My love for public transportation is a mix of necessity and what I would like to call-normalcy.; but I would still like to believe that I love public transportation. It is usually in a crammed micro-bus, with seat covers strewn and torn all over the places, seats unhinging itself from wherever it was supposed to be attached to, smell of sweat early in the morning (labor's delight?) and back-seat, if not the edge of any seat, I find myself burrowed in my breakfast-philosophies.
My encounters in micro-buses would account for zillions of novels; if I actually sat down to write them down that is. However, today's encounter is something that really caught my attention and therefore, this early morning rant.
I was reading Marx's value theory of labor (do not ask me why and what it means) and speeding through the pages. Two women, with two babies climbed into the front two seats beside the driver's seat. I could see them although I was rigorously trying to skim through the reading. I could see one of them was wearing red and the other green. I could see the babies but really, all of them look the same.
"the social character of this system as a 'whole' or 'totality' follows"
Suddenly, I hear one of the mothers (I suppose they were the mothers of the two babies) shout out to the conductor, "Launa, the baby dropped a 50 rupee note!!". The micro was already breezing past Pashupatinath area and there was no question of retrieving the lost money; with the speed and expertise that our micro-drivers risk our lives, I doubted if there was any possibility of even stopping the car the instant the shout was heard. The woman goes, "yo baccha esto harami cha". And that is when my full attention was caught.
"the production of value is simultaneously a process of producing the social system of production itself as well as the production of commodities within that structure of relations"
Harami, I was surprised, and slightly shocked at how easily the mother (and again I suppose that she is the mother of the child) uses the word. And I realize I have heard the term being used so many times, while walking past women with babies, it is inserted in that frustrated and disappointed expression of anger, hopelessness and all that effortlessly.
"value is a form of social consciousness"
The conductor, guiltily, yet nonchalantly retorted, "Aba leave it didi, consider it as an offering to Pashupatinath". I could not see the expression on the woman but she went back to cursing the child.
I do not know what I am trying to demonstrate here but I imagine you get my point. I feel no further need to explain or rant. (Also because I have to hurry back to my class now.)
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