Privacy Management

In this new age of ours, there are many things that we have gained. But if you ever think of it, we have lost many things too, the most valuable among them being our privacy.

Celebrities fear the paparazzi who follow them relentlessly and ruthlessly, giving them no place to hide, no time for a quiet lunch or dinner out of their homes, and no freedom to speak freely. 

For ordinary mortals who barely value or understand their privacy, they do not even know what they have lost. Have you noticed all those spam calls on your mobile phones from a variety of people trying to convince you to open bank accounts, buy cars, book flats, reminding you about your insurance premium payments, recommending doctors for you and so on and so forth? Do you observe how many spam emails jam your mail inbox? Do you get blank calls from people you don’t even know who ask you if you are available for a ‘date’? Well, it would seem that virtually everyone knows our mobile number, email account and name and God knows what else about us!

While this may sound very scary, but there is another aspect of privacy that I would like to share with my readers today, and this is rather a funny one.

I do not know about other cities, but in Mumbai, space is a serious concern and constraint, with more than half of the citizens of Mumbai living in one-room tenements. Since homes measuring 200-300 square feet barely allows it's inhabitants to stretch their legs, people are forced to take to the open public places, wherever they are available to conduct many aspects of their lives and manage their privacy. One such public place is the Chowpatty or the beach; another place is the seafront promenades.

The western side of the city is defined by the shoreline of the Arabian Sea. One who is familiar with Mumbai would know that along the sea, one will find beaches, big and small, and seafront promenades. It starts from the South-Western tip of Mumbai and runs all the way to the North-Western part of the city. These places are the most happening stretches of Mumbai. Here, people spend their days and nights, celebrate festivals like Diwali, Holi and New Year. These stretches also afford the luxury of privacy to courting couples and spouses who do not otherwise get the luxury of privacy in their homes.

I once used to live in Prabhadevi and as luck would have it, there was a beach close to my house where I would enjoy morning and evening walks. It was a small stretch and was lined with a high compound wall demarcating commercial and residential buildings which faced the sea. It was here that I realized how acute the problem of privacy was in Mumbai. I also came to witness the ingenuity of Mumbaikars here when it came to managing privacy.

One evening, soon after we had shifted to Prabhadevi, I set out to explore the beach near my house. A five-minute walk took me to the beach and even as I stepped out on the silver sands to enjoy my walk I was confronted with a very strange sight.

Lined all along the compound wall abutting the beach were what looked like colourful tents to me. I thought they were stalls where you normally have vendors selling Vada Pav, Pav Bhaji, cold drinks and such edible snacks. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that these were not the stalls I thought they were. Something else was happening, and I moved closer to find out the truth.

To my amazement, they were not tents as I had thought! Those colourful tents were, in fact, the humble bed sheets or bedspreads that we use to cover our beds! And under these sheets were people, living human beings!

Why on earth, I thought would someone visit a beach to cover themselves up when the sun was shining so brightly? People elsewhere in the world throw off their clothes and plunge in the waters when they are on a beach! I could see that the people under these sheets were covering themselves and holding up one end of the sheet making it look like a tent. As I walked on, I could see feet sticking out of the sheets. I could also see frantic movements under the sheets as if the people under them were grappling or fighting with each other. I could also make out from the visible feet that there were two pairs of them, one feminine and one masculine.

It struck me that these were couples making it out under these colourful sheets! One feminine and one masculine hand were engaged in holding up each corner of the sheet, while the rest of the body was free to engage in whatever activity they could manage within this small space they had cleverly created. These were lovers engaged in the free and unfettered expression of their love and affection. And they had the anonymity and the privacy they wanted!

I can tell you it was the funniest sight of my life, watching the couples under the sheets moving madly. At times a hand holding the sheet would let go and expose the couple, but they would quickly grab the loose ends and duck under the sheet.

As I walked past the tents in silent amazement and admiration, a tent near me dropped and the boy and girl under it scrambled to pick it up. The boy caught me staring at them and snapped:

“Budde (old man), kya ghoor rahe ho? Ghar mein biwi nahin hai Kya?”

I apologized and turned away.

So much for privacy in Mumbai. Thanks to its beaches and seafronts, love can flourish, free of cost!

It made me wonder how inventive we can become to protect our privacy. After years of that eventful walk along the beach, I now feel dismayed when modern technology is disrupting our very lives in ways we could never imagine. Google is watching us all the time. CCTV cameras are staring and recording our every move whether we are inside or out on the streets. Facebook and a host of other applications are collecting our intimate details without even telling us what they are doing with them. Companies are buying our profiles from these applications to analyse what we see, what we eat when we sleep, what we buy, how much we spend, what we do with our money, where we keep our valuables and so on and so forth. 

Long years ago, George Orwell wrote his book 1984 where he imagined a scenario in 1984 when there will be no privacy. He warned us in his book “Big Brother is watching you”. His dark predictions have come true. Our governments are tracking us through our Pan cards and Aadhar Cards. Our profiles drawn so meticulously by Facebook, Google, Twitter, WhatsApp and a host of other applications that we use so mindlessly are being used by politicians to bolster their chances in elections. We can hardly express our feelings today without fear that the authorities will slap and FIR or charge sheet you for sedition.

How the hell are we going to manage our privacy? What say you, readers? Do read and share your views.