Taking
the Peace
By
Dominic Horton
Rajagopal
is an Indian peace activist who follows the Gandhian tradition of
non-violent protest, especially mass marches, to highlight injustices
and to pressure for change. He is the President and founding member
of Ekta Parishad, a federation of approximately 11,000 community
based organisations, and it campaigns for land rights for India's
tribal people by dialoguing with government at national level and
mobilising villagers at the grassroots level. Rajagopal is known by
his first name only so as not to be associated with a caste (the
Indian system of social stratification.) I might start to go by my
first name only so as not to be associated with myself.
 |
Fran
Wilde looks on as Rajagopal meets
the Lord Mayor of Birmingham,
Shafique Shah
|
In
2012 Rajagopal joined 50,000 landless Indian farmers on a march that
Ekta Parishad called Jan Stayagraha (which means “Keenness to
Truth”) but on Monday he found himself on a peace walk in
Birmingham city centre with a somewhat smaller gathering including
yours truly, a little hungover – I was a little hungover that is,
not Rajagopal; I would imagine that he is either teetotal or at best
a moderate imbiber. My slightly tainted state was accounted for by
the Flagon & Gorses selling off the remnants of the weekend's
beer festival ales cheap on Sunday which were complemented by
Fudgkins and Alexander Sutcliffe getting everyone to drink large sloe
gins again (see Lowlife 60, Life in the Sloe
Gin Lane.)
Fran,
who organised the walk, introduced me to Rajagopal and others as a
writer, the first time I had been introduced to anybody as such. I
felt quite proud of the writer tag but it backfired a bit later when
one of the walkers quizzed me and asked if I was a novelist or a
journalist but I had to admit to just writing this blog, which sounds
a bit naff and lightweight and made me feel a bit fraudulent being
labelled as a writer. I suppose the form of a writer's work is not
the defining issue though but the quality of it but I suppose that
even that is questionable in my case.
Rajagopal
stood up to greet me and physically he is quite diminutive but
what he lacks in height he certainly makes up for in presence;
he has dedicated his life to nonviolently improving the lives of the
disadvantaged in Indian and he radiates a kind of calming peace. It
was an honour to meet him. They say that you can judge a man by his
shoes so I cocked a sneak at Rajagopal's. He wore a comfortable but
hardy pair of brown lace-ups which in my expert opinion were
purchased from Clarks, exactly the right choice of footwear for an
internationally renown peace walker but of course I would praise his
shoes as they were not too dissimilar to my Hush Puppies.
 |
| Rajagopal, by request of Toby In-Tents. |
On
the walk Fran treated us to her usual approach of pointing out things
of interest, putting her own enlightening spin on them and asking for
the group's thoughts. As it was a peace walk the things that Fran
pointed out and told us were linked to the theme of peace and at one
point Fran asked us to think about what peace means to us. As a
sufferer of anxiety I wanted to talk about my pursuit of peace in
relation to that but ironically I was too anxious.
Normally a walk in the city centre would mean a pub crawl around the usual
haunts but I am not sure that would have gone down well with
Rajagopal as I can't imagine that The Good Beer Guide is
the preferred reading material for the average Gandhian peace
activist. He might be missing a trick there as most Good Beer
Guide pubs are fairly peaceful places and my regular
retreat, the Flagon & Gorses, is no exception as there is no
invasive music and I have not seen what you would call a fight in
there (although a few of the Flagon's inmates regularly grapple with
the consciences.)
We
walked to the new Peace Hub on Bull Street which is run by the
Quakers and a personable young Quaker named Peter gave us in
interesting pep talk about the hub and about Quakerism, explaining
that the four key principles of the religion are peace, equality,
integrity and simplicity. I should have guessed the last of the
principles as I enjoy eating the spin-off Quaker Oats product Oats
so Simple. Like Oats so Simple Peter
seemed like a warm and nourishing character. Later in the week I was
telling someone how impressed I was with the concise neatness of the
four key principles of Quakerism but when I was asked to recite what
they are I couldn't remember any of them beyond peace, which I could
hardly forget given the theme of the walk. I must have a selective
memory that only remembers the things that matter in life such as the
directions to the Flagon & Gorses. Unfortunately I didn't
remember that drinking sloe gins on top of beer is not a wise idea.
During
the walk Fran was insistent that we had to ensure that we arrived at
the Council House on Victoria Square at 1515 hours sharp and when we
got there it was apparent why we must be punctual as none other than
the Lord Mayor of Birmingham, Shafique Shah, was waiting to greet us
dressed in his Mayoral regalia. The Mayor was accompanied by a small
posse of cronies who must act as security and to generally fuss
around him. One of the Mayor's entourage must have been the head of
security as he stood a few yars away from the rest of the group and
constantly looked shiftily and warily around in order to identify any
clear and present danger. But the poor chap limped and walked slowly
with a walking stick so if there had been a threat to the Mayor's
life I am not sure what use he would have been unless he was able to
fire poison darts out of the bottom of his stick like a Bond villain.
The Mayor might want to revise his security arrangements as Monday
also happened to be the day that the Prime Minister David Cameron was
allegedly attacked by a runner in Leeds.
 |
Rajagopal
addresses a crowd of 25,000 people in 2007.
|
Fortunately
I have no need for a security guard but I could do with the services
of a private detective as I found myself investigating a
mysterious Lowlife related incident this week. On
Monday I received an email from my old Friend Lolly relating to a
discovery by a work colleague of Mrs Lolly, who is a bra
fitter at Marks & Spencer's in Merry Hill. The email read as
follows:-
“On
Thursday last week, one of Bev's [Mr's
Lolly] colleagues
came running out of the fitting rooms with a handful of papers
that had been left behind by a customer. The papers included various
receipts and work related information but no personal details were
evident. However, much to Bev's surprise, one of the A4 sheets was in
fact - wait for it - an issue of Lowlife.
Now, either your literary appeal has reached new heights within the
social echelons, or you are spending your redundancy money on a
succession of transgender ops! Either way I'm sure you will continue
to receive great support.”
I
have started a full blown investigation into the matter and I
conducted a series of interviews and inquiries in the Flagon &
Gorses on Wednesday evening. The purchaser of the brazier must be a
Flagoner as I publish paper copies of this column and put them on the
bar in the pub as many of the Luddite inmates there are not
conversant with the ways of the internet. A number of women have been
eliminated as possible suspects but no one can be ruled out and I
have widened the net to include the Flagon's menfolk as who knows
what they get up to once they retreat back to their respective
dwellings.
Only
Philly the Gent can be absolutely disregarded as a suspect as he was
away sunning himself in the Canaries and besides he's one of the few
Flagoners sensible enough to not read this piffle. If anyone has
any information on the matter you can speak to me in confidence at
the investigation's head quarters of the public bar, the Flagon &
Gorses. It would not surprise me if the suspect is a man who is too
embarrassed to come forward, not about wearing a brazier but about
admitting to reading Lowlife. The case continues.
If
the thought of a gentleman drinker in the Flagon wearing a bra isn't
scary enough Friday saw Halloween descend upon us. As I knew I would
be spending Friday with the ghoulish characters of the Pirate, Harry
Stottle and The Coarse Whisperer at Birmingham Beer Festival I
thought I would mark Halloween on Thursday night with my dear son
Kenteke, so I decided to read him a series of children's ghost
stories by candlelight in the living room at Codger Mansions. At the
end of the eerie stories I put Kenteke to bed and I asked him if he
was ok as I didn't want him being too scared at bedtime but he said
he was fine. But afterwards as I was sitting alone in the living room
I realised that it was in fact me who was scared stiff and I was
sh*tting myself. The ghost stories were good and Kenteke and I had
both thoroughly enjoyed them but foolishly I had not anticipated them
taking the peace.
©
Dominic Horton, November 2014.
Email:
lordhofr@gmail.com.
Lowlife
is dedicated to the memory of the late Jonathan Rendall
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