Some untold stories... Some ignored realities...

Time we change our sports?

2012-02-14T08:43:00.000-08:00

I was sitting in my window last weekend, watching children play various sports in this huge ground opposite my building. I was following them, from cricket to football to volleyball and so on. And something struck. We have always believed that sports teach us stuff... but today, it was interesting to note how they teach us stuff that might mirror the society they originate from and those where they flourish.

Take cricket. There's one batsman and one bowler. Rest all are others. Their position may strategically have value but socially, in the structure of cricket, they are not as valuable as the role of a batsman, followed by the bowler. This is more apparent in gully cricket, where there's no team as such. Rather children take turns for batting. You ask a child who plays cricket, and 99% times you will hear that he prefers being a batsman. In fact I have seen insances where children cheat – they play their part of batting and then go home excusing themselves with “mummy is calling”. Everyone on the ground wishes to bowl the batsman, so that they can take his position. We know so many good batsmen or bowlers. Barring few exceptions, how many good fielders are remembered (and given a chance to endorse products)? Doesn't it in a way reflect the society where certain hierarchy is DNA-fied in the its structure? And where else this sport could have originated other the Great Britain, which has a history of hierarchical social setup? And where else could it gain such popularity other than India (and its neighbouring countries), which is so profoundly fixated with its love for class, caste and creed?

Well this is not about discussing how good or bad cricket is. The sport may have its own merits. However, I am more concerned about the lessons we are planning for our children on the field. All I am asking is, if we are really looking for solutions to such problems of social stratification, shall we not relook into what's going on in the schools (and not just classrooms) and streets and sports grounds? It has long been established that what's going on in the classrooms is not the most right thing that can happen to our children. Shall we also give a thought to what's going on with them on the field? And more so when The Great Britain itself has successfully shifted it's focus from cricket to football? Isn't it time we change or transform the sports we play?

P.S.: I am just thinking aloud. I may not be right in what I am proposing. It's just a point of view. I invite all the readers to post their views and have a good discussion here. And would really appreciate the cricket-lovers to give it an objective thought before presenting their views :)

The stalker

2011-12-23T10:42:00.000-08:00

The car stopped at the signal. She looked for him. He was standing there, wet, in his underpants. She smiled. He smiled. As he moved his hands up and down, his ribs flexed to define the leanness of his body. She opened her lips to let the warmth of her breath be smoked out. As the air passed through, her lips reddened. She almost licked off the water from his body. She let her eyes follow all his moves and then zoomed them out to focus on a particular part of his body. But then she realized she was missing on what's happening at other parts. She immediately zoomed her eyes in, in a frustration of missing on those forms that occurred in those missed moments. She found him looking at her. She felt being undressed. The honks around them didn't matter to her. They appeared far off.

The signal had turned yellow. She tried to look within his towel while he was changing. The lights turned green and the car moved. Her body didn't move. Neither did her face. Only two black balls moved from one corner to another in her eyes.

As the car turned right, she looked at her husband in the driver's seat. He looked at her and smiled. She smiled back and leaned to rest her head on his left hand. He kissed on her head. Some people indulge in a foreplay before making out. She did just the opposite. While she was cuddling in her husband's arms, she was still kissing the man she had left at the last signal. Every evening while returning from work, she would look for him. And he would be found there, mostly, cleaning himself, at an open pipeline, the only source of water for him, after a day's hard work. His nudity was a luxury for her, but a compulsion for him. The craving for a human body is probably the only one, where we dont engage in the discussions of the class. Its class is only defined in its quality, not from where is it produced or which brand is it of. Her want was the purest, devoid of any social subjugations, exactly as he existed. Every evening as she would walk out of her office, the only thing she would pray for would be this one minute at the signal. It had almost become the fuel of her life.

That day was a blessing. Her husband was out of town. She had to drive herself back home. She left office early, reached the signal almost ten minutes before her usual time and parked her car near the broken pineline. The evening supply was on and water was fountaining out. Some kids were playing in there. Two women were washing cloths. An old man was cleaning his cycle. She realized, probably they all were there, every evening. How come she never noticed them? She looked closely at their faces. The kids were playful. Women were chattering. The old man's face was devoid of any human expression. If something it contained, it was only an expression of the time which had passed by. She looked into the direction these people were coming from and going to. After few minutes, he arrived from the midst of the dirt, he would have called home. A torn jeans. Slipper-less, rugged feet. Bare chest. Strong, full arms. Hairs, curled up till the nape of his neck. White clean eyes, cupped in a dusty brown face. She gasped for some breath. “Oh! I so want him!!” she told herself.

The women asked those kids to pack up and move towards the dust this man was coming from. The sun had almost set, leaving behind the redness in the sky as its only trace. She looked at him as she would have done if they were alone in a space where no one else could enter. For the first time she had looked at him so closely. She moved her eyes from his feet to his face. For the first time she had looked into his eyes. Those clean, white ones. But they were not looking at her. She followed his gaze. She turned in the direction they were pointed at. She stopped at her car. She looked back at him and back in the direction he was looking. She again stopped at the car. Something crashed within her. She turned back, walked towards the car and started the engine.

Some wishes are better kept within than being given a form in this world. Inside, they remain authentic. Once exposed out, they get colored with the textures of who we are and how we are socially placed. The car zoomed into oblivion. He watched it till he could, then splashed some water on his face from the broken pipeline.

Image Source: http://www.toniccare.com/RefreshEyes-Anti-Wrinkle-Eye-Serum-p/refresh-eyes.htm

तुझे, कुछ और पाना चाहता हूँ |

2011-12-09T05:27:00.000-08:00

तुझे पा लेने की एक अजीब ज़िद है,

जो तुझे पा लेने भर से, ख़त्म नहीं होती |

तेरे साथ होकर भी,

तुझे, कुछ और पाना चाहता हूँ |

हर वक़्त बेताब होता हूँ,

तेरी बाहों में आने को,

पर वहाँ आकर बस,

कुछ, घुट सा रहा होता हूँ |

तेरी साँसों में घुल जाए मेरी सांस,

इतनी करीबी की है ख्वाहिश,

पर तेरे पहलु में खुद को,

अक्सर, बस रोता-बिलखता पाता हूँ |

आ ख़त्म कर दे मुझे,

या राख़ होजा मेरी रूह में;

बस आज भर की रात, चाहे जीतनी लम्बी हो,

फिर, एक नयी सुबह पाना चाहता हूँ |

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Posting in Roman-Hindi (as one of my friends call it :P) as well, for those who understand Hindi but cant read in the original script:

Tujhe paa lene ki ek ajeeb zid hai,

jo tujhe paa lene bhar se,

khatm nahi hoti.

Tere saath ho kar bhi,

tujhe, kuchh aur paana chahta hoon.

Har waqt betaab hota hoon,

teri baaho me aane ko,

par waha aakar bas,

kuchh ghut sa raha hota hoon.

Teri saaso me ghul jaaye meri saans,

itani kareebi ki hai khawaahish,

par tere pehlu me khud ko,

aksar, bas rota bilakhata paata hoon.

Aa khatm kar de mujhe,

ya raakh ho ja meri ruh me,

bas aaj bhar ki raat,

chahe jitani lambi ho,

fir ek nayi subah paana chahta hoon.

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Apologies to my friends who may not understand Hindi. Feeling incapable of translating it with the same or even toned down essence it has been written with :(

P.S.: Thanx Donald! Reading and discussing it with you felt like good ol' times :)

The Silence Behind FDI Hulla

2011-12-02T09:32:00.000-08:00

I have been following few reports and commentaries on FDI in retail for sometime now. However, I am left with few questions:

A lot of people are saying that this will bring in money to our country. I ask how? Are they coming in here for charity? They are coming here to do business, which means to make profit. They are going to buy our product, sell it to us, using our resources( human and material) and at the end take out the profit to their country. So basically, more than bringing money in, they are taking money out. Are we any reacher? People who get happy when World Bank sanctions a loan are funny people. A loan is not my money. Period. I have to return, and at most times with heavy interests. Same goes for FDI. It take out heavy profit value from my country, for a very low initial investment, and that too at the cost of us.
Mr. P. K. Vasudeva (supposedly a former senior professor at ICFAI, Chandigarh) say that since they have professional approach, they should be allowed in (HT editorial on November 30, 2011). Well what is this professional approach all about? The same apporach that failed Lehman Brothers, General Motors, Enron, and the likes? I think the professor must be talking about some other approach. But dude, don't you think it would be better if we could learn that approach, if that's really so cool, and apply it ourselves here? But I am sure we cant learn a thing, not because we Indians are any less at learning, but because those so-called FDI-offerers are sissy enough to make knoweldge public. They know that the only thing they have is a well packaged, and mostly half baked, processes and approach to things. And if kept open, there would be more critism than anything else. Said that, I dont say that our current approach is okay. Of course, we need to amend our systems. But WHY do we need to do it through them? Why can't we do it ourselves?
Abhijit Patnaik* (HT, December 02, 2011) very rightly said, “The world can't have a middle class with the same affluence as the US...” He argues that the consumer-led model is philosophically erraneous and we need to have new development paradigm that will include more sustainable business models, equitable distribution and better governance. Isn't it our extreme blind love for western systems, processes and approaches that we simply dont analyse them properly and feel like copying them? Is it that we dont want to THINK about solutions to our problems and simply copy-paste them from elsewhere?
It is said that it will give us more options and hence cheaper products. Well tell me, today I have almost 50 options to buy an underwear, but which one of them is cheaper than earlier times? It's a big fat farce.
Another strong argument is – It's the time of globallization. Another piece of crap. There's no such thing called globalization. Its just Americanization. And its scary. Not as much because one country is almost ruling the world, but more because one incompetent#, selfish$ and evil** country is almost ruling the world. They can simply not have any goodwill, and here I would like to leave out exceptional organizations who are doing some genuinely good work within and outside US.
Why all of a sudden a huge focus on FDI thing? Weren't we supposed to hear on Lokpal in winter session?

I am not sure if I am being overtly skeptical. I may be completely wrong. But my only point is, why do we need them to solve our problems. They will never ever solve a problem if it's making profit for them. Remember East India Company? They had come to do business here. What we got was colonization and oppression. And over 200 years of struggle. Now that's not cool with me. Is it with you? Let's listen to the silence behind FDI hulla. We may understand it a little better.

* I suggest, everyone should read Abhijit's article. It offers an interesting perspective.

# Their systems have failed, more often they should not.

$ Read through the internet and you will know how ruthlessly they have robbed the entire world.

** Of many instances read, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange

a Revolutionary, a Rockstar, and a system in Ruins

2011-10-10T08:20:00.000-07:00

Malcolm X | Sadda Haq | Quality (and reach) deficit in our Education System | Well these three words/phrases – a book, a song and an issue – sum my current state of mind.

The other day I was curled up in a sofa at my sister’s place with the autobiography of Malcolm X and was bugging Ishita, my niece, to tune in to a channel where I can listen to any Rockstar song. Just when I was about to give up on my curiosity for this song after almost fifteen minutes of irritating her, the tube flashed a poster titled “Negative” and here walked in Ranbir Kapoor as the music went on. The song was Saadda Haq. A desperate book in hand, an intense song in eyes and ears, and a forever lingering thought in my head – I had never been so present with myself to anything in recent times… my body, my eyes, my ears and my mind… all full blown open and functioning to their highest capacity!!!

Though all these things sound hysterically disconnected at first glance, they are actually, very deeply connected with, or at least echo, each other. In fact they deserve separate posts, however after discussing it with myself, I zeroed in on the idea of presenting them together, here.

For those who may not know who Malcolm X is, he was the greatest (presumably) human rights activist for African Americans in the era of 1950’s. Here I am not presenting my views in support or against of his ideology or action. I just wish to share three things in this book that deeply intrigued me –

1) Malcolm’s openness to new ideas and single-minded devotion for changing things around for himself and his people. The way this man catapulted from ‘being who he was’ to ‘who he became’ is sheer amazing. If whatever said in the book is true, I must say this man personified Belief.

2) His adaptability in times of greatest psychological crisis. I could only imagine, that too not to the fullest, what he must have gone through in his days of separations from the Nation of Islam and his break up with his God-like guru, Elijah Mohammad.

3) How an identity (a religious one here), in times of a great social crisis, can lift people from the mess they are in.

All the above points root from a single issue – people devoid of or snatched away with their basic human rights. Lost in this fascinating book, when I heard this song for the first time, only two words were exhaled from inside me, “Oh fuck!!!”

I am not too sure how and where the song is placed in the movie, but in my current context when I am into this book (and Ishita would know what I mean by it) it could have never been so well timed. Whatever Malcolm X, or for that matter any oppressed human being, would have had to say to reclaim his rights and honor, this song says it all… Sadda Haq… Aithe Rakh!

Fabulous lyrics (Irshad Kamil). Awesome composition (A R Rahman). Sexy vocals (Mohit C). And beautiful visuals (Ranbir K and Imtiyaz Ali). With such rockstars, the song was born to be a rockstar. Check out this opening part of the song – “Marzi se jeene ki bhi main… Kya tum sabko main arzi doon… Matlab ki tum sabka mujhpe… Mujhse bhi zyada haq hai”, which is loosely translated as “If I have to live as I would want, will I have to write an application to you for that? Which means you own me more than I myself do?”

Doesn’t it echo what Malcolm or Gandhi or Bhagat Singh fought for? Or what thousands of Naxalites, Kashmiris, Palestinians, Afghans, and so many others are still fighting for? Please note, I am NOT commenting or supporting on the methods they employ to voice their concerns. Rather I am commenting only on ‘their voices’. If a society sickens one of its sections economically, politically and educationally (all or some of it), it is bound to boomerang; in what form, only the sufferer can decide.

Malcolm in his book says, and I firmly believe, that the most dangerous person in the world is the one devoid of or not provided with their rights, more so educational rights. Education, of all, is one right that when compromised or not provided with, will actually pose issues for the society that debars it for its people than the people themselves, who are debarred with it.

If you are a little aware of what is happening in Education sector, you will hear Mr. Murthy saying IITians are loosing the content and blaming coaching centers for it. You will hear coaching centers blaming JEE for it and claiming that they merely are responding what JEE is asking for. Higher Education blaming Primary and Secondary Education for not providing with enough educated students and the later blaming the entire system for not equipped to groom children well. And by the way, this discussion is for only that small section of our society which can actually avail education through all these levels. There are millions of children (and adults) who have been devoid of their basic right of education (and discussing quality would be a joke here). The sooner we pull our education system out of ruins, the better. Coz’ the day they realize it and ask us “sadda educational haq… aithe rakh”, they will only decide in which way they do it. And God forbid, if they choose violence or separation, can we really complain then?

Nationalism in Schools

2011-09-22T23:13:00.000-07:00

Introduction

For at least seven years during my stay at my boarding school, I have spent almost every morning with the Indian national pledge – “India is my country and all Indians are my brothers and sisters. I love my country and I am proud of its rich and varied heritage. I shall always strive to be worthy of it. I shall give respect to my parents, teachers and elders and treat everyone with courtesy. To my country and my people, I pledge my devotion. In their well being and prosperity alone, lies my happiness.”

Like this I had to indulge in many school level programmes that directly or indirectly enforced a feeling of nationalism/ patriotism in me. I must admit I did (and to a good extent, still) subscribe to them. I feel proud when I sing Indian national anthem or talk about my country in forums where national anthem fits in appropriately. Its so much in me that I was so shocked to learn that one of the municipal schools that I am working with doesn’t call their students for Independence day celebrations due to “lack of assembly space” that I went on the theme my Art classes for a week on “Independence day”. However, I shall not prejudice my exploration in this paper with any such feelings I have held in most of my formative years of life. Today I wonder – Did I place my pride in the “rich and varied heritage” only after knowing what they were and evaluating if they were worthy of my pride? Why only Indians are being called my brothers and sisters? Why not a Palestinian or a Nepali or a Japanese? Why is there no mention of other living beings – the animals, the birds in our national pledge? Does my national identity contribute towards my development as a human being? Does it contribute towards any scientific invention that I may lead to? Does it, for that matter, contribute towards my exploration and placement of nationalism within school curriculum/ agenda in this paper?

Intrigued by these and similar other questions, I intend to explore the basic question “does nationalism holds a place within school curriculum agenda?” In this effort, let’s first understand “nationalism” and some related ideas (in differentiation section) before we can study the position it may (or may not) behold within the education premises (in integration section).

Differentiation

The below three concepts are often discussed, and at times used, interchangeably. Due to this, it’s important to understand the fine conceptual differences between these three:

Nationalism

Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. (Source: http:// en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Nationalism). Nationalism, by many, is understood as an extreme form of patriotism marked by a feeling of superiority over other countries. Like religion, and many other social identities, nationalism too thrives on “us against the other”, defining a group of people as one unit by rejecting/ dishonoring (in some cases) the “others”. It is interesting to note the inception of the term and its placement in the era of French Revolution, and catastrophe of world wars that it is suspected it did lead to.

Patriotism

Excluding differences caused by the dependencies of the term's meaning upon context, geography and philosophy, patriotism is a devotion to one's country. In a generalized sense applicable to all countries and peoples, patriotism is a devotion to one's country (Source: http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki). This basically is devoid of the concept of “us against the other”.

Citizenship

Citizenship is understood as the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities. "Active citizenship" is the philosophy that citizens should work towards the betterment of their community through economic participation, public, volunteer work, and other such efforts to improve life for all citizens. This concept asks for participation in activities of the countries we live in.

From above explanations, it would be interesting to understand what motivates the people supporting or opposing Anna Hazare in his “movement against corruption”.

Integration

Including the creation of social identity would be required if our aim is to prepare our pupil to deal with the matters in society as-is (which is fragmented by various social identities – religious, cultural, national and so on). However, if the aim of education is to move towards the concept of “one world”, would it be really important to discuss “nationalism” or other social identities? What is our education’s aim and what should be?

Education is purposed at what?

I personally believe the primary purpose of education is to assist in identification and further development of the natural talent of a child, and leading to the enablement of his/her rational, logical and emotional quotient. Education should be such that it enables a child to be able to express his/her idea and apply his/her knowledge. Rest would all be a byproduct of this process; be it the profession a child would choose, the success that shall follow or for that matter social identity he/she creates for himself/herself.

“Mera Bharat mahaan”: a nationalist, patriotic or citizenry construct?

‘Mahaan’, or ‘great’, by itself has a comparative tone to it. Having its roots in the colonial period, the slogan and all such similar ones (Vande Matram, etc) behold the feeling me “us against them – the British”. That was then when a group of people were fighting for their independence from a foreign body and needed various ways to keep themselves united by a single social construct (in this case the nation – India). But today, if a child says “Mera bharat Mahaan”, it becomes important to understand where he/he is picking it from and what meaning /value is he/she attaching to it. If such feelings are mere emulation of the beliefs held by his/her favorite teacher or a response to a social behavior (everyone in morning assembly does that), I offer caution. It may move from the domains of “influence” to conditioning and even indoctrination. I ask, how different is the person who believes his/her religion is great against the one who believes India is great and can go to any extreme to prove that point?

Should education aim at influencing love for one’s country in its pupils? I am not very sure of this. Education may best introduce the concept of love and facilitate its pupil to reason and then bestow upon their love and respect on things, people and ideas they would find worthy of. And if their nation or country befits their logical conclusions of assigning love, they can very well institute their pride in it. Otherwise, “Mera Bharat Mahaan” remains a transferred nationalist pride only.

Such hollow love for one’s country (or for that matter anything) would lead to one very important issue – one’s blindness towards the faults in our beloved. And nationalism in our schools has the capacity to reduce the responsibilities a person would hold in questioning his/her own nation, when the actions by the leaders/government doesn’t fit into his/her logical debates. Could that be a reason, why “Mera Bharat Mahaan” is so vociferously practiced in Indian schools (80% of Indian schools are govt. run/aided institutions)? And does our unquestioning (or at least over-accepting) attitude to whatever is happening in the national/public systems roots from there? Does the song “sau me se assi baimaan, fir bhi mera bharat mahaan / Eighty out of hundred are thugs, still India is great” hints at our inaction as citizens?

The identity and related discussion

Why is a nationalist identity, or for that matter, any such social identity, important for us? Does it address any of the existential issues? I am not sure if it helps in my development directly, but I can certainly say that it offers a sense of security which lets my development happen in a freer environment. For instance, if I am playing and I know that there’s my “family” who will take care of me if I am hurt, I am more open to experiment with my play. Such security also enables me to take a stand against issues, as it did to our freedom fighters against British (We have read of many stories on how Kasturaba supported Mahatma Gandhi) .

Another important thing this identity may breed is, competition. I am not sure if “my attitude towards my scientific invention” would be enhanced by my nationalist views. However, as a collective national entity, we definitely try to fuel our “growth” (now this is really subject how we define “growth”) by the competition backed by nationalism. The only thing is if it’s intertwined with insecurity, we compete for nuclear bombs; if with excellence, we may compete for alternate energy sources.

The present or the future?

However, the issues discussed in above section of identity and related discussions arise only in “as-is” situation; the world of today, where we are dealing with the issues of survival against other “nations”. When someone is dealing with issues of survival, it becomes easy for him/her to find solace/company in people who may subscribe to similar ideologies/identity (nation, state, religion, caste, class, gender, sexuality and so on). But if the focus is the future, curriculum for schools worldwide, as also discussed in Radhika Herzberger’s paper “Education and Indian Nationalism”, should focus on the world and not only the nations.

The competition bred by nationalism may not give the best results, but the one cultivated by the teachings of citizenry may very well do. When we move away from nationalism to citizenship, we are actually moving from ignorance to intellectual dialogue. If a student understands his/her role in a national set up, and is enabled to express his/her idea (with respect to his/her nation) and apply his/her knowledge (in betterment of the lives of his/her fellow human beings, and not only the fellow countrymen), the results that will be produced will be, I think, far greater than it would be in an institution thriving on nationalism. I think, to build a future, and not only survive the struggles of the present, we need to engage in the debates and discussions where we allow our students to question the concept of nationhood, it’s history, the national myths, the current setup and the scope of improvisation. In the ever globalizing world today, it’s very important to move away from “us against them” construct and develop a global outlook, the one which teaches patience and tolerance toward variety of social identities which may differ from our own. Nationalism, by its philosophy, doesn’t offer that, and hence should not find a place in our schools. What would be important is to initiate a discussion on citizenship and its value in an individual’s and subsequently a country’s development.

In this light, I think, It is very important to move away from the songs we sang in first half of twentieth sanctuary (In fact a teacher in Japan stood against the government in resistance to sing the national song as to many it signified the country’s militaristic past). It’s very important that we discuss Gandhi in our schools as a leader (with his ideological merits and demerits) and not just read him as a messiah of independence struggle. It’s very important to understand the role of Hindus in creation of Pakistan as opposed to that only of Muslims we have been reading in our books. And now, It’s very important to ask our students “why?”, when they say “Mera Bharat Mahan!”

Note: This term paper was submitted for "Philosophy of Education" course as part of my M.A. in Education (Elementary) at TATA Institute of Social Sciences.

References:

I am NOT Anna Hazare

2011-08-21T01:02:00.000-07:00

I don’t like those caps. But that's not the only reason.

Yesterday, I had been to my local grocer to get some milk. I was standing there for over ten minutes before he decided to provide me any service. Well, why not? After all, his discussion was more important than his work. He was discussing how important it is for Anna to fight, “Boss he is doing the right thing. Marne ki umar me banda lad ra hai. chalo achcha hai... marne ke pahle hamare liye kuchh achcha kar ke jaayega. Ekdum theek kar ra hai banda. Saale in neta logo ke ke saath aisa hi hona chahiye.” This gentleman, after his long patriotic speech, sold a packet of milk to me at Rs. 16 which had an MRP of only Rs. 14. When asked, he told me, “yehi rate pe milta hai sab jagah. Kahi bhi poochh lo.” It is sold at the same rate everywhere. You may go and check.

I could only smirk. I wanted to tell him - your Anna can really not do anything for you; but refrained from it. In my protest, all I did was not to buy milk from his shop. Though, I did it from the other shop in the same rate, without getting into any further discussion.

Sounds like a daily, routine and mundane life scenario? At grocery shops? at rickshaw stands? at shopping malls? Feel cheated of or not provided with the services/products promised? Well, my dear readers, none of them are part of the so-called “MAHA CORRUPT governmental system”. They all belong to us, the helpless and most miserable - Aam Aadmi.

I am not against what Anna Hazare is leading or the support being rendered in his favor. Neither am I complaining about the rallies being held in, or at least being reported from, all across the urban India (Interestingly I would also want to know what is our rural youth doing?). I am only cautioning… against a weak structure of this movement. Any structure is what its building blocks are. And in this structure of the so-called “second freedom struggle”, the blocks- most of the people (but surely not all) on the roads in the support, I think are weak. Not weak as people, but weak as people-on-a-mission. I say that because they are the same people who sell the milk at a higher price than it should have.

But does it mean that we stop our fight till we become strong enough for the fight? Not really. It need not be a sequential process, but can work as a parallel programme. And that’s what Gandhian way of leading a movement was. Gandhi led a movement not only against an issue. Rather, his movements were FOR the people, OF the people and BY the people. I reiterate, his movements were FOR the people, OF the people and BY the people. Which means while he was raising a concern over an issue, he was also ensuring his building blocks of his movement were being trained to be strong enough. And that’s precisely what’s missing in Anna’s movement, and that what my subject of concern is. In fact, it’s sad to note how the cause itself has gone into a back burner and the man and his antics have become the front page news (whether Anna will be able to go on a Fast? For how many days? Will he be sent to jail? Damn! He was sent to Tihar jail!! Whether he will fast in Ramlila ground or at India gate? Oh! Anna was so cute on that reality show with kid!). And in this structure, do we really think we can overcome the issues? Don’t we all see Lokpal itself is a small step towards bringing in a check on corruption in governmental systems? Shifting the focus on our “media-created” leader from the movement is how much favorable to the cause?

Did I hurt anyone when I called Shri Anna Hazare a “media-created” leader? I am sorry. I, not in my most pessimist dream, would question the credentials of this man. He mostly has a good past and has done some really good work. But is he a leader by choice? I am not sure (Please note I don't say I negate completely the possibility of it being the case). In times, when India is producing more managers than leaders (I have discussed how a manager may or may not be a leader but the later has to be a former, in my previous writing), when there is more-than-ever frustration about our systems falling apart all across, when media offers an opportunity for anyone from a Baba Ramdev to Rakhi Sawant to become a solution provider to a clueless janta, Mr. Hazare had no option but to be showcased as a leader, I guess.

Please don’t mistake me as a supporter of government actions. I am equally pissed as things are happening in that part of the system. But then, let’s hold our thoughts for a while and ponder: are those people in anyway not “us”? Are they from some other planet? If there is a failure, is that not “ours”? And if so, will blame-game logic work, without accepting our own role in it all and initiating a correction process? I have always wondered, why have been we asking about solutions from the same set of people, whom we have been cursing for not doing anything? If we already know they are no good, what are we doing to replace them? Or help them with better solutions? Better infrastructure? Isn't my grocer’s selling an overpriced milk a way to support in their mission of corruption? Isn't my not raising a voice and taking a concrete action to ensure he stops doing that addition to corruption? Just because someone pockets lakhs he is a thief and someone pocketing Rs 2 is not? In last few days, my morning news paper has been reporting that how thousands of people are participating in various rallies and candle marches in the city. The same paper had reported about the lower than even 50% turnout of Mumbaikars at last polls. Many had chosen to go on an extended weekend over standing in the queue to vote. What are we doing to improve the procedure of voting that people start participating?

So when someone wears “I am Anna Hazare” cap next, he/she should first think if he/she did anything that would be illegal, and more than that unethical or immoral, in last 24 hrs. If the answer is yes, should delay wearing that cap till he/she gets his/her stand corrected. I, as said before, anyways don’t like that cap. I am NOT Anna Hazare. He is a good man. But I would rather be a Rohit and be good as well.

P.S.: The below Amul ad more or less sums up my concern:

The city of hills and the sea - V

2011-08-14T07:05:00.000-07:00

Boarding a BEST bus on a rainy Saturday evening from Borivali to Chembur is not the best of the ideas. And you may curse yourself to death if you did this just outside the railway station, where you had the option of boarding a Mumbai local. But I did board the bus and I did curse myself almost throughout the travel, until was engaged in a love story.

In those moments when I wasn’t cursing myself or reading the newspaper, I engaged myself in my favorite pastime - looking onto and into faces around me. And like it happens most of the times, this time too my maximum onto-into time was spent on a cute little baby girl’s happy face, shifting between her mom and dad, from time to time. She was wearing a bright red frock, a matching set of earrings, and a small ponytail like the Rasna baby (anyone remembers the girl from that ad?). Her dad looked like those big guys with heavy voices we see as sidekicks to the villain in Ram Gopal Varma movies. With his hulk-like hands, he would tickle the baby once in a while and father-daughter duo would burst into loud-sweet laughter. The lady, sitting next to him, was simply smiling when all this was happening. In the times when we get to hear of Indore doctors making big bucks by medically converting the girls into boys and some highly-educated Indians engaging in female foeticide, here was a family, probably from lower middle class, happily loving their girl child. The scene was refreshing and reassuring of goodness.

At times, the kid, while in transit between her parents, would halt in middle of her way and look into my staring eyes. She would wait for a second to study my offered emotion, and when confirmed that I was offering a friendly smile, would burst into laughter and then look at her mother, probably to assure that she is still happy and I have not scared her. Her mother would then throw her routine affirmative smile and hug her, bringing the kid’s face more close to my seat. The kid would then extend her cute little fingers towards me. I would touch them. It was the most therapeutic touch in that maddening traffic. I would tap her fingers as if they were the keys of the piano. I didn’t know her. But I knew her. We were part of a smile exchange programme.

In those moments when I was playing with their daughter and they were assured that I would not harm her, the mom and dad got their time to engage in their small talks. They would say something into each other’s ears and burst into laughter. On one such laughter, the kid got distracted, or probably got bored of playing with me, and started crying. Her mother pulled her from behind and asked, “What happened, beta? Arre nai nai nai…” she opened the window to let some fresh (!) air come in.

“See, there’s another babu. Isn’t he cute?” she pointed to a little kid walking on the footpath with his mother.

The kid looked at the-another-babu for a second, then back to her mom, and back to the-another-babu. Then she stopped crying for a second and then finally smiled. When she was happy and laughing again, she looked at me again and hovered towards me. After being assured that their kid was engaged again, the father leapt back into the moments of romantics, “by the way, the mother of the cute babu, wasn’t any less cute.” His lips widened into a naughty smile. The lady smiled back and tapped on his cheek gently. The man pulled the kid and kissed her with utmost affection. Then he said to her, as if she would understand, to pass it on to mummy. The lady smiled sheepishly and shied away to look outside the window. As the bus tried moving a little further, the moist wind flew her hairs toward the man. He in pretense of holding the kid touched them.

She wasn’t the most beautiful woman, even in the small demographic of the bus neither was he the handsomest man. I am not really sure if theirs was a love marriage or arranged. But how does it all matter? It happens, I think; if we let it. And when it does, it makes everything beautiful all around. Sometimes we close ourselves so tight that it only suffocates us. When kept open, it has the power to let you forget a sucking BEST ride at the least, at other times it may go on to define your whole life. I was in love with this moment of Bollywood-ish happiness offered in a crowded bus. Sometime, the stories around you are so simple and yet powerful that they touch your heart. I think, more than the content of the stories, at times it’s the way they are lived that makes the maximum impact on the watcher.

When I got down, I wasn't as enervated as I had assumed I would. Rather I was engulfed with some wondering thoughts: a few kisses here, and a few hugs there… a few smiles offered and few talks listened to… a few tickles and some giggles… in the BEST buses and the Mumbai locals… in the far and few open spaces available in this city and at the over-crowded seasides… over a rich meal and at times even when one is hungry… on the potholed streets and in the coziness of the closed rooms… on the college campuses and in the office premises… in the shopping malls and on the crowded Mohammad Ali road… despite all the tiredness and madness this city has to offer… Love happens, isn’t it?

P.S.: Their faces are still in my mind while I am done writing this piece and I am still smiling :)

Note: Except first photograph, others in the title image are taken from - indiastreets.wordpress.com, www.flickr.com, www.flixya.com and http://www.fotosearch.com

खोज़, खुद की

2011-07-29T09:33:00.000-07:00

हाथ उठा के कांख तले,

सूँघो,

क्या पा पाते हो खुद को वहाँ,

या रहती है किसी इत्र की खुशबू?

शीशे के सामने सज़ी रंग-बिरंगी शीशियों में बंद हो,

या महसूस कर पाते हो खुद की महक?

तब भी - जब दिन भर की कड़ी मेहनत के बाद,

चूर हो घर लौटते हो;

और तब भी - जब स्नान कर बिस्तर पर लेटे,

यूँही आँखें बंद करते हो|

वो तुम हो|

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Tried to translate (pretty loosely though) for some of my friends who may not be very conversant with Hindi script:

Raise your hands and under your armpit,

Smell.

Do you find yourself there?

Or reside there a scent of some perfume?

Are to contained in the multicolored vials placed in front of the mirror,

Or are you able to feel your own scent?

Event then – when after a day's hard work

you return home, all enervated;

and even then – when you lie down on the bed after a bath

and close your eyes just like that.

That’s you.

The city of hills and the sea - IV

2011-05-07T21:33:00.001-07:00

How close and personal it is to save one’s own home? And how grossly defeated one would feel if he/she is not able to do the same? Are their actions justified if they revolt such a defeat and go to an extreme? If not, then why not?

I wonder if the American, British and all such people who go around to colonize the world would ever have a sound sleep in night with the realization of murder and uprooting of so many people across the globe for their insatiable greed of possession (Watch movies such as Blessed by Fire and Salt of this Sea and you will know what I mean)! They may celebrate the victory of killing Osama bin Laden today. But then isn’t it a picture half-shown as we all know who created Osama in first place? Back home in India, how do we deal with the issues of Kashmir and Naxalism? Did it not all start with the greed of possession by an external entity of homes (and in some cases, the very right to exist) that belonged to someone else?

I was reading “Don’t Urbanize me - Focus section” of Sunday Hindustan Times (01, May, 2011) and realized that saving one’s home may be extremely close and personal but at times that doesn’t really matter. What matter is where does the power lie.

Not very far from the reaches of the mega city of Mumbai, live a handful of villagers (well yes, villagers in true sense) in Vasai who are poignantly fighting the system against the proposed “development”. What kind of thoughts pop up in your head? Don’t they appear like nuts? They will be offered huge value for their land and a nice flat to live in. And they say they don’t want it!! Such crazy maniacs always create roadblocks in the pace of development, right? Wrong! Coz when you hear what they have to say about development, you will realize, they understand its meaning, in true sense. Development is not about taller buildings, hospitals that may exist only for name sake, schools that may not have adequate resources (human as well as infrastructural) and roads with more potholes than the vehicles on it. And it’s certainly not snatching away someone’s right to choose a profession and a style of life, in the name of it all. Development simply means a stage of growth or advancement, in any area one chooses to do so. And if the people from Vasai have chosen to develop in the area of agriculture, they have every right to this choice. More so, when the land in question is extremely fertile and very good for agricultural advancement. As far as the other development parameters such as Education, Health, etc go, they have it enough. And Happiness, the one parameter that most of us ignore, they have in abundance, in the lifestyle they have chosen for themselves. As Peter Dias, former Sarpanch of Mulgaon Village from the regions puts it, “Help us strengthen our agricultural economy and save our green cover, and we will show you that we want development too.” And when he says this, it makes more sense because he has headed a village which has won the district level competition for its quality agricultural produce in 1995.

The meaning which we attach to development is very relative. We need to understand that we all are different people and we all have different needs. The most ethical way to survive is to respect everyone’s individuality and not to encroach in other’s personal premises without their consent. Here, the people Vasai are in effort to save their villages’ individuality and identity from the encroachment of the political goons, corporations and builder lobbyists. I am not very sure for how long will they be able to survive this tussle, but I pray that they not only survive but win. Because if they don’t, it will be another sign of human moral degradation. And we, the people who are aware of their plight are to support them, coz if we don’t and they lose, we are destined to lose our wars too, sooner or later.

While I move towards the closure of this piece, I realize that saving one’s home is not just a personal fight. We need to support them in their endeavor, coz tomorrow it may be us on the other side and if we choose to remain indifferent today, others may choose the same tomorrow.

(Photographs used in the title image are from Vasai and are taken from - the sage , Harini Calamur, Serenity on Flickr)

The last kiss

2011-04-13T10:06:00.000-07:00

That was the most painful kiss may be.

Sitting on the verge of their final separation, and as far as they could on the sofa in drawing room, Rajesh and Yamini were feeling pretty awkward after that kiss. He just wanted to say goodbye and move out of the house. But he had gotten up, bent down to reach her cheeks and had planted a gentle kiss. Then, he stayed there, just like that for a while. So did she. In those few seconds, they had travelled beyond the pain of their divorce and unending days and nights of differences and quarrels, to the days they were in love with each other and a kiss just meant a medium to convey that love. In these few seconds, they were hit by the fact that a kiss between them no more conveys the same meaning as it did in those years. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how we start. What remains with us, most of the times, is the way we end it. And these moments of finality of their relationship were going to haunt their lives for longer than they had imagined. In their quest of lost individuality, what they realized had lost was, the beauty of their togetherness. The same togetherness which was, once upon a time, beautified by their individuality.

Sitting silently on the opposite corners of the sofa, they wondered for the most appropriate action, or words, or whatever that could help them get out of the awkwardness of this moment. Finally, she broke the silence, “Do you remember our first kiss,” she paused and then with some hesitation pronounced his name, “… Rajesh.”

He wanted to say ‘yes’. But then he also didn’t wish to lie. Not now at least. But then saying ‘no’ wouldn’t have been very rude? He didn’t wish to insult her emotions. Not now at least. So he just smiled, looking down on his shoes. Then he continued the same smile towards her. They looked into each others’ eyes, or did they try to do so… tried so hard that it appeared as if they really did? Dilemma is not a good thing, not in such moments. He got up and said, “I think I should leave now,” and looked around the house. “Let me know if you need any help. I shall be in the city for some more days. Then I will be moving to…”

“Let it be Rajesh. I would not want to know.” Oh fuck! Why did I say that? It was so bloody rude. How does it matter if I know where will he be going? But I can’t ask him now. Can I? She wondered. He was already at his door by now, with his last batch of baggage.

“Well then. Wish you good luck,” he said.

“Yeah. You too.” She looked up, confidently and impatiently this time. Just before he was about to turn and open the door, she ran up to him, pulled her heels up to reach up to his face, and kissed him on his lips. Hard. Near passionate. And desperate. With certain ferocity, as if she wanted to recreate the magic of their first kiss. But then she realized it was of no use. She pulled her heels down and said, “Goo…” stopped for a second and then continued to finish, “bye, Rajesh.” They tried to respond to each other with a smile but couldn’t stretch their lips much. Probably they were sealed by that last kiss. He stepped out of house and shut the door softly. They never got to know, but both had stayed behind the closed door for a while. He - waiting for her, to open it again and check if he was still there. She - waiting for the bell to ring again so that she could open it without any delay. But neither happened.

The city of hills and the sea - III

2011-03-27T04:24:00.000-07:00

After fifteen minutes of “oh, fuck!” wait, I finally halted a rickshaw which had its “For hire” up and jumped inside, “Chembur.”

“Arre… Chembur?”

Before he could say he would not want to go, I almost shouted, “Yes! And don’t say you too won’t go ‘coz your meter was up. And I am already late, thanks to many of your friends. I have to reach there in another 30 minutes so…” I just trailed off as he had pulled the rickshaw forward, half heartedly though. But it didn’t matter to me. I was fumed, first by the extreme heat Bombay is already facing in March (God! What’s gonna happen in May!!!) and then numerous refusals from Rickshaw-wallahs before this guy. So to cool myself a little, I just plugged in my earphones.

We had hardly gone a few meters ahead that we faced a traffic jam. The F-word reappeared in my mind but I just held it back before it could have got itself pronounced as I realized the driver was saying something. I pulled off the earphone from my right ear and asked, “What?”

He was saying something in Marathi, but my questioning in Hindi probably compelled him to translate it in Hindi, “Nothing Bhai. These traffic jams I say. See, in this afternoon also!!” He looked up at me from the rear view mirror.

“Yeah,” I said just to acknowledge the discussion but in a toneless manner to avoid any further chitchat. But it appeared as if he had forgotten my rash behavior exhibited few minutes back. So he continued, “I tell you bhai, half of these people don’t know how to drive. And more so if a Ladies is driving. “See. Why did she have to pull her car in the wrong direction?” he hinted to a lady driver to prove his point.

I nodded and realizing that now this was gonna go on forever till I reach Chembur, I plugged my phone in again but with reduced volume so that I could also hear what this fellow was yapping on. I didn’t want him to feel bad. After all he was the guy who saved me from the roadside frustration.

As soon as we reached Amar Mahal, he said, “Bhai, these people have dug up entire Mumbai. They will make something one year and will break and redo it the next year. It seems they are never satisfied with what they make… You see, they are now making a monorail here. God knows, from where to where will they connect…. I tell you bhai, Mumbai city has something about it…. Anyone who comes here never leaves… It’s not like bhai that they want to... but it’s like they just can’t… there’s something I tell you.”

By now I was all cool and didn’t mind his disconnected viewpoints. I asked him, “Where are you from?”

“Bhai, I am from here only.”

“Here means?”

“Sangali, bhai. In Maharshtra Only.”

“Yeah, I know.” I felt certain discomfort. Probably because I wasn’t expecting him to be from where he was.

“Where are you from, bhai?” My discomfort heightened a bit.

“Well I live here only, in Chembur.”

“No no. I mean where your village is?”

“Well I am from here only,” I looked away. I had lied. And probably he had guessed.

“No no, bhai I mean your parents, where are they from. ‘Coz you see, in Mumbai, everyone comes from somewhere at some point of time.”

“Well yeah, my parents… they are from U.P.”

He smiled in the rearview mirror. I am not sure what did he smiled at. Of an answer he was a little too sure ‘coz I didn’t speak Marathi to him? Of my being so stupid to try faking my place of origin? Of realizing that despite he was serving me, he had sensed a feeling of fear in me, and that gave a sense of pride to him? I don’t know. May be it was just a reasonless response. I don’t know. But I hated his smile in that moment. I looked away. And before he could initiate any further discussion, I took out my phone and dialed a random friend to have a very random discussion. I just ensured I did that in English, as most of the upper class Bombayites do, and it did continue till I reach my destination.

When I walked off the Rickshaw I felt weak and sad.

“Why? Why did I have to do it? Did I feel guilty of belonging to UP?

I tried answering my own questions in a reflection later. Where do I belong to? I don’t belong here, because I am not born here, even though I have kinda spoiled my Hindi, which is so Bombay-ized now that my parents sadly point it out when I talk to them. But I don’t even belong to my place of birth any more, because I don’t speak their language the same way as they do. I feel same alienation there, which at times I feel here, in such situations. Neither do I belong to any of the cities I have spent considerable time of my life throughout my education career. This un-belonged existence at times creates chaos within. And a mind smoked out with such chaos may force you toward deceit, big or small. But then I need to clear this chaos, ones and for all. I need to know… I need to know which place I belong to so that tomorrow I don’t feel awkward in such situations.

But then how do I define my place of belonging? On the merit of it being the place where my mom chose to give birth to me? Or my dad chose me to school at? Or the place I chose to study and work? All these places I have lived have contributed to my being, but do I belong to any of them? In this bedazzlement I realize, we don’t belong to places. Rather, they belong to us.

The concept of belonging would have been more appropriate in times when people spent their entire existence in just one place. Not any more. Today, we don’t travel around; we live around. The places we live around are defined by the way we live there; and not vice versa.

I cannot belong to here, or for that matter, anywhere in the world. The only thing that will belong to this place is my minuscule and unnoticeable contribution in characterizing this city, as what it will be known in days and years to come. I may not live here, tomorrow. But this city will live within me in the form of certain formations and reformations I have underwent in all these years I have spent here. And the only belongings with me from this city and all the cities I will have lived in will be… memories.

Why Education?

2011-03-08T20:50:00.000-08:00

How well do we understand a system that we have been part of, for a good part of our life? And if asked, what is the purpose of this system, how many of us would be able to confidently answer?

Unfortunately many of us would not be able to answer in affirmative. And no one is to blame. It’s the way we have been conditioned in those 15+years. A conditioning that has gone deep into our DNA and have become our thought process. And with such conditioning, if someone says that purpose of education is to become competitive or attain fame, one must not be shocked.

At the outset, let it be known that Education is not same as literacy. It is also not about schooling. Our current education system has been beautifully analogized by Sir Ken Robinson, educationist, in one of his speeches. He says, “We have to go from what is today an industrial model of education, which is based on linearity and conformity... We have to move to model which is based on the principles of agriculture. We have to recognize, that human flourishing is not a mechanical process... it is an organic process. You can not predict the outcome of human development... all you can do is, like a farmer, create the conditions on which they will flourish.”

Elaborating this thought further, we do not expect a tomato seed to become an onion plant; neither have we expected a sugarcane farm to provide us with rice. Rather we provide them with adequate conditions to grow and become what they are. Then why do we become so harsh with our own children that we ignore who they are and start expecting from them to become what we would want them to be? Ponder over.

Human beings are characterized by one or few basic talents, which we can call the core. Rest all is auxiliary. If we focus on the development of the core of a child, we automatically meet up with the auxiliaries, as they are nothing but just a by-product of the successful implementation of the core talent. And that’s what the real purpose of education is – to assist in identification and further develop the natural talent of a child, thus, leading to the enablement of his/her rational, logical and emotional quotient. Education should be such that it enables a child to be able to express his/her idea and apply his/her knowledge. Rest would all be a byproduct of this process; be it the profession a child would choose or the success that shall follow.

So if this makes sense, from where do we begin? Though the idea is cool, achieving it would be a gigantic task, especially when looked from outside the system. So first step would be to enter the system without a boxed mindset, ready to explore and innovate. As Sir Robinson rightly says, “It doesn’t need evolution. It needs revolution.”

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References:
http://sirkenrobinson.com,
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html

Corrections

2010-12-31T08:18:00.000-08:00

Note: This story contains some adult (A) content. Please read further only if you are eligible. Thank you.
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She held his hands out just before he was about to move it inside her panties. She knew where he was leading to… she had known it from all the previous encounters, not with him but many men she had been with. And to all those men she did exactly the same. When they were ready… almost ready to get in, she would hold them on. Just there. And would run out of bed, at times apologizing and other times just lost; leaving all those men either amused or angry and bewildered. Tonight she did that again. She had just ran out of Rajesh’ bed and was dressing herself up when he asked, “What’s this? And why?”

“No reasons. I need to go home. Urgently…”

“But why? You said you will be staying here tonight!”

“Yes... I know I said that. But I also know that I need to go from here... right now.”

“But its 11:30 in night and it’s pretty late for you to leave... and I’m not letting you go anywhere. If you are scared...”

She cut him down, “I am not scared, for god’s sake! I just want to go home.”

“This is crazy! If you want me not to touch you, that fine. You can sleep in the other room. I won’t do anything… I really...”

“I am ready,” she just had buttoned her shirt, “you mind opening the door for me?”

“But it’s too late! It’s so damn late!!! You won’t get any transport!!”

“I can hear rickshaws outside… I guess that won’t be a problem,” she looked at him, “please.”

“But why? What happened? I don’t understand this.”

“You don’t have to understand anything, Rajesh. Just let me go, please.”

She ran out of his room, towards the main door. He came running after her, “please!! It’s pretty late. It’s not safe!”

“If you keep me engaged in further conversation, it’s gonna be further late,” she looked stone-faced at him, “open the door, please.”

“I am not letting you go anywhere, at this hour. You sleep in the other room. And you can go in the morning at whatever time you want.”

“That’s not happening Rajesh. I have to go now. I NEED to go now…,” she paused, “I WILL go now, Rajesh. Please open the door.”

“All right!” he gave up, went back to his room, put his pants on and got the keys. Down the stairs, he started his bike.

“You don’t have to drop me anywhere, Rajesh. I will get a rickshaw.”

He had already started the engine. “Sit on.”

She quietly sat on the back seat. When he moved the vehicle on she said, “I am sorry if it hurts you... In fact I know it does hurt you. And I am really sorry.” He didn’t respond. He drove her to her home. When she got off the bike, she only said, “Thank you. And sorry.” Before he could respond, she had already moved into her building.

When he reached home, he texted her, “tis’ crazy. If thr ws smthng wrong, u cd have told me. Bt tis is damn crazy!”

She clicked on the reply button, then waited for a moment to pass, and typed in, “Sry. U’r a sweet guy. Gn.”

“What is it?” she thought, “Why do I do it - with all those men lying next to me in their bed; naked and high on their testosterones… and most of them pretty sweet to me? What is it?”

***

Next morning Nalini was sitting a psychologist’s clinic. The nameplate read – Dr. Mitali Thakkar.

“I need answers. Answers to my own behavior. Because I don’t do it to them by choice. I mean though I do it by choice in that moment, I really don’t know if I want it that way in the entirety of the situation,” she paused and looked up at the doctor, “I am not sure if you are capable of providing me with it. But I want you to try. I want to try.”

“All right. Go on.”

Then she narrated some of her experiences, some in their exactness, some roughly because she would not remember them in precision.

“What do you think when you take that decision?”

“Decision of what?”

“Of running out of someone’s bed.”

“I don’t think of anything. It just happens.”

“Okay. Tell me something about your past.”
“What about my past?”

“Something… anything… like where have you lived… who all you had in your family… what were your relationships like…”

“I don’t find it relevant.”

“Leave it for me to decide, please?”

Nalini suddenly got up, “I don’t think it will help. How much and where am I suppose to pay?”

“You need help Nalini. And we can solve it together for you.”

“Where should I pay?”

Mitali looked up and sighed, “You may please meet the receptionist.”

“Thank you.”

In the train back home, Nalini tried to recall the child’s face from that night. But she couldn’t. She could only visualize the dark room and a girl, all of nine, sitting on her bed, sobbing badly but silently, in an effortful manner. She could just imagine how her face would have looked. Our memories contain mostly the actions we take in response to the situations we are thrown up in. Our own expressions are just felt and not seen as we don’t live in front of mirrors all the time.

When she reached home, she unlocked the door, went straight to her bed, covered her face in the pillow and wept. It was almost midnight when she woke up. While she was walking to the washroom, that night flashed up again.

She had just woken up in midnight to go to washroom. She had heard a moan from her sister’s room. She softly walked to her room and from the keyhole she saw her, caught under her brother-in-law, naked and in pain. When he forced himself inside her she exhaled loudly. To Nalini it appeared as a painful cry. She had run back to her room, petrified and indecisive. She had spent that night sitting stiffly in her room. Next morning she was told that Shalini had killed herself. But she knew it wasn’t a suicide but a murder.

***

Next day she was sitting in the Dr. Mitali’s clinic again.

“Are you scared Nalini?” asked Mitali once she was narrated with the account of Nalini’s childhood experience.

“Scared of what?”

“Of being fucked?”

“I don’t know.”

“It doesn’t kill, Nalini. It didn’t kill your sister for sure. If that’s what is bothering you, you need to know what exactly killed her. Find out what killed her. But don’t kill your existence with your assumptions… your assumed experience. We need corrections in our experiences, all the time, Nalini. Our past should never decide who we are going to be in future. It’s our present that should play this role. Correct it now.”

Sometimes we are so badly trapped in our past that we don’t realize it’s not our behavior but just a response to an event from the past that we are living with. Many times such a response or a series of responses gives an impression of our personality. However we actually don’t be that person. This leads to a dichotomous life. And to move out from this dichotomy, we need to go back to the same past... to break free from that moment … in order to live a life as our real personality would define and not the responses from the past.

While leaving from the clinic, Nalini remembered only one thing from the discussion, “Find out what killed her.”

It’s one thing to know what is right. And quite another to do the right thing, more so in its exactness. What if he actually killed her? What if he killed her and still lies to me? And what if he really didn’t kill her?

How does one suddenly negate something that was believed to be true for so many years? How does one forget and forgive so easily when all these years were filled with extreme hatred? If we realize it’s our mistake, at times, it’s still easy to forgive the second person, but not so easy to forgive ourselves for the grudge we hold falsely against that person. Sometimes we are not so much concerned about letting go our ego or shredding off our beliefs as we are about the way we would behave when done in presence of someone else. And it’s a huge decision to make when you have to choose between the past on which you base your existence and the future you wish to have for yourself. But at the end of the day we always realize that hatred for whatever reason is not as much a punishment for the offender as it is for the imposer.

***

When she rang the doorbell, a lady in her forties opened the door, “Does Mr. Sandeep Goel lives here?”

“Yes, he does. May I know who are you please?”

“I am Nalini. Nalini Mehrotra,” she hesitated in elaborating her introduction but then looking at the lady’s puzzled face, she said, “I am Shalini’s… Mr. Goel’s ex wife’s… sister.”

“Oh!” exclaimed the lady, “please come in.” She went inside the bedroom. After sometime, Sandeep came out. When they looked at each other, there wasn’t a sense of recognition. It was like they were meeting as strangers.

Post lunch Sandeep suggested to go for a walk. He asked Nalini to come along. Once on the road, she asked, “Why? And how?”

“I know you always believed that I killed her. But that’s not true,” he paused, “not entirely… and not technically, for sure.”

“What had happened that night?”

“Your sister was always very possessive about me... about everything. And this behavior of hers had started straining our relationship. But since I knew she was madly in love with me and so was I with her, we would always make up. However our fights kept on increasing. And to avoid them I started spending more time in office where I met Nisha. She would listen to my problems and slowly we grew into friends. That night when we were making love my phone beeped for a message. I ignored. But Shalini couldn’t. This I learnt later when Nisha informed me the next day that she had received a message from my cell saying, ‘Bitch. So that’s you. You wanna have him? Have him forever.’ The next morning we found Shalini dead in the bathroom. She didn’t give me even a chance to explain. I was…”

Nalini was lost. She didn’t care to listen beyond this. For her the story was over. She got up and started walking. Sandeep walked fast to catch up with her. Once close enough, he said, “I loved her too, Nalini.”

Nalini turned back, looked at him for a moment and said, “I am sure you did.” She will-ed out a smile for him, a smile that said, “I don’t hate you… not anymore. I forgive you… to forgive myself,” and turned back. She walked few steps forward, turned again and said, “I am sorry.” When she walked on, she felt clean.

A suicide’s soliloquy

2010-11-16T03:14:00.000-08:00

“What would have been a better way to die? With… or without that kiss?” He thought and smiled. He knew his answer. He looked at the smuggled blade and a packet of rat poison that he had received in exchange of some loose cash from the night security guard. He thought of that evening.

***

He walked in his empty room, with a heart full of shit. Standing few steps in, he looked around. Everything appeared to be in big mess. Some used plates were lying on the couch which was just about to break. The bed was undone as if someone had just left after a wild sexual encounter. Some books and CDs were thrown on the floor by the side of an open laptop. A half-filled beer bottle was kept on the other side of the bed along with a used glass.

He took a deep breath and jumped onto the bed and turned to the window. It was a full-moon night and the moon was hanging bright in the sky between the high-rise buildings on the other side of the road. His face bore no expression, only a hint of a smile that was not sure of its existence and so was not able to exhibit itself completely.

He said, “At 29, suicide is not a great idea. But is definitely one of those ideas that linger around in my mind. No.. no.. Its not like as if I am frustrated of life or something. It’s just that… life is cool, but there’s something is missing… I don’t know what it is… but I can feel it.”

“The purpose, you mean?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

He was responded with an ‘A ha’.

He continued, “At 29, I don’t know where this life is headed towards. I don’t know if the past years were worth the expense they incurred, whether they made sense to me or to anybody in this world. I don’t know whether I am lost or confused… or just going through that phase, called ‘Quarter Life Crisis’. You know how it is. Your family says you are grown up, so you may have to chuck those things which you have been enjoying till now. You are made aware of responsibilities, of which you just had a hint till now. Your buddies, whom you took for granted, are getting married and owning up to those same responsibilities, which you are reluctant to own up to, and they tell you, “Dude, everyone has to grow up and be responsible towards life at some point of time.” And this they say with a nice, big smile on their face. You feel as if you are the most irresponsible person around. You are shocked because these are the same people, with whom you had dreamt a really carefree and INDEPENDENT way of life.

“Independence. It’s a nice word. Someone has said, ‘You are born free, but everywhere you are in chains.’ It appears true now. If am at work, I am told - you are free to do it your way, just ensure that it falls within company policies, doesn’t shock people (most of them don’t appreciate the shock they receive from the originality of an idea) and is liked by your boss. I feel like saying, ‘Fuck you and the freedom you offer!’

“With family, am constantly being reminded, ‘You are no more a kid. You need to take care of your aging parents. Also, you have to be a little responsible to your siblings and their families, and families of their families and so on. You need to learn to be a little social. We don’t mean to debar you from your independence but you will be married soon, so start being a little social.’ And by being ‘being social’ they mean, I should start attending marriage of my cousins where I just don’t find a connect, being in family prayer ceremonies where I just can’t relate with god, initiate and hold a conversation to relatives I just don’t relate with, and so on. Here again, I feel like shouting, ‘Get lost! Let me be alone!’

“And then, your own personal life. You have a girl who will calls you or messages you not for the reason that she wanted to do just that but she wanted to get a response in return. She will make a call and will have nothing to talk about, except a pile of expectations from you to keep talking, even if you are coming back from a hectic day. And if you don’t she will ensure to screw up your evening or night, whatever the time be, by numerous such things as – You don’t care for me, you don’t really love me, you don’t do this and you don’t do that, blah, blah, blah blah! (In some cases, it’s just opposite where some guys do that to their gals). Well, this is still better than not having a girl at all for some because in that case, people around will ensure you are either tagged to be impotent or a gay. But fuck those people; I broke up with my gal last week.”

He looked up at the fan. He was smiling, but smile itself couldn’t feel its existence on his face.

“And with all that, you have your dreams; dreams of doing something big, something grand in life. And you feel and you see that big, grand dream just resting mere as a dream, going nowhere from nowhere. Every morning, you wake up with this thought, today is the day. And every night you sleep with the thought, tomorrow I will fix everything. And with each day passing, everything remains unfixed.”

“So with this unfixed life, I check out for options,” he stretched his hands on both sides, “And that’s where this option of terminating it here, with some unfulfilled dreams, but my independence still in my control, appears in my mind. As a child, I always thought suicide is a coward’s behavior. But today, I have a different opinion. It’s not like that. Sometimes, you don’t have to be frustrated or exhausted with life to end it. At times the pointlessness of its existence is enough. And you know what, with this reason, you don’t really feel sad when you decide to end it. In fact, feelings seize to exist. And in such situation, what can be better than being responsible to your own life and its termination?”

After this long speech, he was still responded with an ‘A ha’.

He smiled and told his mind, “If you have nothing better to offer, you have the option of keeping your trap shut rather than irritating me with your ‘A ha’s’.”

He walked into the kitchen and looked around. There was a knife on the self and rat’s poison in the drawer below. “The knife or the rat’s poison,” he laughed aloud, “If I choose any one today that will be my last INDEPENDENT choice!”

But he didn’t choose any. He walked out of the kitchen, put on a pair of jeans, a loose T-Shirt and a pair of floaters and walked out of the room. He avoided the lift as it would have posed a chance for him to face some other human beings that he happily wanted to avoid. So he walked down the stairs. Out of his building was a smaller garden in the compound. Families from the buildings would come post dinner would come down, all with different intentions – some for quite walks, some to hang around and yet some others to do their last minute gossips before they would go to bed.

“Why did I come out of kitchen? What was it that held me back? When does life exactly become pointless?” He asked his mind, who then answered, “Everything else, I guess, can be redone, recreated. But when the ability to love dries dead, that’s when the life exactly becomes pointless. Mind it, I mean ‘dead’ and not ‘temporarily ill’.”

“Hmmm…” he gasped and walked up to a bench to sit for some time, quietly. He was a good observer; he could observe people’s behavior for hours. He moved from person to person, from expression to expression, some expressed ones some in an attempt to be hidden. He then stopped at a face. The only thing he had noticed was her smile and next thing realized was him standing in front of her.

“I want to kiss your smile.” He pronounced with authority, standing tall in front of her.

She looked up. The smiled started diminishing.

“No… no… don’t kill that smile. That makes you the most beautiful girl I have ever seen…,” before he could finish, she busted into a grand laughter. When the sound of the laughter fizzled into the evening air, she let the smile remain on her face and asked him, “What?”
He repeated himself, “I want to kiss your smile.”

“Here, in this garden, with so many people around?”

“I don’t care.”

Keeping her smile intact, she moved her upper body back, and rested her palms on the ground to support it. She lifted her face up towards the sky, with her eyes closed, and said, “Then go ahead.”

He was about to reach for her lips that she asked, “What if in middle of the kiss I decide to wade off the smile?”

“You will not do that.”

Her smile broadened.

He carefully placed his thick lips on her soft ones… deep… intense… and lost; lost enough to realize that people had already started crowding around them. Children were grinning, young adults were whistling and old people were just shocked. Well, it was not just a guy and girl kissing in middle of a garden; it was a twenty nine years’ old man kissing a girl, a little older than half his age.

The girl pushed the man gently when she heard a harsh voice running towards her. It was her mother who was informed by her neighbor that her daughter was doing this shit in the garden, that too openly. The mother started shouting and crying and gesturing. By now, most of the adults gathered around them. The mother pronounced, “Oh my god, now little children can’t play in a garden. These rapists will not leave any place for us, the civilized people,” and she went on crying. The father and the brother came running; they looked at the mother, then at the girl, the man and the crowd. Then they looked at each other and started beating the man. Other males in the crowd joined.

During all this, one responsible citizen called up the police. He got arrested. In the entire trial he didn’t speak anything. He was charged with an attempt to rape and was pronounced with an imprisonment of 8 years.

***

In last three years and some months, the thought of suicide had never appeared in his mind. He was simply amused by the way jails functioned. He experienced a strange sense of freedom when he was jailed, inside a small dirty room with some bizarre co-existers. Last week was the first time, when in all these years, someone had come to see him.

“It took me two years to become legally adult and another one year and few months to trace you,” she told him.

“First part is okay; you couldn’t help but grow up. Second part was not required.”

“I am sorry.”

“This whole part is not required.”

“I will reopen the case and will set you free.”

“Please don’t do that. I am happy here. They give us free food.”

“But…”

“Please…”

They didn’t say a word after that; just looked at each other for some time, without expressions, without any emotion.

“Can you recreate the magic of that smile?” he asked.

“I don’t think so. But I can try.”

“Please don’t. Such things are not created by hit-and-trial. They just appear, at times not to appear again.” After a pause, he said, “you should leave.”

“Okay.”

She had turned and started to move away that something stuck in her mind and she asked, “Do you mind if I come to see you again next week, same day?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay,” she said, turned and walked out of the corridor.

A week had passed, if she would decide, he had to meet her tomorrow. He looked at the blade and the rat poison box again.

He told himself, “That was the last thing I had fallen in love with. It’s no more. She can’t smile that way again. I don’t really care what kinda person she is. I was never in love with her. I loved just that – A face full of smile. That’s gone. And with it went out, my ability to love.” He was sitting on the floor. All other co-existers were sleeping.

“There’s a fine difference between ‘Not able to love’ and ‘not want to love’. The ability to do something can only be known when it is experienced. And you can experience something only if you want to experience it. So my ability to love depends on my desire to love. But to choose not to desire is a way of cowardice or completion, who can know? I guess it’s an individual’s prerogative.” He tried to stretch his legs, but in that attempt he touched upon someone’s head. With a sudden reflex, he pulled his legs back up. He smiled, “Her smile was the last thing with which I fell in love. In these three years, I wasn’t sure if I will ever get to see that. I didn’t know it existed or died. I didn’t think on these lines. And I never fell in love with anything else. But today when I know that it’s gone, I feel as if my memories of that smile are murdered. When I think of it, I see ghosts of the dead smile. And I don’t want to live with ghosts. So I have two options; either I choose to love something new, move on in life with this thing called hope to find new love or I end this quest permanently. I choose the later.” He looked at the blade and the rat poison. He picked both up and cautiously moved to the toilet. After locking the door from inside, he announced to himself, “My last INDEPENDENT Choice!”

Next morning he was found dead in the filthy, red toilet. In a corner, a blooded blade and an empty rat poison bottle was found.

The city of hills and the sea - II

2010-09-22T04:05:00.000-07:00

16 Jyotsna

My experiences with Mumbai are always analyzed and debated upon with self, sitting in that narrow kitchen window of my apartment; we now famously call as 16 Jyotsna.

This address is now so famous that restaurants in my area don’t need to know beyond ’16 Jyotsna’ to send the order. Parcel boys happily deliver the order, ever since Anooj has taught me to tip them adequately (and deservingly – you have to see to feel the importance of these boys, specially when it rains heavily and still they deliver the parcel, all drenched in the rain), though we still debate whether tipping off waiters/parcel boys is a bribe or not.

16 Jyotsna is an one-BHK apartment (as per Mumbai’s standards of carpet space, I can firmly say its luxuriously spacious) and is an abode to four young (well if you still consider 25+ to be young age, otherwise my next argument would be - we are young at heart) bachelors. However this experience is not about my apartment or its residents. It’s about people (endless in number and excitingly varied in behavior) who ring, and at times bang, our doorbell.

That evening had a story-like setting. Saturday Evening, drizzles pouring down in their ever changing frequency, and I was alone at home (My being at home on a weekend is a rarity and to be all by self rarer still). Extending my afternoon nap into a full-fledged sleep, I was still lying in my bed, with all lights off, looking out of the window to already fading sunlight to go off completely. Such evenings at 16 Jyotsna are utilized by me to make those long, weekend phone calls to my beloved family members scattered all across the country, with adequate, lazy sleep intervals between calls. That evening, I had just finished the call with Maa and was informed that she was taken to a doctor for her re-aggravated knee problem.

“Sometimes it feels sad that despite all the love you may hold for your parents, you can actually not do much, nothing beyond sending them a few gifts once in a while. In my heart, I thanked my cousins who are there with my parents to help them out in such situations.” With these thoughts, I was tossing in bed that the doorbell rang. Replying to hundreds (Ok, that’s exaggeration!) of courier boys and bill collectors through out the day, I was already fed up answering the bell, “Not now, yaar!!” I told myself, but had to drag my feet to the door when the bell rang again.

There was this old lady standing behind the bars of my grill, looking caged, not by the grills but her own world of worries. She was carrying few papers in her right hand and some currency notes, peeping out of her left. When I opened the grills, she felt assured that I was ready to listen and so she said, “I need help.” Then there was a silence for almost thirty seconds before I said, “how?”

“My husband is hospitalized in Rajawadi. Doctor says I need to buy these medicines,” she extended the medical transcripts to me, “as soon as possible. I don’t have sufficient money. Please help.”

No pretense. No blessings. No formalities of begging. In midst of Ganesh Pooja season, the biggest religio-cultural extravaganza of Mumbai, which mostly operates on the money collected as “Chanda” from its residents and donations received from various legal/illegal funds, there was this old lady at my door, trying to collect some Chanda for herself, and not the almighty lord. In such situations how do I decide whether her case was genuine or she was just another thug who had mastered her art so well that it appeared real? I gave her a second, long stare and then asked few routine questions to appear inquiring about the case in detail. She informed me that she had almost visited over 100 households since afternoon and could arrange for Rs. 850. The total cost of medicine was approx. Rs. 1500. She had almost Rs. 500 with her self. So she needed nearly Rs. 150. Not a great amount when you book a Multiplex ticket, but when it has to go as pure alms, that too when you are not sure of the worthiness of the recipient, it appears too much. I wasn’t sure what to do. I took almost 5 minutes and over 100 intense facial examinations to decide that I have to pay. Now the question was, how much? I asked her to wait there and returned to my room, looking into my wallet I calculated –

Assuming that every word she tells me is true, I need to consider following points –

She is going around since afternoon, which means almost six hours by now.
She has covered almost 100 households and has got 850 bucks. So she has to visit at least 20 more houses to garner remaining Rs 150.
Looking at her, she must be over 50 years of age and in the vicinity, all buildings have at least 3-4 floors. If she is climbing up and down in all these buildings at her age to get this money, can I believe that her problem is genuine?

I recalled, Maa had once told me that she would only visit me in Mumbai when I change my residence since it’s very problematic for her to climb up to the third floor. And with this thought, all efforts towards reasoning vanished. I pulled out two hundred rupee notes and gave it to her. I tried to smile at her but since it was not coming out naturally, I scrapped the attempt. Just when I was about to close my door, she took out a fifty rupee note from the bag she kept my money in, and extended towards me, “Son, I need only 150 rupees. That would suffice. Thank you.”

I didn’t say anything and closed my door. I stood there, behind the closed door for a while, with guilt and shame. I could hear the loud bolloywood-ised prayers for lord Ganesh flowing out from a distant speaker. I recalled a similar evening from the recent past.

There were 4-5 teens standing in front of me, the tallest, and probably the oldest, with a checkbook and shortest and youngest with a miniature of Ganesh. I gave them a questioning look to which the tallest guy replied, “We are from Navyuvak Ganesh Pooja Mandili. Like every year, this year also we are organizing Ganesh Pooja in this society. We are here to collect funds from all residents.”

“But I don’t come for Pooja.”

“You can always come. It’s in your area. You should come. After all, almost every resident on this road, and even some from road no. 3 have given us funds,” he paused for a while to study if there was any change in my behavioral expression but found none, so continued his list of justifications, “moreover, we don’t just take money from you. We also give you receipt. So it’s very authentic. See!” He forwarded his receipt book towards me. I gestured that I am not interested in that book. This time the kid with Ganesh idol tried his luck, “You see sir, if you don’t support us, how we will be able to celebrate this festival which is for no one but the lord Ganesh? If we don’t do, the lord will be angry upon the residents of this area.” And then all of them went on with some of the other reason.

I smiled at the pursuance of this group, went inside and took out a Rs. 50 note from my wallet. When I handed the note to them, there was grimace on their faces. Something they wanted to say, but couldn’t. Finally they took the buck from me and wrote a receipt. While handing it over to me the tallest guy informed, “No one gives such fewer amounts. We generally do not take less than Rs. 101. Anyway, come and collect your Prasad for sure.” A few days later, while returning from work, I saw some of those teens, all drunk, dancing to the tunes of modernized Aartis.

Sitting in my kitchen window, I am still trying to figure out, “What decides the genuineness? The receipt or refund?”

Naxalism = A robin-hood-ish desire to equalize “classes” or a clear case of in-house terrorism?

2010-08-21T19:47:00.000-07:00

My morning newspaper reported that Indian Central government is considering various plans for multidimensional operations in all affected states. While reading the news in auto rickshaw, I exhaled with “Fuck Naxalites”.

“Wo log yaha bhi aa rahe hai saab. Bahut jaldi, (they are coming here too, sir. Very soon),” my auto rickshaw driver informed me. In the rear-view mirror, I could only see his eyes. I could see certain confidence… certain surety in those eyes. It scared me and that scariness filled my heart with an instant hatred for him. I wanted to shout back with thousand questions aimed at his understanding on the subject but then decided against it. My only expression in disapproval of his surety was to be rude to him while paying my rickshaw fare.

However, his statement remained in my mind. When I got back home, I Googled “Naxalites” and was led to a wikipage. I was intrigued by its history. Something that started as early as in 1967 has no solution as yet. But then I laugh at myself by the realization that Kashmir issue had started in 1947, and by now we have just adjusted ourselves to live with its horrors, and terrorist events which offshoots from there, in and around our livelihoods.

A movement that started off to omit class-divide it India, or at least voice against it, is now creating more divides than ever and guess what, it has its origin to Communist Party of China (read Maoist), which in itself is originated from the ideas of Marx and Lenin! I am sure China could never use a weapon better than this ‘ideology’ against India. By the way, I must admit the kinda language used on wiki to describe their ideologies is exceptionally out-of-the-world; I had to read and reread entire article at least four times. I wonder, how they explain these high-funda concepts to those illiterate “lower class fighters”! Or do they care to explain anything?

Probably they had a reason to revolt. Probably they were oppressed for so long that they couldn’t take any more. Probably they contained their anger long enough to be contained any more. But probably, they were simply used for some personal and/or political mileage? Who knows?

It is sad to note that this movement started in West Bengal, a state that I and most of my fellow Indians regarded as the state of Intellectuals. The wikipage also has a map which shows various states being or about to be affected by this movement which tells me that the targeted districts includes few from Maharashtra and Eastern U.P.; former my place of residence, later my parents’. It would be interesting to know if Mr. Raj Thackeray has any plan to stop these “outsiders” from infiltrating into Maharashtra, because I am sure the U.P. government has none; she is busy making elephant idols.

Standing in middle of these racing thought-horses at midnight, I feel sorry for the kids from rural areas and Adivasi region where I teach conversational English with some of my colleagues. I wondered with my eyes wide and blank, “This is what we have in future for them?” Then, I smiled to myself, “at least they will be ‘English Speaking’ Naxalites who will be able to read wiki to understand the ideology they will subscribe to.”

P.S.: Two movies on this subject I came across:
1) “Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi” that you may like watching – well made, well acted and with beautiful music.
2) “Red Alert” that you may conveniently avoid – simply, a bad movie.

The city of hills and the sea – I

2010-07-25T01:17:00.000-07:00

Weaklings?

It was raining heavily and to board an overcrowded bus on Andheri-Asalpha-Ghatkopar route was a task in itself. But somehow I could get into and secure a place to stand in the corner, not very comfortably though. I plugged my earphones in and played “Mora Piya mose bolat nahi” in my cell phone. In few seconds I forgot that there were people overhauling at me, that there was bad odor all around, that I was half-rain-soaked, and that I had to buy a ticket for myself. I guess that’s how we adapt to in Mumbai; we stop caring about these small, small things in life in an attempt to identify the big picture. But many a times we end up living a life whose meaning either we don’t understand or we shrug off the desire to understand. Am not sure, which of these applies to me or whether it does apply at all but at an hour like that, I didn’t care to think about any such matter. So I started humming the song and turned my head from left to right, looking at people around me (I love watching people, their expressions – and expressionlessness and their behavior). In the midst of many faces, what I saw was a “situation”. There was this big man holding a boy, sitting at the window seat, by his collar and was shaking him left, right and center. I tried to make sense out of it, but it was a foolish attempt; one can’t make sense out of such situations.

I looked around. There were some people who were standing to observe the situation, and JUST observe! And still there were some, who didn’t care to observe and were involved in their routine of the bus travel, including the conductor, who was ignorantly issuing tickets to other passengers. Guess we all live by this thing called Routine. At times I wonder whether it was the “spirit of Mumbai” that encourages people to resume their routine even just an hour after a bomb is blasted or this compulsive addiction to their routines!

“What to do? What to do? What to do?” my mind raced, “Why everyone is so indifferent to this? Is not-to-react the most right way to react? Why no one is asking ‘what has happened’?” There were so many ‘What’s and ‘Why’s but no answers seen. And then I realized, “why am I expecting from others? What am I doing to this?” Almost fifteen minutes had passed since I had seen this situation out there and I was still standing at my secured position.

“Why? Isn’t it the most practical thing to do? After all that’s not my problem so why the hell should I get into it? He is a big guy. What if he bashes me too? That may intensify the situation, so why not chuck it? And the boy being beaten up should be courageous enough to stand up and bash back this hooligan. He should stand up for himself. That’s what this city is all about right, to stand for your own cause? I don’t know what this city is all about. All I know is that I don’t want to get into it. My bus stop will arrive in sometime and I will go home and sleep. I am already tired of the day’s work and don’t wish to take anything more,” with this I lowered myself to look out of the window and told myself, “Another ten minutes and my stop will arrive. I better move towards the exit.” On the way to the front exit, something stuck within me. I just stopped at the site of this situation, as if my standing there alone will stop that bastard from bullying the boy. But I couldn’t stand there for long because it had no effect on him and I couldn’t take my own cowardice to speak up against something I truly believed was wrong. I moved two steps further, then thought, “if not now, then when? If not you, then who?” The faces of children, with whom I interact during my volunteering classes and deliver sessions of truth, bravery and life appeared in my mind. It all appeared hollow in that moment.

I stopped and turned to the guy who was sitting in front of that boy. “What has happened?” I was loud enough to ensure that the buffoon hears me out. Before that man could speak out, he shouted something in Marathi which I didn’t understand. I asked that fellow again. He said, “It seems this kid said something to him... some abuse while boarding the bus and this fellow is beating him since then.”

When I asked that boy to say sorry and end this whole issue, everyone around informed me that he already had. I asked that buffoon, what his problem was then. He said, “A sorry doesn’t work here. And then again started shouting in Marathi.” By that time, people started scolding him.

“Then what matters to you?”

“How much more you gonna beat that kid for whatever he said?”

“Have you not done enough already?”

Meanwhile, my stop had arrived. The bus stopped but I wasn’t sure if I should get down. I wanted this to end before I leave. But then decided against it and almost ran to the door and jumped out of the bus since it had started already.

When the bus passed by me, I didn’t look inside. I wanted to believe that the issue was resolved, that the man must have stopped beating that boy and that if it happened so, I had a role to play. But deep inside my heart, I knew I could have done better, much earlier and more significant. Who is to blame; the practical Mumbaikar (well that’s another debate whether I can call myself a Mumbaikar since neither I nor my parents) inside me or the weakling who dared not to stand for what he believed in, at the right time?

P.S.: To read more on Mumbai, you may please read a series, called encounters with maximum city by Nilay.

A city of hills and the sea

2010-07-24T09:49:00.000-07:00

It has been six years since I arrived in this city. And in all these years my love with city has blossomed exponentially. It’s like the love in a family – that despite knowing the badness of a member, we do not stop loving him or her. Same goes for this city. I talk about the bad roads, the bomb blasts, the political nuisance, the pollution, the population and the chaos but at the end of it all I don’t forget to mention – But this is my sweetheart city.

I am not very sure what is it that I can account my love for; but the extremity with which this city survives is amazing. Be it the slums contrasted to the 5-star hotels or the rich, tall buildings standing next to a series of chawls. Be it the underworld, the political goons and corrupt officials on one side and honest, aware and law abiding citizens on the other. Be it the potholed roads (and even the so called highways) or some nice, memory-stricken lanes in south Mumbai. And of course, a series of hills (which are either being cut down monstrously or being converted into hill towns) and a deep sea that surrounds it from almost three sides!!! Extreme contrasts, that’s what this city is made up of and its rules of survival remain enigmatic for this reason.

To explore my mesmerized self, I plan to write a series of stories. Please note, I don’t say ‘articles’ as I am a compulsive fictionist. However, I will try my best to retain the originality and the essence of situations and the characters. Since this would be compilation of experiences and not incidences, I would prefer to write in first person. And yes, I don’t intend to plan this series. It may come every day, and at times it may not come even for months. Coz, that’s the way I write. And neither will it have fixed number of episodes. It can’t, as my affair with the city is everlasting.

To make this series more comprehensive, I invite you all to share YOUR experiences, the love-hate stories, with this city. Let’s participate for this city of hills and the sea; the city, you and I love!

So here comes the first story of this series, titled as “Weaklings?” Read out and let me know your views. [Will post tomorrow, going for a movie now :)]

The Judgment

2010-07-04T11:46:00.000-07:00

11:46 PM, 12th Feb, 2007

Lt Col. R. K. Rathore, the judge for the case of Captain Vijayendra Singh, was in a serious dilemma. He had handled many cases in his career with severe complexities. But this one was different. Not complex, but just different.

How does one court marshal a soldier who deserves a Vir Charka? What if I make a wrong decision? It has the power to kill the faith this soldier would have in judicial system if he is ‘not guilty but punished’ or spoil the culture of military if he is ‘guilty but not punished’. And moreover it is not the case of right versus wrong; but right against more right. In such case, how does one evaluates and decrees the right degree of punishment?

01:14 AM, 21st Aug, 2006

It was raining heavily in the upper range of Himalayas in Arunanchal Pradesh, near the China (Tibet)-India border. In such opaque rains, it is not expected from both parties to infiltrate, but the greed of power is such that it breaches any such expectations.

Captain Vijayendra Singh was walking in the dense, dark and damp forest with his troupe of three soldiers; all drenched in the rains. After a few rounds of patrolling, they mutually decided that all was pretty okay and they could rest for a while. They sat down, opened the beer bottles and took a sip each. The weather was frigid and the rains had made it worse. They all sensed hunger, almost at the same time. None was carrying anything to eat, except Vijayendra. He smiled and pulled a small packet out. Everyone looked at everyone else, though no one could actually see anyone. The packet contained Cocaine; raw and real. He placed the powder in everyone’s hand and asked them to take a piece of paper, roll it and suck it in. “It will help you beat your appetite and keep you awake,” he said. The troupe followed its captain directive and closed their eyes after the processing was over. They didn’t realize whether it was just a moment or a lifetime that had passed before they opened their eyes after hearing the sound of bullet. They immediately ran to hide behind a safe place and once settled, indentified the direction of the fire. It was north. And it appeared that the enemy was approaching nearer. The troupe looked at Vijayendra, who was trying to connect to the base through wireless, for command. No connection. He looked at his team with a straight face. “Do or die! Farewell, soldiers,” he told them and then directed all in different directions, taking the front position himself. It appeared there were more than fifteen from the enemy troupe. He told himself, “Wo pandrah, hum char? Bahut naainsaafi hai!! (They fifteen, we only four? Not fair!)” and smiled to his untimely and poor sense of humor. After that what followed was firing, and more firing; deaths, and more deaths.

It was the time of dawn in the land of dawn-lit mountains (that is the meaning of ‘Arunachal Pradesh’ in Sanskrit) that Vijayendra realized the firing had stopped. He tried his wireless again and was successful in being connected this time. He briefed his base team about the happenings of the last night, put the wireless off and closed his eyes. He could feel nine bullets in different parts of his body. Suddenly the absence of his troupe struck him. No one was seen around. He tried getting up, but couldn’t. In around two hour’s time, the base team arrived and captured the area. He was taken to army hospital where he was told that his entire troupe, except him, was martyred on the battlefield, killing a total of 23 soldiers and 3 half dead. A proud smiled appeared on his half-woken face.

The next day, newspapers had carried the story of Indian soldiers’ gallantry and had informed that Captain Vijayendra Singh may be honored with Vir Chakra.

03:35 PM, 25th Oct, 2006

The doctor entered in Captain Vijayendra Singh’s room, closed the door behind, and asked him to sign on a few discharge formalities. While Vijayendra was signing the papers, doctor asked, “Did you intake any drug that night?”

Vijayendra looked up and stared at the doctor’s face for a minute, without any response and without any remorse. Sometimes to lie or not to lie becomes a huge decision in itself. But he took his decision and nodded in a “yes”.

“Your reports show that. And so does the postmortem for the other three,” informed the doc.

10:00 AM, 4th Dec, 2006

While the nomination of Captain Singh was in consideration, one of the regiments filed a case of his “drug abuse on duty” in the court marshal. Since then Vijayendra was made inaccessible to public and media, who were informed that the captain had to be admitted again and yet unrecovered.

01:00 AM, 13th Feb, 2007

What is more right? To save one’s country or to not use (or abuse) any drug on duty? The court can offer only legal judgment, but who can deliver a moral judgment on this? In courts, we deal with events and their evidences. They are the only logical blocks to reach a conclusion. How often we consider a ‘circumstance’? He took Cocaine on duty; that’s, for sure, is a crime. But was he not forced into it by the circumstance he was sent into, by the same entity, called duty? Did he do it for the pleasure this drug offered or in response to the immediacy that circumstances created? Who knows? And by the logic of law, possessing the drug by itself is a crime and the person who does, becomes an integral part of illegal drug trafficking. Charges are many, arguments are many and so are counter arguments. The question remains is, whether he was eligible for Vir Charka as he and his troupe of three had killed, with élan, twenty three enemies and got arrested three. The argument is whether he was the veer (brave) who killed the enemies or it was his inflated sense which was stimulated by the drug usage? In a film, for a drunken scene, if an actor takes in a peg and acts, who would know the beauty of the scene is by the efforts of the actor or the drink?

Lt Col. Rathore thought of the last time Vijayendra had looked at him in the courtroom. It was the look which said, “I wish to live a life or die a death; but not to live a death, please!” He knew exactly what a court marshal meant.

On his bed, Lt Col Rathore closed his eyes and pulled the sheet up over his face and told himself, “Tomorrow… I need to take a decision. I don’t know what it would be, but God… please help me to take the most right one.”

10:00 AM 14th Feb, 2007

Lt Col. R. K. Rathore walked into a packed courtroom. While the media outside still awaited the announcement of Vir Chakra to Captain Vijayendra Singh, from the whispers around and previous discussions with his counterparts, Lt Col. Rathore knew that the armed forces had already declared Vijayendra guilty. “Which stream of thoughts am I going to flow with today?” He wouldn’t know.

Sitting in the judge’s chair, he listened to last few arguments for and against the case with a stone face for approximately forty five minutes. Then there was a silence for a minute and few minutes of whispers before he announced, “GUILTY!”

“Captain Vijayendra Singh has breached all codes of conduct for Indian Army and has set a horrendous example to our fellow soldiers by abusing drugs on duty. Not only that, he has been found forcing it to his troupe and misusing the power of his captainship. This has brought utter shame to all of us. Not only that, he has, in fact, brutally murdered the dignity that armed forces withhold in the public eye. And for this extreme crime, he is to be hanged, till death.”

There was an air of shock in that room. Everyone knew, and wished, Vijayendra to be pronounced as guilty. But a death sentence? That did not figure in wildest of anyone’s dreams.
“Captain Singh, do you have to say anything?” asked the judge.

“No, sir,” said Vijayendra and tried his best to smile. This was the first time that he had uttered something during the entire trial. Only two people in the courtroom knew this was the best possible judgment; to die a death.

08:00 AM 15th Feb, 2007

The morning newspapers read, “Captain Vijayendra Singh, who had fought bravely on field was declared a martyr after he could not recover from his ruptured body, yesterday. Captain Singh and his troupe of three soldiers had killed 23 enemy soldiers in a battle on 21st Aug, 2006 and had got arrested 3 of them. The Armed forces has declared to honor his gallantry with Param Vir Chakra, the highest military decoration awarded for the highest degree of valour or self-sacrifice in the presence of the enemy.”

Survival of the fittest?

2010-05-30T08:01:00.000-07:00

In a summer afternoon, when their mothers and elder sisters were taking a nap and their fathers and elder brothers were out for work, seven children from the neighborhood came out of their homes and gathered around the sand heap collected to make a building nearby. They were all in the age range of six to nine and would generally get together to spend their afternoon in the summer vacations.

Uday, the eight years old and the fattest amongst all said, “listen! Today, let’s make a house out of the sand.”

Everyone agreed and took their positions. Uday ran to push Rishabh who was standing near the area where the sand was a little moist and could hold for longer. “Hey move some place else,” he called out. Rishabh looked at him and slowly moved away to scout for another location.

They all put their one foot into the sand and started piling up on it. With each repetition, they would settle the sand with their both hands. Once they would be sure that it was set and they could move their foot out, they would slowly drag it out. For some it would stand, for others it would fall. For those it fell they would start all over again.

Subodh, the six years old kid with a thin face and even thinner body was sitting in an extreme corner. Every other kid thought that would be the most inappropriate place to work. He tried several times but the sand was so dry that it would fall every time. He looked around to find some water to moisten the sand but there was none. He scratched his head and wiped the sweat with his neatly folded handkerchief. With a repeat of this activity, his hanky was pretty much wet. An idea suddenly stuck him. He drenched his hanky to pour down his sweat into the sand. Only two-three drops came out. Then with his thumb, he wiped his forehead to get some more drops. From this another idea erupted. He spitted in the sand. And that was it. He mixed his saliva properly in the sand he wished to use. Then he placed his foot again and started piling up the moistened sand. He was sure it would hold now. Then he constructed small pillars out of the remained moist sand and placed them carefully on the sides of his foot that would make the opening for the gate. Then carefully, he took his foot out. Woila! The foot cave stood still. He then took some dry sand on his palm and gently patted on the roof and walls of the cave from inside. Then he made some designs on the roof with dry sand available around. Finally he spitted some more to make walls around his cave. Then he picked up a waste piece of paper lying around and took out his small pencil to write on it. He wrote, “For my maa and papa. From your dear son, Subodh.” and placed on the gates of the cave near the pillars. When he got up, there was a satisfied look on his face.

Till then everyone was done, few successful and other unsuccessful and given up. They were all going around what others had made. Rocky, the seven years old with spiky hairs, ran to see what Subodh had made when he saw him standing. When he first looked at creation he gasped and shouted aloud, “Oh my god! This is so beautiful!!!” With this all other children ran towards him.

“Wow! This is really good yaar!”

“How could you make it on this side? It was so dry!!”

“Subodh is a genius!”

Uday pulled every one out to see the cave closely. Once studied properly, he said to all kids, “All right! This is good. And good things should belong to everyone. Hence Subodh can’t make it for his parents only. Our parents also deserve good caves.”

Rishabh started to speak, “But this is made by Subodh and…”

“Do you want me to break your head?” asked Uday, and then as if he was the king and others his subjects he addressed all, “See, I can prove it’s not Subodh’s property.” Then he turned to Subodh and asked, “Tell me Subodh, does the sand you used belong to you?”

Subodh nodded his head from left to right in a ‘no’.

“How did you moisten the sand?”

“With my saliva.”

Rishabh thought, “Now that is purely his.”

“Al right. Do you know how the saliva is formed?” asked Uday and paused for a while. On seeing that Rishabh was about to answer him he answered himself in a louder voice to stop him from speaking anything. “It is formed from the water that we drink. This water comes in our taps for free. So it belongs to no one. Hence the spit you used does not belong to you. And the labor? That too is a result of the energy that you get from the food you eat that is grown by farmers in the ground which belongs to on one.”

He was interrupted by Rishabh again, “but his parents must have paid for that food and hence it belongs…”

Uday once again cut Rishabh’s point and announced to all, “We are not to bring the matters of money ever. My mother says it’s the root of all evils. And only evil people talk about evil things. Hence Rishabh is an evil. And all evil must be destroyed.” And with this he ran towards Rishabh who had already started running to save himself. All other children were very confused on what was happening. To avoid any stress on their mind, they assumed following the runner and the chaser as the most apt thing to do.

After he had chased Rishabh away, Uday stopped, took a deep breath and turned back. He looked at all those who were following him and smiled, “it’s good when people follow you.” He then raised his hand as a signal to stop and said once again, “every good thing belongs to everyone no matter who built it. So let’s go and claim our right on that cave. When they all returned to the original place, they found no cave there. When they looked around, they could see Subodh, walking slowly, his feet full of sand, his hand carrying a piece of paper, his body language angry and confused, talking to himself, was going away.

The Storyteller

2010-02-09T06:06:00.000-08:00

The afternoon was hot. The grasses on the field had gone yellow, offering a golden touch to the scene. Against the field, stood the majestic house of Zamindar Sunil Singh. Early morning the servants in the house would open all the doors and windows to let the sun come in, except those which belonged to the room on the second floor, left corner of the house. The room, if opened would open to a small balcony, the door to which usually opened at the onset of afternoon. And this was the time.

Vasundhara opened the door and came out. She leaned on the railing for a moment and looked out to the open field. She went in and opened the windows. The room was fully lit now. She walked to the bed where Priyambada was still sleeping. She woke her up, “Get up, sweetheart! See, sun uncle has arrived in your room. Say hello to him.”

“Didi… Let me sleep for five minutes more naa, pleaseeeeee!!”

“No Priya, it’s already very late. Get up fast. Your father must be coming in for lunch.”

Priyambada half opened her eyes and negotiated, “Okay, four minutes?”

“No baby, you need to get up now,” said Vasundhara and pulled her in her hap.

She dragged the wheel chair from behind the curtains and placed Priyambada on it carefully. Then resting her knees to the ground, she pulled up her face up and said, “Baby you are so beautiful. Let’s wash your face to give a wonderful glow. Okay?” Priyambada smiled in her reply.

Zamindar Sunil Singh was a rich man. He was married twice but currently lived life of a widower. His first marriage was against his parents will and since it was not performed in the social function but in a temple, no one really gave any sanction to that. Sunil lived with his wife in a small cottage in the outskirts of the village. His wife died in the first few months of their marriage without leaving any significant memories. After two years, surrendering to continuous pestering of his family, Sunil Singh married again to a beautiful woman. They were happily married and were expecting a baby when his second wife learnt about his infidelity. She had died soon after the delivery of her first child.

Lunch with Zamindar Sunil Singh was a custom. That was only time in a day when Priyambada would see her father. And as a practice they would never talk while eating. Each day after food, her father would ask, “How are you feeling today, darling?”

“I am good, father,” would be her short reply.

In rest of the waking hours Vasundhara was her only and dearly beloved companion. After the demise of his wife, Zamindar had appointed Vasundhara to take care of his polio-hit child. And it was not only polio which concerned Priyambada. She was also living with a great degree of weakness and reduced body mass. Doctors in and around the village found themselves incapable of helping her to recover. They could only reduce her pain to the extent that she could bear it in performing her daily routine tasks.

Vasundhara seated Priyambada on the wheel chair again and started moving to her room. From the corner of her eyes, she noticed that she was being watched. She assumed it was not her but his daughter on the chair, whom he was watching.

Her room was the only world Priyambada knew. Her balcony was the gateway from her world to the world of others, a journey that she traveled through the tales told by Vasundhara.

“Vasundhara didi, will we play the story game today?” asked Priyambada when she was carefully placed on her bed.

“Yes, my darling, today I will tell you a special tale. A tale of a princess.”

“Princess! Wow!”

“Yes, a little, cute princess, just like you.”

“Was she also handicap, just like me?”

To this Vasundhara couldn’t reply. She caressed her head through her hairs and said, “You are the sweetest girl in this world, my darling!”

Then she began the story.

“In the month of January, in extremely cold weather, was born a cute princess to Maharaja Ranbir Singh and Rani Phoolmati.”

“Didi, how is a child born?” asked Priyambada.

“Well, God puts the baby in mother’s womb. The baby lives there for some time and then comes out when she is ready.”

“But why does God put the baby only in mother’s womb and not father’s?”

“Hmmm… good question. May be your teacher, when you will go to school, can answer this.”

“But pitaji says I will not go to school. Then how will I learn?”

“No Priya, we will take you to the school.” And in an attempt to change the topic she asked, “Now shall I continue the story?”

“Yes, please,” she smiled.

“They named the little child as Saraswati. They wished their daughter to be the most learned person in the kingdom. When she grew up, they appointed a teacher for her. One day, her teacher brought along a young boy who was very intelligent and honest. Saraswati liked his company a lot. Two of them, had good time learning, playing and growing up together. But when Maharaja Ranbir Singh got to know about this, he threw the teacher and the boy out of his house.”

It was almost a routine game for them, in which Vasundhara would narrate a story to Priyambada, after which the little girl would extrapolate and present an extension of the story from her viewpoint. Priyambada loved this play. In the darkness of her existence, these were the only few moments that would infuse a light of creativity. There were times when Priyambada would beautifully twine her own little life experiences with fantasy.

When Vasundhara ended her story at the point where the princess finds her prince again and lives happily ever after, Priyambada gave her narration.

“The princess, one night wished to go to the bathroom. The night was dark and the prince was out on war. She tried locating the lantern, but couldn’t. She called for her servant, but no one arrived. She felt an urgency to run. On the way, she banged into the table, fell down and hurt herself. Neither could she move, nor hold on to the urgency to urinate. She peed lying on the floor. She cried, but no one heard. The next afternoon, when the prince arrived, he found her dear princess on the floor, all messy and stingy. He held her by his strong arms and lifted her up, took her to the washroom, cleaned her and changed her dress. All this while, the princess didn’t speak a word. Her eyes were swollen and were full of tears. When the prince placed her on the bed, looked in her eyes, and caressed her hairs, she closed her eyes and cried; cried aloud. But this cry was not filled with pain but joy. The teardrops flew down from the corner of her closed eyes.”

Priyambada looked at Vasundhara who was lost in the reiteration of past, but in way that it held the capacity of not appearing as being one.

“I think the compassion grows stronger when the relationship goes through the moments of pain,” said Priyambada.

“How in her age?” wondered Vasundhara.

The evening had arrived. They loved to watch the setting sun. In those hours, they would not talk to each other, but just stare in the sky. We spend our present either in our past or future. There are very few moments that contain the exactness of the present and those are the only moments in which we live. These two ladies would spend these long evenings in the exactitude of the present, watching sun’s minutest gesticulations.

Before she would leave for the day, Vasundhara would switch on the television and increase the volume to a little higher note than required. This was to ensure that loneliness in the house is beaten by the noise.

***

It was the month of July and was raining heavily. The problem with rainy season is, its not clear when the afternoon ends and evening starts or when evenings merge into night for it to envelop the earth.

After their lunch, Priyambada said, “Didi, I want to play the story game.”

“Yes, Priya. Let’s go to your room and we will play.”

“No I want to play here. I want to show our game to Pitaji.”

“No Priya, your father is busy. Let’s go.”

“Pitaji, would you not like to listen to our stories? Are you very busy?” she asked her father.

Mr. Singh looked at her in a way that at times we look at something with no intention of looking at it. He said, “Yes, sweetheart, why not? I would love to listen to your stories.”

“Now didi, you tell me one story and I will tell you one.”

Vasundhara was not sure. She felt a bit suffocated in the room. She wanted to run out as fast as she could. It was a feeling similar to what a c would have felt in the vicinity of a tiger, after being attacked by him once, not killed but hurt badly. Her mind raced like a wild horse, but she pretended to be calm and smiled at Priyambada.

“Okay, today I will tell you a story of a king.”

Priyambada heard the story in all her earnestness. She was not questioning as she usually did. Neither did she appear trying to find clues for her extrapolation. That’s how we behave when we have our say ready.

When Vasundhara finished her story, she looked at Priyambada. Her face was emotionless, her eyes distant. She looked like a grown up girl, jailed in the body of a child. She whispered, “Priya?”

“Yes didi, now my turn,” she paused for some moments, took a deep breath, “It goes like this,” she begun.

“It was the month of July and every day, it rained heavily. The queen had gone to her mother’s home for a month. She had left her ten years old son with his nurse. One night the son heard a cry. It was like a whisper, a deep painful whisper. But before he could locate its direction, it was gone. This repeated for quite some days before that one night.

The night was dark black, as your hairs, didi. The son got up to use the washroom. While peeing, he heard that whisper again. It was very clear and appeared to be very near. He tried looking around but the darkness didn’t allow him to see anything. He came to his room and opened his door. He walked up slowly and reached the stairs that led to the hall. Just at the start of the stairs, was the study room for the king. He stopped. He could hear the whispers more clearly now. It appeared that someone was moaning which was being obstructed forcefully. He recognized the voice. It was his nurse’s. After a while he sensed someone coming out of the room and walking down into the hall. In the light of the hall, he realized it was his father.

Next day, when the boy met his nurse, she was not at her usual. She was not even looking into his eyes. She wished to finish her work fast and go back home before evening. The boy didn’t ask much. He knew what she was going through and didn’t wish to shatter her. In evening when he met his father, he found him in his usual self. He walked up to him, slapped him tight, rushed to his room and cut his vein. He couldn’t live the shame of being a rapist’s son,” she paused for a while and then said, “The irony of a rape is that, usually, it makes the victim guiltier than rapist.”

She looked at Vasundhara. She was looking down at her feet, holding his right hand in the left, tightly closed. She then looked at his father. He was busy with his hookah.

Priyambada smiled and said, “The story ends here.”

“Okay. Go to your room now,” said her father.

Vasundhara took Priyambada to her room, placed her in bed, switched on the television, closed the doors and left for her home.

She knew who the story was about. The thought of last night generated a strong shiver. She was trying to figure out how did Priyambada got to know about it. She tried her best but couldn’t gather much. Sometimes, our pain, our sadness is so profound that we don’t care to think anything beyond that. And the pain of being raped is something that no one can empathize with, no one can share. It’s exclusive for the sufferer.

It was around eight past evening. Vasundhara was lying on her jute bed, still shivering. Outside, it was drizzling. She avoided closing her eyes because she didn’t wish to think of last night. But the eyes were not the culprits, she realized, as with eyes wide open too, she could only think of the last night. She thought of Priyambada and her story, “With what face will I go in front of her again? She knows it. She knows it in every detail. She was the prince of her story… She was the prince…” she was stiffened in her bed for a second. And in the next instant she almost jumped from the bed and ran towards the Zamindar’s house. She ran and ran and when arrived at the door, she banged on it restlessly. The old gatekeeper, a lantern in one hand, opened the door, “Vasundhara bitia, so late in night?”

She didn’t care to respond. She snatched the lantern from him and ran the stairs up to Priyambada’s room. She was not in her bed. She looked around. She was not seen. She rushed to the bathroom. She was not there too. Her wheelchair was not seen. Then a mild stroke of rainy wind opened and closed the balcony door. Vasundhara pulled the lantern up and cautiously walked up to the door. She pushed the door open. The wheel chair was lying next to the balcony railing. Priyambada was not seen. A thought appeared in Vasundhara’s mind which she shrugged off immediately. She closed her eyes. She didn’t wish to move; neither did she wish to see.

“What happened bitia?” asked the gatekeeper who had arrived there by then.

Vasundhara opened her eyes and looked at him. Then she walked to the railing, moved the lantern out and looked down.

The lantern crashed on the ground followed by the echo of pain and guilt through the drizzles of the night.

A battle for Peace

2010-01-22T06:33:00.000-08:00

World War I. World War II. Nazi concentration camps. Russian Revolution. French Revolution. Taliban. Terrorist attacks. Iraq war. War on Afghanistan. Israel-Palestine war. And so on.

Closer to home, Battle of Panipat. Battle of Buxar. War of Independence. Naxalites. Terrorism in Kashmir and North Eastern States. Three different wars with Pakistan, one with China. And so on.

In search of an article on “Peace”, I realized what all I have learnt as part of History since childhood is a war or a battle; here, there, somewhere. Despite it being a buzz word of every generation and billions of dollars spent in a process to acquire it, peace still remains a nonexistent entity.

As a subject, History has been pretty boring to me (I would attribute it, mostly, to the content that includes too many dates to memorize, the way I have been taught which required me to memorize all those dates and my bad memory that failed me to that in every class) since childhood, except class X when some interest towards the subject was sparked in me (And this I will attribute to a great extent to Mr. Jose Joseph, my history teacher for that class and enigma around the concept of Non-violence used by Mr. Gandhi). But now when I think why war takes precedence over peace in human history, I find an interesting trait - the need of being excited.

Peace is boring, monotonous and offers no excitement. What a historian (I think they are great storytellers, fiction or non-fiction, I would not be able to comment!) will tell about “Peace”? That from this period to that period, people lived happily. Period. But when he/she writes about wars, he has a plot. Differences. Hatred. Lust. Betrayal. Dishonesty. Greed. The world of ‘Power’.

Mostly, a hero is the person who fights a war and wins it, not a person who is able to manage a peaceful situation without ‘war’. It sounds funny to me when someone says that he/she is fighting for peace. All one fights for is ‘Power’. This is one thing that defines one’s superiority over a host of other people. It gives a sense (or nonsense) of self-fulfillment. And in some or the other capacity, everyone wants it. Everyone fights for it; some with brains, some with sword, and still some with hearts.

The joke here is, we all realize the power of a battle won. But not many envisage the power that peace withholds. It holds the power of growth. The power of innovation. The power of happiness. The power of free, humane existence.

But I don’t know how we can attain peace. I think I am not educated enough to find an answer to this. But we can make a start, I guess. In my quest to find answers to my crazy questions, I Googled “World’s most peaceful country.” I was informed that there’s something called Global Peace Index (GPI) that, on diverse parameters, evaluates various countries for their Peace Values. I was wondering, why I never get to read about Norway or New Zealand (who have the lowest GPI and are considered most peaceful countries in the world) but have to read about U.S. and such countries which only know how to “fight for peace” and are never able to achieve it? There’s some serious error.

I feel sad about all those history classes where I studied all those battles. I have wasted a great deal of time in this life. I wish I could change those books for generations to come. I think that would be a kind of revolution in education. In a true sense, 'A battle for Peace’.

One more chance

2009-12-07T07:50:00.000-08:00

When I as done with watching Paa, in middle of all those obvious good things, I saw a chance. I chance to re-brand, re-establish and re-energize Doordarshan.

If you see the movie, you will very categorically feel a that it can be a good marketing tool for Doordarshan. When the character of Abhishek Bachchan pronounces, "Maine Doordarshan ko isliye chuna, kyonki isse sabse jyada log dekhte hain - I selected Doordarshan because it is watched by maximum number of users", it reaffirms the fact that Doordarshan still remains the Channel through which India connects.

Also, the way soberness of News on Doordashan is, I guess unknowingly, contrasted against the "Breaking News" Fever on all other channels, where only drama sells, not only daily soaps but in news, in sports... any and everything the other channels show.

Well, frankly speaking, I am not a Doordarshan support, or anything. I firmly believe that if they are not able to live up to the competition, they must die. But here, its not about this channel; its about the chance the movie has offered the channel to use in its favor. To gain publicity from a movie, that too a good movie with a good star cast, is generally sought after by media houses. Here, it comes for free, or for very low remunerations.

I am not sure if some Doordarshan fellow will read this blog and ant or react to this.
Just thought of sharing my observation and view point.

And to end, sharing one more point of view, I don't really think that Paa was an appropriate title. The story was of "Auro", and for some reason if the director was not comfortable naming it after him, it could have next best be called as "Maa", as Vidya Balan's character was pretty strong in the movie.

Anyways, with or without appropriate name, the movie is worth to watch out for.

Kurbaan on Kurbaan!

2009-11-28T06:01:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, its not important from where it starts; what matters is, where it ends and how does it reach it.

Yes, that's what Kurbaan is. A movie that executes itself with elegance and ends with grace. A movie where, you care to to notice even the suicide bomber who has a scene of few seconds inside the plane. A movie where not only characters talk but so does characterization. A movie where you don't find an unnecessary "Johny Lever" or too much of out-of-the plot song-&-dance sequences (I think, the opening song to US could have been avoided, but its digestible).

I am a huge Kareena fan. I definitely wanted to watch this movie because its hers. But when I came out of theater I knew I had liked the movie not just for Kareena but for Saif, for Vivek, for Om Puri, for Diya Mirza, for Kiron Kher; for Kulbhushan Kharbanda (Boy! his scenes are suffocative, as they are meant to be), for the story and screenplay writers, for the director, for the song composers, for the background score ( I personally think that is one of the important aspects of cinema, it makes or breaks the scene), for the cinematographer and for all those who had, in minutest way, had contributed to the movie.

Some Critics have shunned it as a copy from such as New York and Fanna. I say, let it be. The strength of Kurbaan does not lie in it being some First-of-its-kinda story. Rather it lies in the fact that when you are watching it, you don't care from where it is copied, but you enjoy every scene, every angle and feel lost in the beauty of it's execution.

I loved the classroom scene where the character played by Vivek debates with other students in Ehsaan's class.

So finally, I think, Mr. Johar has grown up to Cinema. The movie has been written well by him (I hated Kuchh Kuchh Hota hai & Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, except the Kajol Scenes, and Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna even didn't offer that; the only good movie was Kal Ho Na Ho, and he was not the director for the movie! Here, I would not like to discuss Kaal, for the simple reason that it doesn't deserve even the mention).

The only issue is, which I think is an issue, in our movies, that the American Indians have such proper Hindi diction, which in reality I haven't seen in people I have interacted.

I just hope, we get to see some more better products from this production house in future!

Till then, enjoy the growth...