She Lost Here, She Lost There

 

She looks older than her 60 years. She is big built, and walks with force befitting a Sikh lady. But something is missing. There seems to be a vacuum in her soul which you instantly realise as you look into her sad eyes. In 1984, the bloodthirsty Congress supporters had burnt her husband alive. She was lucky to save her life, still luckier that her son and daughter survived, but terribly unlucky in losing a husband and having no support. She worked harder than her broken spirit would allow, put the mother in her at its best to continue fighting against all odds to raise her children.

The wound inside her feels fresher than that you expect from a tragedy happening three decades back. Her wound was again opened up by another tragedy in 2001 Gujarat riots. In 1984 she had suffered for being a Sikh, and Indira Gandhi had been killed by her Sikh bodyguards. In 2001, she suffered for being the mother of a Muslim convert. Her daughter whom she loved more than herself and even her son, showered with love care and affection and who even did well to get into Jamia Milia University for a graduation course, fell in love with a Muslim boy and would not listen to anything contrary to the inter-religious marriage. Sikhs are nearer to Hindus, sharing even many Gods, but she loved her husband so was justified in feeling closer to the Muslims. Delhi and its society both were claiming their bits of modernism, so her daughter got converted and was married to the boy from Gujarat. Just out of their graduation courses they went back to the boy’s place in his home state. And it was here that the tragedy struck taking away her Harpreet-e-Gulzaar from this world during the dark-famed Gujarat riots.     

The long and wordy debate about the tragic tales of the communal violence keeps going. In the one Sikhs suffered; in the other Muslims suffered; she suffered in both; she suffered as the wife of a Sikh husband; she suffered as the mother of a Muslim convert. Elsewhere in India, Hindus suffered invisibly on account of the talks of Islamic terrorism; the unseen unknown suffering fuelling the pseudo-secular drama which is an important component in the Indian contemporary politics.

 

In 2009, the UPA government’s eagerness and enthusiasm in deliberately leaking the Liberhan Commission’s report to expose the wrongdoings of the Hindutva elements and condemn the BJP as a communal party could have given her a touch of solace from the daughter’s side who died as a Muslim. But how could she forget the massacre of 5000 innocent Sikhs in 1984 including her husband. Of the two main political parties, which one to support during the elections? She had not voted during the parliamentary elections six months back. For which one to get her soul blued and finger marked indelibly for a week as a token of support?  

In 1992 a structure was stage-managed to be broken for political gains. In 1984, it was the real flesh and blood that spattered the streets of Delhi; like it was the real blood in Gujarat. Who was ruling in 1984? Who was ruling in 2001? Who was ruling at the centre in 1992? How can the central government wipe its hands clean of an act perpetrated in a state when there were intelligence reports regarding the impending destructive task by the Kar Sevaks? It was just like allowing your enemy to commit a murder so that the foe can be held guilty. The Congress government did only that. And ask the pseudo-secularists isn’t it just plain communalism to politically appease a particular section always citing the wrongs committed against it by the political opponents? Political action and reaction mean the same as far as communalism is concerned.

Whom to support and whom to go against? Who was more communal? In the future parliamentary elections where to cast her vote? The mother and the widow in her kept away from any interest in the famed Indian democratic machine operating along the communal lines.

Beaten Blues on the Anvil

 

It is December, 2009; the city Delhi. The not so glorious UPA 2 innings is almost six months old. People have broken Advani’s dream of becoming the Prime Minister of India. Sonia has got another four-and-half years to pull Italian-smart strings from behind the curtain and India is up to be ruled by the official political head who ‘never spoke’. For ten years the people will just wait and wait for the Prime Minister to speak, speak encouragingly, speak extempore because only then one sounds natural and appeals to the heart, and assuages the ruffled soul. But just like Sonia Gandhi reads her Hindi lines from the transliterated scripts in her white woman’s romanticised accent, her right or left hand man appears saying even ‘Thank You’ from the politically correct crisp note typed diligently for him to read out to the anticipating audience. Possibly India would love a speaking Prime Minister, so in the next term they will choose Narender Modi, who would at least speak to keep the struggling masses’ dreams alive.

Tea sellers do a nice business in Delhi during the winters. Around little-little tea stalls scattered around the metropolitan maze, down to earth people take hot sips of solace, gossip to their heart’s content, and contribute to the tea vendor’s seasonal upswing in fortune. Ram Lubhawan is from Bihar. Stocky and equipped with floral linguistic contours of Bhojpuri, he entertains people with his rural Bihar anecdotes as much as his tea melts the frigid fates lying like iron pallets in the souls of his customers, generally poor Bihari emigrants who work in factories, in security services, as peons in private offices, as rickshaw pullers, etc., etc.    

Ram Lubhawan’s witty rustic humour does not leave the usual cackling peals of laughter like it used to do six months back at the time of the parliamentary elections when they ‘the downtrodden’ people had ritualistically voted for the Congress like their forefathers had done since independence. Once again, terms after terms, in rote repetition of blued thumbs and dreamy hearts at the altar of the Indian Goddess, the democracy.

Anyhow, a political talk always rejuvenates. It might be a fact that our kitty of woes at the hands of our chosen governments just piles up like never before; still political discussions are taken so seriously by the people as if Indian democracy will crumble to pieces without their tongue-tiring part in it. So the smoggy, polluted wintery bride in Delhi is being welcomed by so many political bickerings.

Ram Lubhawan has become serious. Like any other man on the street he is afraid of an impending living-cost disaster. He along with his customers is convinced that if things are not controlled, the already polluted air in Delhi will become plainly suffocating for people like him who have to dig a well daily to drink water.

With a pining fart and gloomy heart a fat customer of his is muttering abusively. The cost of living has multiplied too fast, they agree. Yes, the common man is just groaning with the pain of almost unprecedentedly sky-high cost of living. Bus fare is high enough now to give this pinching feeling to any labourer that he/she is contributing to the infrastructural growth of Delhi just for free. The same people, the people on the street and roads—almost antagonised against the capitalist class, the class of well-to-do families supporting the BJP—are now just rubbing their hands with helplessness. Just six months ago they had come out so proactively to give the new iron lady another five years to further consolidate the first political family’s roots. The common man just wanted to define Indian democracy within the strictly defined loyalties to the Nehru family.

Anyway, the acceptance by the masses of the undisputed axial status of the First Family in Indian democracy meant the Prime Minister in waiting was not allowed to change his status. Now, after so much of polluted sewage has gone down the drains to merge the holy waters, the illusions are giving way to harsh realities. As they discussed their not so important woes to the higher world, Ram Lubhawan sees a pleasant smirk on the face of a rich sahib getting down from the safe confines of his big car. ‘It’s your government buddies!’ seems to be the message from his side. In a suffering tone a labourer is muttering, ‘Only if there would have been elections as of now!’ ‘Spare your voter fury for the next five years!’ the portly, safely rich fellow mused.

Wait for five years! Of course they will wait, but during these five years so many things will keep pending, the hijacked life, the frozen dreams, the hibernating fates. They have played their supposed parts in choosing a supposedly ‘people’s government’, but how the hell things will change for them. The very same things that change for so few almost daily and remain the same for these people around the tea stall for generations. ‘Five Years!’ Ram Lubhawan gets a jolt as the boiling tea in his pan puffs out a revolt and splashes out. A storm in the tea pan. A little stronger than a storm in a tea cup. A bit bigger storm in his heart now. His son wants to become an engineer. The famed dream of a poor Bihari emigrant’s son. Tuitions and tutorials are very costly. He has to save many dozens of thousands during the next four years, exactly the time remaining for his son to have a go at the entrance examinations. Pulled out of the discussion, he counts the customers around him.     

A Daily Pill of Digestive Karma

 

Just try to do one good deed per day. Hey, don’t worry; it’s not that classical preaching and all that. It’s just about one of the commonest thing coming your day on a daily basis. It can be just a coin given to a really deserving old beggar. Please forget about those stylish naysayers who will spew out millions of anti-beggary words and won’t do even a single deed to justify their theories. Forget whether your one coin will change the life of that person or not. All you need is a big heart and genuine sympathy. A coin given with respect to a fellow human being is far-far more valuable than a hundred rupee bill given with some inhibitions. The lesser fortunate will feel the humanism behind your gesture and reciprocate in equal measure.

Your daily good deed might even include sincere sympathy for someone in emotional turmoil. Just look around and you will find so many ways to fulfil your daily quota of a good deed. Believe me it will require so little from your financial, physical and emotional pockets. Just imagine billions of such little stars of goodness being lit in the lives of countless unfortunates. Don’t you think it will remove so many darker shades from the nooks and corners left out of the mainstream of progress? Give it a thought. Please forget about the larger perspectives. These are simply tiny means to escapism. If you are a real miser and are plainly helpless to dole out anything out of your daily scheme of things, still you can at least chalk out a genuinely good thought. Some say thoughts are things. For the real misers even thoughts will do. But as it can be safely assumed, if you can’t act honestly, how can you think with a pure heart. So be on the safer side and do a tiny Good Deed per DAY.

Delhi Noontide in November

 

Smog, slog and life on the winter's doorstep, that is Delhi in November. There is enough heat in India; the heat born of the loss of space and individualities; the heat born of many hands prying and praying to collect always deficient opportunities; the heat of summer; the heat of a society torn and pulled in different directions by equally strong forces of tradition and modernity.

 

Away from all this in the cooler climes of United Kingdom, he felt a sashaying sisterly spray on his face. As a Britisher he was always interested in India, and Delhi of all its places. First time in India, he had envisioned India as a former colony and its people carrying poverty-enforced brooding, agitating look. This day in November but gave him a surprise. With Western curiosity he could spot some traces of lilaceous glow on the people's faces even amidst all this cut throat crowd and teeming competition. His rosy white skin did not complain even though he was there under the open tropical sun. The winter has just starting spraying its aura around, he mused, his mind becoming more positive for the people and the surroundings. November was cool even in Delhi! He forgot all talks of global warming, pollution, dirty political snuggeries, traffic jams, disappointment on the cricketing field when his own home team lost to India, etc. The weather in November appeared to put the common man, the man in the arena of trials and tribulations of saving some grace to see through the day with life intact, on a strong wicket. The glow on common man was just like that was hallowed around numerous faces after witnessing yet another century by Sachin recently in a home series against his team on India tour. He had felt intimidated when thousands of cricket crazy fans went madder than the maddest whenever Sachin hit a century and he found himself lost in the stadium, lost like a drop in the ocean.

 

Delhi is chaotic. That was the predominant notion in his mind. Certain notions but were for a change this November day in Delhi. Doing a round of Connaught Place he saw that the colonnaded facades were up for some renovation. His spirit got uplifted and as a student of architecture he even felt obliged to the Indians for this effort. Far away from home, still pinched with niggling thoughts of his recent breakup from his girlfriend, he felt the colonial smirkness and efficacy still pervading in smoky, hazy noon slowly passing into the folds of a welcoming afternoon. Going around with a heart that was left injured and vacant after the separating storm in the café where he had said goodbye to the girl in London, his accommodating spirit now realized why despite so many metropolitan outcrops around, Connaught Place is still the heart of Delhi. He felt proud as a Britisher, for belonging to the people who constructed this beautiful architectural heart in the middle of all this chaos and which still throbbed with so much of life and aesthetics. In the fantastic maze turned up by the white colonnaded blocks time, history and efforts at modernity all stood captured in a mysteriously pervading easiness.

 

Elsewhere in the city, he had found four causes to mutter for a single cause of musing. Metro, yes...a massive collective reason for a bigger musing. Flyovers....again impressed him as he sauntered over in auto rickshaw without being stuck up for hours. However the wound in his heart was still fresh and he had the eyes to spot dirt cheap humanity scattered around below the flyovers. Kids, women, men....black, filthy, sick, torn and tattered dreams wandering in equal measure. The poor human souls left out of the gift of enjoying even the balmy effects of early winter. He had a deep look in the eyes of some young female beggar, and found a big chance for a beautiful life and persona wasted. Whom to blame? Looking at the faceless vault of the sky he asked again and again, ‘Why? If you can give so much to so few, then why not just common minimum for all of them!’ Anyway, disparities have teased us from the times unknown. He had to force this gloomy shadow out of his heart. He was here to cast out the pain in his heart by mixing in the exotic mess India has to offer. But India was giving him flashing moments of agonies and ecstasies. His auto had now fetched him to the Red Fort and he had to start fresh to appreciate its red-stoned architectural glory.   

 

From the Tiny Mirror of the Unseen Past

 

It was the last week of October. The effusive mix of cool and hot, the coolness winning the lots in its favour to give healthy smirk on people’s faces. The Diwali festival was raising its celebratory hood with bang, smoke, splashes and splendour. We bombard, more than the firecrackers, each others with the messages of ‘Happy Diwali’. It is however another matter that in its modern avatar the great myth—the victory of the good over the evil—with its practical substance has been robbed of its true humanistic essence under the internecine attack of constantly aggravating pathos and passion of the modern generation. All those desirous of having a big bang in life get a suitable bombarding opportunity on this day. When people literally surpass each other in a mock war to split eardrums and leave the air polluted to the hilt, it is no longer in commemoration of the completion of that great task undertaken by Lord Sri Rama validating the eventually succeeding nature of the good over the evil. Most of the revellers in fact grin like the progenies in Ravana’s army. The meek mythological murmur is painfully pinched down by the evil’s fire-banging spirit lurking around on the rooftops on this darkest of the night in the year.

 

On this day, Lakshmi (the Goddess of wealth and prosperity) is worshipped and true to its nature the Goddess blesses a section of the trado-religious section of all the destitute head-bent humanity. These are the traders, entrepreneurs, people of enterprise and business. For almost a fortnight preceding the festival, bazaars, stalls in narrow streets, shopping malls, mega malls, shopping centres and sweet shops are tested to the capacity of their salesmanship. Festival enthused people just beat each other in taking the traders’ profit to a new, newer and newest pinnacle. During evenings the provisions and the prodigious Lalaji burst out of the narrow confines of the little shops and get adjusted on the stalls encroaching onto the narrow walkways among the beehives of shops. People just unmindfully bump into each other in the mass trail. Even vehicles baulk, screech and squeeze to have their mechanic share in the fun and funstry from the side of the machine world. Especially the ladies and girls attired for a festive outdoor in jeans, colourful tops, fancy salwaar kameez, flowing duppatas and trailing pallus hypnotically move along this logjam, their minds buzzing with indecision regarding what to purchase and what not. In between are the rangeela elements who frustrated and deprived of female proximity born of the famed sexual divide in India seek solace and scent females from the closest quarters, the world from porn movies giving them glimpses of what lies beyond this. Frustration taking sadistic sips from whatever chance bumps, pats on the buts, brush against the shoulder and even pinch at the most delicate parts have to offer.

 

The shop-fronts decorated with lighting patterns galore as the high temples of the great Indian mass-psychology driven consumerism. The firmly believing devotees meanwhile with wads of money in their wallets moving in a queue to shop mechanically like bottles get along on a conveyer belt to be labelled exactly the same. Truly the festival colours everybody in the same colour despite gravest of differences among all. The high priests meanwhile—the shopkeepers, hawkers, vendors—very expertly perform the plundering rituals of businessmanship. Market becomes the new Dharma. Its scriptural book has the pious injunction: Purchase as much as possible on Diwali eve even leading to your beggarly status during the non-festive days! Uncountable schemes, discounts, credits, cuts, offers and coupons make it seem like the modern ways of subtle pick pocketing! This great predatory peek in people’s wallets using the knife of market principles, using surgically clean and expert fingers by the hand of market consumerism! This is expert encroachment into the corridors of mythology to enlarge its market domain.

 

The sweet makers start storing the dish and delicacies weeks ahead for there will be a huge rush. Indians are paranoid in certain mass behaviour. For petty selfishness ranging from spitting, peeing on public places reaching to life threatening acts of food adulteration (like fake mawa, urea in milk, poisonous colours in sweetmeats) they behave as easily as just doing the early morning ritual, permitted, allowed both by nature and society. The perishable stale products are attractively packaged to go into religiously blinded guts. On Dhan Teras it is considered auspicious to buy gold and silver. The great myth propagated by the maker of the God, the Super God, the smart selfish mankind. More than any God, it is the jewellers who get propitiated on this day. Outside the glass fronted welcoming exteriors; exquisitely plush furnished interiors; under the glare of all those jewellery items lined almost from the floor to the ceiling, big bloated ladies and gentry religiously put budgetary caution to winds. They stab into their wallets to get finally a bit of pinch on their real skin. Here thousands do not matter. Outside a famished, sunken, skeleton of an old beggar is a pariah and they feel like getting a heart attack even at the thought of giving ten rupees to that unfortunate creature. ‘We do not support beggary,’ they simply quip and take to their smart heels.

 

A day before the pious night itself, the night of Diwali, there was an unseasonal rainstorm. It occurred at the worst time it can. It stole the festive glitters from the eyes of at least one community, the farmers. Basmati paddy just two weeks away from harvesting, with its grain heads bulging with the pearls of the farmer’s eyes and other varieties (like Sharbati, 1121) already under the process of harvesting, all and more got whiplashed suddenly by the weather spoilsport. Many farming dreams were broken.

 

The next morning the farmers found the crops flattened. They just got busy in using their mundane calculation abilities to estimate the scale of loss in monetary terms.

 

‘In the standing crop the loss isn’t much because the yellow traces had started. The grain has been completely formed,’ one quipped.

 

‘But still it is a big loss. All those grain-heads and spikes which get buried and get into contact with the damp ground will turn black. It’s at least 40% crop loss,’ the other protested. 

 

‘No no it’s too high. It cannot be more than 30%,’ the simple calculations went forth.

 

So the farmers debated about the loss. What else could be done? It is the irony with the farmer that both God and the market seldom get propitiated at the same time. They take turns to fuck the farmers’ fate. Just once in a cycle of let us say five years both God and the market bless the farmers concurrently to give them some monetary chance to help somebody go for long-pending house reconstruction, marry off a daughter waiting her dowry to be purchased, buy some long-dreamt electronic gazette, etc., etc.

 

With fluctuations in their loss figures, their participation in the great and glittering festival time market decorated in cities and towns went up and down. And during those three or four final hours of Diwali celebrations the victorious firecrackers ruled the sky. These were the stars creating a lower vault of human aspirations. With their flash, boom, burst and brilliance, they even puffed out the flickering, faded, silently smiling lamp far away by a poor threshold, a farmer who had possibly lost too much in the storm.