जन्नत में आग

 कश्मीर में निर्दोष पर्यटकों की हत्या घनघोर पापकर्म है। विडंबना ये है अब पक्ष और विपक्ष दोनो इसका अपने अपने तरीके से राजनैतिक फायदा उठाएंगे। त्रासदी का लाभ उठाना ही तो राजनीति है। पाकिस्तान के कुकृत्य तो जगजाहिर हैं। उसपे विलाप करना निरर्थक है। सवाल उठता है कि एक अलग थलग प्रयटन क्षेत्र के आस पास, जहां करीब २००० पर्यटक उपस्थित थे, उसके आस पास सिक्योरिटी क्यूं नहीं थी। अगर मीडिया रिपोर्टों को मानें तो उग्रवादियों ने फ़ुरसत से लोगों से उनके नाम, धर्म पूछे। इतना ही नहीं कुछ को तो कलमा तक बोलने को कहा। मतलब हिट और रन नहीं था। फ़ुरसत थी। और फ़ुरसत तब होती है जब विश्वास होता है कि सिक्योरिटी अरेंजमेंट बहुत ढीले है। यानी सिक्योरिटी गार्ड काफी दूर रहे होंगे। इसलिए हिन्दू मुस्लिम की आग में कूदने से पहले अपनी सरकार से हमें ये प्रश्न पूछना होगा की इतना बड़ा लूपहोल कैसे छोड़ दिया गया?

इस संबंध में ओशो का वक्तव्य सार्थक है: "दो तरह के लोग हैं दुनिया में। बड़ी पुरानी सूफी कथा है कि एक मूढ़ और एक ज्ञानी एक जंगल से गुजरते थे। दोनों रास्ता भूल गए थे। बिजली चमकी। बड़ी प्रगाढ़ बिजली थी। अंधकार क्षण भर को कट गया। मूढ़ ने आकाश में बिजली को देखा। ज्ञानी ने नीचे रास्ते को देखा। मूढ़ ने जब बिजली चमकी तो ऊपर देखा। जब बिजली चमकी तो ज्ञानी ने नीचे देखा। उस नीचे देखने में रास्ता साफ हो गया।"

इसलिए मूढ़ तो इस त्रासदी की कोंध में धार्मिक उन्माद की चमक ही देखेंगे। लेकिन ज्ञानवान आदमी इसमें रास्ता देखेगा। और रास्ते उचित प्रश्नों को उठाने पर ही निकलते हैं।

Tiny superheroes

 

Let us talk of tiny superheroes. They are not visible but can outfox even the wildest imagination. Conan the Bacterium is a little multi-celled superhero that grabbed the show from its discovery in the cow and elephant dung. It kept its bright orange smile in the face of sterilization, exposure to dangerous radiation and extreme temperatures. The Japanese researchers put it up for a Sumo fight in the space. It was left sticking to the outer walls of the International Space Station. It flashed its orange smile even after three years when they rechecked it. Now they estimate that it can survive for millions of years on the Mars. I think Conan the Barbarian (in a movie)did full justice to the name. Now, I’m convinced that the original shot of life was some such superhero microbe that came darting on the back of a burning meteorite and landed on this little planet.

Bacillus Subtilis breaks down toxic industrial waste and crude oil by almost 85 percent. Hasn’t it got wonders in its metabolic pathways?

Rhodococcus Ruber has probably the strongest gut on earth. It has a flair for eating and digesting plastic. It breaks plastic into nontoxic waste.

Geobacter is named Iron-Man Bacteria. It has a flair for flirting with toxic cobalt. It hunts like a great miner. It sucks cobalt from the surroundings and makes a cobalt suit with it and wraps itself in it. In this way it stops the poison from seeping into its cells. A cobalt suit it wears! Can you believe it?

Methanotrophs is methane guzzler. The best and the most helpful addict to substances. The more it abuses, the better it’s for us. As the permafrost melts in the Arctic, it releases massive amount of methane, the notorious greenhouse gas. And there in the frigid environment, this unsung hero fights for us by consuming methane.

Addicted to mother's milk

 

Despite the best efforts by his mother, Jhallu master won’t stop breastfeeding on his mother. He suckled at her breasts till he was in the eighth or ninth class. Her solutions like putting bitter neem paste and chilies on her nipples having failed to deter him. He would run to his house for lunch during the break at the village school. After eating rotis he would insist, ‘Maa, e maa kam se kamek doka de de!’ Mother, o mother give a little bit of milk. Doka (a tiny milk unit in the farming lingo, equaling just a quarter of a pint) was used for the lactating buffalos that would unwillingly give a few squirts of milk in the basket after much effort.

The banjara baby

 

A small town hospital run by a doctor couple. He a physician and surgeon, she a gynecologist. Nice doctors who won’t dab into your pockets with unnecessary tests. Almost like a state transport services bus—big, slightly disordered, bustling with lower-middle class people. A hospital for medication and service, not a five-star level swanky set-up to take the treatment costs into many lakhs of rupees. The long rectangular entrance hall had a reception desk and chairs and benches for the waiting OPD patients. It would be usually full due to the affordable services and ethical code of conduct followed by the doctor couple.

This day a banjara woman is in for delivery. Dauntingly clad gypsy women are huddled in a corner, sitting on the ground. Then the elderly banjara patriarch comes lumbering along the dim-lit corridor. He is an imposing figure with great moustache, big red head-cloth, slim-fitted white vest, heavy knee-length dhoti and massive leather jutis, which creak to announce his arrival from the delivery section. His stick stomping on the cement floor. His voice boomerangs across the hallway reaching the ladies huddled in the corner, ‘Chhoro hoyo se paanch kilo ka!’ It’s a boy weighing five kilogram. Well, everyone seems weighed down by the heavy announcement.

Fathers and sons

 

Jat fathers and sons would share a most formal relationship. The son kept his head low, spoke in monosyllables, got up to leave the group when his father arrived, and always expected verbal and hand and leg lashings. They stayed like almost strangers under the same roof. When the equations reversed in the old age, the son stamped his authority as an autocrat and the deposed king would need to call ceasefire, smoke hookah, eat rotis in silence and while away his time in the community chaupal.

The same was the equation between Father and Grandfather. They had their own views of running the household, spending, eating, everything in fact. But now Grandfather being in his nineties, Father was at the peak of power. Grandfather usually minded his business. But sometimes, while Father was in office, he would try to regain his lost territory and we would revolt. Usually the matter reached Father’s court after his return. We were always assured of victory there. So one night when Grandfather’s case had been summarily disposed, he felt crestfallen and angrily declared, ‘I’ll ensure that I become a ghost and make troubles for you all!’ he admonished Father. Father lost it. ‘Imagine, he is nearly hundred and still talks of becoming a ghost. That’s no option for you!’ he laughed.

The village of our childhood

 

When we were growing up, the village had plenty of bullock carts. Cattle, buffalo and bulls still pulled the cart of farming. Tractors had just started to come onto the scene. Carts, driven by male buffalos and bulls, had their unique means of shifting gears to increase the speed. Imagine the farmer and the bull both falling into a lethargy, the carter almost dozing with sleep and the bull going very slowly in the rut of the track while chewing cud. Fully relaxed. Then the farmer suddenly realized the passivity. Then he would shift gears. It involved holding the cart-puller’s tail, giving it a jerk, simultaneously his heel hitting the bull’s balls, and the tongue giving a loud clucking sound. All done in perfect synchronism. The bull would be jolted out of its laziness.

So we would imitate clucking our tongues like seasoned farmers. In fact we had tongue-clucking competitions. The atmosphere would resound with clucking sounds. Some chaps would cluck their tongues so loudly that even the bulls tethered in the barns got startled.

My brother took a fancy to be the clucking champion in the village. His practice session would cross over into late evenings when Father arrived from office. The sound has a vehement, egging-on vibes. And who won’t be egged on after a day at the office followed by a commute in a crowded train from Delhi to the nearby town and then a ride in some rag-tag three wheeler plying on the potholed road? So Father reprimanded him very severely after a week. ‘You know what, your tongue will get a fracture with so much striking like flint against your palate!’ Father further admonished. ‘I saw a guy with a fractured tongue. He cannot speak now.’ So my brother had to abandon his practice to become the village clucking champion.

Mother's Day

 

Mother’s Day falls on May 14. Maa left us in January 2020. With Mother gone, one is suddenly less loved, forever. Because who else will love you so selflessly? The space that a mother leaves in one’s heart stays vacant forever. It cannot be filled. Till your mother is around, and even if you yourself are old, you hardly feel that you are old. After all you are still someone’s child and your mother would show the same care like she did when you were small. So how can you feel old?

I keep convincing myself that Mother is now part of everything around me. In her human form she gave me birth, reared me, protected me, nurtured me. She still does the same as Dharti Mata, Mother Earth. So to me Mother’s Day and Earth’s Day are just the same. In her lap I walk, enjoy, shit, pee, cry, laugh, throw tantrums. The very same child of yore.

It pains to see Mother Earth getting older and older, her strength failing to support the errant kids. But She will give her all till She lives. I’m not a power aspirant. I know I cannot handle it. But if ever I’m given some authority I would make cutting the trees without justified permission a punishable offence. I know it’s hardly possible. But this type of daydreaming helps me in imagining a lush green earth at night.

Two-mouthed snake

 

During our childhood there were lots of free sands for the harmless red sand boa (RSB) to lie lazily and be found by the excited, scared eyes of the children. We called it ‘do muh wala saanp’. The village myth went that it had mouths at both ends, that it never bit but if it did on a Tuesday then nobody would survive. The gutsy boys would tentatively hold it in their hands and the chicken hearted like yours truly would stare from a distance.

Then the times changed. The sand was lost. The red sand boas turned rare. Then as per the growing economy even the RSB got an economic tag. It was considered lucky now—maybe due to its rarity. The new myth went that it sells for lakhs of rupees, that rich corporate houses kept it as a lucky charm. So now when a RSB surfaced at a house in the locality, and the unsuspecting children put it in a bucket and left it outside the village, the news busted and the entire locality went searching among the bushes for the big prize. Luckily the RSB had crawled to safety in the meantime. The children were severally reprimanded for harming the family’s economic interests.

A stormy afternoon

 

There was a squall in the afternoon, a powerful windy rain-lashing by the weather gods. And the small creamy white butterflies that were flitting around on a relatively cooler day faced what is most expected from life—a crisis. They struggled through the beating rain. The strong wind made it seem like a flirtatious dance with death. The branches shook angrily as if saying, ‘No, not here!’ as the butterflies approached them for shelter. And once a butterfly landed on a branch, it swayed and shook so violently, catapulting the hapless butterfly again into the squalling throbs of life. The rainstorm was pretty powerful and lasted for half an hour.

It was a little group  of butterflies and I don’t think many of them survived. Most of them must have perished. But how many butterflies get a chance to try their wings, beautiful patterns and colors against a storm? And some chance survivor would see the real beauty of the next dawn and flit around as a living memorial for all of them.

The next morning is a foggy one. It’s real fog with the temperature dipping as low as fifteen degrees. It’s unbelievable for this point of the season in the burning north Indian plains. Nature’s catapults!

The landowners

 

Owning land has been a hallmark of reputation and prestige in the countryside society. So the farmers in soiled, stitched clothes, weathered faces, callused hands would try to receive some respect by exaggerating the acreage of land owned by them while chatting with strangers. One old Tau from the village got a tiny jab at his prestige when he lost to an unknown farmer he met at the town. ‘How much land do you own?’ the other farmer asked. ‘Well, around twenty acres I reckon,’ the Tau from our village replied while using the mathematics of doubling the actual figure. ‘And how much do you possess?’ our Tau asked. ‘At least double of yours,’ the other farmer scored a clean win with a glint of pride in his eyes. ‘Well, even I had that much but just that you happened to ask it first,’ our Tau sighed and congratulated him on the victory. As a reward, in his capacity as a junior land-owning farmer, the Tau from our village filled the chillum and offered the first draught at the hookah pipe to the other, a mark of respect for the senior more respected farmers.