Atithi Devo Bhavah?

Reflections on P. Sainath’s Nero’s Guests

As history recalls Nero, the so-hated Roman Emperor, playing his fiddle while Rome burnt, I quote Tacitus, his contemporary historian from his book The Annals;

“(they) were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle.”

When Nero held Rome’s most sumptuous party to distract people from burning of Rome, he offered his gardens for the extravaganza. To provide for the nightly illumination for the party at which the Roman panjandrum was invited, Nero brought wretched criminals and prisoners and burned them at stake around the party place.

Until now, the problem was Nero. But after watching P. Sainath’s “Nero’s Guests”, a documentary filmed by Deepa Bhatia, I realise the problem is Nero’s guests. Anyone who was anyone in Rome was present there, but did nothing. Leave apart action, I wonder if it even disturbed their conscience. To put it into context, Sainath posed the question as to who Nero’s guests were, today. I mean, instinctively, the answer had to be us but what I didn’t know was how.

The above infographic reflects the burning of Rome (read: India) where Nero is the government. I’ll reiterate; the issue here is Nero’s guest i.e. us. While exporters continue to sell grains abroad at cheaper prices than in India used to feed their cattle, urban class overfeeds itself and I push the hostel food in the bin, the burning bodies are neglected again. We can see these pyres while we come back home after college or near the stations, but we still choose to ignore them and make merry times. In short, the issue doesn’t lie in the trouble-maker but in people for whom this trouble is made and they choose to not notice it.

Knowing that I’m one of Nero’s guest, I want to run away. I feel welcomed yet unwelcomed at the same time.