ARTH

A Note on Mob!

2011-08-16T16:23:00.006+05:30

By Sadhogopal Ram

What is mob? It is probably the scariest place to be in. No matter which part of the world, a mob is what it is – a mob. It, the mob, is the epitome of recklessness, which a huge pile of the humans over humans over mindlessness of nothing signifies. Blind and deaf, foolhardy and arrogant, devoid of ethics and morals, derailed from any logic and reason, it just shoves itself in and against everything whenever it so wishes, whenever it’s provoked, in whatsoever circumstances. It acts on whims. It operates on nothing but whims. And only whims alone in it set its goals.

Image Courtesy Google

A mob is every society’s worst nightmare, representing its hypocritical stature. The purpose of which is to just make noise, the force of which is to just create ruckus. Agreed that oftentimes a mob has thrown a dictator out, but what after that? The very Mob fades away, falls down too. And in manners that it has never been able to rise again, ever. Only ashes remain.

On a personal note, I’ve never seen a mob with a cause worthy of the fury it exhales and the rage in which it becomes a horde of savages. The barbarism with which a mob unleashes itself unto anything and everything that falls within the limit of its reach and ravages the very core of the victims who become subjected to its mindless madness, leaves nothing for the mind to grasp. What remains behind, after the proud march of the mob, remains forever behind rotting and hissing in pain, whether it is a village, a city, a shop, a community or a woman. No one cares after that, no soul bothers to look behind. A mob then fades away into oblivion, only to resurface in some other corner of the earth. Like bubbles bursting in the hot tub of water, a mob bursts at one spot, creates turbulence, sets off and then bursts again at another, never letting the water to remain still.

“And the calm serenity of the water on the surface and beneath is forever disturbed, forever lost.”

Our country today is going through one such turbulence, which threatens to disrupt the otherwise normalcy that surrounds us. In past, there have been numerous mobs, causing innumerable amount of unfathomable damages to the very soul and spirit of the nation. But never before in the history of mobs, have been a mob as moronically arrogant and as childish in its caricaturish behaviour as such that of Old Anna’s. Yes, Anna Hazare is nothing but a mob. Heady in his stance against the Government’s stand on JAN LOKPAL BILL, he has taken the nation by a blind storm, causing baseless uproar for the so-called call for democracy where he himself seems to have transformed into a dictator.

Every man, woman, child and dog following Old Anna in his magnanimous “August Kranti” march must not forget that such hysterical approaches only yield spineless results, which are born out of an another kind of hysteria. One which justifies nothing, signifies nothing, takes away a lot, giving out nothing. What remains in the platter is so worthless that it matters not anymore, even a bit. And that’s what is going to happen to the proposed JAN LOKPAL BILL, which, since it was first introduced by Shanti Bhushan in 1968, has today turned 43 years old. Since then its 9 consequent versions have been introduced and re-introduced but sadly none of these have ever passed.

And in the scuffle of Anna & Government, where both seems to be happily satisfied by their own self indulgence on the subject, utterly disregarding the constitution, fighting over it, I doubt this BILL too will ever be passed.

“A nation will never rise on the fury of a mob. And where a mob decides the fate of the dawn and dusk of a nation, everything becomes ash and in the distant horizon only thing rising is smoke.”

A Note on Waiting and the Joys and Sorrows of it.

2011-08-10T09:28:00.005+05:30

By Sadhogopal Ram

Waiting, for some, is a process of experiencing joy, for some it is merely a process of evolution of the self by acquiring what one is waiting for. But for me waiting has been all sorts of different kind of things. Like others I’ve had joys and while waiting I’ve evolved too. But it somehow has always felt like a slow severe pain in the chest. And yet I’ve waited for everything that I’ve ever wanted in my life, regardless of whether I got or I didn't, whatever was that I had wanted at the different waiting junctures of my life. I’ve waited so much, working my way through to get whatever I want, that at times I've felt I should just give up, that I shouldn’t wait anymore for anything.

But no, I haven’t given up on waiting or waiting, so I’m still waiting; now for a whole new awakening to embark into a journey from where I know that my life will take all those turns which is only going to make it what years and years ago, lying over the vast spread of due laden grass in the fields of my village, beneath the gaze of winter sun on my face, I had dreamt and promised to myself. And now somehow, somewhere down the line, the waiting for me has gradually turned into something else, a sort of different pain, not in the chest anymore, no. But somewhere deep within; it pleasures me now, keeps me going, gives me strength, and provides me with a hope that my waiting will finally yield the result(s) I’m seeking. So I wait, hoping and holding onto whatever that I’ve now with and within me.

It’s a strange phenomenon with waiting. There is always a sense of uncertainty attached to it and yet we wait.

Currently, at this very moment I wait for her. And I’m waiting for my birthday this August. I’m waiting to hold her in my arms once again, and to feel her warmth once again. For waiting is all I know that I have chosen to do, not because there isn’t any other option but because I’ve promised to stick to waiting through thick and thin, and work my way through it for that new awakening, no matter how long it takes, no matter how short it lasts, I’m waiting... I’m waiting.

I remember about exactly 11 years ago I had waited with bated breath to get to my village to take one last look at my mother’s pale skinned face, who was lying dead, covered in red, inside her room. That was the time, probably the first in my life, when I experienced the sorrow of waiting. Because when my wait had ended, she hasn’t come back to life, as I foolishly had thought. The sorrow of that waiting was much deeper than I had imagined it to be, or maybe it was just too shallow. Because I remember I didn’t even shade a tear. But at the cost of being honest, it was that I couldn’t shade a tear, I just couldn’t. I had gone silent, partly with sorrow and partly with the realisation of the great loss. It was silence that had engulfed me, and had consumed the basic ability of a child to cry.

Since then a whole decade have passed away, actually more, and life is not what it was back then, so am I. Emotions have evolved, feelings have changed, I’m different too. But the silence of that day is still within, caged somewhere in some corner of my chest. It still breaths, still lives on. Although now that day of my life seems like another lifetime, it’s a whole new life now that I live. For I haven’t given up on waiting or waiting...because I know that the sorrows attached to waiting are gone now, all it now has to offer are the joys of waiting.

She is coming here to see me, to be with me. My woman from west, who have promised a new world to me and to whom I’ve pledged my life and every single joy of it. I’m waiting to experience the world she has promised, and I’m waiting to live up to the pledge I’ve taken in her name. On my this birthday, I will finally experience the joy, the ultimate joy of its kind, when I take her in my arms, tangle my fingers in her tresses, and plant the kiss that I keep playing in continuous loop inside my ever active head time and again. I’m waiting to become one with her.

Just like the sense of uncertainty is attached to the process of waiting, there’s one very distinctive trait attached to it too. It’s the test of the mettle a man is made of. And currently, I’m testing my own mettle.

...because, folks, all I know is that I’m waiting.

I'VE GOT TO LET HER BREATHE...!

2011-08-03T21:21:00.001+05:30

By Sadhogopal Ram

I’ve got to give her space. I’ve got to. I’ve become way too needy. I need her all the time. I’m overwhelmed with a feeling these days that I need to spend all my time only with her. And in my need I became so blind that I forgot that my “I-need-you-every-second-of-my-life” request is taking a toll on her, emotionally as well as physically. She is losing her calm, her sanity and her sense of self. All because of my stupidity in which I am felling miserably and falling out of her eyes.

She has a lot to deal with in her already chaotic life and on top of that I add up more chaos instead of reducing her exhaustion by being there as a source of comfort whenever she can take little time out for herself and wishes it to spend with me. I’m giving her more worries than she ever had. I’m causing her to breakdown every now and then.

I do not know why I’ve forgotten that she has gone through a lot and is still going through a hell a lot. I used to be her source of comfort in whom she would confide her world and go to sleep peacefully. But off late all I’ve become is just a miserable man who interrogates her on her every sentence and questions her for her every wish and desire. Judgemental. Overly judgemental. Yes, I’ve started judging her almost every breathe. Like a psycho.

I’ve got to let her breathe. I’ve got to let her smile. I’ve got to give her all that she thought she would find in me, and which she did, yes; she did find all those things in me, but only for a little while. Then I lost myself. I became something else. Something strange. Something very disturbing and disturbed. But I’ve got to give her a chance. I’ve got to get back and once again give her the things that she has lost in me. I’ve got to.

I will. It’s not easy though, to just realise that the train has lost its main track and then instantly get it back on track. I know it will take its own time, but I’ve got to give myself completely. I’ve got to put myself as I was when she met me. When she used to find freshness in me and my thoughts. When I use to make her feel alive. When my passion for life would make her smile. I’ve got to give all that back to her, once again. And this time for a long, long time. Very long.

I love her. Period. I’m indeed in love with her insanely. And I know within that its growing. But in my insaneness for her, I’m forcing her to lose her own mind. And a person can only take so much. I know her because she has let me in. And I can say this with surety that no one else has ever been there where she has let me in. But am I valuing it? I can’t say for sure that I’m. But I’ve got to. And I will.

I’ve got to stop myself from becoming a monstrous disease which slowly in its neediness eats away the very source of life on which it has attached itself. I’ve got to stop eating her from inside. I’ve got to give her life. I’ve got to let her breathe. I’ve got to let her breathe. I’ve got to.

I though don’t know for sure that how long it will take me to get back to what I was and in whom she found her joy. But I know for sure that from now on I’ve got to try. I’ve got to try. Because I can’t live in peace knowing that I make her cry. So, I’ve got to try. I’ve got to try.

...I’ve got to let her breathe. I’ve got to let her smile. I’ve got to be happy to be able to give her joy. I’ve got to...

Absurd but an Absolute Truth!

2011-06-22T00:09:00.001+05:30

Out of many absolutes, there is one absolute truth whose absoluteness can’t be denied, but then its absoluteness is also not accepted, it’s hanging in the middle, in the open thin air, without any support, not because it needs any, but solely because of the same reason that it doesn’t need any.

Yes, a truth can survive on its own without any support of any kind except the conviction of the living being born with the ability to think who has the honesty to accept it as it is.

It’s an absurd kind but then its absurdity is what which makes it absolute in its nature.

That – in this world – it’s not the men, no matter what, who get used, it’s the women. One way or the other, whether physical or emotional, out of choice or due to circumstances, it’s always the women. It has been women, it is women and, I say it without any vested interest or hidden motive, that it will be women.

And that is one truth men don’t want to accept and women don’t want to believe. Not because they don’t really want to, but because they lack what it takes to accept a truth and what it also takes to believe a reality. I’m not going to put that word here. Because I know it won’t mean anything to those who know nothing about it and nor do they care do know anything about it. This is one word I know that have been used just as like women all over the world have been and are being used.

But I know a few rare living being born with the ability to think who has the honesty to accept things as they are and not put label on them with a veiled interest or motive of any kind. And they are the ones who have kept the truth, of any kind, alive still.

At times, I’ve wondered, with great amount of a grief unknown to me and an undirected compassion towards anyone, as to why we – the human being – who were supposed to be the most virtues have turned out to be nothing but a mere bunch of vultures eyeing to feed ourselves and our hunger on others weakness and their circumstantial need for us? Why? But never, not once, I’ve come to any rational conclusion of any kind anywhere.

Sigh.

And I don’t think that I will ever reach to any rational conclusion ever over this. But that won’t take away what is there, the truth – the absolute, absurd truth – that the one’s getting used are not men but women. And not just in the hands of men but also in the hands of women.

Rest In Peace, Father...

2011-05-14T04:35:00.001+05:30

"I wish I had not cremated him, instead buried him. That way I could have at least wished that he would rise from his grave and come and see that his son, whom he loathed, is not that worthless today as he had said once on his son’s face."

I wish you would rise and see that today your name is known after me, my name, which I, your worthless son, have made your this particular dream come true, that people around today know of your name because of me and my deeds.

Hello father,

I wish you could rise from your ashes and see that no one remembers your death nor do they remember the date on which you died, no one, except me, except your son. But don’t worry; I will make sure that the world does remember. So here it is, O'world, today, on 14th may 2004, my father – Gulab Ram Choudhary – breathed his last, exactly 7 years ago, tied to the hospital bed, he succumbed to the poison running in his veins along with the alcoholic blood.

Rest in peace, father, rest in peace.

And please forgive me for momentarily disturbing your sleep, but you see it was needed, or else how would I have told the goddamned world about you and your death anniversary, which sadly no one remembers, not even your own mother. But you see, I have to live up to you and your dreams, even though you are fucking dead, thanks to your good old friends.

Anyways, that was it, I have done my duty for today, have told the world that you died on 14th may 2004, exactly 7 years ago. I should now let you rest in peace and head towards that one person who doesn’t consider me worthless, she instead thinks that I’m perfect. Which again makes me wish that you would have survived longer enough to see that what kind of devastatingly comforting beauty have fallen for me, for that son of yours whom you considered nothing. But anyways, you rest in peace, just wanted to let you know that I’ve found my peace. It doesn’t actually matter now that you are not here, for I’m happy that you did not have to suffer longer than you already did. But see, that’s the thing it is, you would not have suffered had you loved my mother the way you did after she was gone. Trust me father, had you loved her before she died, you would have had a much better life. Much, much better!

But why the hell am I telling you all this, you are dead, right?... burnt into cinders, so then why?

I guess I’m just having a mighty good time by telling you what could your life had been, had you only realised what you did realise after it was too late to realise anyway. So, rest in peace, father, for I’ve made sure that people know a bit more about you, this time through your death anniversary.

BECAUSE…

2011-04-13T21:21:00.002+05:30

By Sadhogopal Ram

Love for some is as complex as solving a mathematical solution and for some love is simply love, in another words, it is awesome. In my life till date, I’ve seen people either running after love or running away from love and then I’ve seen people walking together in love. This third kind is something that leaves behind everything and just clings to love. Not because they are desperate for it, not because there is nothing else except it, not even because it is everything but simply because love came naturally to them. As naturally as a seed, over a period of time, under the light and night, rain and heat and everything else, grows into a big tree which then either give fruits or flowers, but everything just naturally. Nothing was faked into it, nothing fake was needed in the first place, it all happens because it happens naturally.

As love, because above all, too, happens naturally. Now sometime it may take few months or years to happen and sometimes it just happens within minutes or maybe even seconds, but it happens nonetheless and it happens naturally.

And two people together, who even after fighting with each other, even after misunderstanding each other, and even after being hurt or unintentionally hurting each other, somehow, someway, at the end of the day, end up being still together is because in between everything that is there in them, there is also love in them, in between and for each other. It is because for two people together in love there is nothing above but just love and only love.

And if not for love, no two people can ever live together, no matter what. Love comes naturally and so it can’t be forced, and if did, it was never love. It was just something else which came hiding behind a masked lie in the name of love, and which will disappear as soon as the masked lie is caught or deciphered.

I am in love, and the one I’ve fallen for is equally (or maybe even more) in love with me. All I know is that we two are in love with each other. We go through a lot of misunderstanding; even hurt each other, unintentionally, (though I hurt her more, much more), and then there are some nasty verbal war between us which happens in our moment of rage but nowhere in all this while we ever forget that we two are in love with each other and that there is love in between us.

It happens not because we two are not right or whatever for each other, but because there is love and where there is love there’s bound to be madness in it. It, the madness, can either be of extreme kind or it can just be in its most sublime form. But madness has to be there, because if not for madness, the love won’t seem love, the love won’t survive love, and the love won’t end up being all above.

But at the end of the day, as my elder sister Richa rightly puts it, they, the two people together in love, should remember that they love each other. That above all there is love in between them and that it is love which is keeping them together for each other. And after a fight or misunderstanding they have got to come back to each other for their love, that love which brought them close and that love which, over the period of time, will bring them closer and closer.

So you are with her and she is with you not because of anything else, but because of love and only love.

Because… love is above all!

A Conversation with a MAN!

2011-03-07T22:40:00.002+05:30

By Sadhogopal Ram

Image Courtesy Google

So you are a writer, Sir. Hun…

And you keep travelling?

From city to city, just to write the stories?

Must be an exciting life, Sir! Hun…

Me?

From last 5 years, Sir.

Yes, it’s been five years since I came here to Bombay.

No, Sir, I don’t call it Mumbai.

I like the name Bombay, that’s why, no particular reason why I call Bombay as Bombay.

No, no. I came here with a hope to get a job in some company, Sir.

My cousin brother, yes, he brought me here.

I’m a 12^th pass, Sir.

No, no one took me in.

I searched and searched. But nothing happened.

A few of them didn’t even consider talking to me after finding out that I’m 12^th pass and I’m from Bihar and happen to be a Muslim.

Yes, Sir, a Muslim I’m.

No, I didn’t feel bad, Sir.

Not actually.

It’s not their fault, Sir.

This is how the people are brought up in society. They judge you and your character by your religion, Sir.

And this didn’t happen with only me, there are many who are judged based on the community that they belong to… so it didn’t affect me, because I was not the only one.

No, Sir. They did what they had to; I’m doing what I have to.

Yes, yes, I’m very happy with my life, Sir.

With this auto, sir, I married off my two little sisters.

Yes.

Actually one is married; the other’s marriage is fixed. I’ve made all the arrangements for it.

Since about 5 years, Sir.

Yes, just about the time I came here, I’ve been driving this auto.

Actually, no, not this auto. This is a brand new one, Sir.

Yes, yes, I just brought it a week ago.

Before this one, I was driving the one my cousin brother had given me.

It was his auto, Sir, but he gave it to me to drive at night.

Yes, very kind man, Sir. Like a father to me.

My father, Sir?

My father is dead, Sir.

No, no, Sir, please don’t be sorry.

He died doing what he did.

Work.

He was a truck driver, Sir. Met with an accident, and died on the spot.

His head was crushed under the wheel.

Yes, I cry sometime.

His name is Rizwan, Sir.

Yes, my cousin brother, who brought me here.

Has been really kind to me, otherwise who does what he did and still is doing for me?

No one has time for anyone, Sir.

My own relatives deserted me. After my father’s death, they did support me for about 3-4 months, but then eventually started distancing themselves.

I did not know what to do. There was nowhere to go, Sir. That’s when Rizwan came.

Almost like a blessing.

He not only gave me his auto to drive, Sir, but also kept me with him, and is still sheltering me.

And I did not even have a license to drive at that time, Sir.

So what would he do, you know?

He would go to the area constable and give him some money and fix me so that when they catch me, they wouldn’t, you know, fine me, because their man is already paid and I’m immune for 2 weeks.

Yes, every 2 week, Rizwan Bhai jaan fixed me and helped me.

This went on for about few months. Yes, and then I got my license.

Yes, I was very happy. I thought about my father.

No, I don’t regret being an auto-rickshaw driver, Sir.

I believe no job is bad or small.

It’s the people, Sir.

They, we malign it, the work, Sir.

And you only tell me, Sir, how can a job, regardless of what kind it is, if it is helping me live my life on my own terms and giving me the freedom to do the thing I want and enabling me to look after my family, can be ever wrong or bad?

Can it be? No, right?

Yes, so you see, I feel proud of myself as an Auto-rickshaw driver.

I take pride in what I do, Sir.

This is me.

My identity.

How can I not like my identity which provides for my life and my family?

Can you, Sir?

No, Sir, I’m just a simple man, doing what I have to do, living my life as freely as possible for me.

Oh, I love this city, Sir.

I love Bombay. Yes, very much.

Why, no such specific reason, just that I find the people of this city to be quite nice and honest, Sir.

They do hard work here and live their life to the fullest.

Of course, there are bad people, as always there are bound to be, everywhere.

But that doesn’t make it a bad city. Does it?

The people here have not wronged me, Sir, and I’ve always tried to not do any wrong to anyone here.

Believe me, Sir, a lot of time, my passengers forget their stuff in my auto, and never return back.

I find them out and return it to them.

If I can’t find them, I deposit the stuff at Police station, Sir.

No, I never took anything home. Never.

Yes, sometimes the urge is there, but it is something I’ve resisted, Sir.

Money is what, Sir? Just a mere necessity to survive in today’s world.

Anyone can acquire it anytime they want, if they work hard for it.

But, Sir, my Imaan, my Zameer, Sir, if I lose it once, I can never get it back.

Money… I can always get it by working hard.

But no matter how hard I work, after losing my Imaan, my Zameer, I can never get it back.

No matter what I do. Once it’s lost, it’s lost forever.

And I can’t live without my Imaan, my Zameer, Sir. Never.

130 rupees, Sir. Yes, that’s it.

Yes, the place you are looking for is just behind the Mehboob Studios. Yes.

My name?

Anis… Mohammad Anis.

Khuda-Hafez, Sir!

#With special thanks to Richa Jain for grammatical corrections.

DIRTY 2 DREAMY: the WALL PROJECT

2011-02-23T01:07:00.003+05:30

By Sadhogopal Ram

[With Photographers Swapnil Shahane, Shruti Chheda and Deven Saxena]

Of everything that is expressive, I’ve always found written poetry to be the most expressive form of art. It could be for the sole and selfish reason that I like to play with words myself, but then looking away from blank pages and the pen kept beside me, and looking at the above Black & White picture I try to wonder over this enigma as to what makes this picture a poem? There are no words in it, no play of any kind or role of words in it. It is just as it is; a portrait where a poem is alive. Open almost like a faded sky. Inviting as if to share the world and experience what you wish in her simple Joy! Call it what you wish, address her as you desire, but if anything describes who she is, is that even in DIRT she smiles unperturbedly with hope in her eyes, for a better tomorrow, for a DREAMY tomorrow.

Welcome to the DIRTY TO DREAMY: the WALL PROJECT, an attempt by the inspired people to add some colors of varied moods to an otherwise grey and grim area of SAKI VIHAR PIPELINE.

It is not much, you know, this place SAKI VIHAR PIPELINE, spread over about 2 and half kilometers in straight line, a toy-like rail track (now closed) in the name of road in middle, which divides the place in two parts, both filled with crumpled houses made up of concrete, some plastic, and some other materials. In between there’s a school, newly opened, two well maintained gardens, transformed from dump yards and garbage disposal places by the inspiring efforts of a MAN from foreign KANE RYAN and a MAN from the ruin ASHLEY PARRIERA of JANVI CHARITABLE TRUST, who had organized the DIRTY TO DREAMY: the WALL PROJECT to give a new shape to one more dump yard where about a month ago kids gambled, fought & hurt each other, the male adults of the Slum area lay in corners, under the influence of drugs & alcohol.

This is what IT WAS about a month ago, and on 6^th February 2010 the very dump yard had became a JOINT of Artists and Art Lovers, Photographers and Dancers. All present there, just to fill in the space, with their presence and in their own sense. With efforts from KANE RYAN and ASHLEY PARRIERA, the dump yard has been converted to a community place for the people living in that Slum to make good use of it and garden cum playground for the kids to have some quality time.

So I was talking about poetry. Well, though I’m a poet but I feel that poetry, in general, should not be limited to written words, as poetry is nothing but a vibrant impression of a mere expression of variedness of the feelings and or desire that we, humans, have, possess or build in our day-to-day life and in fight for our life. And though it is being expressed in several forms, but somehow we have not taken notice of it. Of all those forms which besides everything else, carry a poem inside, living, breathing, staring blankly or simply blinking at us, at our arrogant ignorance and at our self-imposed hurriedness.

But everything else takes a back seat when poetry just doesn't stick to where it was supposed to remain/be but gets down and dirty to force people to take proper and appreciative note of it, in a place least expected but most celebrated in manners not imagined but moments well captured.

Pictures have the power to tell stories in most vocal manner, yet there are times when people have taken refuge of written words to tell the tale instead, people like me. You can well label me as a hypocritical narcissist, someone who sometimes will make use of double standards just for the sake of it or even for the pure selfish reason to satisfy the inner greed of self to tell the story my way.

When I reached there at around 12 PM, after little direction searching, along with my friends, a dark man greeted us, standing just steps away from the dingy stairs that fell and lead to the SAKI VIHAR PIPELINE.

SHITHOLE was the first word that came to my mind after getting down and taking a first view of the place. It was an unlikely village NOT inside but UNDER the city, which I along with several few still call Bombay and others, now Mumbai. At first sight, it’s the perfect example of what the glossy media describes as – “A breathing shithole; an amalgamation of people, piss and potty!”

But hold it; it is here that I found poetry alive and kicking with joy and spirit to infatuate anyone who came even remotely close to it.

You can curse me for being honest here, but at least I’m not hiding behind any lie. I could have written that, ‘oh, it was just awesome, people living and shitting almost at one place and yet not complaining, kids roaming around naked with smile and amusement on their faces. It was just fucking awesome.’ Well, it was exactly like that, though I doubt if it could be called awesome. Anyways, the dark man, who I latter came to know was the very ASHLEY PARRIERA, who had greeted us just above the dingy stairs, took us to the place, the dump-yard converted into a community cum garden, which as soon as fell into the full view of my sight, hit me with the colorful freshness that at least I had never imagined I would experience at such a dingy place.

It was a riot there. Only that this time there wasn’t any blood being spilled or people being butchered. It was a riot of people and paint and music and dance. Cultural riot is what I thought it was. There were people from all strata of society and each community. The number was astonishing for me, I had thought only few would show up, but I was pleasantly surprised to see the huge number of people present there to paint that 100 meter long and about 20 feet high WALL to paint, to give it a new face, a new identity of its own, unique yet familiar with its surroundings in a very keen way.

The WALL had ironically become the reason for the people to be present there and do what they wished to do with it, but their action, their emotion and above all their compassion had what people living in that Slum needed the most; UNIFORMITY. A sense of coming together of people with a desire to help by doing their bit, of culture to bring harmony, of dreams of the lesser ones and of efforts of the capable ones, of love of the uninhibited kind and of care for fellow human beings. It was a celebration of its own kind, not witnessed daily, never experienced twice.

There were as many poetries in each soul present there but I can only share a few of them here. These might not be the best poetries that were present there but are certainly the ones that deserve the most to be shared here. While the event was completely successful and was true to the purpose of it, but I know that this post of mine has not done any justice to it. I've been trying to come up with this post since that day itself but one thing or the other has been stopping me from doing it. Please bear with the abrupt end and incomplete story presented in this post of mine.

The pictures used in the post are all copyrighted to their original owners and have been used by their permission.

#Special thanks to Richa Jain for her inputs on grammatical aspect of this post.

For those who wish to know more about the Project and the Men behind can visit:

http://dirtywallproject.com/blog/

My Father; an almost Sober Man!

2011-02-15T20:41:00.001+05:30

“The only difference between a man drenched in his passion and a man peach drunk is that the former knows where he’s headed and why.”

By Sadhogopal Ram

My father was an alcoholic. He drank that intoxicating oil unlike anyone else I’ve seen or heard of in my life. He drank it like it was the last thing on earth drinkable. And he drank it as if not for it his heart would stop pumping due to not enough supply of lubricated material to its motors. The alcohol therefore, served as the lubrication for his heart and unsurprisingly went on to become the reason behind his every action. I wouldn’t mind, as I once did, if today one would say that alcohol was his passion.

I’m not sure though, about the exact year when he started drinking, but I was told by his mother that it was when he had turned 19 and had participated in a Jatra (the folk version of theatre found and popular in rural areas, performed on a temporary tent-like stage, built either on the streets, playgrounds or outside temple premises, by local artists on issues ranging from religious to current. The purpose is mostly to entertain. And the groups associated are largely active during festive seasons).

He was playing the role of a drunkard and, she told me, that he mesmerized the crowd with his performance. What impressed the crowd the most that a boy who had never touched alcohol could go on to enact the role of one with such horrible honesty. From then on, he was hailed among his friends as the drunkard. And, I heard from her, that he enjoyed the attention immensely. She said, “I think it gave him the satisfaction that he’s good. Good at something he had never done in real life. Good at fooling people.”

“Slowly the attention, the label grew on him. He started believing and behaving like one. Like a drunkard. You know, I had tried to stop him from playing the role of the drunkard when he had come to ask for my permission, but he didn’t listen to me as he never did.”

I had felt hurt in her voice when she was telling me this.

“And I knew the inevitable was now just outside the door waiting for the right moment to strike, it was bound to happen, given the kind of air that flew around him after that Jatra. And then one night it happened. He had come home late, very late. And when I opened the door the first thing that came inside was not my son but the horrible smell of the thing that I’ve been dreading since the night of Jatra; alcohol.”

And she had wiped her misty eyes after recalling the scenes from her past.

But I’ve observed during the growing up days of my life there in village with him, that alcohol somehow did not change him. He remained mostly under his own control, even after being drunk. He knew of the things he had done the night before when he woke up in the morning, fresh. He remembered the words he had uttered and in what manner. And most of all, he never seemed to forget the face of the person who thought he was drunk and so wouldn’t remember. This was one of the reasons people took him seriously, I think way too seriously, when he spoke, whatever he spoke, irrespective of his condition i.e. on alcohol or without alcohol. He was after all the stronghold, Bahubali of the nation’s second most powerful political party and its ally JMM in that region (now falls under State Jharkhand, district Pakur). There was equal amount of fear and respect among people for him, his name; Gulab.

I wonder if it was the role which made him perfect or something else which he perfected on his own. I don't know! Somehow no conclusion seems to make any sense. And now when he is no more, poisoned to death, burnt into cinders, smoked into airs, one with nature, I think I should refrain myself from coming to any conclusion behind him remaining what he remained even when he was drunk; almost sober.

Author's Note: The above is a very brief fact from the life and times of my late Father Gulab Ram. Please refrain from showing any sympathetic view here in your comments on the death of my father. I'm not sorry about his death, so shouldn't you. Thank you (in advance) for you understanding.

A Verisimilitude Anecdote [Part II]

2011-01-30T17:45:00.001+05:30

By Sadhogopal Ram

ßA verisimilitude Anecdote

Image Courtesy Google

Dreams, the ones long forgotten about a past inglorious, inhumane and equally blatant, have started coming back, though the scenes that now play in those murky frames are no longer the usual ones, the ones which haunted me more than a decade ago. There is now a man, grown up, somewhere in his 20s, maybe above, who stands on the other side of the road from exactly opposite of the place where I’m standing, in my own dream.

Milan. Yes, that was his name. He was from the same neighbourhood as mine, and his house was about 14-15 houses away from mine, on the other side of the lane. His father owned a small tea-stall in the centre of the market. Though it was quite big when compared to other tea-stalls in that village of mine, and was the only one which stayed open till late in night.

He, Milan, was into the same government and the only school in my village; I too was in, but not in the same class, though he wasn’t my junior nor was he my senior. While his class used to be conducted under the huge banyan tree, mine was inside the concrete room. It’s not like there weren’t enough room in the school for his class to be also conducted inside a concrete room, but being the low caste, as they were and as considered by the villagers, Milan along with other kids from his own low caste had to do with the class set under the huge banyan tree.

I guess nature knows no boundaries, it provides for everyone equally. It’s only us, human, who create divisions in the name of ‘names’.

My father, the Sarpanch of the village had tried many a times to change this partiality from at least happening inside a place, where knowledge was imparted into the young bloods and nurtured with a hope for a better tomorrow, the place, which he considered greater than any temples or mosques. But a village Panchaayat is not made of one man and so cannot also be ruled by one, though however greater that one man’s chair among other members of the village Panchaayat is, it or his power of superiority doesn’t matter much if he has got no support in his decisions from other members of the Village Panchaayat.

The day when I saw Milan in Bombay, near the Meera road railway track, and couldn’t recall his name while in my failed attempt to address him, I had felt as if I had seen a ghost, the kind who lives and breathes inside fables of a fabricated world. But in another second, I knew he wasn’t what it felt like – a ghost. He was real, out there, on the tracks of Meera road, in a red shirt (no the colour doesn’t represent any communalism), and faded jeans, whose colour I couldn’t make out.

And he had only one arm. I had difficulty imagining him in the past like this, without an arm, when he was in school and had both his arms intact. Somehow, it didn’t make any sense. I for a moment tried to deny his existence. He was dead; as everyone is the village had accepted, after their victory on the Daayan, when after 1 year there were still no trace of any of those about dozens of vanished children from my village.

His parents didn’t knew if they should grief or should they feel relieved that their two other children, one boy younger to Milan and a girl, the eldest one, were now safe. I don’t recall those twos name now and nor do I recall the name of their mother, who went mad and would oftentimes grab hold of random kids passing by in front of her house and whisper her lost son’s name, sobbing and smiling at equal times.

She had become a menace. Yes, menace, that’s what the villagers had started thinking of her and also calling her, though not in the open, but the whispers of thousands are far worse than the screams of few. And so the whispers did their part of job. I never saw her after that night, when she had suddenly grabbed my hand, sobbing and smiling, and had started calling out her lost son’s name. In the dark night, under the dim light of moon, her appearance frightened me. Her eyes were red and her hairs dishevelled. I was too shocked to scream but somehow managed to free my hand from her hold and ran. I ran without looking, where I was headed and I ran without a reason for me to be running like that. I just ran and ran.

………

The morning after that night was unusually silent. The air that flew carried subdued shrieks of a woman’s dismembered body being found, packed inside a rack in the pond situated in the outskirts of the village.

Everyone was silent. No one tried to speak up. The spell of silence grew lauder with each passing moment. Children were hushed inside the houses. The women were asked to remain inside. I stood at the edge of my home’s terrace. Looking below at the people gathered outside the gate of my house. They were waiting for my father. Their Sarpanch!

Author’s Note: After I saw Milan on the tracks on Meera Road station about 2 months ago, I have tried to go there again, with an faint hope that just in case, if I see him again. But I didn’t go. It won’t serve any purpose if I see him again this time, and this time after remembering everything about him, I still won’t be able to tell him nothing. I don’t know where’s the rest of his family members are? I don’t know whatever happened to them? And above all, I don’t know if he would remember who he is?

dhobi ghat (Mumbai Dairies)

2011-01-23T19:15:00.001+05:30

Life is just life. It’s just as it is. Like a movie running on theatre. Both possess the distinct quality of being as they are – unique. While some are just lame, damn, wham bam and all that. Some have the ingredients, each single one, which makes them stand apart. Those, with ingredients to stand apart are like a celluloid celebration of vivaciousness building in between the momentary silences which is ought to go unnoticed for the reason that the viewers are too engrossed in chatters and fizzles. Life is just like that. Its goes, for the most part, unnoticed and at the end of it, the viewer, the one watching that particular life, complains that it never lead him/her anywhere. It has betrayed him/her and has left him/her with nothing worth the pain he/she took all through the time while watching it. And the final conclusion: It was just a waste of time… and money!

Image courtesy Google

dhobi ghat (Mumbai Dairies) is one such life. It’s a blank canvas with vividly painted borders kept in some random corner of a long gone painter’s dilapidated house. To those looking at it with an restlessness of a man holding a little bucket full of water and his tummy, waiting outside the gate of public loo for his number, it will only give an impression of an irritating, vulgarised wall containing amateurish graphic details of private parts and of rage to break open that damn door.

In the similar manner, dhobi ghat, to those looking at it with an already a judgemental mind and concluded thought, it will only give the impression of random frames and very Kiran Rao’s inability to write and tell a story.

It’s an attempt to re-create life as it is but on celluloid frames, and it so does, implacably and impeccably. In a crowd full of herds thriving on mediocrity and mindlessness, Kiran Rao dared to stand apart if not alone and show the crowd of its own mediocre and mindless gibberish that it throws at each other and also gleefully accepts. Dhobi ghat straight away gives the impression that it does not matter to her that she would be condemned by them for trying to show what they see daily, of course, without bothering to take notice of it.

If I were to describe of my emotions while watching the film then I would be lying if don’t tell you of the little joys and of curiosity and empathy and of sudden loss of self that Yasmin experiences while filming the digital letters to be sent to her brother in a faraway village in UP. I would be lying if I don’t tell you the sense of amusement and of enlightenment coupled with unfelt emotions that were not available to Shai till she has not come to Mumbai on a paid sabbatical to get the perspective of city. And I would be utterly dishonest if I don’t accept all that Munna feels and thinks of Shai, while showing around her the localities and places and people that grows on her through him. The helpless desire of Munna to touch her while watching a film with her, the immensely burning fire inside him to kiss her irresistible lips while she lay asleep on the couch and the understanding of the life that he, Munna comes to realise and accept that he has to lead now.

But above all I would be untrue and this little piece in ode to dhobi ghat will be incomplete if I keep all that Arun, the reclusive painter living a life of a loner by choice as well as circumstances, goes through each frames shot in the mannerism of lifelike suddenness. His sense of awkwardness among the very people inside the gallery of his solo art exhibition, and the realisation of his own growing restlessness inside him in presence of the very person he just spent the entire night in drunken cuddling and kissing, and finally the sense of a life, complete and compelling, in the company of an absent Yasmin and her present digital letters which she had filmed for her brother.

It all came to me while watching this utter beauty named dhobi ghat, this muse called Mumbai dairies, this whore the inimitable Bombay of Kiran Rao, which she treats her with the utmost honesty otherwise ghastly missing from other so called true representatives of the city and its life.

Last words –

dhobi ghat will grow on me, inside me, with me as this city, this very Bombay has been growing in past 3 years, with the realisation that it won’t stop, that the feeling is mutual, and is without any bounding.

Corruption as Metaphor

2010-12-25T22:08:00.002+05:30

By Sadhogopal Ram

Originally written for YKA, an online media blog. Publishing it here on ARTH, just to make it available to readers who are not aware of YKA.

Corruption, though always prevalent everywhere, but somehow over the years have become synonym with India’s name, and in 2010 it has established itself as India’s official ruling force or …party (I guess I’ve this much of liberty to write in whatever hypocrisy…err I mean, democracy is left in our country today). And Corruption is what it is. An Identity! Therefore, I’m most corrupt. (You’ll know why I’m stating this. Just read on).

Image Courtesy Google

Not a day goes by, when there’s even one news headline that says that yesterday was a corruption free day. No scams were discovered. Government offices and officers worked without bribe. Traffic constable did not stop a helmet wearing and under-speed riding biker and did not fine him for something that he wasn’t doing. That the recently constructed bridge suddenly did not come down because instead of poor quality iron rods, there were superior qualities used, or the ongoing metro work was not postponed because the issue of non-payment of the workers was cleared. Not a single day. It’s all in just fantasy. And while we keep dreaming about all this, our public-appointed and (some) self-appointed guardians indulge in those games uglier than shitholes of a slum and messier than the garbage canisters of a posh colony. (I’m telling ya… these two are the worst places you’ll wanna fall into).

And while my Editor-in-Chief wants me to write about the top political scams happened in India during 2010, I somehow see no point in it. But still, I’m writing (though not entirely what he wanted. You see now, why I stated above that I’m most corrupt? I’m not doing the job I was asked to). Maybe because, like our politicians, who might not want to be included in the metaphor on their own but are somehow reluctantly keen to be part of it. Why? Maybe, they see it, the Corruption, as a larger symbol than the metaphor itself. Or maybe, they are just plain greedy (as you will plainly agree) and are simply having a jolly grand time stuffing away your hard-earned-tax-paid money. Maybe something else! But who knows? And most importantly, who cares? While it, the scams happen, noises rise. Groups are formed. Inquires run. RTIs and PILs are filed. The official representative of that organisation, involved in that particular scam, gets his or her profile and job axed. While some random officer is picked up and put behind bars. Public rage turns into euphoria. Media starts praising the same it was blaming a few hours ago and so on. And the one, the King of the Kong, the executioner, the Chanakya of cunningness, is having the last laugh, while also foreseeing all those future possibilities where he, she or they, as collective force, will again have the same old but still grand last laugh, at the cost of all those who themselves, in their own greed for a so called promised land and twisted ideologies based on some ancient theory, have appointed him, her or them as their collective ruler.

I call this chaos. Perfect, precise, and fulfilling its purpose to the level of utter equality. Like you eat, you shit and then to clean it, you flush, wipe or pay yourself (depending on the type of life-style you are leading). Because at the end…err I mean, beginning of the day, it is after all your mess, and you ought to yourself or pay to clean it. So in the same manner, you chose them, the one now eating away all the butter made from your bloody/bloodier sweat, and alongside asking you to say – “cheese”. There’s literally nothing you and I can do, except about venting out our anger (Literary Expression in my case. Come on, give me that much of space. Will ya? Thank you!) But there are ways. Some real ways! Not all those just high-talk ways. Though, I’m afraid, that I can’t write them here in this Opinion openly. But I’ll give you some glimpses. Some subtle hints!

Like what you do, when that tiny little tree inside that intricately designed pot, made with earthly attributes, kept in the balcony of your home (provided you have one. No, no, not the home, the intricately designed pot, made with earthly attributes, with that tiny little tree), starts to rot? Yes, rot. Not dry, but rot. What? What exactly do you do?

I don’t know about you, but I immediately pluck it out of that…that intricately designed pot, made with earthly attributes, and throw it as far as I could, with a force sometime, even not familiar to me.

But I know what most possessors often do. They keep watering it. With a hope! Yes, with that so called most famous word in the English dictionary, they keep watering it with a blind hope that someday it will become what it was. Pure! Un-corrupt!

I call them escapists. You can call them illusionary.

Because, no amount of persistence, however willing, can reverse that cycle where the tree, though still growing, but is rotting! Of course, until forcedly stopped. So, if you really want to get rid of this metaphor, you know what you have to do. And if you are not clear then enjoy dude (gal?), because this metaphor of – I am most corrupt – is not meant for you.

A Verisimilitude Anecdote!

2010-12-16T19:52:00.001+05:30

By Sadhogopal Ram

She thumped her naked, swollen chest, with tight fists, falling one after another, rhythmically. As if drum-sticks falling on drums. Making a sort of sound very unusual to be made by fist thumping on a women’s naked, swollen chest is supposed to make.

She thumped, and thumped, inviting each head in that mob, which knew nothing about her, about an hour ago, absolutely nothing, and knew at that very moment only that it was the first time anyone is the village saw her. And going by the monstrous expressions in each set of those eyes, which seemed ready to pop out, of each of those heads, probably, it will be the last time anyone will ever see her.

I was very small then, I don’t exactly recall my age. I was 11, or maybe 10. 11, probably! I don’t know exactly. All I know that I never saw that women again. I heard stories, though. Yes, stories.

But in all those stories, her end was the same. Death. Bitten till she bled and bled the last drop of her blood. Slapped. Kicked. Punched. Spat, and then bitten again. Some of the stories also include that, they tossed her body, not dead yet, but almost there, in the air and then tied it on two long bamboo sticks and (kind of) held a victory march.

And while they narrated the story, in pride; familiar only to them and they to it, I cried, not in fear. But in disgust. I cried for being able to do nothing about it. For just sitting there, and listen to them, narrating a tale of horrendous mannerism and take pride in it for at last killing the Daayan who had eaten away their so many little kids.

She was spotted near the pond with Raju, the boy who had gone missing since past two days. He was semi-conscious and lay on her arms. People coming from the farms saw her and saw Raju in her arms. But never bothered to ask her – “why” or “how” instead they ran towards her, stone in hands, cuss words on lips, and shot at her – “Daayan” … “Daayan”.

And then a crowd, of adult and angry, blind followers, joined them. Almost as if hypnotised, completely, by the sheer magnitude of the word “Daayan” just like those little kids, who upon hearing any sound which pleases to them, turns their heads or runs towards it, they ran too, the crowd of adult and angry, blind followers, in the direction, from the horizon of which, came the sound in the name they all have been waiting and waiting to hear from last 3 months. Yes, it all had started 3 months before that fateful day, when that woman was seen in the village for the first and last. As if, she was born on that day to die on that day, as she did, indeed die on that day.

My father, whose words I trust, kept telling me; till he was alive, that he tried to persuade people to let her go, let her live, at least let her first speak. But I don’t know why, I somehow cannot bring myself to completely trust his words here, in this case. I know he probably did try. That he was the Sarpanch he had to try. It was, after all, his first duty – “to save lives, irrespective of geographical location of the person, who currently stands on his turf, till he/she is proven guilty of the crime he/she is being charged with.”

So, when he says, he tried and he failed, that means he failed not just as the Sarpanch who could not live up to his first duty but also as a human who could not be true to that one thing that a human is thought to have for another fellow human being i.e. compassion, right?

From past 3 months, children of my village were mysteriously being vanished. No one came to know what happened to them after that, because they or their bodies (if in any case) were never found out. No, absolutely no trace of them; as if they never existed.

People, whose children went missing, were aghast, and people who had children, were scared. Some were angry, too. Most of such, the angry ones, didn’t have any children or anything else to do. Though, none of them knew of what or at whom. But they were angry, just plain angry at whatever that it was.

And so, in their fear, the parents stopped letting their children go out. They barred them from going to school either. Police jeep, which before always stood outside the Thaana, now patrolled the entire village and on some day’s outskirts of the village too, day and night. But it did not stop. The children kept vanishing, not missing, but vanishing. Because the missing one has the possibility of reappearing, like Raju did, but the ones who vanish, never do. Like the children, who vanished from my village, never did. And so they kept vanishing, though not in the same speed, but they did, nevertheless.

The story is now almost a legend in the village, almost. Now the grandparents narrate it to their grandchildren in a manner they find it suitable, fairytale i.e. good always triumphs over bad. That, she was the bad, very bad and that her death was the good. A victory over her could have come only from her death and so it came.

I too, have forgotten about it, almost. Till, I saw him crossing the tracks near the Meera Road station a week ago. He wore a red shirt, and faded jeans, whose colour I couldn’t make out. He had only one arm. I understood what he does here. I opened my mouth to call out his name, but couldn’t recall it. The train, which was waiting for the signal at outer, started moving. I tried to remember his name, as hard as I could do. But it did not came to me. And then, it came to me, no, not the name, but the reason behind the disappearance of children from my village some 12-13 years ago.

The reason, that took away the life of that woman who, probably had nothing to do with it, or maybe had? But who knows? No one cared enough to ask her. All they cared was what they all have been waiting and waiting to hear and when they finally heard, they had to do it to fulfill that particular desire which their anger had aroused – Blind Rage.

***

Author’s Note: The story above is a true-life incident. I’ve, in past, tried to write about it, but failed, for reasons unknown to me. Everything happened in real. I remember not being able to sleep for many nights after the incident. I though no longer remember her face, but she is still alive in my memory in some vague form. I do not hope to redeem anything from this write for anybody. Just that, it is a story that needed to be told and so today, it is being told. Thank you!

Paint Conspiracy: the Wall Project

2010-10-28T03:25:00.001+05:30

By Sadhogopal Ram (with Swapnil Shahane [Photographer])

Hmmm, so how do you begin writing about something which starts with unpolished, unkempt and equally ugly looking walls and ends after 3 ½ of unseasoned but planned out festival of Holi in which people, who actually happen to be fervent artists from all around the globe, transform those same walls, the unpolished, unkempt and equally ugly looking, into an artistic magnificence? And then exactly how do you describe the spirit of awesomeness which seems to have entered into each one of the breathing soul present there, in this case – from one end to another of Chapel Road, Bandra West?

I have no damn clue. You see, my ability to describe events literally fail here, and I’m not at all amazed.

So, I’ll begin (if it can be called a beginning at all) with a very, very small story.

Once upon a time there was a wall, devoid of colours and thus void of any feelings. And in that same time, there was a group of young individuals with spirit as vibrant as rainbow itself, the only difference was that they did not needed rain to show their vibrancy.

The wall, to be very precise was in an Old East Indian Village – Bazaar Road in Bandra. And there’s a legend around that it is overflowing with artists of numerous talents but all hidden inside their tiny, little abodes and the legend is as true as the existence of Bazaar Road in Bandra.

So that vibrant group of young individual used to daily pass by that plain, boring wall, and each time they passed, their heart burned with a volcanic intensity which erupted at its decibel highest, proclaiming among them that – “Something has to be done to it.”

So one fine day, they sought out the owner of that wall, Mr. Glenford D’Mello, who turned out be an extremely kind hearted men and allowed them to ‘paint’ it. But what Mr. D’Mello didn’t know that it was not that normal, same old – paint the wall thing.

The Gonsalves wall, as it was known, became the foundation of what that vibrant group of young individuals today call – the Wall Project. In their own words – “It was an initiative to add visual elements of colour, form and texture to a space, to make the area more alive and generate a feeling among people who pass by it daily.”

So, that was the story of how the Wall Project got formed. And since then, since doing “something to the Gonsalves wall” they have been consistently conspiring “paint the wall” all around the city (Bombay). This week (Sunday 24^th) it was the walls of Chapel Road, Bandra. The day was Sunday and the time “a really cool, colourful evening.”

The atmosphere was calm (even though cars honked horns as if it’s tyres can feel the road, and as if the road was made up of thorns), and people calmer (though few were confused as to why on earth are these firangi accent Indians and pani-puri eating Firangis painting the walls?)

But one thing that surprised me was the number of photographers present there. If my guess is right (which I know it is) then there were 2 photographers on every painter. This means more than the brushes there were clicks (and chicks [Beautiful, Warm, and Friendly Chicks]) which rolled on to the unpolished and unkempt looking walls of Chapel Road, Bandra.

Ok, enough of my rant. I’ll leave you with few of the true-colour pictures of the event clicked by my Photographer friend, Swapnil Shahane.

A few words on Swapnil: He is an awesome landscape photographer, probably one of the finest I’ve personally known/seen till date.

Due to some technical glitch, I'm not being able to upload more pictures of the event, So please refer to his Facebook page for more pictures of the Wall Project - Here

Sorry for the inconvenience. I hope you enjoy the visual treat.

Thank you.

The Joy of Giving!

2010-10-19T23:03:00.001+05:30

By Sadhogopal Ram

“Sometimes the joy of giving has the amazing potential to surpass even the most strongest of feeling known to humans. Because when you give, you love; and love, I’ve experienced in my life is the purest of emotion.” – Gulab Ram [1960 - May 14, 2004]

Time 21:55 [October 18]

I've never actually given anyone anything except that once I gave out my heart to a pretty looking girl, who later “respectfully” returned it to me, when my childhood buddy offered her his own. Anyways, that doesn't count. Though I’ve always had this feeling deep down inside that one day when I’ll give, it will be substantial in many aspects. And currently I’m having this intuition that the moment has come.

Time 23:46 [October 18]

I’m going to give. Yup, I’m finally going to give something, and this something, as felt by me, is quite substantial in its nature, as it is one of the main sources of life inside human body, in fact it’s something that our heart pumps throughout it’s time – blood.

I don’t know how to say this, but I’m kind of really excited. I know most of you might be thinking – “Dude, what’s there to be so excited about?” Well, may be the reason that it’s my first opportunity to give something to anyone, and when that something is the synonym of life itself then I think, it, indeed, is the very reason to be excited about.

I don’t know the person who needs my blood. But the person happens to be a friend of my Facebook friend Rizvi Amir, who was introduced to me by another Facebook friend.

I’ve always believed in the saying that – “Everything happens for a reason, and the reason is always good.” So, when we, me and Rizvi, were introduced (without any particular reason), I immediately had this feeling, that it must be for a reason, which is not clear/known to us now, but when the moment will come, it will reveal itself. And see how it has unfolded itself.

A friend of Rizvi needs O Positive blood and Rizvi puts a request in his Facebook status asking if anyone is in his profile with this particular blood group. And call it co-incident or a cosmic conspiracy, I, who only few days ago became his friend via another friend, happen to be the one.

So, I’m expected at Tata Memorial Hospital (Bombay) around 09:00 and so I better get some sleep, as the Hospital is a bit far away from my place, and in the morning a tsunami takes place every day on the route (Vashi – Church gate) in which the Hospital falls (Parel).

Time 13:30 [October 19]

I can never, ever donate blood. I was tested positive for Hepatises B seven years ago, and thus my blood is not safe for others.

This was what I was told by the doctor who was questioning me. And the moment I heard it, believe it or not, I felt an strange kind of ache in my heart; an ache which I know will last till I last.

Time 18:40 [October 19]

When I came out of the room, I was feeling really sad, but then the one who needed my blood said – “You take care of yourself. You came here with good intention; intention to give something to someone whom you don’t even know, and that’s what really matters. It’s another thing that it didn’t materialise the way you had thought it will.” And other’s too, his wife, and my friend Rizvi Amir, and later my boss also said the same thing to me.

And coming to think of it now, I feel good inside that at least I had the right intention and went there with the heart to give, where there are people who, though completely capable of giving, mentally and physically, but never come out.

But then one thing is for sure that I will never experience that feeling, which in the word of my late father – “…has the amazing potential to surpass even the most strongest of feeling known to humans.”

I’m stripped off of that joy, even before I could have it.

About the person, who needed the blood, well, he has cancer and will be going through a major operation of Thursday. I hope, yes, that’s all I can do now, that everything goes well with him and that the operation be a successful one. I hope that when he comes out of that operation theatre on Thursday, he be gifted with a life, not only healthy but also prosperously long. I hope that he now not merely live, but also enjoy life to its fullest. Because somewhere in my heart I know that on Thursday, a new life will embrace him. A life, full of joy; joy of acceptance and humility towards others, and a life, full of love; love for life itself.

And, lastly, I also hope that all of you, who have come this far here, will also hope for him in the manner most hopeful for him.

Thank You.

Come 28th September, We Will Have the Option to Follow to Kill or to Lead to Build [Remember to Choose Wisely]

2010-09-26T01:31:00.002+05:30

By Sadhogopal

किस काम के मंदिर मस्जिद, किस काम के हैं गुरूद्वारे,

इस देश के बे-घर बच्चे, जब फिरते हैं मारे-मारे,

I have no idea who was that wise man (women?) who penned these pleading lines, but they sure are the apt representation of our nation, where millions of kids today are either forced, dumped or born to live a homeless life.

People are dying of hunger here, and all we want to do is to build mosques and temples, and for what reason?

Not to offer prayer, not even to read namaaz, but to prove some stupid claim over some stupid land, for which thousands of people have lost their lives and probably millions are on the verge of losing it, again.

Come September 28, 2010, at 10:30 am, the apex court will (supposedly) hear the (final) verdict on half a century old Ayodhya land dispute.

At the time, when we are supposedly suppose to have been completely evolved as human beings, and accept each other as we are, spread not only the message but also the peace to people of other religion and nation, and build a system where no one dies of hunger, and for that matter sleep on streets, what we are doing is fighting over religions and individual’s personally derived (twisted) meaning of its “peace.”

We, instead of building stone structures which we can call as “homes” and put the ones who are in desperate need of it, are fighting to build those stone structures which we fondly address as mosques and temples and place stone carved statues and tombs in it.

What a mighty sad time for the entire human race, who has become disgustingly repulsive at its want to have what it wants at any cost, no matter even if the cost is its own destruction.

But all is not lost in this want for another ‘excuse’ to kill each other. On the one hand where a section of this society of ours is desperately waiting to bring out their knives and swords and start wielding it on fellow human beings, another section of this same society of ours is trying to keep the ‘bond’ between humans intact.

“Around 15 Muslim families in the Asharfi Bhawan area of Ayodhya, some 150 km from Lucknow, have been involved in making floral garlands and decorative offerings for Hindu devotees for the last several decades.

Asked what they think about the much-awaited verdict in the long-pending title suit Friday, Muslim artisans said irrespective of the outcome of the judgement they would continue with their business to help Hindus.

"We just pray for peace and believe the judgement will not affect Hindu-Muslim brotherhood and unity," Sartaj added."

Like you (who is reading this) I too, don’t know what will the judgement be, but whatever it may be, one thing is for sure that there’s going to be lots of smoke in the air. Now it is not inevitable, it can be stopped, but the question is WHO? WHEN?

You? Me?

Of course, WE, no one else, but WE!

Now it is up to us that whether we get influenced and spread venom or inspire and transform lives, whether we become the follower and tarnish the bond or lead and make it stronger, whether we become the swords and kill our brothers and sisters or pillars of support those who are in desperate need of us.

So it’s very important that we choose, but what’s more important is that we choose wisely.

Thank you for your time, and (hopefully) for your understanding. You are welcome to post your comments in the comment box below. Please feel free to express yourself.

The article also appeared as featured news in the online media site - Youth Ki Awaaz

Of Minority and Of Majority [and Special Treatment]

2010-09-19T18:22:00.001+05:30

By Sadhogopal Ram

A few days ago, Youth Ki Awaaz asked a very important question about giving special treatment to celebrities in regards of their auspicious visit to religious places.

My answer was in favour of it (and it still is). But before making your mind regarding anything, I will suggest that you read the entire piece.

Now be it the minority (celebrity) or the majority (common man), before being anything the people in these two inevitable categories of all time are human first, and as far as I remember, the saying that I’ve heard is goes something like this that “every human is equal in the eyes of God” and so the logical reaction would be that why should the minority be given special treatment and the majority, who actually is responsible for making the minority a minority (celebrity), be kept away from it?

But, this is not about being logical; it’s all about being a bit sensible. Yes, that’s all it’s really about and believe me (if only you want to) it is for a greater good.

And have you ever thought about this neglected phenomenon that refuses to inspire the majority in spite of its widespread success in not only inside our country but in every country worldwide, that ‘this’ is the only minority that receives such gigantic amount of love and (in some parts and cases) respect from the majority? Funny it is, but it’s also the sad part of that truth which we all fail to see.

Anyways, I will not indulge in any further observation so to give you the idea that I’m drifting away from the subject.

So, as we all know that how 'fond' we all are of ‘this’ minority class, and we literally 'rob' (and in some places) ‘rape’ the people from this class (not in the sense in which the ‘real’ minority classes are being raped and robbed) if we get a slightest of chance to even touch them.

For instance: A few days ago, a very prominent person of this class was shooting at my college premises in Mumbai and he was supposed to be there for about 3 and half days, but due to the extra dose of love that was showered onto him from the people of majority class that he wrapped up his shoot in 2 days and ran off, also cancelling the 1 hour special interaction with the college students that he was supposed to be part of.

And the people from majority class, instead of comprehending the situation, started blaming him. Why? Because he cancelled the time that he had promised he would give them. But why did he do that? What prompted him to cancel the special interaction that he himself had promised?

Well, nobody was in mood to think about all these sensible questions, because they were logically pissed that the one whom they love so much couldn’t understand their feelings. But did they try to understand that they did not let him ‘work’ and subsequently he was forced to do what he did. After all, he too, is a human being. Like them, he too, needs to work in order to earn his living. Now is he supposed to abandon all his work and start satisfying their wishes just because they love him?

We get to read, see on news in TVs as to what happens when the celebrities come out in public to either promote their film or do some social or personal work, and the above mentioned case is just one such example of it.

And a week ago there were reports that a very famous star and his bodyguards got into scuffle with public in Hyderabad city during the promotion of his latest Hindi flick. Now when a star is not sparred even when he is out to promote his film so we all can imagine the kind of ‘treatment’ he will get when he visits any religious place, which then invariably makes the question of special treatment for them necessary.

Here I am not suggesting that they should be treated specially just because they are celebrities, but not giving them an 'isolated' way OUT and IN can result in a lot of trouble for both, the public and the celebrity. Often times there have been cases of huge stampedes when a star comes out in public, and lots of people have lost their lives in many such cases, also causing damage to public property in their rage.

Now this may not go down well with few but if anyone from majority class is not comfortable with this idea of “giving special treatment to celebrities upon their visit to religious places” then they have to stop thinking that the celebrities are their personal gifted toy of joy, which they can 'hug' as tightly as they want to.

We are human, and so a little bit of sensitivity and a sense of giving space, if starts existing in us, (because we are human and these two characteristics can exists only in human) then there wouldn't be any need for any special treatment for anybody. Be it the people from minority or the majority.

Thank you for reading till here. Now you are free to think what you want to think. And I would love to know your thinking in the comment box below.

We the People, the State Bihar, and the Irony behind its Misery [An Opinion]

2010-08-17T19:48:00.005+05:30

By Sadhogopal Ram

Bihar, with its most varied history in India, was once the centre of power, learning and culture for more than 1000 years. In fact, India's first empire, the Maurya Empire as well as one of the world's greatest anti-violence religions - the Buddhism - arose from the region that now makes modern Bihar, a centre of extreme violence, culturally backward and to the very extent a powerless state of modern India.

What an irony, once hailed for its greatness now literally in hell for its abjectness!

Today almost 58 percent of Biharis are below the age of 25, which is the highest proportion in India, making Bihar, as of today, the house of YOUTHS.

But Bihar today, lags behind the other Indian states in terms of human and economic development.

The Economists and Social Scientists claim that this is a direct result of the distorted policies of the Central Government, such as the freight equalisation policy and its apathy towards Bihar, along with the lack of Bihari sub-nationalism and the permanent settlement of 1793 by the British East India Company.

- The Freight Equalisation Policy was adopted in 1948 by the Indian Government to smooth the progress of the equal development of industry all over the country. This meant a factory could be set up anywhere in India and transportation of minerals would be subsidised by the Central Government. And as an outcome, the policy resulted in the expansion of heavy and middle level industry in the post-independence years outside the mineral-rich regions of the country. The coastal states of Maharashtra and Gujarat along with Delhi and its surrounding districts were the greatest beneficiaries. Industrialists interested in setting up plants anywhere in the country – Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi etc. – would get Coal, Iron Ore, Aluminium etc. at the same price as they used to get in Bihar (now Jharkhand), West Bengal, Chhattisgarh or Orissa. But along with benefiting other Non-Mineral-Rich States of the Country, the policy resulted in literally destroying the vastly Mineral-Rich States. The worst sufferer of this policy was West Bengal, the undivided Bihar (now Jharkhand) and to some extent Orissa and Madhya Pradesh (now Chhattisgarh carved out from it). West Bengal and Bihar’s huge competitive advantage of holding the minerals got destroyed as now factories were set up everywhere else but in these particular mineral-rich states. This was not the case in the pre-independence era when Tatas and Dalmias etc. had to come and set up industries in Bihar and most of the engineering industry was located in the state of West Bengal. The Freight Equalisation Policy thus continues to destroy states like West Bengal and Bihar even after more than half century of Independence.

During the freedom struggle, Bihar was an important part of it and Gandhi became the mass leader only after the Champaran Satyagraha (Champaran is a historic region and a district in Bihar).

But the irony behind Bihar’s misery is that it is cursed, and cursed not by the ones who don’t even belong to it but by the ones who were once not only born and brought up in here but also happens to be the very part of it till today.

It is this sheer hypocrisy of these thankless and loathing people who have and continue to condemn Bihar for the fault and crime it never actually and deliberately did.

For people must understand that it is not a state which commits sins or kills the very people who belong to it, no, a state is not and should not be held liable or responsible for the crimes and even the good things that the people living in it do.

But alas when it comes to Bihar, the entire human race fails to understand this basic concept that a state doesn’t make its people, as it is the very people who live in it and out of it that makes it a state a state.

I, myself am a Bihari i.e. born in Bihar. So does it make me a BAD man? Or am I to be labelled as a BHAIYA simply because I was born in the land of milkman’s?

Well, call it arrogance or attitude of a Bihari BHAIYA but I refuse to accept such dumb reasons because I find it completely bizarre and it is also wrong to label people simply based on the states that they come from.

Isn’t this being RACIST (labelling and discriminating people on the basis of states)?

This Article was previously published in an online newspaper Youth Ki Awaaz as featured news.

Article Source:
Wikipedia

The 'Mob' who Wrote Ragini's Fate, …and of many other like Her!

2010-08-06T20:31:00.004+05:30

By Sadhogopal

He pounced on her, in his quest to strip her off her tender skin just as he had stripped every single piece of cloth off her body, ignoring her muffled voice, engulfed in his own false pride; he continued the vicious demonstration of his manliness on her.

“But Pa, I like someone else” – she tried to make him understand.

“That doesn’t mean I’m going to let you do what you want and spoil my status in society” – he at once declared his intentions.

She, on the other hand, lay there, beneath him, motion-&-emotionless. Her eyes looking almost blank, almost close to being tearless too, but the pain that this ‘love-making’ was causing has filled her with a shame she has been feeling since her ‘first’ night and it would often reach its limits, which only her eyes were capable of expressing. The eyes which used to shimmer with light of life, the eye which once housed thousands of dreams, today those same eyes did not even had tears to call their own. Paleness was their only companion and nothing gave them solace anymore, nothing.

Our Ragini (yes, that’s what we are going to call her from now on) had never felt so helpless in her entire life. She could not fathom as to what to do to make things right. She wanted to cry, shout at the top of her voice, probably to that extent that will make her ears go numb. But she couldn’t even utter a sigh, though she tried, but all she could muster up was her own silence; silence which frightened her, made her miserable, her own silence.

Wherever his hands touched her body, they left their marks there, part red, part brown, and with each mark, came a numbing screech from her those furiously bleeding lips; the same lips which once were as tender as petals of a blood red rose and seemed almost rose like when the Sun showered his silvery rays upon them, the same lips today seemed lifeless, almost, as if trying to breath their last before they would be freed from the pain, but freedom doesn’t come easily, and freedom from pain can only be experienced in dreams, real life option is just not viable. But dreams have long ago abandoned her paled eyes, and so her lips kept enduring the pain while her eyes tried to reflect it, trying but failing at last.

“You still standing here? Go, go and get ready. Harish’s family are on their way.” – He said while looking up from the newspaper and got back to it.

He kept shoving himself inside her. After he was done, satisfying his own pride and the falseness of it, he spat on her looking at her with disgust, and when his disgust grew, he kicked her hard, hard enough to throw her off the bed. He then dozed off to sleep, after all this was his daily routine, a physical exercise, which provided him with a night of peaceful sleep.

“I don’t care.” – She said trying to sound as firm as she could.

“It doesn’t matter to me. You will do what I said.” – He uttered in rage, his eyes filled with contempt for her, his own daughter.

Ragini knew nothing would deter his stern father from his decision. At that moment she missed her mother. She somehow had this feeling deep down inside her that if her mother would have been alive, she would have understood her.

She lay there just as she was after being kicked off the bed, even though an hour had passed, close to being senseless, covered in her own blood, over the concrete floor, her bare body trying to take solace from the cold surface of it, her dried up eyes slowly fading off, and she trying to fall sleep so that she could go back to her past.

“But what’s wrong with him? He is a well educated man, works in a good company… if that’s your concern… then he will keep me happy, pa.” – She once again tried to make him see how badly she wanted him.

This was the moment that Raghuveer Singh looked up from the newspaper, took off his specks and spoke in a tone Ragini had never knew her dear father possessed.

“He is a Muslim, a bloody fucking Muslim, and that’s what wrong with him. I don’t give a damn if he is well educated or not or works in some big-shot company. At the end of the day he is what he is … a bloody Muslim.”

Her mornings were more miserable than her nights. They were murkier than the murkiest of nights. They were, in fact, now devoid of any Sun or even hope of it. Every morning, after waking up, she found herself screaming, raucously. That gory hole in between her legs torn with dried up blood spots all around it. The hole which had inflated in all these years, but still, it kept tearing up, night after night, throbbing, morning after morning. She wished to fold her legs, hold close to her chest, but afraid, in fact so afraid that she couldn’t even try it in her thoughts too, fearing it might amplify the throbbing and a fresh river of blood would ooze out from the pores.

His face had turned almost red and his eyes only had hatred in them.

“…and the day I came to know you seeing a bloody Muslim, you or your happiness, nothing means anything to me. All that matters now is what I want. So get this in your head; you are going to say YES to Harish. Now go and get ready.”

She couldn’t bring herself to believe all that she was hearing. Her own father despised her, and for what? For loving a guy from another caste, or was it the past?

She woke up, same as the previous morning, screaming, her face swollen, aching, the part below her abdomen, torn, hurting even more. She tried to scratch the concrete floor with her broken nails, trying, as if to savour the pain, yes, savour; after all she was used to it now, after all these years of continuously being ‘raped’, she had finally given herself up. ‘Better get used to it’ – she often thought.

It’s not like she wanted to live, but she couldn’t die either. She wasn’t that brave, no, she just couldn’t bring herself up to kill her own self, just like she couldn’t bring herself up, in the past, as to how to think through the denial of her father and go her own way. Because if only she could, she wouldn’t be today what she is – a whore. The only difference her ‘customer’ was not some new stranger every night but her own husband, who was living up to his promise, night after night, he made to her father.

“Don’t worry, uncle, I know how to get that bloody Muslim out of her head. I promise, she will curse herself for loving that filthy piece of shit, that bloody Muslim.”

And Raghuveer Singh’s eyes had beamed with light. Knowing that his pride will be restored, he couldn’t control the smile that flashed at his lips, he felt relieved at the assurance that the culprit will be punished. After all she has to be, she did the crime. Crime of falling in love, but the most heinous one, she fell for a bloody Muslim. The same Muslims who had taken away his wife from him, the women he loved more than anything, the women who meant everything to him, and he couldn’t do anything. Why? Because it was the fury of a mob, which came like a wild thunder and took away his shelter of solace, his companion around whom he had build his nest. And mob has no face, no identity. It do not leave its traces, no one recognises a mob. Only thing recognisable is the purpose, the rage that forms a mob, the hatred that makes a mob a mob. And sometime the religion which gathers dust and turns it into a stone. Yes, as hard as stone, a mob is but a stone with no eyes to see, no ears to hear, only purpose to hit, whoever comes in front, hit, not to hurt, but to kill.

But he knew. He knew the religion of that mob. He knew that it was Muslim mob. He knew faces which formed that mob, and he was well aware of the identity behind those faces, each one of them. In fact they were still so fresh in his memory, that even after 8 years, he could recognise them, in the streets, in that train compartment which he boarded daily for his office, and he could hear their voices, whispering, but he was helpless. He wanted to shoot each one of them, and he would do it daily, in his dreams, yes, because he knew he couldn’t in real life.

Ah, no, he wasn’t a coward. He was, in fact, worse. He too, was the mob. A mob against a mob, human against humans, against humanity, against peace, against everything that once united them; Hindus and Muslims, Diwali and Eid, Holi and Baqrid, Sewai and Kheer, Aadaabs and Namastes, Praathna and Ajaan. In fact, a world was torn into two, divided.

Why?

The Mob; and no mob have a face or identity. It do not leave its traces, no one recognises a mob. Only thing recognisable is the purpose, the rage that forms a mob, the hatred that makes a mob a mob. And sometime the religion which gathers dust and turns it into a stone. Yes, as hard as stone, a mob is but a stone with no eyes to see, no ears to hear, only purpose to hit, whoever comes in front, hit, not to hurt, but to kill, to destroy, to divide.

And the ‘mob’ had written our Ragini’s fate, a fate even she couldn’t deny. How could she? She wasn’t the part of any mob. She was the spectator, a spectator who would become a victim in the future.

Author's Note: This story is an attempt to remember all those women who were denied their share of happiness, their choice of life, what they wanted, and were pushed into a life worse than any death could have been, and for what? In the name of religion, caste, pride, status and don’t know what more.

I apologize for the words that I’ve used in this story, but let me assure you that they were just used to depict and provoke the right emotions. But if you think my attempt was deliberate, then please bear with my ignorance.

The Utter Lamentations of a Bard’s Jaded Mind!

2010-07-31T19:17:00.001+05:30

By Sadhogopal Ram

It’s almost three months now, almost! Three months of life living behind the concrete walls of a very hostile house, yes, a ‘house’ not HOME, a very-very hostile ‘house.’

And though, this house, in a very posh but quiet, not serene, ‘quiet’ locality, stands proudly with poise and confidence; a confidence that only comes to a soldier standing at the border guarding his country, but isolated; isolated from the much needed chaos of daily life and happenings, isolated from chirpings of birds in the morning, and isolated from the barks and howls of dogs in the night, in fact so isolated that his eyes longs to see a fellow human being who is receptive, but alas as he finds none, so do I, after almost three months, almost, found none with whom I could share that how it feels like to stand in crowded town, but isolated.

The only saving grace is the wind that blows here, unperturbedly, but then it carries nothing except a few more ounce of quietness; a quietness which instead of being the source of comfort and bliss, frightens the soul to that extent that the ‘remote’ which controls it, yes, that tiny piece of muscle ‘pumping gallons of blood and beating in rhythmic cycle’ in the chest, starts to shiver so peculiarly that it hurts, sometime for hours, to breathe; hours which sometime surpasses the usual day-night cycle and still continue to an unforeseen period of time, and in those ‘hours’… in those longer than day & night ‘hours’ I find myself gasping for air even though it’s flows like a river all around me, but seems as if it has barred me, cast me out from her club of lovers, from touching and feeling her, from experiencing the ecstasy that her touch would provide my soul.

Ah, how I long to be cast away from here, from this town called Barddhamaan, to that place where the wind instead of prohibiting me from ‘making out’ with her, would indulge herself in the ‘foreplay’ which would reignite the soul within; a soul that drives me and my passion – passion for people and poetry, passion for life itself, passion for adventure, passion for compassion to some extent and moreover passion for passion itself, the place called Bombay!

My mornings here start with a very unusual headache; a headache which begins its journey from one side of the head and then travels towards the other side of it, daily, leaving me in acute pain for the day that doesn’t easily ends. The days here lingers, actually it’s the feeling that lingers but seems as if the days have stopped, and so I try to endure the days and nights here and indulge myself in the work that though otherwise enlivens me but due to the catastrophically monotonous life of mine, the work too, has become so dreary that I often look at it with repulsion, yes, repulsion for that same work for which I once gave out a sumptuous banquet treat to the comrades of solace – my friends.

And as the night approaches, the restlessness grows inside; restlessness to go out ‘prowling’, to slaughter the silence that I forced myself to endure during the day, but as the night starts to discolour itself, I once again force myself, this time to endure the restlessness within. And I succeed to an extent, but then silence and restlessness are two utterly distinctive feature of human nature, and that too, with their own set of different natures, as where the nature of silence, which is like a baby, allows her to be tamed, the nature of restlessness shatters all control, like a insanely flowing river destroys any barrier that tries to forcedly stop her, thus, my soul, after losing the battle, abandons me, making me almost a ‘carcase’, which then collapses over the big bed in my BIG room, for few hours, only to come back into it and wake me up with the same headache that begins its journey from one side of the head and then travels towards the other side of it.

Sigh.

I now think that this was not what I’d imagined when I came here and this is something which I’m sure I will never experience anywhere. Before it happened, I always used to say I wonder – ‘how living alone, away from the chaos and cluster of the world will be?’ – but today when I now no longer need to ‘wonder’ about it, when I know about it more than I ever ‘wondered’ about it, I pray that – ‘if living alone, away from chaos and cluster of the world is like this, then I don’t want it, ever again, not even in my worst of dream.’

And I now wait for the September to come, like a child waits for his father to pick him up. So, till September comes, I will have to keep myself from going bonkers, which is obvious to happen if …I fail to wake myself up… when September comes!

Of Yore and Of Hope [Emotional Atyachaar]

2010-07-24T20:48:00.005+05:30

By Sadhogopal Ram

Author’s Note: The below posted narrative is one of my personal experiences. It happened with me about a year ago. My motive behind posting it here now is nothing specific except that I’m participating in this month’s Indiblogger Emotional Atyachaar and Weblog's Sleepy Sunday contest. Though partly sad, partly mad, but I enjoyed completely while writing it and I hope you all enjoy it too.

Have fun reading it, friends!

Part 1

On the 4^th of June 2009, I was in Pune, about 170 kilometres away from the suffocating humidity of the furiously sweating city, Bombay, and it was warmly cold in there (yes, warmly cold).

And for the first time in 3 months I found myself almost so very close to shivering (in the season of summer), and so naturally it was unbelievable for me but it seemed like magic, I mean the feeling was something I had only experienced once in my life (I will get to that too). So the first thing I ask myself,

“Man, am I not supposed to sweat?”

And then this thought appeared into my mind,

“Maybe not”

Because I was in Pune, where the sky was frigidly blue and was smiling as vibrantly as my animated heart, which was so filled with the fragile but sturdy thoughts of that girl, Sasha, whose mere glimpse were enough to send me into the world of serendipity and romance.

I first saw her on the very first day of my new class in my college, which was held in our Auditorium.

I was sitting on the first row, waiting for our new faculty to arrive, and chatting with others quite loudly, when she walked in and while the entire auditorium went on just as it was before her arrival, I (trust me, friends) somehow went into an unknown state of quieten trance where calmness took over me and my eyes followed her to the third seat from the left in the third row and then remained constant there on her charmingly simple face. I had completely lost it… my senses were somewhere, while I was out of sync with the nearby happenings and my heart was drooling when all of a sudden (when the guy seating beside me kicked me with his leg) my beautiful dreaming world came to a screeching halt and brought me along with my senses to the middle seat in the first row. As I came back to my sane state I realised that the class has gone silent and everyone was staring at me (including our new faculty who, I don’t know, when had walked in).

Here I must confess, that I had to literally force myself to stand still (given my condition a moment ago) and at the very first glimpse of our new faculty further demanded that I now must force myself from laughing out loud while not to blurt out the obvious (WTF).

You see, our faculty actually looked just like the character ‘Jack Sparrow’ from the movie ‘Pirates of the Caribbean.’ (I know all this sounds weird but I’m telling you this is what happened).

And so from that afternoon, Jan 14^th, 2009, I have been simply watching her, while she played games in her mobile and took notes simultaneously, though I did confess my instant feelings for her to few of my class mates and other friends outside but I somehow was not been able to gather the courage to go and tell her all that how her presence and absence, both, made me feel.

That how her confident voice made me nervous when she spoke in class (which she did very rarely), that how lucky I felt when she unknowingly looked at me even if it was only for a second, that how badly I wanted to go to her and just say, how special she is to me, but somehow I just couldn’t say.

Why?

Well, (including the above mentioned factors there was something else too) that I actually wasn’t ready to repeat the same scenario of my perplexed past, in which I once had felt the same emotions sparkling inside my 4 inch tiny heart and then was left to moan after being used like a mere toy for a little fun.

It was the month of December 2005, when the pathos came into my life hiding behind that innocence, which, without any qualm, ridiculed my days of adolescence.

******

Part 2

‘Excuse me, are you Gopal?’

A sugar like voice knocked at my ear-barrel and the spoon, with which I was feeding myself, stopped just inches before my open jaws (yes, pretty BIG mouth I’ve). I then looked up and for a moment I forgot to blink my eyelids.

There she was, standing just before me, on the other end of that round table in which I was busy gorging myself just like I did daily, but that day it was different and also new but somehow it felt surreal, because, I thought,

“This can’t be real”

And so just to make sure that she was actually standing in front of ME and asking if I indeed was who I was (Gopal at that point of time and Sadho at this moment), I looked on both sides off my shoulder and when I found no one there, my heart suddenly started pounding so heavily that it seemed like it was going to burst anytime now.

‘Excuse me, I am talking to you, are you Gopal?’

That sugar like voice once again knocked at my ear-barrel and this time it slowly made way towards my heavily pounding heart.

‘Oh, ‘m sorry, what? No, I am not Tejpal.’

(Yup, bloody me) it was the first line that flushed out of my (BIG) mouth and in reaction to it, her face displayed the signs of disbelief and her eyes got widened.

‘Are you deaf?’

She shot at me and in reply this time it was I, who had to widen my eyes.

‘What?’

I shot back at her.

‘I asked …are you the Gopal?’

She threw another question in reply.

‘Of course, I’m Gopal, the or not, that I don’t know.’

I said it with a tone that even surprised me (don’t know what it did to her), as I thought,

“Dude, I sounded pretty arrogant there, didn’t I?”

And which could have been enough to send her off on any other day but as I said “that day it was different.”

‘Listen, I need your help. Can you please ask your friend, Zahid, to stop following me? I have tried telling him myself, but he seems least interested in listening to me.’

She said and was about to turn and leave (I guess).

‘Wo, wo, hold on, lady, Zahid, and my friend? Who told you so? I don’t even know him properly.’

I, in complete company of instant surprise, immediately shot back at her and she at once stopped and looked at me, with only innocence in her eyes.

‘But that girl in my class said, you two are ...’

I cut her in middle.

‘Listen, I don’t know why the girl in your class told you so, but the truth is that, you can ask anyone out here and each one of them will say that We, Gopal and Zahid, are not friends.’

*****

Part 3

It was fine till there. And my life would have been as smooth as it was minutes before her ‘excuse me’ approached me, which infected me with the terminal bug called love. But, I guess, it was not supposed to be like that and so I promised her that I will try to talk to him (even though I really didn’t know the guy at all).

She smiled and turned to leave but instead stopped abruptly and said,

‘Thanks, hoping to see you around sometime.’

And I stood there like a box watching her leave and fixed my hypnotised eyes on her (she had the most curvaceous figure I’ve seen in my entire period of life) till she disappeared into the crowd outside the canteen.

Three months went by, we became friends and then one day on the eve of Valentine’s Day, I finally proposed her in front of the entire college. She said yes and I felt like, I have conquered the world.

But the euphoria lasted only for few weeks, as one day when I accidently bumped into her and the Zahid in a pizza store.

I was shocked (understatement) to see her cuddling in his arms and when I went near to their table in the corner, she after seeing me, didn’t seemed to care enough as if… as if I was a total stranger to her.

‘What the hell is going on?’

I, after standing there for like almost 5 minutes (which in reality seemed like an eternity), shouted at them and pulled her away from his arms by grabbing her hand.

‘What do you think you are doing?’

I once again shouted at her.

‘Seems like you are as blind as deaf you were on that day in canteen, Tejpal.’

She said while jerking her hands off mine.

‘Hey, Zahid, look at his face, poor baby, I broke his heart, touché.’

She continued her verbal attacks on me, while Zahid continued to enjoy the show along with others, who seemed as insensitive as those pizzas, that they were piling themselves on.

My mind had lost its basic understanding and so it wasn’t able to decipher what was happening and I could not believe what my ear-barrels were listening, and so I thought that I am dreaming, yes, I’m dreaming (oh, how I wished and still wish that I was dreaming) and it will be over as soon as I shall open my eyes, but I wasn’t actually dreaming and neither could I open my eyes, because, I don’t really know how to open those things which never ever closes (you see, my eyelids remain half opened even when I am sleeping).

‘But why, Neha (yes, that was her name), why did you play with my heart?’

I somehow asked her, while trying to garner the audacity to stand still.

‘Huh, you still want to know? Well, I was a bit bore by my monotonous life, where I only dated hunky guys, so just to freshen up it a bit, I, as you said, played with your heart for a little fun.’

She delivered her last part of dialogue as innocently as if I was a mere plastic toy straight out from her cupboard and so has no feelings whatsoever, which stays as its owner keeps it and remains silent even if its owner beats it.

But I was not a toy and so I finally fell on my knees, tears dripped out of my red eyes and I chocked as if I was about to die (this is true… you see, I had genuinely fallen for her and given the factor that she had the figure any woman would be jealous of and any man would kill for, besides, I’m an emotional man, so this – chocking down – was bound to happen).

She left with Zahid, hand in hand, leaving me alone more than I was before she had come.

And so, since then, almost half a decade have passed by, but those blunt memories of my yore are still so sharp that it leaves a cut mark every time I try to walk by it, ignoring unknowingly and sometime even intentionally (can’t help it), with a companion which I quite often choose in these days of my chilling solitude.

And, I know my past was like a bad dream but unlike the bad dreams, I’m yet to get over it, and so the pain of yore continue to haunt my times of hope.

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Why, Just Because I'm A Woman?

2010-07-20T20:52:00.003+05:30

By Sadhogopal Ram

Just because I don't mourn like you,

O' Untamed World,

You think I have no sorrow and have no grief?
Just because I am a Woman,

Hiding my tears and keeping a smile on my face;

A smile so serene, a smile so quite,

A smile so full of pain, a smile so awfully white,

A smile which is raped

Why, Just because I am a Women?

-----

A woman in our “self-centred, orthodox-ion and full of jungle laws”, which we so fondly call “society”, is like a tool. Tool of mass pleasure, of nationwide teasing, of taking the nation on top of the chart by increasing the already uncontrolled population, and if she is married, then she becomes the ultimate tool of household cleansing and a toy carved out of card-box, which then is being used by the member of the family as per their requirements.

About woman, one thinks that one can ‘make use’ of her as one wishes to. And the sad part is that, they actually are also able to do so. Therefore, several hundred thousand women trapped in our “orthodox-ion jungle” are forced to endure atrocities of several kinds, and that too, on a daily-wages like basis.

Now atrocity, as per the definition of dictionaries, is ‘the quality or state of being atrocious’ in other terms ‘an extremely cruel act or a horrid act of injustice.’

Some might say that this basically falls into the physical torture ‘category’ and to prove themselves right they will dig up stats and arguments in favour of it from long dead books and Vedas, though I personally have serious problems with such kind of people and thus, I also possess an extreme form of hatred for these people who also like to call themselves the “follower/builder of real society.”

But that’s not the main issue what this ‘critique’ talks about. The issue here is that there’s no ‘category’ for any crime which is being executed against the women in this “orthodox-ion jungle” of our and atrocity, too, is not just limited to the definition so profoundly provided by the man-made dictionaries.

Now, I will not further argue or write anything what I personally think about it, but will share a real story and let you people decide if what she is forced to endure should be termed as atrocity or just another act of some random violence defined by the books and Vedas.

Sunita is a 22 year old woman (though at this age she should basically be called a girl but as she got married about a year ago and is now on the verge of having her first child, so the ‘tag’ woman suits her best). She lives in a small village in Bihar state.

She was 12, when her mother was killed by their own blood relatives over property issue and she became the object of pity for everyone around her. And losing her mother at such small age, left her devoid of right guidance in her life, but before anything worse could happen, her late mother’s mother came to her rescue and adopted her, because after 4 years of her mother’s death, her father, who was the Mukhiya of the village, was also killed over political issues.

The loss of both her parents made her extremely weak from inside but, she for reasons best known to her, never showed any signs of it nor did she complained about life being unfair to her. Her granny, the one who adopted her, got her enrolled at Saraswati Shishu Mandir, a school part of the school groups run by the RSS, so that she could at least have an education every girl requires for her own betterment in our society.

After she completed her board exams with relatively good results, she was forced to sit at home by other members of that family to which she now belonged to, though it was done only by considering the raising rate of rape cases happening around the village and so she didn’t argue with them over the issue, but she continued to study own her own. Gaining whatever knowledge that she could get from used books, she found at the house.

4 years went by; she learned and mastered many tasks which would help her in later part of her life, tasks like – Computing, Stitching, Weaving, and Cooking, embroidering, Painting and many other such things. These things helped her keep herself busy in her rather empty life and so, she often found her lost happiness whenever she indulged herself in them.

But in these 4 years, she had also grown up, signs of girlhood were splattered all over her, and thus, proposals of marriages started coming up. She kept rejecting them one by one (a very rare phenomenon in the life of a women in our society) as she wanted more out of life, she deeply wanted to study in college for higher education but this was not in her hands.

After almost rejecting dozens of marriage proposals for several reasons, she finally agreed to the one which came in the year 2008. The guy was very rich businessmen and was good looking too. She liked him at first sight itself and so decided to break her chain of rejection. The family too, was glad that finally their girl has agreed to settle down and now will have her own family.

After about a week, she got engaged and after a year, in the end of 2009 she got married to Amit. And just like it was supposed to seem, everything indeed seemed perfect at the start. She was showered with all kinds of gifts and was fed her favourite dishes. But, but… the term ‘perfectness’ actually is a myth, and this she found out when she lost her Granny, who happily passed away a month after. Now when she was ones again an orphan, with basically on one to ask for her from her mother-side of family, Sunita’s mother-in-law started showing her true colours.

But Sunita, at first, did not think otherwise, as she was previously taught by her granny that, after a girl gets married she has to listen to what her mother-in-law says. But when she realised that her keeping silent over no fault of hers will eventually lead to bigger problems, she, being an outspoken girl, started voicing out her displeasures.

Now the main thing:

As of today, she is in her 7 month of pregnancy and her health has also fallen down due to continuous household work that she has to do in absence of a maid, which her mother-in-law refuses to keep. Her part of argument is that –

“If I’ve to hire a maid to do my household work then why did I marry my son to this girl?”

Last I heard about Sunita’s condition, she is burning with fever, her legs are swollen, she has cough and her eye sight has gone extremely weak due to negligence of her current family, yet she is forced to cook for the entire family, feed them one by one in their separate rooms, clean the utensils, wash their clothes, and do other such numerable tasks.

Why?

Well, her mother-in-law won’t do it, saying –

“I’ve done enough, and if I continue to do the work, why did I marry my son to this girl?”

As a result, Sunita has gone into the saddest state of her life, not knowing what to do and how to do, though unlike other women who faces same situation in their own life, she keeps raising her voice but with time her courage is giving up. The atrocities (yes, there’s no other words which could define this act of treatment) have finally taken a toll over her and she, just like what other women say, says –

“It doesn’t matter now, it’s all part of my life and I’ll have to live with it.”

I, therefore, would not say anything on this issue. You all are the best judge, after all YOU have built this “Jungle” where insensitive animals dwell, and so YOU only will make it a place where, though still animals, but at least the sensible ones will dwell.

-----

Author’s Note: Due to reasons, the names of the persons and places have been changed to keep the identity of the real ones a secret. I, though, would like to know your views and ways to tackle such menace which has engulfed our “society.”

Under Hibernation!

2010-07-14T20:54:00.000+05:30

This is an information notice to all the Arth-addicts!

ARTH is sorry to announce this but due to major conflict, which is going between the Author of ARTH and his Mind, ARTH is going down for an uncertain period of time.

The Blog ARTH and the Facebook Fan page of ARTH though will be online and open to discussions but there will be no more posts for an uncertain period of time.

ARTH is thankful to all those who have been with it till here and would hopefully continue to be a part of it in future too.

ARTH hopes to see you all when ARTH starts posting once again.

With Hope for a better beginning, ARTH bids you –

Goodbye!

A Journey, A Longing: From Bombay to Barddhamaan!

2010-07-08T23:33:00.001+05:30

By Sadhogopal Ram

It has been about 2 months or so since I stirred out of the concrete jungle, the city of dreams – Bombay, leaving my friends, my foes, the gatherings at Rock-Beach, the much awaited 4^th Tuesdays of every month for one of the best things in Bombay – 2 hours of poetry reading Session at Prithvi and virtually a bit of everything.

The day I left Bombay I also Left a part of me there… a part which was as liberated as wind and as gregarious as the streets are.

And at this moment I am confined in the aloofness of a rather small and an awfully conservative town in West Bengal, known as Barddhamaan.

The reason of my arrival in Barddhamaan was though an exceptionally ecstatic one but the sensation is rapidly vanishing… and as each day passes by, I feel more and more drowned.

Like an enslaved lion I am, searching for that ‘door’ to set myself free and flowing again.

Although I’m almost living the ‘dream’ but it’s only scarcely industrious.

And as a result, I’m always sceptic… sceptic about my abilities to fulfil the numerous commitments I’ve taken up, sceptic about the outcomes of the works I engulf myself in, sceptic of the people associated with it and sceptic about practically every small things.

Life, it seems, has unexpectedly become a conundrum of little nothings, which in a way doesn’t count imperative most of the times but then, they do matter the most sometimes.

But I am determined to bring this ‘detachment’ of mine to its end and I’m going to do it pretty soon. Though I’ve no idea how but I guess my hope will show me the door.

I still very well remember, what my science teacher Mr. Anil Murmu has once told me –

“Sadho, you are a man of free will, a will of a very rare kind, possess it, son, but never let it possess you”

At that time, I just smiled to him, as I didn’t know what to say. But as the time went by, and I started travelling I found out what exactly he meant by it.

And, today, though, I may be “a nothing” but one thing I know and I’m pretty much sure is that, my this ‘free-will’ will make me what I want to become, so there’s nothing for which I’ll ever trade this ‘will’ of mine, as I know I’ll be “a something”… something of a very rare kind.

And one very important thing –

I would have never made it this far… if YOU all would have not been here at ARTH with me all this while. So a GRAND thank you to each of my reader who has now become my friend of solace.

Thank You. Thank You. Thank You… from the bottom of my heart.

Woh Subah Kaise Aayegi

2010-07-05T11:31:00.002+05:30

By Sadhogopal Ram

Naxals Killed 27 CRPF Men With Horrifying Brutality.

76 Troops killed In Dantewada Massacre.

These are just two of the many news headlines of last few days of killings happened in one Indian states. I wonder what would be the condition of other affected states.

In the year 1958, Sahir Saab penned the hope filled and heart-wrenching lyrics “Woh Subah Kabhi Toh Aayegi” to give hope to the then hope-emptied hearts and souls and till today the song continues to fill the “empty” hearts of millions of people all around the world with hope… hope for a better and improved dawn.

But somehow that dawn seems a far distant possibility in today’s time when each soul is corrupted with greed for money and flesh, and each heart has been contaminated with hatred for fellow human being.

Seeing fellow human beings suffer for no apparent fault of theirs fills my heart with unbearable pain and an unknown rage… a rage which I fear might destroy my faith in sanity and humanity completely.

In the song Sahir Saab writes “Jab Ek Anokhi Duniya Ki Buniyad Uthai Jaayegi, Woh Subah Kabhi Toh Aayegi” but all this talk of ‘hope’ and ‘dawn of a new world of togetherness’ only makes the unbearable pain of my heart grow by heaps and bounds.

How will that ‘dawn’ come when all we are doing is fighting each other, killing our own brothers, raping the women who lay the foundation of this very society and torturing the future by forcing it to work in factories and chai-shops and disgracing it by snatching away its precious childhood?

…Woh Subah Kaise Aayegi?

Sahir Saab further writes “In Bukhi Pyaasi Roohon Par Ek Din Toh Karam Farmaayegi, Woh Subah Kabhi Toh Aayegi” but I wonder what would he write after seeing the condition in which the poor are forced to live (here I am talking about those thousands and lakhs of Adivasi people who live in unimaginable atmosphere and condition). I wonder what his pen would ink if it would have witnessed the misery not of their life but of their death.

I have heard people say that “death is kind” but I have not seen a single poor die whose death was kind to him. In fact it, the death is brutal and it’s worse than the hunger which forced them to succumb to it and it is as frightening as the thought for you and me of living a life a without a drop of water.

You and I can’t even imagine the kind of life these people have to live and deal with, so I guess you and I should also not have the right to decide the kind of death they should be awarded with when faced with system made adversities and greed of upper/middle class mass, they chose that failed path of violence which ultimately leads them to their own destruction.

I know you won’t agree with me here. And I guess I have pretty fair an idea about what would you say to defend your point but for a while forget about YOUR own perfect life and place yourself in their shoes and then think.

Is the way the system has been dealing with them justified in its stand which is nothing but sheer hypocrisy? How a man is supposed to support his family of four when everything that he had was snatched away from him and was given a meagre compensation of few thousand rupees? And even after that when he somehow manages to provide two time of meal to his family, what is he supposed to do in YOUR eye when one fine day he finds his family slaughtered by the same hands for no fault, no crime of them, hands which were supposed to protect them?

Spread peace?

I guess not.

I was born among them, in the dense forest of Jharkhand, surrounded by huge green mountains, near the free flowing river, which now has completely gone out of water (thanks to the land encroachment in the name of development).

I have seen the pain in their eyes and disgusting looks that they get from the so called ‘elite’ class. They live in fear. Not because they are weak but because they are naïve and innocent and happen to have no formal training and exposure to study due to the lack of government interest and lethargy of the babus of these areas, who considers these people of no value to the society.

And when these same people raise their voice they are labelled… labelled as Maoists, Naxals and terrorists of different kinds.

No, no, I am not trying to justify their ways and their views; I am only trying to say that what a man is supposed to do when he finds no door, no window in that system which was supposedly created to protect him and his family but instead became the destroyer?

Tolerance has its limits and when forced it can be as torturous as tolerant it once was!

And in the year 1967, when the tolerance finally broke, a land of “voice-raisers” was born. Today the “voice-raisers” have become “violence-raisers” thanks to the ever continues stand of Indian Government to not give the basic rights to these peoples.

As a result the ink of the news papers have gone red and television media screens are burning with the daily dose of slaughters of CRPF Forces and innocent publics that these poor now execute.

Coming back to Sahir Saab and his lyrics where he further writes “Jab Ambar Jhoom Ke Naachega Jab Dharti Nagme Gayegi, Woh Subah Kabhi Toh Aayegi” though no matter how impossible this dream may sound but that flickering ray of hope inside the dark corners of my heart wants to believe that someday that dawn will come when no one will kill a fellow human being because everyone will have what they rightly deserve.

But till that dawn comes… I shall continue to ask –

…Woh Subah Kaise Aayegi?