The Uncommon Commoner

When the thought of making a blog on common man came to me, I decided my blog URL would be thecommonman.blogspot.com. But, unfortunately, this URL was not available. Then I tried for thec0mm0nman.blogspot.com and I got it. Then I googled for the common man and found many blog URLs like the0common0man.blogspot.com, thecman.blogspot.com, themancommon.blogspot.com etc. etc. The same moment I could notice a very important characteristic of the commoner, “Uniqueness”, the uniqueness in the thought, uniqueness in the approach. For the same problem, the commoners have very many solutions. Each of them has their own solutions. This also shows the diversity.

Lets take a very common example of boarding a train. We find several people on the platform. Some of them board the train normally through the gate of the boggies when the train stops, some board it running when the train is still slowing down, some of them are seen boarding from the other side, some reserve their seats putting handkerchiefs or towels or any such thing. They have jugaads for any of their jobs. Somehow the other they get their work done, if they are really willing.

Ask a question to a mass, “What is your favourite colour?” Though there are only seven colours, we will get more than seventy answers. This shows their creativity as well as the diversified taste.

Once I was in a meeting of about 30 people (we all belong to a team promoting anything Indian), a discussion was going on regarding conduction of an event. The answer was to be only in yes or no, but everybody supported their answer with a distinct logic and the result was that we had a lot of points in support and against it. The point to be noted is that together we provide for a better understanding of the problem and its solution. May be alone each one of us has enough of points to support our view, together we have a much strengthened vision.

Who says that a common man easily accepts its suppression, there are lots of thoughts originating each day in their minds. Somewhere ‘A Wednesday’ is made and at some other place a website or a blog or an article. Many discussions in the trains or in the verandah of houses, offices, schools and colleges are very much common. At least silent as well as loud curses are for sure. In fact, at times sudden outbreaks against anything wrong are also seen.

The commoners are highly diversified, very unique, jugaadu, pretty creative and also they are very much willing to change the situation. Nobody is very much silent but still nothing much significant is observed. Many could not get a start and many not a platform. Thoughts are many, many hands as well but not a start, not a direction. One more uncommon thing is that we very well know that union is strength and that together we can bring any change. But, still we are dispersed and not often we think of the union of such thoughts and hands. Even if we think, we only think, we never act. The time has come to unite the diversified efforts and talents.

Feel proud to be the part of the most uncommon group!!! But feeling alone won’t suffice...ACT!!!

Who is a Common Man?

Every now and then we encounter the word “Common Man”. But have we ever thought who a common man is. The dictionary says that Common refers to something having no special distinction or quality; widely known or commonly encountered; average or ordinary or usual. So, going by the dictionary the Common Man refers to a group of people having no special distinction and who are commonly encountered.

In reality, common man represents a very large mass. A common man is someone not in the authority at a certain place. Persons of almost all domains fall in this category at one time or the other. In spite of being quite different from each other, people are referred to as common man. The reason behind this is their thinking and also the behavior of the authoritarians for them. At most of the places a common man is harassed and suppressed by those in the authority. Also, a common man gives a room for exploitation. I don’t understand why people are afraid of the authority in getting their jobs done. They think that the authority has all the power and they never speak a word against the corrupt or unsound system even if they are very correct on their part. And the officials take the advantage of this and unnecessarily maltreat them. Moreover, a common man only blames the system and never thinks of correcting the system. They have become so accustomed of such a situation that perhaps nobody cares for a better condition. 

Ideally, a common man has lots of power. The common man has the power to shape a country. In fact, they can bring about any change in the system. After all, we, the common man, make the system. If at some point we belong to the common man category then at the other time we are a part of the authority. The thinking of a common man shows the thinking of the country and their actions decide the future of the country.

The common man has to understand the power of being common, the strength of the union, the crowd. They are millions in number against the feeble number of the so-called officials. It’s a wakeup call for the most powerful yet dormant section of the society!!