An unplanned holiday in Hyderabad?

A few days back me and my office colleagues got an email from one of our IT suppliers with the heading marked “Unplanned holiday at offshore” and mentioned that there was an unplanned holiday declared in Hyderabad due to which the offshore resources will not be available for work on that day. While most of the people from India are very well accustomed with such holidays, my Australian colleagues found it very hard to imagine as to how there can be anything like an unplanned holiday in this world?

There was a flurry of huddled conversations with everyone trying to speculate and have a laugh till I decided that it was my duty to educate my colleagues.

I walked up to them and told them the State Premier YSR Reddy had died in a helicopter crash and a holiday has been declared in the state for mourning him and hence the email about an unplanned holiday. That triggered a whole new debate. Why should there be a holiday if the Premier dies? Work has to go and people and businesses need to earn. Holidays have to be planned upfront so that activities can be planned. Taken aback at the velocity of the questions I tried to justify saying this was an Indian thing…When big people die people need to mourn and it is quite a common thing in India. I remembered my own school days and gave an example of how we were given a school holiday in India because Josip Broz Tito the former Yugoslav PM had died and the reason we had a holiday was because he was a great friend of former Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Quietly I walked back to my desk without telling them of the hysteria YSR’s missing helicopter had generated and how it had been the top media headline since the past 48 hours. I would have had to face a volley of questions as they would have surely compared the case of missing Victorian minister with YSR’s missing. The missing Victorian Minister did not even get headlines.

Back at my desk my eyes flashed when I read a headline that 30 people in India had committed suicide after hearing of YSR’s death. Partly angry and unable to comprehend this I walked again to my colleagues to share the news. The news hit them like a strike of lightning. Why would so many people commit suicide just because the Premier of the state had died. I was quickly trying to come up with answers. I think they are poor and uneducated that is why they committed suicide. But there are poor and uneducated people here in Australia too, they will not commit suicide if the Premier dies.

Ever since then I have been thinking of the reason that caused these people to commit suicide. Michael Jackson had a more global fan following than YSR but his death resulted in just 12 of his fans worldwide committing suicide. Since then there have also been reports that the number of people who committed suicide or died of shock has risen to 122. What could be driving a person to leave his family in lurch and commit suicide just because a state politician has died? Most of these people would have perhaps never met or talked to YSR face to face but were ready to end their lives because YSR had died.

Is this blind faith and continuation of the feudal system where in masses need to prostrate before the politicians in the hope that they will bestow favours upon each one of us individually? Has the system become so weak and nimble that people believe it is just 1 person who is their saviour and disregard the entire system and all the rest of the people? I am still trying to find answers.

Do you have any explanations?

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