Late Winter Cravings

Farmers are always done in...fucked in fact. Either it’s the impersonal hand of God that simply holds them by ears and smilingly makes them see the mysterious spectacle of undoing all their hard work. If God gets ready to do some more important undoings somewhere else, thus sparing the tillers for some time, Government does it from His side. Low prices hit the farmers even worse, because here they complete the crop cycle with certain dreams but return almost empty-handed from the market. So caught between these two supernatural forces, the poor farmer gets just one weather-saved and market-saved crop in four seasons. And that surplus keeps him on the path of survival. This time paddy has been fucked by the Govt.-cum-market forces. I have seen light in an old farmer's eyes, 12 years ago, when he sold Basmati rice at Rs. 2600/quintal. Mind it that was more than a decade ago. Can you believe the same stuff fetched a paltry 1400 to his son? Almost half! Meanwhile costs of farming inputs have skyrocketed. It just defies logic. Capitalism how can you leave a certain section in lurch like this. A landless farmer from my village had taken a portion of my land on rent for paddy farming. The sum we agreed upon was just on the basis of expected price of 1800/quintal. He returned from market and did as you can image. It was just a sentimental landvalla and a crying landless farmer. So I had to share his loss. But this act of philanthropy left a hole in my pocket. If market forces and the shining economy of India, for their survival, presume such acts of kindness from semi-poor guys like me, then to be hell with such a system. I think those who have lakhs of crores in Swiss accounts are better for this task. But you beat the Swami who talks of getting that money back. Another farmer, nursing the market insult, was just hatefully staring at the stunted growth of his winter tomatoes. An ex-serviceman, in late forties, this farmer has been working with all his army ethics on his small landholding. 'This country is up for bloodbath, I tell you!' he fretted. Gosh! Guys there was real fire in his eyes and practical intent in his words. 'The fuckers have stashed all the money in Swiss accounts. That’s our money man. While they cheat us through low agricultural product prices and very high cost of livelihood. The behen****s... ', sorry guys an angry farmer cannot do without gali-sali, 'have fucked farmers at all fronts.' 'Unemployment...these graduate farmers of 21st century India are not dumbos like their forefathers. Believe me man the day will come when they will just barge in Parliament and just kill the lawmakers there!' Dear-o-dear what a stormy spectacle it became. He was literally shaking as if we just had the first leader of peasant uprising from this part. Just imagine what if Anna-type movement is caught in the whirl-wind of such disgruntled hard workers! The future seems really up for some jerks and pulls.

                                          ***************

Why does truth pinch most of the time? Simple! Because it is no chocolate, sugar candy or mellowable sweetie-pie lump of ice cream. It is hard, sour, iron ball guys. It has pinching rough stony edges to its surface. Come into contact with them and they will take a few flakes from your skin leaving a red or purple bruise depending on the intensity of truth contained in it. Now the question arises, 'Why does it almost always leave a grimace on our face instead of a smile?' The simple fact that all of us almost always rub cold shoulders against this ironed ball having thorns for our soft skin, proves on fact: that we are not subjectively inclined to accept the objective reality as it stands in abstract. But does not that mean that we have moved poles apart from truth and its manifestations while going on the path of individual and collective improvisations at the subjective level. May be the reason for our success in emerging at the top of food chain in the game of 'survival of the fittest' is that we have institutionalized ourselves to negate and defy, and do without, certain basic truths that form the core of creation and nature. Nothing wrong with that! It, however, is paradoxical that most of these scions of truth--against which we have always been taking cudgels--form the core of our moral, humanistic, religious, spiritual and aesthetic vision enshrined in preach books. Strange!

                                      ******************

Late winter mornings are fresh even in the polluted and dirty sections of NCR. Heavily encumbered sectors in Noida do have their share of early-morning charm as they try to find out the order and symmetry meant for them in master plans. They cannot see much among the defecating, exciting, commercial, crash and crying hulla-bullo going around. The buildings are semi-daunting: a curious mix of residential-cum-commercial styles. You see a bit of house, a bit of manufacturing unit, a bit of service industry, a bit of business, a bit of exploitation, a bit of comfort, a bit of pain, a bit of life and a bit of death. It is a self-absorbed world, a cesspool, a whirling system drawing so many survival-lorn masses from nooks and corners of India. They live identity-less here. The enterprise thrives here. The malik goes smirk in his big car. The labourers go pitifully, deeply shackled by the duties and falling bodily and mental notions of being a human--and how can you expect to be Ganga-clean if you eat, drink and sleep at the very place where others and you defecate and procreate at the same time. You find a kid left alone in this non-caring world. A small sack on his back. The rag picker. He has manly eyes and a kid’s stature. When you are left alone so early in your life to enjoy or suffer life on your own terms, you just become one of the thousands of flies fighting for as pace on shit and sweets with the same relish. You just know one side of life--survival. By any means and at whatever cost. And what does this survival produce: stunted, frail. sick, dehumanized, spiritless multitudes who just add to the census sheets of India. But they serve a purpose. They carry the shining tag of economic boom and growth on their frail shoulders. They survive by any means. That is their biggest achievement. The widow, the prostitute, the raped girl, the mad women(carrying the sex toy for so many frustrated and hungry souls). They beg, pickup rags, sell their diseased bodies, operate tea stalls, try to pick out the moments of the day while someone ignores the cancer warnings to buy those poisonous sashes carrying gutka and tobacco. They even cock a snook at the great plans in the plan books for this great Delhi suburb, the pride of Uttar Pradesh. They just settle down at any place in between the industries. Their tiny hovels, a curious world of dwarfs. But they live as tall people who sleep and fuck proudly in congested hiccuping afraid air and bring about additions to their world like ant swarms. You will see their holy places as well. A drop of gangajal in the sewage nullah gurgling with puss and bacteria of uncaring humanity. The mandir stands nonchalantly. It’s Gods having forsaken it. It was never accepted as their earthly shelter at all. Anyhow a poor man's God is no God at all. It has been proved. The mosque minaret too sulks over this majestic swarm lost in a terrifying fatality just somehow holding onto faith like their broken spirit holds onto their more broken bodies. A mere purposeless appendage. They have their open shit plots. The stench too overbearing and thus fighting to retain its status and repel any encroacher coming with a non-shit purpose. Just imagine what will be the garbage dump site of this bigger garbage pit—it is literally a hell hole. It but serves as the playground-cum-business-cum-schooling arena for the orphans, half-orphans, bastards, urchins, nameless boys and futureless girls. In this hell of a hole, a fat pig brushes its shit-smeared muzzle against the holy mouth of a robust bull chewing the half-shit fodder and lying at ease in this kaliyuga playground. Well, well...you just have to pass through just one street and get the gist of life in these perilously throbbing veins. The blood is poisoned. The organs are diseased. What is its future? May be even God does not know. Probably, He is not concerned at all. And why should he be! Because He is the king of heaven. Why should He have any business with such hells?

                                                                     

The Mathematics of Super-rich Hindu Godmen!!

Ever wondered about super-rich Hindu godmen??!! All of us cannot escape being wonderstruck at the extensive material possessions religiously safe (always beyond the domain of tax and property laws that stalk the tiny material prospects of lesser mortals like yours truly) under the clutches of long list of Hindu religious figures. Well mendicancy that always reminds us of naked bearded Sadhus lost in meditative trance, it now instantly fetches us the image of gold-imbibed sages on whose feet both elites and the masses put their heads for seeking better prospects. Sadhus are doing good business man!!

It is one of the most predominant means of land grab in India ranging from prime locations in metros to the remote mountainous stretches. It is a very simple Hindu mathematics that functions on the parameters of blind faith and governmental incapacity to interfere into the religious affairs of the people who manage and organize religion for 80% population in this country. It starts with a smart bearded eagle who puts his ass by a holy fire near the vicinity of a suffering settlement full of people in need. You know why people’s faith in fate and God for a reprieve from their problems is not coming down as it should given the vast strides in science and technology? It is rather going up to turn into a blind race without any rhyme or reason. The reason is god dammed massive population in this country. People are crammed in a small space and fight over little resources. They ultimately have to spread out the corner of their apron for divine intervention. In ancient India that was rich in resources, faith was a means of spiritual pursuit. Now it is a mad rush to stand in the queue like sheep and humbly get blessings to fulfill needs. People have so many needs and uncountable frustrations that they are forced to drop logic at the end of a hard-cut day of struggles.

The mathematics of this Godman prosperity is very simple. Suppose ten people start going to a new religious sprout, the new Sadhu on the scene. They have their histories of disappointments, struggles, issues against man as well as God, trials and tribulations. When they decide to hit their forehead into the dust around the holy feet of this new blessing giver, even with a very weak probability law, some of them have already done enough to resolve some of their issues. Suppose out of ten, two people have been struggling long enough so that in any case they would have seen a positive change in their situation even if they had not visited this godman. But since they see a change in their situation after they started visiting this religious fellow, they forget the long trials and tribulations and their fight. They think that if it was not happening for so long, and now it materializes, so it must be born of this holy man’s blessings. So these two overzealous and over-obliged troubled souls turned followers become the publicity agents. Driven by a devotional spirit they will fetch 10 each fellow sufferers from the group of their acquaintances. And out of those 20 persons, at least 4 would have done enough to change their life positively anyway. But again these four will go ga ga about the Sadhu’s prowess in changing their lives. These four will get another 40 and so on. It grows with a very serious mathematics. A sort of nuclear chain reaction.

What about the rest 8 of the 10 people who visited initially? They will never doubt the powers of Sadhus as such. At the most they will think this particular one is not skilled enough to resolve their issues. So they will continue with their struggles against their causes as well as search for a skilled-enough holy figure who will ultimately deliver the goods for them. They will be scattered in the different levels of groups falling in the domain of various Sadhus. And those who realize that things have changed for them (which would have changed anyway given their long-road of struggles); they dump finally their loyalty at the feet of the holy figure that they are visiting at that time. In this way these godmen get their core group of loyal followers. So not surprising that most of these godmen are cut in the avatar of Aasharam and other cheats. A very simple religious mathematics, eh! 

If Gandhism is a philosophy, not individual legacy, Arvind Kejriwal, then, is the modern Gandhi!!

There is a cartel that has hijacked Indian democracy. It involves mighty politicians belonging to all the mainstream political parties, big business houses, senior officials and powerful antisocial elements. They complement each other and help each other in monopolizing things for mutual benefits and plunder the resources. Kejriwal challenged this criminal nexus. That's why he stands marginalized and stigmatized like this. All the thieves have started barking against him because he is their common enemy. Everybody knows how people like Mr Ambani control top ministries in India. And when Kejriwal shows fearlessness and puts them in dock they go for witch-hunting. Media is also controlled by these big economic and political tycoons. So the journos are also leaving no stone unturned in demeaning this new Gandhi fighting for the little little freedoms that have been denied to the common man of India. Hope people have their brains with them and won't be influenced by the propaganda organized by the exploiters.

Ground realities related to Khaps!!

Every community in India has its own type of social organization. Minority religions have their unique systems regarding marriage etc. These are so unique that some of them are even beyond the reach of civil and marriage acts. It means Indian constitution allows diversity of culture and thought. Khaps should basically be analyzed with a belief in this very concept. If so many distinct customs of marriage, divorce, property rights, which are even in stark contrast to other uniform laws in India, are allowed then why are khap panchayats judged with an exceptional, exclusive judgmental hammer ignoring so many unique cultural traits they define and defend regarding the Jat community. We have to understand that these are basically units of social organizations just like any other community in India and having its own utility and flaws.

Those who sit in the studios and blabber about the issue of honour killings should come out and see the ground realities related to honour killings. Ask the family where such incidences have taken place. They will tell it was the fear of getting marginalized by the mainstream society and the fear of stigma that drove them into the gruesome act. Very rarely Khaps will ordain honour killings. There have been some incidences when such injunctions were unfortunately ordained from Khap chabutra, but in those cases it happens when things somehow reach the larger domain of the community. In such cases these criminal acts have to be punished as per the law of the land. Don’t individuals commit murders? Does that mean that all of us should be put under scanner for being possible murders? Every individual, every institution in the domain of social, economic and political framework has its own versions of criminal acts. Does that mean that we should raise questions about their existence itself? Civilization thrives on reformation, not termination. Even Britishers thought of reforming so many unique customs instead of gross termination.

Right from Muslims to people in down south, marriage customs are different in India. If Khaps have a stand against same gotra marriages then what is wrong with that?? Genetically it has been proved that the more you move away from the genetic line of your parentage, the better are the offsprings. On what grounds we get judgmental? From the yardsticks of Hindu marriage customs, some customs related to certain communities will appear unacceptable. So just targeting a particular community regarding its marriage customs does not sound prudent and justified.

The biggest undoing with Khaps have been their spokesmen! Jats are basically farmers and count very low when it comes to being diplomatically correct. If put prudently even a slap may sound like a logical act born of some justified grievance. And if not put appropriately, even a justified act may appear like a gruesome act. That’s what Khap leaders have done to their system. Their ill-calculated statements regarding reduction of marriage age to cut down on rape, not allowing women to use mobile, codes regarding dress etc, have brought ill-repute to khaps. On the practical surface there is hardly any negative change in the lives of girls and women on account of such instructions, but yes after getting overhyped in the media Khaps sound like Taliban ever trying to enslave woman. Before getting panicked whenever there is such an injunction by some khap, kindly visit the respective areas and find out if there is a change in the lives of woman. You would not find any perceptible change. But yes Khaps will definitely get demonized. Khaps become just self-injurious in such matters. It happens just once in a while when some old patriarch of the headgear generations gets panicked possibly on ulterior grounds and ordains something funny which does not have any affect on the ground level. So Khaps should have diplomatically correct and educated people as their spokesman who know what they are saying and what might be the consequences.

 If we just strictly look from the prism of modernity then most of the unique aspects of different communities will appear redundant. We are here to preserve distinctness, not to smother down diversity. Doing that just against Khaps does not sound like treating Jats equally with other communities in India. So many customs and ways of life related to many other communities also repeatedly rub against the shoulders of law. So reformation is the key objective, not annihilation. In this regard Supreme Court’s observations on Khaps appear unjustified.

Every social system having historical roots has and will serve a role. So to say that Khaps have become redundant is quite farcical. Khaps are passing through a generational shift. The old patriarchs still clinging to its top leadership sometimes over buzz the panic button. It has to be understood that many things that are happening are beyond their imagination. So the reaction! But most of the times their reaction has not any effect at the practical level. Once this generation bows out, brighter young people who are more educated will take charge of Khaps. We have to facilitate this generational shift in Khap leadership instead of tabooing them Taliban way,

Why BJP brand of politics is a safer bet for Indian democracy at present?!

Family politics is one of the biggest issues that  plague Indian democracy. Congress led by Gandhi-Nehru clan and the smaller regional offshoots have checked the flow of democracy from reaching the grassroots level. That’s the reason Swaraj is still a distant, almost impossible, reality even after 66 years of independence. Even within the folds of democracy, only autocratic tricks can succeed in maintaining power concentrated in a particular family. In this regard Gandhi-Nehruvian type of manipulations have done the greatest harm to the spread of democracy and independence across the widespread strata in India. Consequently, things did not change much for the common man of India post-independence.

BJP brand of politics is at least in sharp democratic contrast to Congress in this regard. Atalji headed NDA as Prime Minister.  He could focus just on his democratic duties instead of wasting resources and institutional powers in consolidating family fiefdom to keep it floating across generations. New BJP Prime Minister designate will be in a far better position to function as the topmost administrator of the country in comparison to let us say somebody from the Gandhi Nehru clan. The latter will again have to go into undemocratic manipulations, directly and indirectly, to maintain their grip as the first political family in the country.

At least in present conditions BJP is a far better option than Congress for the spread of democracy in India. It may not be perfect but will at least take Indian democracy to the next stage when Swaraj will be a possibility under the care of some new rising son!!!! 

Peacock, the Beggar

The fields around my village are splashing with as much green paddy as possible. Monsoonal sun across the corners of flying lumps of clouds gives the best glimpses of nature's bounty. But the travelling shadows also try to cover up silent, invisible man-made tragedies. Driven by intensive agriculture, born of costly inputs and decreasing landholdings, farmers just mindlessly dump poison in all forms of pesticides, weedicides and insecticides. So this lush green is a merciless stroke of brush on the canvas of nature, swiping away the natural world of many insects, worms, reptiles and rodents that make nature holistic and encompassing in its game of give and take across food chains. So guys, its just green paddy and poisoned soil below.

Peacocks thrive on insects in the fields. So food-less where would they go. A peacock's plumage swinging to gentle breeze in open surroundings of the countryside is a treat, and we were lucky to witness it so many times during our childhood. Now the last or second last generation of these destitutes, who rarely get an insect in fields, has descended down in the village. An irony: the poison giver is somehow better than the poison itself, at least in the short turn. In the foliage of neem and acacian trees, they just pew out their miseries. To the infants and younger lot it gives a chance to get acquainted with the national bird's sound, and of course help them in learning the initials of human language.

My mom has an almost regular bird visitor, who perches upon the neem in our courtyard and pews out its begging song as if pleading, Mai Roti do!!' While she dispenses her routine chores across the yard, it continues to draw her attention. Roti delayed, it is forced to descend down and enter the inner reaches of house just to make his presence felt through his luxuriant plumage. Once roti is put in small pieces before it, it has to chuck up the offerings as fast as possible because crows line up in their accusing harsh tones, blaming him for being a transgressor who has infringed upon their rights. Crows are very clever. Some of them get behind his plumage and take a pick at his feathers to distract him. One defensive look behind and a few pieces stolen by the other crows waiting in the wings. I call it the 'beggar peacock', my mother does not like the title though.

If that is the fate of the national bird, its hard to imagine the condition of others. Looking at this marvel of nature, whom mom sometimes accuses of being 'namakharam'-- when it comes without its plumage, all the feathers having been shed somewhere, and mom cursing it for being so mindless to waste them somewhere and not shed them in the courtyard -- I just feel sad on account of the fact that may be it is the last or at the most second last in its lineage!!!  

China'a Himalayan Drills

My two neighbours have been at loggerheads for long. One is strong, financially and socially in a decent position. The other is comparatively lesser on all these accounts. The stronger one will not miss an opportunity to badger the opponent and would not lose a chance to prove his strength and the other's helplessness. One day I heard the one, always at the receiving end, saying, 'I am going to an all out with him. Even if he beats me its better to be fully defeated instead of getting insulted all the times!' Driven by the concept that he brooded over his insults, he went all out with the neighbour at the next provocation! It was unexpected given his unresponsiveness of long. The stronger opponent was taken back and before other villagers intervened he had god bloody mouth and many bruises. Moral of the story is: sometimes it serves to hit hardest when you are pushed against a wall; when you have been completely cornered!

Repeated Chinese transgressions into Indian territory and India's helplessness in this regard may a serve a corollary to the episode narrated above. China, on account of the War and repeated intrusions, has taken it for granted that India will remain inert to all provocations. Can India act ultimately like my weaker opponent? If China can cross over into our territory, cannot we go for the same exercise sometimes? Suppose China reacts at the level of using force at our China-type intrusion, we will earn a right to ward them off at the same level if they play the mischief again. It will only define the LOC more definitely---after all you are supposed to put your stamp of authority on you claimed land through the use of forces to their utmost capacity. It will just balance out the position.           

Amarnath Yatra

Life is all about exploring the self--its limitations, its specialties, its weaknesses, its strengths. Putting yourself in inhospitable conditions can be one of the means for this. The holy cave of Amarnath is situated in the frigid heights of higher Himalayas. As you move along the rain-lashed, slippery and stony mountain track, you find yourself caught in a dualistic chasm. Pleasure and pain side by side. Sighs of agony as well as excited palpitations of heart over nature's masterwork. In the misty heights melting glaciers are a visual delight; but the hazy heights lacerated by gloomy, craggy tops gets into your heart like some ice-cold stare of a corpse. 

Gasping like a fish without water, for the oxygen is seriously low, you find the next little step as the most unachievable task in the world. One look however at the melting glacier on the opposite side of the valley uplifts your spirits like Phoenix. You see the signs of warmth triumphing over snow: emerging pastures side by side with snow. Yes, green gives solace! Mountains lost in their massiveness just take your tiny existence into their mystic oblivion. You just surrender! I do not think many of us try to over-impose our self-worth against such massiveness surrounding us. Mostly, we just realise what we are--mere parts of nature, who can just smite our existence away in just one angry stroke of little finger!!!!  

You look anxiously into the sky for traces of rain. The clouds building up around the surrounding hilltops send down still chillier sensation down your spine. But then a look into the deep gorge across the sheer precipice carrying the track, gives you an outwardly sensation of fear and excitement mixed with a strange elation that cannot be explained in words. You see fellow devotees struggling along the ponies. These are the rare moments when you can really feel the agony of a fellow human being because you are put in the same cauldron. 

The last portion of the valley leading to the shrine is still covered with heavy snow. As you walk on it, you slip and regain control like a toddler learning to walk. After all we are always God's kids. Kashmiri Islam is beneficent. At no other place you will find a Hindu Religious occasion being supported by so many Muslims. All the hawkers, stall operators, tent vallahs, porters, foot massagists and alms-seekers are Muslims. At no other place in the world you will come across a Muslim stall operator welcoming a tired Hindu pilgrim: 'O Bhole Mata Parvati ke liye shringaar le lo!' In delicious Kashmiri the locals call you 'Bhole!'. And once inside the majestic cave, you just find yourself lost in the divine trance of the ice lingam, Baba Barfani!!

Waves in Love

They were like two distant waves on the endless watery fabric of the sea. Waves! The turbulent sons and daughters in the lap of the mystically musing father hidden somewhere deep down in the undisturbed silence and bluish calm. Waves take birth with an airy titillation, sprinkle foam of joys and sorrows, hit against each other, meeting orgasmic crests higher than the sky and sorrowful troughs far deeper than the depths of the sea. Then they just die out spreading the self willingly-unwillingly in the same primal substance, the water. But then there are waves that just don’t die out that easily. On the watery chessboard of sea they dream of a sea-less identity, a shelter somewhere, a fellow soul-mate wave, one preceding as well following the other, always pulling as well as getting pushed by each other, a couple. But sea being sea, a disturbed mass, a delusional slayer of such harmless dreams, a sadistic monster drawing its life force and excitement out of heartless mastication of such soft hearts!!!!

Coming back to these two ways. Tossed up by teasing circumstances, they had been suddenly spurt up in different corners of the sea. Cast out in the dragnet of meaningless anonymity around, these two were looking out for meaning to there being at all. Their souls standing at their toes at the rising crests born of their puffed up enthusiasm to see beyond the fellow wave-heads, above them to sight a fellow driving force that could push as well pulled by them beyond the crashing wave-heads and sprouts of tiny wavelets being born around.

They say as a wave you don’t move; just transfer the force of your spirit to the next crest or trough. The tragedy of being a wave: you cover distances, still you are at the same point. Across the cauldron of this watery monotony, they got watered glimpse of each other as they were pulled and pushed about like a helpless human in a crowd on rampage. They jumped a bit more, these watery waves. The twosome who wanted to travel in a world of there own, beyond this noise, listening to self as well as the other's dreamish splash. The desperation for meaning, for shelter, for a travel hand in hand, of being pushed and pulling at the same time, of hitting the other for more substance to the self and the other as well. They could see each other's faces from a distance.

So oblivious to the jostling futility around they just struggled across the mess to meet each other, their hands stretched out in agony and ecstasy at the same time. Wetter and perspiring than any other wave, they then hit into each other. An ecstatic storm! Big bang as well as non-existent at the same time! Their watery molecules seeping deep into each other, unmindful of the transgressions from all around! The fusion! Streaks of each others' identity groped farthest into the other like the most adventurist tourists at heavenly strange places. A force! So powerful—born of such tiny unison on the fathomless, massive bosom of sea! They travelled in combo. Relation-less, just bound by a strange chemistry. Perplexed sea just stood apart at the audacity, nothing else.

The waves travelled transferring crests and troughs of agony and ecstasy to each other. Eyes shut to the futility. They knew sea is stormy, the slayer of such freedom and individuality in its domain. But they had decided to reach a meaning and a point of no return at a place where at least dying mixed might be possible, if not more. So tossed by bigger storms and destructive waves, they entwined like the folds of a rope, twisted protectively around each other. Painful twists; but so solacing with the feeling of at least saving that much portion of the companion wave! Angry sea bellowed devilishly and gave the killing push. On the pining sand of a forlorn shore this twisted-into-each-other mass of two waves was thrown out. It’s mixed, happily dying water seeped into the sand. It but left a mark on the sandy apron of time.            

Holi

I can remember one Holi. At least 7 or 8 years back. Drunk and mired in all bad colours like toads in filthy waters, we had hitched upon a tractor and went to Sonipat city to spoil the appearance of our friend's beautiful wife. After spreading disharmony in his household, we the lampoons were coming back to the village. Tractor was giving a stiff competition even to cars. We yelled at the top of our ebriated, coloured rascality. There was a scene by the side of road, which instantly gives a high to almost all Haryanvis. A man was thrashing his wifie. Possibly the result of an argument while they travelled on their scooter. Poor Chetak was the mute spectator to this gross act. But the hooligan-carrier tractor came to a halt and first instinctive reaction of my demonic friends was: 'Aur maro saali ko!' And they laughed at the scene.

As a presumably better educated human being my instincts immediately clobbered down the common Haryanvi instinct and I yelled: 'Aurat pe attyachhaar!' They respected me, those father-defying idiots. So they just jumped down and many heart-ful fist strikes found the man bleeding from mouth in just few seconds. The lady cried: 'Harramjado ye hamara aapas ka mamla hai. Ye tumhara jeejaji hai, aur Haryana police mein hai!' So all daredevilry was gone in an instant. The policeman was dazed beyond all limits. We just chickened out of the scene even more efficiently than a murderer ever did. My friends cursed me, ‘Your bookish ideology got us in trouble. It would have been better to laugh.’ Police in Haryana is barbaric. A bloodied policeman can get you in serious trouble. The tractor was mired in mud, even the number plates. So by appearance it just gave clue to its manufacturing company, nothing more. All nasha gone, we washed it cleaned in village pond and took a vow to send it to the sheltered barn for at least a month. I prayed to all my Gods for rescue. You would not believe what happened further. Next day, one guy from our beating squad was reading newspaper outside village. A policeman came and asked for the approach route to a neighbouring village. 'What happened' my scared friend asked. 'Yaar yesterday some goons on a red tractor gave a bloodied jaw to one of our policeman! Look at the guts!!!'    

Frog Fella

There was this frog fella in a well, in a village rather; for what else is a village--a small world, where the water in the well, they think, is the world, and the round patch of sky visible above is the whole universe. This frog fella croaked a bit differently from the rest of them. So the mustached bull frogs who croaked like worst-throated donkeys declared him the prince Alexander who could conquer the world. 'Son now is the time to jump out of this narrow confine and tell those non-frogs outside who make so much of noise that we mean business now!' they croaked in chorus.

They propelled him out and it landed in the noisy big world of super-sophisticated frogs. It nearly got crushed under the wheels of a speeding car! Well, the Alexander frog on a mission! But what to win and run after!? The world of these smarter frogs seemed lost in directionless circles, madly frenzied, circles after circles, and still going nowhere!!! 'I will take fastest circles!' the new arrival thought. Caught in a dizzy it fell and rolled out of the trajectory to find itself by a cheap wine outlet. When it came to its senses, a stray dog stared at it sympathetically. 'I licked your face to bring you back to senses!' the dog-humanist smiled. So our Alexander aspirant reconsidered its options. These fellows cannot be beaten in circular orbits, I have to revise my strategy. So the frog reconsidered its options. It just decided to walk, not run, in circulars. 'At least I would not fall and get a face-wash from a dog!' it thought.

Back home there were buffalo female frogs, who could carry him on their strong backs. Strong, sturdy, manlike!!! Here the frog saw, for the first time, the ones who would pass by your side and still not create typhoon around you to make you land on your poor ass!! 'Ohhoo...its a wonderful place yaar' our dusted, to-be-Alexander frog fella mused. He denounced the old world full of brutes and devils. Fell in love with the new world. There was this still prettier phenomenon. Male and female frogs going around with uneventful bonhomie! It was in sharp contrast to the pairing back home: it was just fighting both in lovemaking and the rest of the time.

Its eyes popped out of its sockets when it saw such a beautiful girl frog. The poor guy just lost his sense. It put all that world-beating, gung-go and brave spirit into one particular surrender to a sentiment. Back home it earns a few kicks by the whiskered bull frogs or even by the man-like girl frogs. The frog guy put all his bravado in open submission to this sentiment. It felt like a world beater! Just landed in a pool, confined itself in this sweet prison. This is the world, it thought. In the silent pools of its majestic waters, it swam backstrokes on full moon nights and sung love-croaked songs in the noisy chaos around that no longer existed for it. Now it would not listen to the Tau-frogs. 'Come out you idiot, we will pull out you skin and make a cap for the ugliest boy frog in our place!' they threw pebbles. It just dived and did not resurface for amazingly long periods of times, staying underwater in hibernation, lost in that girl frog's imagination.

Off and on that girl frog playfully threw a few stones into the water that created further storms both in the water and in its heart. Few of these pebbles even hit its snout and turned it redder than before. But it felt so happy for its bloodied fate. They sounded better than the embraces of those devilish girl frogs back home. 'You just take care fella, if we find you out we will just de-juice you in a crusher along with you hypnotized spirit and love-infested heart!' the fattest Tau-frog yelled. 'Tau you just go back and get beaten by Tai in your effort to ride her!!' our love-lorn prince protruded its tongue at venerable Tau, even showed index finger, its latest learnt things at the smarter place.

They just waited for him. Silently. The chap croaked so many love songs day in out that its throat gave in. Summers came. Furious. Smart girl frog had many cooler things to attend to. Water in the encaging pond started evaporating. It went on getting muddier with the rising temperatures. So our frog fella appeared blackish, mossy like a tiny crocodile. 'Let me see U Chappaganjuu how long you remain out of my stick's strike' Tau-frog waiting patiently by the ingressing shoreline harked. 'Tau go away, i will throw mud at you!' it tried to defend.

So, guys, one day as it was supposed to happen, our frog fella was found almost half-dead in the muddy moisture of his escaping prison. Tau just picked it up, gave a few good strikes to steal its still left out senses. They then dragged him back to the old world, threw him into the small well. 'See how much mud it carries' they croaked. ‘Turned out to be bad,’ someone said. ‘No its not his fault, there is just mud outside,’ another one consoled. ‘It’s a city-returned, I will take care of it,’ a sturdy girl frog volunteered and lifted the half-dead, muddy prince.                    

Homage to the Martyrs

While you go full throttle on weekend enjoyments, take a moment out to remember three martyrs who on this day decades ago kissed the noose of death with such love and affection that no pining pair of lips can ever match the selfless compassion behind the lock. 23 March, Sahid Divas of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev!!! At each step we take liberty as granted. We see the signs of growth and prosperity for ourselves in all directions, we can go out and shout regarding the causes of our grudges, we can afford to be totally individualistic and still be counted as the best people around, we can afford to allow the greatest injustices right there before our eyes and still be counted as legally clean, we are even free to take socially permitted actions to cut down the freedom of our fellow citizen, we are free man!!! Free for the best and the worst. But they were not free. At each step they knew that their fates lay in outsiders' hands. Their spirit always felt the cold iron of fisticuffs. They knew one single step as a free man is far better than 100 miles travelled as a slave. Even if it meant cutting their lives in the nip, while their youth was blossoming like a spring rose. They had their sip of justice and freedom. For a larger cause they defied this strongest instinct of self-preservation. They found themselves defined by their identity as Indians, not just self-seeking Indians. They died for a vision. For freedom. Was it just from the colonial rule? No, it was a dream to set all individuals and Indians from the slaving chains inside, chains of narrow parochial means, of moral apathy, of criminal negligence of murderous assault on ones fellow human being, of blindness to self-evident acts of abuse, of saddest old eyes left on road looking at the Mercedes shooting away, of abused young women left on the roads to bear more and more criminalized behaviour by the people of the same species. As a homage to these martyrs, let us open our eyes and see the larger picture. At least be a bit more caring for the world around us. As free individuals we have to pay this nominal fee at least!!!!   

My Friend Peelu

Weekends in my village are sort of rejuvenating moments. These are fast changing times. But village and villagers still hold onto lot of so called outdated, traditional stuff which is both exciting and objectionable both at the same time.

There is this street dog named 'peelu' that is getting stronger on collective offals at various doorsteps. It belongs to all and to nobody at the same time. It will acknowledge your acquaintance by swaying its tail as you pass through the street and barks through night as the watchman of the area.

Yesterday I decided to have a stroll by the village pond and the loyal animal, its tail taut as a mark of respect and loyalty, followed me to this village-side bunch-grass and shrubbery dotting the pond's shoreline. There was this donkey, medium built and really docile looking, that caught my attention. A village is a village. I can recall so many moments from childhood when we had rides on donkey backs, held them by ears, sometimes three boys riding at the same time. Those reflections caught hold of me. There was this innocently rascal urge to hold this innocuous being by ears and go for a ride.

I tried to approach as harmlessly as possible. But just as my fingertips said hello to the animal's ears, it got unjustifiably offended. After all its the duty of a donkey to carry load man. But like most of us forgetting duties, it started flailing its legs in four directions. Panicked I took an evasive leap. This is where the dog decided to intervene from my side. Peelu, the carrier of this tag of being man's best friend from ancient times, gave a few more twists to the emblem of its bravery and loyalty, its tail, and attacked.

One simple fact: One should not reach the flailing range of a donkey legs from behind, even if you are a lion. The effort will award you with at least a broken jaw or rib. But then overzealous Peelu had to prove that he is worth all the chapattis that we offer him. These are bad times man. Loyalty fetches you many bruises and few trophies. The poor thing got a good shot in its flanks. The impact found it rolling on ground. Then boy O boy, all the ideological stuff out of its brain, it ran at unheard of speed, its tail between legs, and whining that sounded more cursing me rather than the donkey.

'Peelu you idiot, how can you leave a friend in lurch like this!' I felt like shouting from behind. But it had forgotten everything. Just vanished out of sight, From a distance I said sorry to the offended animal. Man these are the days of empowerment across species. Gone are the days of those rightless, mute, uncomplaining animals of the past who gave us some of the best moments of our childhood. 'Sorry boss, this craving to ride your back without your permission was illegal and you are within your rights to create repercussions of these sort!' I said from a distance. It snorted and gave me angry, offended looks. I increased the distance between us lest it should carry the notion of justice too far and set after me.

Back in the village I saw my run-away friend. It limped and walked with its tail free to hang in any direction. 'Peelu how are you!' I said. It did not mind me too much now. Just turned its head a bit in my direction and simply walked away as if was no longer interested in such risky friendships. 'But a friend in need is a friend indeed!' I thought of saying it loud and make it more bearable for him. But my friend was already out of sight. Bad days, very difficult to keep friendships alive.            

Pissable Parliament

This is the longest night! Our conscience frozen into an inhuman hibernation! In the frigid gloom, the devils shed bloods on the white snowy sheet of our social fabric. A painful cry echoes through the land of lifeless corpses! It pulls the dead bodies out of their quilted, warm graves and they swarm around the tombstone of the higher mortals’ graves, crying and shouting to awake them out of their perennial, impotent sleep!

Cold-smitten dates of the third week of December raise some hopes! Anna Movement, Kejriwal Movement, Ramdev Movement, all had a leader fighting for a common cause. The people gathered on Rajpath to march towards Rashtrapati Bhavan and Parliament House to shout at their indifferent red stone walls are not doing it for glory. They are driven by a mammoth shame; a collective feeling of guilt; they need an outlet to shed their share in the tragedy. These young boys and girls are no followers of some social-cause-conscious individual. Each and every individual braving cold water and police batons is a leader to himself/herself! It is not for media; it is not for a long plan of action for a dream future; it is no systematized stage show! It is simple; it is from heart; it is fought with a faceless, selfless bravery! These are bleeding hearts; carrying over the plight and pain of the girl fighting for life in hospital.Thousands shout her plight; thousands cry for justice. Caught in the jaws of death; her life torn apart by the very hands that could well have been solacing and brotherly, if the devil inside the perpetrators would have been aware of the word ‘sister’—she now has a reason to get a forgiving smile for these thousands of brothers and sisters crying for justice from her side.  

Thousands of young people throng the area around the citadel of power. Each and every member is a pioneer, a leader! It is a movement started by the leaders. Busy in petty house-hold chores, and guiltily watching it on TV, even in my most Hind-movie-driven heroic fancy, I could not visualize myself more than pissing on Parliament after somehow managing to sneak through the barricade. The beholder of such impotent law that allows such criminal acts against women, and that too one after another, in just its near vicinity does not deserve better treatment.

Forget about law, justice and government. People are foremost. A cause has to first jolt the courts in their hearts. We are responsible for this nasty assault on humanity. We have allowed things to culminate in such an inhuman tragedy. Thousands of cases of molestation in varying degrees pass on a daily basis as routine things. People allow them to occur; criminal apathy! This pandering of the smaller evils by the court of conscience in the thousands of spectators on the footbaths, crowded buses and metros and bazaars just leads to criminal loopholes at the administrative levels. First thing: If you are a good human being and theoretically shout ‘Capital Punishment to the rapists!’, you have to get eligibility to shout this slogan by at least taking a vow to interfere when some petty male molests a girl or women in any form or degree before your eyes. If the courts of humanity inside us will not allow thousands of such indecent things on a daily basis, the higher courts and administration will also not spare the evil-doers at bigger chronic stages.

We are the law! We hold the court inside our civilized hearts. Leave the bigger crime acts to judiciary. We, as the carriers of that tiny court of humanity inside us, can well afford to dispense justice from our own ends in street-side regular cases of violations of norms against women, by promptly condemning the criminal for the deed, to be followed by a few hard slaps to serve the cause of justice. The case has to be closed then and there and spare the over-burdened judiciary to continue settling thousands of self-evident ghastly crime acts that are pending for decades.

The latest incidence is not in abstract. It has come to hit the last nail in the coffin of women plight in Delhi to seal its fate to suffer and survive in fear and insecurity even in broad day light. Hundreds of such cases and incidences have been tonking at the courts of our conscience and the thick walls of governance for decades. It has been caused by a bigger criminal act by all: individuals, society, government, police and judiciary. Delhi is being run by an experienced old lady for a decade and half. If the intensity of crime against women is getting sharper teeth to tear the moral fabric to pieces, then shame should be painted on Her face if ever her inner voice gives her some credit for being a successful administrator! India is being handled in proxy by another lady for a decade. It is high time that she feels finally like a woman and not like a mechanically principled Nehru family princess thinking 365x24x7 just about retaining the political clout of the family to ultimately install Yuvraj as the King of India.

This country is not short of those bookish theologians who will drag you into the psychology of crime to prove the ineffectivity of capital punishment. To be hell with such idiots and put their analytical brains in boiling oil and feed to the rapists in jails who fatten themselves on our public money. Capital punishment serves its purpose. Hang these six bastards and then see the crime graph in Delhi.

There are undercurrents of good and bad in almost all human beings. We came out of the caves to civilize ourselves by taming the beast by putting up chains of deterrence in various forms: social conventions, ethics, family relationships, beliefs and lawful punishment. When they started wagging tongues against capital punishment, it was under the blind belief that we have become civilized sufficiently to self-contain the bad in us to a degree that would not allow us to get into heinous manifestations of crime. But dears, these fundas fail miserably in the devils still lurking around in stinking corridors of sub-human existence interspersed with the cleaner faces of our society. Socio-economic development in these grey areas is a generational shift and the theoreticians can dump their capital and jobs and work in these slums to change their surroundings and material possessions and then later on clean the shit of their brains. We but in the cleaner by lanes of society want safety for our law-abiding generation by having this feeling that there is capital punishment against the crime that is tormenting the body and souls of almost all the women and girls in Delhi.

Hang them please!