BESPOKE : According to the Thesaurus which I can refer to at the click of a button on my computer, this word means modified, tailored, adapted, made to order,personalised,  custom made.

What’s in a name ? the bard asked. Well, it would seem , there’s a lot !

When I was young, the buzz word was tailor made or made to order. Anything that was made specially to your requirements meant that  you were unique,your requirements were unique, and the article you got made was unique. This one of a kind article obviously made you feel good about yourself because there was no one else in the world who possessed it but you.

In the good old days when ready made garments and mass produced articles were a thing of the future,clothes were stitched by the local darzi. Similarly furniture was made by a local carpenter who actually came home and made chairs and tables as per your requirement. Biscuits were hand made by your mother or cook, as were cakes and other fancies.

Those special people who wanted to differentiate themselves from the hoi polloi then began getting things “Tailor made” or ” made to order”.  Soon these words too lost their novelty as every one and her auntie could get the latest catsuit from the current Vogue copied by the local darzi  tailor made or made to order. So the new catch word was “custom made” or “customised.” which meant that your Tailor Master was now morphed into a Designer whose workers were now designed into craftsmen. This customised service meant a complete fashion consult – taking your body type, the occasion, the fabric and also your wallet into account as a special garment was designed for you.

Thus customised suits or clothes became the order of the day.

In recent times, however,  even customised has become quotidian and what really counts in modern parlance is BESPOKE.

So now you have Bespoke homes, Bespoke clothes, Bespoke jewelry and Bespoke god knows what!

Once every body gets Bespoke everything, I wonder what the new watch word will be ? After all, there are no more words to define something that is “uniquely crafted for”. Perhaps we will have to look for a word in Mandarin!

Dr. V and Kanthe Mama are colleagues in a government hospital. Both are the same age and have known each other since kindergarten when they were both in the same class in the school run by the colony in which they both lived by virtue of the fact that their father’s had the same employer. Dr.V’s father was a technocrat while Kanthe Mama’s father was a sweeper. The colony’s school made it possible for both the children to study together. Today, however, Dr. V is a respected doctor while Kanthe Mama is a respected Ward Boy  in the same Operation Theatre as a Wardboy………. These two class mates remain strangers to one another in both social and cultural realms despite the equal playing field they were both presented with.

Today is Ambedkar Jayanti, the birth anniversary of one of the greatest fighters against social inequities in our country. I truly admire this man who not only rose from poverty , overcame discrimination but also tried to uplift those others from his society. Unfortunately today I think democratisation of society has led to more ills than a society that was fragmented with societal walls.

A level playing field is just not a practical solution because all of us have different skill sets and mental abilities. And besides , each task has its place in the world. A simple illustration is our own hand. The thumb can never be replaced by any other digit and occupies a unique place in the human anatomy. Similarly, each and every organ or body part has a unique role to play and there is no question of interchanging functions or a hierarchical structure among them.

Why is it then that we try to impose equality among human beings? A fast runner will always be a fast runner just as a coconut tree can never bear mangoes. Forcing schools to admit 25% of their pupils as those from the underprivileged section of society will not remove social inequality nor will it promote harmonious co-existence of different peoples? Communities have evolved over centuries of human existence and have served a certain purpose. Trying to break barriers by having a “seamless” or flat social structure creates quite the opposite of an ordered universe – one which is governed by no rules and a confusion caused by the blurring of a distinct identity.

Growing up is a traumatic time for children and for children from poorer homes to fit in with rich kids is not only difficult but well nigh impossible. As it is parents have a tough time keeping up with “peer pressure” and those parents from economically backward sections of society will have an even harder time to do so. Moreover, I think the Supreme Court’s decision totally violates the individual’s right to freedom of choice. Why should a parent not have a choice who his children should mix with?

When the Chief Justice’s  grand daughter marries his driver’s son I wonder if he will be happy that he insisted his grand daughter’s school admit the drivers son.