Republic Day and the Wounded Citizen

 January 26, 2008

It is Republic Day of India today.

We Indians ought to feel proud of this day, for it was on this day when all the ideals, dreams, hopes and aspirations were constitutionalized in the big fat book of the Indian Constitution.

As a law-abiding citizen of India, I should avoid all the temptations of not feeling in this supposedly ideal nationalistic way. But alas, despite the best of my patriotic efforts, I cannot do this.

Revolting feelings come surging ferociously, washing me off my romanticized patriotic coast.

What if the Constitution says that the judiciary, legislature and executive are there for the benefit of the people? But personally, and from the point of view of my batchmates, the ill-fated batch of Haryana Civil Services, HCS 2004, all the three strong arms purported to protect the interests of commoners like me and my batchmates actually proved to be the squeezing, life-drenching clutch of a predator.

I feel hunted.

Politicians, who wield authority over every branch of governance, either directly or indirectly, being the lions of this democratic jungle, we, the poor flock of deer, have been hunted down mercilessly, and that too, to add insult to our wounds, through the arrows laced with the constitutional poison brewed in the cauldron of legality.

They with the arrows, and we with just the whisker of a chance to hurtle blindly, furtively towards the fence of execution—a great sham, a notorious make-believe dream of justice, fair play and rule of law—while in actuality the dark force of illegality was continuously drawing the strings of the puppet proceedings.

Lynched so mercilessly, how can I add my faltering voice to the not-so-great chorus of nationalism on this Republic Day?

I feel ashamed of my helplessness. Even though fully aware of the injustice meted out to us by the apex of the judiciary, we can't do anything other than mull over impotent thoughts.

I am now licking my wounds like a dog licking filth, smattered over his injuries...  feeling like a dog—that wayward stray dog.

Celebration of Republic Day is perhaps the most pious ritual connected with the religion of democracy.

Now what does democracy mean?

Classically, it is the government of the people, by the people, for the people.

Does this classical definition apply to India, where feudal attitudes, class, caste and creed biases stand as smokescreens between the clamorous, crazy mob and the glittering sun of human aspirations as far as governance and the rule of law are concerned?

Is Indian democracy pulled ahead by the people for their own benefit?

Definitely not.

Analyze the broadest contours of the Indian political setup, and you will see how the leaves of the mighty Indian banyan of our democracy have been turned nastily tabby by the voracious drops of the cloying, false-smelling and carcassy birds and offspring of our political system.

I don't think that just by participating in the polls people can claim to be the real pullers of the mighty chariot of democracy. They are at best the sweat-laden, dusted slaves who pull a certain section basking in glittering exclusivity on the basis of caste, class, creed, power, family, status and other trappings of privilege.

As far as the false limitations of the people's choice, based on the emotional exploitation of the facts and figures of the last phase of our freedom struggle, are concerned, isn't the very term first political family full of autocratic values which straightaway go against the spirit of democracy?

The first political family of the country does the greatest damage to the basic structure of democracy.

The Nehru clan, the ever-persistent axis of our democracy, at-all-costs, will in all likelihood survive as the first possible choice for the purpose of governance. It seems an act of a medieval feudal mentality of clinging to the centre of power at all costs.

There are their modern versions of those strong loyalists and cronies who would go to any length to keep their masters at the helm of affairs. And in lieu of all this selfless service for the cause of keeping the legacy alive, they get power, perks, postings, nominations and recommendations.

This myth of the first political family has roots across the far-flung areas of the kingdom of Congress loyalists.

But the master's chunk of late is being overrun by brave political commanders, the revolting ones, who now carve out their own territories based on the zealous weapons of jealousy, fetching unquestioned loyalty based on caste, class, creed and religion.

Is this democracy?

Certainly not.

People have been left with just the mere job of unabashedly clamouring for the illusionary pie of freedom at intermittent intervals between polls. And the fact that they go along the path without any real interest, as if driven in a dream by some magical hypnotizing powers, is proven by voter apathy and the farty, easy relaxation over the attitude of meekly accepting the same rotten pie as a reward for being the brilliant followers of constitutionality.

So the satraps of certain colours and hues at various hierarchies rule with that criminal disinterestedness which allows them to look over most of the real issues leading to the benefit of the masses.

And people have accepted it as their fate to be always and without fail cheated by elected representatives and their mentors at the apex, to be continuously cheated by the political masters, lynched by so many blinding strikes.

What reason is left for me to celebrate Republic Day?

It sounds like the pompous, noisy and self-vaunting festival of the pimps of criminality, mostly politicians.

And there, the Italian-forged Iron Lady is going to all lengths to dig as deep into the common man's soul to put the seed of her own fruit.

Things will remain so for a long time to come.

Hers is the classic case of all powers without an iota of responsibility.

The Italian-foisted Iron Lady pulls, given the shrewd legacy of her mother-in-law, most of the strings with marvellous authority.

If the common perception about colonial times is that of shame, then it is doubly shameful presently because we are being ruled over by a foreign-hoisted Iron Lady.

I wish for her fall through the Mayawati termite, but that possible blessing is always at the risk of a great curse.

Mayawati symbolizes the rejuvenation of the historically repressed classes, which will take a long, long time to forget the humiliating gulfs of casteism.

Though she has given a clarion call for all sections and strata of Indian society to join her in her march to the Prime Minister's post in Delhi, she is not left with any alternative because, after those initial blasts of casteist politics, she now needs to spread her beam.

She is basically nastily casteist, a casteist to the core.

If she rises to the top post, there might arise a civil war-like situation between the landed classes, historically ruling the social roost on account of their swarna status, and the landless ones, aeonically licking the spit in their face borne of their poor endowments.

The possibilities are really treacherous, but one has to take the risk, because every ruling lineage has to pay for its rule with the price of ultimate downfall.

For the better blossoming of the Indian orchard of democracy, the huge shadows of the mythically broad banyan of the Nehru legacy need to be brought down.

Between Job Portals and African Dreams

January 15, 2008

In the afternoon, I got two more calls for the post of content writer, one from Noida, the other from Faridabad.

Again, I am clueless. Why do I spend about one hour daily on job portals on the computer while I am looking to build up our business prospects?

So possibly that shows that it is a very tough situation. Personally, professionally, things are not going well at all in the family.

My sister is facing the toughest of times in her married life. Elder sister Manju, whom we call Guddi, is also facing one crisis after another on a daily basis because her husband is a chronic drinker and he is able to provide just the littlest amount of support to run the house because he is in a very ordinary job in a factory.

So we have to support her financially, apart from running to her place now and then to sort out the issues. Because there would be times when he doesn't even go for this small-paying job and keeps on lying drunk throughout the day. And such drunken sprees, they stretch for two weeks at a stretch. During such times there is even a risk of losing even that ordinary job.

When I look at my sisters, both of them, such nice, educated girls, but happen to be in the perpetually bad-luck books of life.

Now, coming back to these interview calls for content writer, the lady online from the web firm in Noida was an expert speaker. She spoke rolling, fluent English.

Most of these HRD girls these days are very high on confidence, have an eagle's eye for spotting talent. They call you, get you interested in the job, convince you that theirs is the right place for the kind of talent you have.

She appeared a very bubbly lady, even subdued any kind of burgeoning enthusiasm from my side by saying that since I have no prior experience of content writing, I should get only 20,000 per month instead of my demand of 40.

But in the end, she was pretty accommodative in the sense that she left it to me to decide my date and time of interview with the company.

The other caller was from Faridabad. It is an online media company delving into many magazines and other publications.

It seems my sort of job because it provides more scope for oozing out of creative juices, unlike the starkly objective, professionalized, limited and reined-in world of B2B writing.

I have consented to an interview with them on Wednesday. Will I will go? I feel that I might not be devoting myself fully to the task of getting myself fully absorbed in these interviews because the issue of Africa is showing some new shoots and saplings to give us hope.

After all, the future of my friends and mine depends on earning some good bucks, and what will I earn in these petty content-writing jobs?

So I do not feel confident at all about joining a nine-to-five job, even if they pay 50,000 per month, because business, when I think about it, can fetch me good money if I devote my full energies to it for the next five years.

And then later on I can just devote my life to reading and writing, which is exactly what I feel like doing in the end, at the end of the journey.

So, facing a peculiar dilemma, a very puzzled situation, checkmated from many fronts, I just keep applying for jobs, just as if out of certain whims.

Can't exactly have the words to sum up the feeling when I apply for the jobs while knowing fully well that I will not be taking them.

And on top of that, not only do I apply, I take all the trouble of travelling to these suburbs, which takes the entire day, and returning late at night—to Noida, Faridabad, Gurgaon, where these multinationals are situated.

I take all that trouble of going there, giving my best, and still knowing fully well that I will not be taking up that job.

So this is quite strange.

And alongside, I am trying to consolidate this new lead that we have built up with Babu Bhai from Ludhiana and his willingness to travel with us to Africa to look at things firsthand.

Keeping Busy to Keep the Darkness Away

January 10, 2008

Still feeling the fatigue born of yesterday's laborious, tedious, long-drawn interview process, which I underwent for the job of content writer-cum-editor in Netlink Digital Energy, situated in Udyog Vihar, Gurgaon.

Now again, I still cannot find out why I am appearing for these interviews, even though I know fully well that at the moment I won't be taking up a job, even if offered a good salary, because right now, with Babu Bhai's avid participation in our business venture and even his willingness to visit Djibouti in the coming days with me, it has sown the seeds of hope. It has refuelled the famished tanker of our rudimentary business cart.

But still I went. Maybe I am just trying to exhaust myself by keeping myself busy, so that I cannot reflect or think too much about the past. It's a nice way to beat the ghosts of the past -- make yourself busy, as much as possible, so that you are forcefully shackled in the present. The past ghosts die temporarily because they are not getting the oxygen of your attention. 

Now, coming to this Udyog Vihar, Gurgaon interview, first of all, reaching there was quite a ride with tough experiences.

India is struggling. India is strugglingly buzzing ahead, crowds of people hallucinated, masses of people lost in the dream world of wealth, chugging and churning around you like a busy beehive.

On the roads, potholed and smooth, vehicles and people trundle ahead nonchalantly all along. In fact, everywhere you see tiny outlets of survival, the little dots of enterprise scattered around at every available corner.

Rich ones, cozily encased in luxurious cars, cartle ahead fastly. Poor ones move ahead as a compact unit, their dreams, destinations and motivations strongly glued together. All of them, ambulating through public or private transport, lurch ahead with their fair dose of bantering, bickering and haggling.

The journey is full of sweet-sour anecdotes.

As a part of this big individuality or collectivity, you do expect—and it would be better if you do—the best or the worst, the fairest or the wantonmost, ecstasy or agony.

So, open to all these possibilities, I reached Gurgaon in an agonizingly slowly moving vehicle.

Gurgaon, with its real estate development, plus mega malls, complexes, glass-fronted official blocks, rich cars, poor crowds scattered like dots upon its entirely welcoming urban body.

After getting down from the accursed private minibus, as I caught onto my perch at the back of an auto meant for the Phase 5 area, I was horrified to find the right thigh of my trousers smeared with a big, wanton, ill-smelling blot of kerosene oil.

This dirty map on my trousers glared like the unbearable face of India's disorderly march ahead.

I have not the least idea where I could have got it from. Moving across such creepingly buzzing chaos, such things can always be expected. I should only feel lucky that it wasn't cattle dung. That would have been more problematic. 

The strange map was smiling with its deadly chuckle, its ill smell reaching my nostrils with its dirty pout.

I wanted to cry. Just 15 minutes away from my presentation, and my dress was in such a bad shape.

For the slightest of a second, I had the idea of abandoning the presentation altogether, but then, being basically a lazy sort of person and understanding the real value of all that is required to plan a visit to a place 60 kilometres away, I thought it better to move ahead on my path.

I knew that I had nothing to lose, all ends being open for the people of skill and calibre in the dreamland of enterprise that is Udyog Vihar.

So, without allowing the thought and smell of kerosene to plague my conscience, I took a rickshaw to reach Plot Number 571, the pleasantly furnished destination block.

Having penned my entry in the gate register, I went ahead to meet the enterprise- and profit-friendly ambience safely closeted in the three-storeyed block.

Its glass entrance door appeared to apply and exert some pressure against the guy with a blot on his pants.

Yet unconcerned, I went ahead.

It was a high-ceilinged reception hall, square in shape, its two walls having glass in aluminium frames. The glass panel facing the entrance door opened the work vista on four floors, including the basement. The glass front to the left side opened into a rectangular restroom with its table and chairs.

Now, one of the good things with successfully run private houses is that here chairs are padded, cushioned and comfortable even for the chance visitors.

Coming back to the reception room, it had black velvet plush sofas, but they were too plush, too soft. You just sink into their fluffy folds. It even makes you uneasy, as if it has grabbed you, holding you like a prisoner.

After all, when we need to sit, our bottoms should be supported against something holding its feet on a sound platform. Here the thing shakes and you feel as if it will slip away from under you. So you sink down, your knees protrude above, and you sit as if in the armful grasp of that thing, strangely pretending to be familiar with you.

The perky, active and agile receptionist sitting behind the circular reception table gives the whole ambience an air of alertness, aloofness, familiarity, businesswoman-like shape, etc.

She sat there in front of her desktop as the veritable conduit of the house with the outside world of clients, information seekers, job seekers, visitors, etc.

Since I had applied for the post of content writer, I was given a question paper to judge my writing prowess and skills, my style of writing, my expertise in grammar, etc.

You know, sometimes you end up writing a brilliant piece. Some other times the creative juices just refuse to flow out of the coffers of your creativity, while at many other times you just end up doing your bit as a mundane, commonplace writer.

I performed as mentioned in the third category, but in the mercilessly professional and objective world of business, even commonplace output seems a sufficient share to satisfy demand, as was proven later.

After that, I was interviewed by a young, hesitating sort of guy who, it seemed, was as hesitant and nervous as me.

Many a time, both of us came to the help of each other, and it went on without him getting the best out of me and me getting any impression of his being an expert interviewer, but he had the grace of forwarding me to the next level.

He told me that since I was new to technical writing, he would test me in this regard.

I was given a topic, Microsoft Silverlight, to search on the web and write a short, brisk account of this newest web application and why the borrowers should go for it.

Though I didn't know anything exactly about what the thing really meant, yet I picked out tidbits about the thing from the internet and wrote a coherent piece, which appeared to give a fair bit of idea about what the thing was really about.

Since I don't know typing, it was a bit tedious typing my write-up.

Then this printout and my earlier write-up were handed over to the HR head, a lady of grace, pleasant buxomness and graceful manners, yet strangely authoritative in her own way.

She did not beat around the bush and easily accepted my writing prowess. I got the stamp of approval once I showed her my two published works of poetry.

Then we came to the most important part—the salary part—which I had cleverly left blank.

She smiled and asked what I expected them to pay me.

In a very easy, honest and simple manner, I answered, "Ma'am, give me the maximum you can afford."

She was amused by it as a human being, but that appreciative smile and glint of unprofessional familiarity were soon clouded over by the business-like air of professionalism.

"No, Mr. Dahiya, we can't go like this in this manner as far as this part is concerned," she said.

So I remarked, "Ma'am, I have very sound reasons to hold myself in modestly high esteem. My work is at least 35,000 rupees per month in hand."

That meant, from the company's point of view, it was above 40,000.

She was visibly impressed with what I had written and the way I had performed.

Now I was set for the final step, the all-important interview with the CEO.

The meek girl who told me about this scheduled meeting spoke in a subdued, hushed voice, as if the top boss would hear us.

Then it was quite late in the night. The boss had gone to a conference.

I was given the option of either waiting for one more hour or leaving for my place and coming back within the next couple of days.

Today I decided to take a rest after all that hurly-burly chain of experiences.

Tomorrow is lined up for the D-day—the meeting with the top boss.

I will go with a positive attitude.

I do wish to settle down for a quiet life with a secure job, safe income and secure future for my family. After all, they deserve this much after all that they have done for me all along my life.

But the problem is, again, I am iron-sure in my mind that it will be very difficult for me to convince myself to take up this job even if they offer 50,000 rupees in hand per month.

Now again the question arises: why am I taking all this trouble?

Maybe I am just peddling around to give myself a feeling that I am giving my best by putting myself in such testing conditions.

Maybe I am just creatively trying my best to engage myself in a way so that I am not lost in the darkness.

Maybe it is just a means to avoid falling into full depression.

Beyond the Boundary of Sportsmanship

January 7, 2008

Yesterday, the second Test in Sydney, Australia, ended in a farce.

Though the Australians play their game hard, from now on it would also mean that their toughness applies practically to every skill, psychology, technology, plan, demeanour and, last but not least, misdemeanour.

If you are blind about winning only, if the only aspect of sport you are acquainted with is victory, forgetting the other lesser-gleaming facets like competitiveness, sportsman spirit, attitude, etc., then you become athletic brutes who will improvise newer and newer, filthier and meaner mechanisms to dislodge the opponent who is otherwise giving you a tough fight in the conventional aspects of the game.

Now the Kangaroos, seething with the memories of the India tour and the greed to win this Test to equal their own record of 16 straight Test wins, did everything shameful to win against a toughly fighting opponent.

Everybody will accept that Anil and his men fought really hard and didn't deserve to lose.

But horrific umpiring by Steve Bucknor and Mark Benson ensured that the Australians kept their record.

It is always human to err, the umpires being no exception, but the pattern of mistakes and misjudgments, and that too to the disadvantage of only one of the teams during the entire match, leaves it beyond any shadow of doubt.

The pair was supposed to keep the principles of free, fair, frank uprightness aloft in the gloomy sea of our sleazy cricketing battle, but quite disgracefully they let the sense of justice down. They almost became participants in the cricketing duel from the Australian side.

Otherwise, why would almost a dozen misjudgments go against India only?

Australian batsmen stood their ground even though they knew they were out, while the umpires appeared gleefully ogling at their conniving faces.

A couple of stumpings were not given out, one even by the third umpire.

At one time, Ponting himself got crowned as the umpire. The umpire asked him if he had caught Ganguly, and even though he had taken the ball on the first bounce, the Punter said yes.

Disgraceful.

The Australian team and the umpires made a travesty of it.

And to rub salt into the wound, the Aboriginal fellow, Symonds, who sadly behaves in a monkey-like manner on the field, instigated Harbhajan while the latter was batting beautifully with Tendulkar, taking the Indian score to 532, 69 runs above the Australian total of 463.

So Symonds instigated Harbhajan into a verbal duel and immediately complained to the umpires that he had called him a monkey. Without any audio, video or witness proof, the match referee held the Turbanator guilty, slapping a three-Test ban on the off-spinner.

The whole of India is seething with anger. People are really demanding that the tour should be called off immediately.

It is for everybody to see that the Kangaroos have taken many a filthy, unethical, unsportsmanlike leap in romping to victory.

Let them enjoy their feat, but it is for everybody to see what type of techniques they use in every match, because the happenings in this match are just a larger version of their overall approach.

This thing should not be analysed as an exception. It is the rule with them.

They deserve to be condemned.

When Tendulkar’s Century Became My Own

January 4, 2008

A very successful day for the Indians.

On the third day of the Sydney Test, Tendulkar hit an unbeaten 154 to break that jinx of the nervous 90s which plagued him, and almost the entire India, throughout 2007.

The New Year has started on a promising note for the maestro, and we wish him to score a century in every match, to put it even beyond the minds of the following Australians, especially Ponting, any thought of equalling the maestro's record.

Tendulkar is the pulse of India. When it feels better, the country feels better. If not, then the country will shake with sickness almost.

And how do I tell you, as an ardent Tendulkar fan, when he hits a century right at the beginning of a New Year, it seems like a collective success. In fact, my very own success.

Just as 2007 was disappointing for the maestro for getting out in the 80s and 90s, the same has been with me.

But it is such a tremendously elated feeling of achieving something when you see your idol raising his bat, acknowledging the applause after hitting a brilliant century in tough conditions on seamer-friendly wickets in Australia. And to watch even the Australians, who are very enthusiastic sledgers in the game, applauding the master batsman—it gives a feeling of pride.

And encouraged by this century, I can forget my own individual losses and failures for the time being, because I know it's a celebratory day, almost a festival, and I have forgotten most of my own disappointments in the innings of this life.

How I wish that Tendulkar continues hitting centuries after centuries. Then I think many thousands like me won't need anything else at the level of personal achievement to prove anything to anybody.

We will be happy just with Tendulkar's centuries.

So you can imagine what status the great man has for us here in India.

Too Much Is at Stake: Still Left with Great Things to Fight For

January 1, 2008

Start of a new yearly unit of time. I thought it would portend some new freshness in my stale life, but while I write this, around 11 in the morning, I am in one of those terrible swirls of moodiness, boredom and snappiness.

Even depression, when you feel that your existence is the greatest weight on your shoulders. When you even go to the extent of wishing how great it would have been not to exist at all, replaced by the painful ennui.

I just toss around in the ring of pain, depression, gloom and doom.

People will even say—it is a psychological case. But what even if it is? Who wants to get himself nettled in the dangerously, poisonously lugubrious waters?

Please do not interpret it as escapism or a case of putting the onus on external factors if I say that most of what has become of me is due to multitudes of external factors—the factors against which I could have had very little effect even if I had tried my best and exerted my full potential.

Factors like luck, fate and destiny are too far and vague, and my ideas regarding their blameworthiness are as conspicuously vague, undefined and impermanent. All in all, they stand on a very shaky foundation.

There are concrete causes—stony, barren, cold—which stare me in the face, plague my chances.

They are many, and I won't take the trouble of naming my enemies.

The mere simple logic of it requires that I should try to shake off the Baitals from my long-loaded back. But they won't go, so strongly are they glued to my back.

It is not that I have not tried to rid myself of them. In fact, the largest chunk of perseverance, management, efforts, toil and boil has been dedicated against them. But the stubborn ghosts would not go.

Now they seem threatening to my vitality, freshly rejuvenated after each depressive pang. But those parasitic suckers, creepers, shackle me comprehensively.

It is an almost annihilating web. It keeps sticking onto your hands, face, clothes and all.

Who knows, I might not be able to clear myself of these bloody vines till my last breath.

I will be like a half-dead, crippled cockroach, being eaten alive and dragged in all directions by a pack of ants. So tiny are they, yet such a big force to reckon with in their combined, lined, chained ferocity.

They gnaw away the threads of my existence, chop off the limbs, suck away the juicy vitality, and I just keep giving everything, every moment, in order to give myself the belief that I am alive.

But is it life?

Constantly defying the annihilatory overtures is perhaps no life. It is merely a gloomy, dark journey through the passage of death.

It is completely shut off from all the lively worldliness, pleasantly scattered around at every nook and corner, at every step, at every drop or rise of a moment.

But the invisible stone walls of this dark, invisible tunnel to the ultimate gloom don't allow you to feel, smell, see and enjoy the things which exist for you, which were perhaps created to fulfil your purpose of being on the earth.

But once the things on which you hold all rights on natural accounts and deeds have been shut off from your being, aren't you the person sinned against fearsomely and criminally most?

I leave the sinners with their sins.

Ultimately, every sin, every misdeed boomerangs on the committer. So I hope. So I leave them with the same fate.

The causes of my pains are bound to suffer for their misdeeds, later or sooner. May God provide them courage and bearability during those hellish moments.

Thus, whiplashed by the circumstantial storms from all sides, I am clinging to the sinews left over to me.

My niece, Safia, is there, and to bear all agonies in order to ensure even a slight good thing for her future can be—and in fact it is—a good thing to keep always in mind.

Then there is my brother, Tina. How can I allow myself to be eaten by oblivion without taking some definite steps for the safekeeping of his future?

I have noble causes to bring smiles to the faces of my suffering sisters.

I have the greatest causes in bringing happiness to the souls of my aged, weak, ill parents.

Too much is at stake.

I am still left with great things to fight for.

The Netted Fish and the River of Revelry

Thoughts on the new year's eve, 2008

Taking some inspiration from the Phoenix.

Now, after a treacherous wait of three long years, I have started to focus more on our business venture. And where else to look out for products than on popular sites on the internet?

As far as the prospects are concerned, computer technology has beaten rival fields by an almost unbelievable margin. Computer professionals get such high packages that the poor fellows belonging to other fields, be they even entrepreneurs, find themselves in a poor state, almost poor bunnies.

But one great thing about the computer and its shining armour is that it facilitates other, not-so-fast, smartly moving fields. Where else to go to look out for fresh business opportunities, looking for products, looking for new markets, new prospective partners, new opportunities in any hidden corner of the world, still unspared by the stampede of multiple business people running to grab a small opportunity?

And a cyber café is the place where one can sit and try to find out some rare opportunity that might still be there.

For too long I neglected the computer call, and now I realize doing so is harmful to me only because this is going to be the future. Be it any branch of career, this is the basic skill, the repository of entire information.

I have got in touch with some scrap dealers and used-oil traders, hoping that we can set up a sustainable relationship with them. I have carefully prepared our company's profile, and the moment, on your letterhead, you have a foreign office address with a telephone number, they take you seriously.

It is better—I mean this business venture, as its owner—it is better than humiliating myself by entering offices to seek tiny jobs, recalling that I could have been in some hot seat a long time ago.

So at least I have this feeling that I am making something new, and it helps me from brooding about losing the coveted civil services opportunities due to the harakiri committed by the politicians.

I have talked to certain people after getting their contact numbers from the internet, and in between, on a gloomy day when I ended up sending my résumé for a content-writer position at a firm in Noida, I got an interview call, even though I know that I won't be joining.

Because imagining myself in a cubicle, on a chair, lined up along with poor graduates, tapping, typing inconsequential stuff day in and day out for marketing websites about products—the content that is not read by anyone—that definitely puts me in a tight corner.

Even though they said that I can expect a salary of 20,000, I don't think I am ready to start from that base level.

From bureaucrat to a content writer is too big a chasm to cross.

So I am bracing myself with my business venture.

My life has stagnated like a mountain lake, even though there have been huge influences, huge influxes and outfluxes at both ends, but the lake has retained its shape.

Embroiled in the slowly swirling waters of this lake-type being, I have anchored my identity around a few boring things, like my pains, my efforts at alternatives, meditation, yoga, prayers, reading and efforts at writing.

But how can you continue writing if you are not getting anything out of it except the hollow satisfaction of being a writer?

It has now become a drag to me, taking me lower and lower into the depths of papery, classical, romanticized gloom.

I had thought that this thing, this passion for reading and writing, would support me like a lifesaving jacket in the stormy sea of life.

But see what it turns out to be.

I am a netted fish now.

Those fish of destiny, fate, chances, missed chances, self-inflicted agonies, madness and craziness entangle for some futile ending.

But I haven't given up.

I am having my face fully laid against the wires and netting around me.

It is around five in the evening. The partygoers must be waiting in glee.

People just force themselves to be in a party mood on New Year's Eve. After the invitation, I am still in two minds whether to go or not.

Shekhar, Pardeep, Jita and a few other chaps—they are waiting.

Don't know if I am in a suitable frame of mind to go.

And even if I go, it won't make any difference.

The chief mismanager of the Italian-forged Iron Lady has almost devastated my life. And what is ironical is that they don't even know that an ant has been crushed under their feet, hurriedly hurtling through the corridors of power.

Am I in a position to celebrate New Year's Eve after such irremediable losses, after such unprecedented pains, after such unredeemed suffering?

Definitely no.

And if I still do, then it would just be like allowing myself to be waylaid by the fast and furious river of revelry.

When the Old Year Dies and the Revellers Return to Earth

 December 31, 2007

The last day of this disappointing year.

I hope 2008 will be friendly in many ways. Isn't it that there is a dawn after the darkest of nights? This is what they say, and I want to believe in it.

Well, whatever might happen, what is wrong in being optimistic?

Last night, the temperature hit the coldest of the season.

Well, talking of time, the only thing about it is that it flies so swiftly. Six years ago, on this day, I was in Goa with some friends to celebrate New Year's Eve.

A quick flashback to those ebullient, exciting revelries makes the intervening period, full of plentiful agonies and almost no ecstasies, seem almost inconsequential, of no significance at all.

It was a time without any milestones, without illustrious signboards—a gloomy period when I slogged out, in and out, here and there, in this field or that. I struggled, but it did not mean anything. All it meant was that I, tethered to my pains, took longer and longer routes to my failures.

Also, a lugubrious, oblivion-raising time came—a stage when you are in a state of delirium—when I, deliberately forgetting my pains, depressions and disappointments, allowed myself stony, impassive rest and repose.

I won't now take a single step towards any sort of achievement, I resolved.

Perhaps some milestone will itself get attracted to the barren, sandy vacuum in my being, I had thought. But harbouring such thoughts is exactly equivalent to believing in miracles.

The draw of luck is drawn in the invisible heavenly lots, and it may sometimes find you the achiever. But there are almost uncountable poor, deprived ones whose case is equally strong as yours. Even if you happen to draw the lot in your favour, that would only mean depriving a fellow poor, perhaps in even more dire circumstances than you, of some long-cherished chance.

Thankfully, no such chance came by itself, and since I was not going after any goal particularly, I missed the train completely.

Well, coming to the New Year's Eve revelry, I can't forget those excited, oblivious-colored, intoxicated, crowded, abbreviated, dancing, flirting, carousing, boisterous moments spent in Goa on the night of December 31, 2001.

Every nook and corner of Panaji, and almost the whole of Goa, was crammed to the gills with tourists from all over India and abroad. Hotels, motels, lodges of all types and categories were brimming to the ceilings.

Call girls and prostitutes who wouldn't have attracted any notice from clients during the off-season now drew attention and money like the unmatched queens of the trade.

Wine, cocktails and local brews filled up minds with mighty storms inside the valleys of revellers.

Musical concerts on the broad avenues, where ear-piercing sound bites blared in all directions, would leave you shaking with a dangerous rhythm.

The festive ignition provided by Christmas was now bursting like a big cracker to sprinkle fire, light and a storm of excitement around.

Lovers lost in each other's arms, lovers of the moment lost in paid shelter, singles drowned in the arms of liquor.

On beaches dimly lit, dotted with shacks, shops and restaurants, people challenged the sea's dark waves by creating their own sea of yearning hallucinations, its tide turning unnaturally, terribly, carrying a strange mystique and mist of light and dark.

The sea of revelry rolled, yanked, puffed out liquored breath, toned by crazy music, soldiered by numerous foot soldiers of the sea of oblivion.

The sea of riotous revelry, teetering excitement, make-believe love and boozed bonhomie.

It challenged the sea, the real sea, lashing the excited beaches to console the sand on fire.

Under the impact of this wild revelry, true love looks as if it has taken to its heels and stands suspiciously at a safe distance.

It is a fire of crazy passions, crazily carried by the madly hilarious crowd.

The year on its deathbed is furtively being carried to its grave. So many hands are eager and protrude fists to fill the grave with earth, and then the storm breaks out to celebrate over the field of the grave for the arrival of a new one—the newborn at the zero hour.

They cradle, cuddle, fondle it, thrust mad breaths into its cherubic face, drop to their knees, caress it, and the painfully stressed, beaten hours of the night draw away to the sea, kissing the beaches to pacify the ruffled, bonfire sand.

Goa's New Year revelry—liquor, noise, masti, music, love, lust, brawls.

Next day, you find beaches and streets littered with enjoyment-making leftovers. It takes weeks to bring the badly shaken house to order.

Then suddenly Goa's full bowls are emptied.

A huge outflow of tourists, a reflux of them.

Buses, taxis, railway stations, airports—all are cowed down under the hangover-imposed increased weight of bodies now attracted to the earth with more stony force.

Because after that flying, frolicking, lofty highs, now they are dropped down on the hard, bare ground of realities once again.

The Lamp Blown Out at Liaquat Bagh

December 27–28, 2007

In the warmly lit evening hours of December 27, Benazir was addressing a rally in Rawalpindi with the intention of restoring civilian rule in the badlands of jihad. Liaquat Bagh had many PPP supporters egging on the Daughter of Democracy.

The witnesses say she made a fine speech. But if you harbour any instincts to lead such a radicalized society as that of Pakistan, you are always at risk of being put off the stage. Suddenly. Tragically. 

And exactly this happened with the brave lady of politics from the badlands, who had defied the challenge thrown at her during her reception rally.

The suicide attack, as has so often been proven, showed how a missed chance doled out by destiny can prove to be a maker and breaker in our lives. After addressing the rally, she would have sped away to safety had the urge to greet her excited supporters again not drawn her into committing the fatal error of popping her head out of the sunroof at the top of her Land Cruiser.

The assassin seized the opportunity and fired a volley at her. She collapsed before people could realize what had happened. He followed the ghastly deed with the macabre act of suicide bombing, scattering burnt flesh, torn limbs, clothing and debris on the road.

On the scene, many others were sacrificed at the bloody altar.

On October 18, she had returned home. She now joins the fabled list of assassinated leaders from the subcontinent. Her illustrious father, the famed Bhutto, had been hanged in 1979. She became one of the youngest Prime Ministers at the age of 35. She saw bloody turmoil through her almost two-decades-long political career.

Now the lamp is blown out at the age of 54.

Whom to blame?

Perhaps nobody, perhaps everybody.

The senseless policies of sixty long years drew one more round of blood. Let us pray to the gods of all religions that the bloodbathing comes to an end.

The precincts of Liaquat Bagh witnessed her last speech. People say she spoke well, fearlessly. As her convoy came out of Liaquat Bagh onto the road, shocked, dazed moments hung mournfully over the charred bodies.

Rioting occurred across cities in the wake of the assassination.

It was the same park where the first Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, was shot dead in 1951.

Hardcore supporters of the PPP, known as Jiyalas, wept inconsolably.

The Daughter of the East is now no more.

People saw Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in her. Many in the contemporary world thought her to represent the feeble face of democracy in the badlands of sectarian violence, jihadist onslaughts, AK-47s, bombs and terrorism.

Now the onus naturally seems to descend with its dark, ominous shadow over the teenage shoulders of her eldest child, Bilawal Bhutto, who looks like Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

Bombs and bullets, military, ISI, Al-Qaeda, Taliban, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Taiba, fire spreading Maulvis, barbarically excited clan leaders—Pakistan definitely presents a picture of utter chaos. Its manifestations are heard in distant Europe and America.

Jidahis are now found in society, in households, on sidewalks, in tea shops, in the ISI, in various arms of government, even in the Pakistan Air Force, where elements were implicated in attempts targeting Musharraf's convoy in 2003. The General survived though.

The firestorm launched by Islamist extremism—the pampered kid of the Pakistani government right from the state's formation—is rattling common lives. The fabric of society has been torn. Murders take place with impunity.

She returned to Pakistan in 1986, caught the fancy of the masses and became Prime Minister in 1988. Now, returning after eight years in exile, she was on the same path. But tragically, this time, the hope was snuffed out brutally.

The party founded by her father, the largest opposition party, was pitted against the mightiest institution in the country. A graduate of Harvard and Oxford—how could the illiterate Jidahis trust her? They had reasons to hate and be afraid of her.

Her stints at prime ministership—1988 to 1990, followed by 1993 to 1996. Her two brothers, too, had been killed earlier.

On Friday, December 28, she was buried in the white-tombed mausoleum at Garhi Khuda Bakhsh. An Islamic cleric led the mourners in prayers as she was given a place alongside her father and her brothers, Murtaza and Shahnawaz.

People thronged the dusty fields surrounding the mausoleum.

Sindh is definitely weeping.

Its famous daughter of Larkana is no more.

Now the Pakistani government says that she was not hit in the head; rather, she died due to her head hitting the sunroof of her vehicle. It only adds to the ambiguity and confusion surrounding the mystery of her death.

Outside, people just don't believe the official version. After all, the state of Pakistan naturally kills any urge to accept the sound bytes coming from the land of jihad.

The people waging daily struggles for life here in India, to whom neither time nor circumstances allow the sight of the full picture—unbiased and critically analyzed—regarding Pakistan, consequently see Pakistan and its army-political-jihadi axis as a behemoth: a vague, opaque, thick, single-faced entity. They tout that the murder has been arranged by Musharraf.

The common person finds the General, now in civilian clothes, a charming, wily fox who can dazzle anyone in any way. More than hate, they appreciate him, even if it means paying such compliments laced with crude jokes full of expletives and comically uttered foul words.

She was perhaps the best political face, and thus, in their eyes, the best prospect for the return of order and normalcy in Pakistan amid the chaos.

And certainly, the whole world bears this loss in one form or another.

Democracy has been kicked again in Pakistan.

Footballs of the System: Fifteen Months Between Hope and Betrayal

December 20, 2007

I have very particular reasons to hate the Congress and Congresswalas as a class. Some might find it a political thing, but no, it is a real one in my case.

Merciless, cold, vindictive steps taken by the Hooda government have almost destroyed my career. It is an irremediable dent in my life, in my career, in the prospects of a long-due happiness for my unjustifiably suffering brothers, sisters and parents.

The state roller-coasted over us—the entire HCS 2004 batch—like a great stone crusher, a great road roller, a massive juggernaut, making dust of the unwanted pebbles of me and my fellow batchmates, crushing our dreams, the fruit of our efforts, mercilessly, heartlessly.

For fifteen long months, the Honourable Supreme Court of India—dishonourably played the game of cat and mouse with us, showed us all the possibilities of justice, and in the end, apparently in order to appease the iron lady at the helm of affairs, allowed the blinding cloth on its eyes to turn a blind eye to the pathetically suffering cause of common men, common men like me.

The Nyaymurtis, according to me, in my suffering judgment, appear like annyaymurtis without even a single moral ruffle in their souls. They gave a green signal to the bandwagon of politicians playing ping-pong with every type of constitutionality.

“The government has the power to do what it wants to do. We can't interfere with the judgment of the High Court in this matter.”

This is the summary of their happy chorus.

They don't seem to be prepared to ruffle political feathers for a little cause like giving justice to commoners. If they were so helpless in this matter, then why, in the name of God, did they entertain our SLP in the first place?

The sham show of fifteen long months could have been avoided. At least some of us, like me, perennial believers in the uprightness of the Honourable Supreme Court, would have been saved from further delay in charting our alternative plans to make a career.

This belief in the system of justice has boomeranged like a fatal, self-inflicted arrow through our ribs.

And where do I stand today?

Thirty years of age, yet to earn a single penny for my near and dear ones.

People will easily put my tray full of agonies in the dustbin by saying I should seek alternatives, or rather should have done so a long time ago. But what of the betrayal by the very same arm of constitutionality which is always portrayed as the keeper of your rights and dignity?

Where are my rights and dignity after all this nonsense at the highest level in the judiciary?

If the Honourable Supreme Court judges are recommended and appointed through a thoroughly political process, how can they—the poor human beings pretending to be gods, or nearly so—escape being shackled politically when the matters involved are related to the mammothly inflated egos of those who facilitated the ascension of a man from a lower judicial status to that of a judicial superman?

Why aren't there any clauses in the Constitution to put the errant judiciarywala behind bars like a criminal if proven guilty? They keep all the laws in their pockets. This fraternity to always protect, at any cost, their class interest has now spawned the gutter of illegalities ranging from bureaucrats and politicians.

Where is real justice in India?

It is a false play of justice. In reality, the political class has its unlawful say in the end through the grossest misutilisation of state resources.

They are too big boulders, bigger than the puny iron wheels of the dispenser of justice, which enjoys its worth and significance through its crushing, crunching, dusting forays over weak, fragile pebbles like me.

So, a big shame on the face of the judicial system. What else I can say after my decade long hard work being splashed into the gutter by powerful political forces? 

I now consider it just like any other petty government institution, always under the threat of being misused to settle political scores that crush the spirit of justice.

The macho man drunk with power and thousands of glasses of alcohol—I wish he were his own urine drinker like Morarji Desai—now rules in the coveted seat, claiming it as a political victory of his government over the Chautala government.

But in what way does Mr. Chautala suffer from the judgment?

In no way.

The Puffy Gullu can't even dare to touch the strongman of Jatland. So the poor liquor-guzzler, with a puffed, bloated face, joker-nosed, is having potshots at anything related to the past government. As a wronged citizen of India, seething with impotent rage, this is all I can do to keep my sanity -- call names like a cheap idiot. 

Whenever there is a rally in Haryana where his mai, his Italian mai, comes visiting, the poor idiot, the believer in feudal aristocratic democracy, fumbles for words, always falling short of ideas in the presence of Madam, his bones shaking with fear as if she will drop him from the throne for any miscalculation.

So the ever-cringing chief schemer at the state level presents her with gold-framed pictures of her late husband; ever singing accolades for the first politcal family to keep sticking to the hot seat. 

Put to smithereens by the storm, lashed by him, I cling to hope.

What hope can there be for me?

As the elections come near, I am left with no alternative other than becoming a full-time noisy worker of Chautala party.

The Honourable Supreme Court has allowed us to remain as poor footballs, being kicked from this side to that.

It would have been better had the Honourable judges dismissed the petition altogether. In that case, at least there would not have remained any further possibility for political kick-starting.

But as it is, it is one of the most depressing, ambiguous, vague, slightly open-ended judgments, leaving us at the mercy of a political shark who will play cat and mouse with us.

The revolutionaries of free soul

 

I think gypsies have been the real revolutionaries. They are the gutsy, untethered, itinerant, wind-led horses. A layered palette of defiance, dignity and romantic wildness, they have it in them to repel any comforting, collective cauterizing stamp of religion, race, ethnicity, nationality, locality or specific residence.

At great cost—which collective comfort zones provide—they have resisted the normal safe escape route of accepting a casting mould to become a civilized social product. The barefooted, borderless, inassimilable, irrepressible life enjoyed beyond fences. 

Tasting freedom almost like daily bread; their paths defying the urge to harden into roads; belonging nowhere; feeling at home everywhere; carrying joy in their exiled self; ever revolting against fixed addresses. The exilically roaming free-borns have been paying big price for their uncontained culture. Yet the settlers’ derision just sharpens their dignity.   

It’s a high-degree freedom—though coming at the price of social stigmas, denigration, ostracization and exploitation. But their vibrant off-beat colors are the epitome of an exotically un-established wandering tradition. As children of the wind, they embrace the horizon, not a particular shelter and roam on a broad platform surrounding the lean and scraggy linearity of the settlers’ way of life.

They have stoutly resisted the barbaric incursion of civilization into their tribe. They are like an unknown nihilist saying ‘yes’ to an exclusive yet elusive pattern of life.

Civilization—the staunch basher with its boring chameleon colors—has been feigning false victory by condemning their freedom as uncivilized foraying.

Against the exquisitely fine-proportioned façade of the world of the settlers, the gypsies roam with their wild lore. The settlers have a fenceless fury; the gypsies have untamed peace.

They are splendidly visualized elusive fragrance of mother nature. With their own lousy immediacy, they pass the settlements wrapped in their civilizational woes. They just pass with an exemplary emphasis of free will.

The desolate, all bleak settled world full of tense climax and taut excitement. Gypsyism, the unconditionally blooming rosebud tenderly curling around the settled world clogged with overflowing distortions.

The homeless tribes move with sweetly savoring perseverance by the side alleys avoiding the world gloomily radiating turbulence in all directions. Their undulating resonance has not allowed them to be caught in time’s creaky cobwebs as they break its scheduling net with weighty as well as soft silence.

These are spontaneous shuffling strokes, comically cute, hilariously exuberant, amorously amusing and bedazzingly idiosyncratic. A formless pulse smartly negotiating the stormy, mercurial forces. Pictorial and panoramic. A dynamic dimension having delicate brilliance. An exotic adventure. Radiantly rejoicing, dismissing the rewards of formal dignity. A kinetic metaphor for the eternal muse of the first cause, the primal fabricator of this worldliness.

The civilized world meanwhile watches in dissonance and desperation, all jumpy and cranky, shouting moralistic monologues. The gypsies just move with burgeoning exuberance and delicious drowsiness.

The dispossessed and disinherited

 

The ironsmith nomads, gade lohars, are finally seeking to settle down in a world that is fleeting faster than ever. In this jet-setting space age, their lurching, creaking carts are left too far behind in the race of excellence, progress, growth and development.

They sometimes stay for months at a time at a little square in our village. That adds cross-cultural colors to the society for a brief period of time.

Their women and girls are beautiful in raw, exotic ways. These days they allow the vagrants from the settled streets to flirt with them. Earlier they used to have a tart, befitting reply for the eve-teasers. But times have changed and the once-famed gypsy pride of their womenfolk has diluted to allow the so-called civilized settled men to take mischievous pot-shots at them.

The green glens of gypsyism are gone. The large swathes of free-roaming regime now cluttered in narrow unsurpassable paths. It’s a slight but subtle compromise to allow life to take a tolerable shape in a world where the distance between them and the rest of the world has increased with a dangerous speed. A little allowance to strum the chauvinistic heartstrings of the settled males. A harmless prick on their once rock solid pride and chastity.

Once, when they were staying in village, there was this lavish marriage of two gypsy girls in the camp. The bridegroom arrived in a bus with the marriage party from a Delhi suburb where they had fixed their old gypsy cart in a mud and brick structure by the pavement to finally dock the ship.

The marriage was an exciting affair. The nomadic girls danced well much to the delight of the boys and men in the village. The marriage feast was also great in taste and variety and the villagers enjoyed it heartily.

The villagers burped and smirked: ‘Ancient gold and silver which they keep hidden in the wooden frames of their sturdy carts!’

A lovely panoply of images of harmonious existence and blending of cultures.

The dera then moved ahead on it journey.

They arrived again after a couple of years. This time an old woman from the camp died during their stay at the village. But the villagers won’t allow the homeless dead to be cremated at the site of the settled people.

The gypsies sullenly moved on to cremate their dead at a place where nobody would raise any objection.   

 

Puzzled gods and confident humans

 

Sohan Lal appeared for the post of constable in Delhi police. His father, a retired subedar major in the army, got a fresh dose of faith in gods and goddesses as his son moved from the physical fitness tests to written examination to finally reach the interview stage.

The ex-soldier always ends his day with a few pegs of whiskey. With the prospects of his son becoming a policeman, under the pious gaze of the pictures of gods and goddesses which his recently awakened faith had adorned on the walls, his tongue turned all reverential for kind gods. The soldier seemed full of humility and truthfulness.

Then this stream of faith and love stopped suddenly. His son failed to qualify the interview. The offended soldier got into the war mode against the heartless gods and goddesses. Altercation and verbal skirmishes to begin with.

Then the cask got lighter than normal. More alcohol in his system, the girth and certitude of faith went down the gutters.

A trigger of untruth and antagonism. The evil hoodwinked. The snake of suspicion sneaked in. A volley of unmentionables. The gods dethroned—the grand-paternal patronizing look gone.

The soldier bore a long-suffering look. He over-drank his rebellious self and yelled at the pictures of the deities smirking at him from the walls.

The war started. He tore down the recently purchased pictures when the sun of faith was bright. Now it was dark and gloomy. The gods dethroned and relegated to thorny ground.

Tarty tonalities gobbled up legends. Faith dismantled. He put the pictures in the street and beat them with chappals.

The next year his son got selected. Someone joked, ‘Even gods need threats and beatings these days to bring them to their senses.’

But it’s good that his faith was restored. The fallen deities reclaimed their lost positions on the walls in their house.

Well, these are testing times for both gods and humans—hard days of mechanical give and take.