The Pirates and their Originality

Think about Nehru Place. Perhaps India's biggest electronic market, the busiest certainly. Original and its many copies both sell alongside, legal and illegal copies both. The sales compete but mostly draw from the same source pool, connected by intercom. Permanent shops as well as makeshift ones. Frequent raids, by police as well as the corporate guys. The former take a bribe apart from the usual cut. The latter, some of them leak originals, some raid copies, both buying copies for personal use from the same shops that they raid. Boys sell and men watch. When the boys get caught, the men get them out. Nobody makes anything here, except making exchange money. A make shift economy for a makeshift people. Originals and pirates, and their several mutant forms, walking across the same pathways, short-circuiting imaginations, aspirations, and potentials. Partners in business, partners in crime. Nothing organizes them except opportunity, space, and unwritten customs. And a mysterious pirate moment which has raided upon them, and us.

Cut to Pune railway station. Late night. Police gypsies go, shutters open, chai-wallah sits outside the shop and a sizeable bunch of customers appear. They smoke, buy patties and bun-maska, eat bhurji-pao, and gossip. Police van appears. Shutters down in a flash, chai-wallah is nowhere to be found. Silence. The thela that is slow to act gets on-the-spot justice performed on him; one baton, many eggs gone. Arrive at a silent moment and ask a stray fellow, he guides you promptly, "go back in that lane, we shall get you tea". It duly arrives in a moment. A few yards away, a 'Comesum' runs busy. He has bought a costly license, he is the original. Like Apple, Microsoft, and all that. But the pirates come back. They've to survive. They must feast on the original, question its originality, and assert their own.

There is a rhythm to it, and melancholia. Feet being dragged, bodies scarred, anger and sadness all around. Play Yumeji's theme over it. Double the pace, though. There is very little time.