessness. Possibly, had I worn a widely recognised face that of Shri Gavaskarji, for instance it might have given me the courage to intervene.

As it was, I could only feel worthless for days after the incident.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.