An Evening in Delhi

(To Whomever it May Concern: Most of the characters and events mentioned here are fictional. Any resemblance to those living or dead MIGHT be or MIGHT NOT be a mere co-incidence. So please don't try to screw my life :P)

“Is this the real life?/ Is this just fantasy?/ Caught in a landslide/ No escape from reality/ Open your eyes/ Look up to the skies and see….”

The Bohemian Rhapsody echoed through the walls in Namit’s room. His twin brother Amit was furiously playing his favorite tune on the guitar and humming the song. The view of Amit sitting on the balcony with a guitar made Namit restless. How could this eccentric fellow be so tragic on a Diwali afternoon!!

“Amit, your packet of cigarettes is burning out. I can’t believe you finished the whole pack while playing the guitar.”

“Yes, my dear brother. That’s what life does to people. Can’t help it.”

“What!! Come back to senses you ……”, Namit tried to lower his  voice, “ I can’t comprehend your intentions when you come to Delhi? Obviously you don’t come here just to meet me. You go out and party hard with every second beautiful girl you meet here. In fact, you know the girls in my college better than I do….”

“….Yeah, and then I come back to your room from the parties, pick up the guitar, take a smoke and sit down as if I am the biggest loser in the world. I know that my dear. Say something new bro.”

“Amit, why don’t you just focus on your career? You are in such a good position. A little bit of dedication now can take you to great heights.”

“Namit, I never knew doing honors in science can make someone so unromantic like you”

“And I never knew doing engineering can make someone a hopeless romantic like you”

Namit gave a grim look and continued, “Have you heard of the association called FOSLA. You join that. I can bet they will make you the president there.”

“FOSLA!! What is that?”

“Frustrated One-Sided Lovers’ Association.”
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Delhi! The mesmerizing capital city of India. Far away from the balcony in Mehrauli, Amit could view the towering Qutab Minar. It soared high like the pride of this city which has borne the brunt of many a generation; this city which has been the seat of rulers over centuries. Rulers who have changed the destiny of this great nation.

 The city of love. The city of power. The city which has taught him how to fall in love. The city which shaped his illustrious career. And maybe even destroyed it!

It was a walk from the Chawri Bazar metro station to the Jama Masjid. It was the taste of royal Mughal food in the restaurant of Karim’s that allured him. She was sitting next to him, ordering every expensive food item available there. Sheena or Sheela or…..?? He could hardly recollect her name. They had met just the previous night. And there he was, taking her out for a royal treat. He knew this incident would lead to another session of “change yourself-live a better life-blah blah” lecture from Namit. His twin brother has been trying a lot to mend his wayward ways. Namit.  The only person in this fast-paced city who cared to care about him.
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“ You know, I always have wanted to be a social-worker. And do something for my people. For my country.” She was speaking to Amit in a serious tone. He had never envisaged that a boozed-up woman can be so serious. He had always thought girls get over-emotional after being drunk. But here was the big exception in front of him.

Damn! He couldn’t still remember her name.

She was high with two shots of vodka and she started talking patriotism in front of him. She might have probably started feeling she was a Sonia Gandhi giving political instructions to the distraught Amit in front of her.

Namit would have definitely told him, “ I don’t understand what do you get by spending money on these girls. Better give the money to some beggar who would really need it.”

Namit knew Amit would never mend his ways. His twin brother. His alter-ego. Amit would continue to be the hopeless romantic.

Amit and the wannabe-social worker girl walked through the crowded Chandni Chowk market.

They kept on walking, Amit listening to She-Whose-Name-He-Couldn’t-Remember’s blabbering talk until they reached the Jantar Mantar. The observatory which showed the erudition of the ancient Indian astronomers.

“You know Amit, I met Anna Hazare here. I gave an application to him. And he agreed to listen to my request.” Amit thought it would be wiser to ignore the drunken lady’s words. He was getting restless to reach his brother’s room.
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“Yes, it is true. She actually met Anna Hazare”, Namit’s statement almost choked Amit who was trying to have a glass of water.

“What! Namit, don’t tell me you have started boozing.”

“No. I am serious. I know the girl well. She is from my college. She went to Anna Hazare when he was in Jantar Mantar and gave a letter to him describing the plight of Irom Sharmila Chanu.”

“She knew about Sharmila!! She looks so dumb!” Amit had not yet recovered from his state of shock.

“I don’t know why engineering students think that they are the cleverest lot in this world,” Namit patted his brother, “yes, she knew about Irom Sharmila Chanu of Manipur. The lady who has been fasting since a decade. The lady who has dared to raise a voice. The lady who has been on a hunger strike demanding the removal of the Armed Forces Special Power Act from her home-state.This girl went and told Anna Hazare in front of the elite crowd that if a few-month long hunger strike from Anna was enough to grab the eyeballs of the whole nation, then why are people so silent about the sufferings of this brave lady who is being fed through her nose for many years; who is being constantly arrested and re-arrested for no reason. Why can’t Anna Hazare bring her to national limelight just the way he has glorified himself.”

“And what did Anna say?”

“He has agreed to visit Manipur and meet Sharmila. No one in the huge crowd of politicians, activists and erudite could care to remember about Sharmila. Everyone was too busy bashing the government and venerating Anna Hazare. But this young girl had the guts to raise her voice. I don’t think you or I could have done that brother.”

A Few Moments of Love

(A fiction written by me, which was published two years back in "The Assam Tribune" - a leading English daily in north-east India.)

I wonder if you will again appear in front of me. I doubt if those mesmerizing eyes will ever smile at me. I know you will never have those feelings for me. But I know you will never forget those few moments with me. I want to remain as a flying non-erasable desire within you. You seem to be the tranquillity within me. You seem to be the only solace for me……………………..

…………….Decades of terrorism has played havoc with the beautiful land of Assam. The banks of the Brahmaputra and the Barak that have sheltered the homeless and fed the umpteen farmers are being polluted with the burning cartridges and the blasting bombs. Barbarism in the name of revolution has made many innocent souls cross the Ajax. Their beautiful dreams devastated in less than a few seconds. Hiding in the jungles of Assam and its bordering nations the revolutionaries and their various demands have put the common people in a state of panic and distress. It so happened one day when a huge force of BSF jawans marched in one of the jungles of Assam. But why were they marching in those woods? All dressed in green; their faces painted in black!!!!  Who informed them that some regiment of a militant outfit was hiding in the wilderness? Their intelligence bureau? Or a foreign government of some border nation in pursuit of getting some help from the government of India? None knew the reason but the jawans moved on and on. Very soon, a few tents in between the trees were visible to them. There might be some terrorists hiding there. The soldiers instantaneously took position on the ground; their rifles ready to shoot at any moment………………………..

………………..I could perceive that the helicopter was rising in the air. There were handcuffs on both my hands. My eyes tied with black cloth. I could feel two BSF soldiers sitting on my both sides. I turned my head to the right, then to the left. There was nothing but darkness all around. And in the midst of the darkness I could feel her. I could sense her. Far away in the river bank there she was filling the steel pots with water. And then she shrieked when she saw me .Well any lady would have been scared seeing me in that condition. My entire outfit was drenched with mud. My right arm bleeding due to the bullet shot I had received the previous night. Probably I might have been looking wild and deadly. I had spent the whole night in some muddy pit clenching the pen-drive inside my shirt. The pen-drive was more important than my own life. I could not lose it. I could not demolish it. Nor I could hand it over at the disposal of the Indian army. The survival of our entire militant group depended on the documents stored in the pen-drive. I could no longer stand up. I fell on my knees in front of the lady.

 “ O merciful lady. Please help this man in distress. I am badly wounded. Please help me.”

I did not realize at that moment but I was literally begging in front of that young girl. There was a look of sacredness in her eyes. But she finally replied.

“I live in the foothills. But my parents are not at home.”

“Please help me young lady. I am dying. I need some rest and food.”

Eventually she acquiesced with my pleas. She asked me to follow her to the foothills. I limped behind her.  She kept turning behind and looking at me. Waiting for me to catch up to her pace. But she never held my arm and helped me in moving fast. It was beyond the rule of a country lasso to hold the hands of a stranger. I moved on. Finally we reached the young lady’s hut. I entered inside the hut. My strength could no longer support me. I fell down…………………………

………………. The BSF jawans crawled on the ground. They moved very near to the militant camp. A few terrorists were visible to them in the tents. A series of bullets were fired. The terrorists were at a loss to comprehend anything. Most of them succumbed to the shots. The others fell wounded. The militants in the neighbouring tents tried retaliating with bullets. But soon they were too gunned down or captured. The militant outfit was of no match to the huge force of BSF soldiers…………….

……………..I tried moving my hand only to find it was stiffened. It was bandaged. A smell of mud entered my nose. I was in a hut and there she was staring at me sitting in a stool beside me. The next moment I realized where I was.

“So Saab   you are back to senses. I have bandaged your arm. You were bleeding very much.”

Her voice sounded soothing to me. For the first time I looked into her face. Never had I beheld anyone so beautiful. She was very young – maybe in her early twenties. She was fair, had long hair and small eyes – the typical look of a tribal girl living in the foothills. But my heart felt she was mesmerizingly beautiful. I longed to move my hand forward, touch her small hands and smile at her.

“Saab, drink this tea. It will give you some strength. It’s almost dark and my parents will be back home very soon.” she spoke in haste. She might have felt uncomfortable because of me staring at her.

“Thank you young lady”, I told her in a feeble voice. I had realized that I was too weak to utter even a few words.

She smiled back at me. It was a small smile but a beautiful one. And then there was a knock in the door. She peeped out through a hole.

“It is the army people.”

I sprang to my feet. Fear of death always brings out intrinsic strengths from a person.

“Hold on”, I told her “let me get out of the back door first. Only then you open the door.”

She gave a look of alarm at me. Till then she might not have realized that the person she was sheltering and tending to was a most wanted terrorist. But for some unknown reason she complied with my request.

………. By mid-day the soldiers ransacked all the militant camps in the woods. Until a certain soldier raiding the base camp noticed that in the base camp there lived seven terrorists but they could only find six dead bodies there. The soldiers were pretty sure they had surrounded the entire base camp and shot down every single being inside the camp itself. But still one person was missing!!!

   Another observant soldier noticed that there was a destroyed laptop in the base-camp. Soon it was deduced that some shrewd terrorist had escaped the gun-shots, destroyed the only laptop in the terrorist camp and probably ran away with some important documents. The jawans set out in the woods hunting for that one terrorist…………………..     

……………I got out from the backdoor of the young girl’s hut and tried running into the thick forest. In a few minutes I could hear heavy boots following me. I tried to run faster………and faster………….even the bandage in my arm seemed heavy. I had to get away. I needed to get beyond the hills and hand over the pen-drive to our unit there. A sharp bullet hit on my leg. I collapsed. My hand reached out to destroy the pen-drive. The next moment there were several rifles pointing to my forehead. Four uniformed soldiers were surrounding me…………………………..

………………… The helicopter landed somewhere in Guwahati and we were taken to the police station. A huge group of reporters and photographers followed our van. I was taken to police-custody in a wheel-chair. There were blood-stained dead-bodies of my fellow-cadets lying in the police-station. There was also the body of a young lady. There were bullet-shots all over her. My heart almost stopped. I asked the officers to show me the face of the lady. My eyes closed down. I could no longer bear the sight of it. Yes, it was she. She, whose name I never knew. She, who had smiled at me. She, who had bandaged me.

I had spent the last twenty years of my life in the hills and forests evading the ravages of the military and the police. But never had I panicked on seeing death. Never had I cried on seeing a body covered with blood. But this time it was different. My heart screaming at me that this is how you feel when someone you love gets snatched away from you. Maybe, this was how many innocent people had wept when I had blasted bombs across the towns of Assam and killed their near and dear ones. Maybe, this was how the mothers had panicked when my bombs emptied their innocent laps. Maybe, this was how the helpless widows had shrieked when my bullets wiped out their husbands and orphaned their children. Long years of bullets and bombs could never teach me that. But a few moments of love did it.                                                                                     

Midnight's Children

(A book review written by me two years back for a website.Found it accidentally today......thanks to one of my seniors)
Midnight's Children,

Salman Rushdie

'I was born in the city of Bombay………………’ thus began Salman Rushdie and heralded himself onto a new golden page in the history of English literature. Thus began an occult tale which narrated history and in turn became a history by itself. Salman Rushdie’s masterpiece ‘Midnight’s Children’ is indeed the unfathomably flabbergasting work of a genius. Set in 20th century India the book depicts the various political changes taking place in the sub-continent prior to independence and post-independence. The book delineates sub-continental politics through the eyes of the protagonist Saleem Sinai who is indelibly linked to the fate of his motherland by virtue of his birth on the midnight of the 15th August 1947. When the whole nation savored the hard-earned moment of independence; when a soft-spoken Jawaharlal Nehru declared India’s new tryst with destiny, Saleem Sinai was born into the world with uncanny powers of telepathy and sniffing. And so started Saleem’s journey which changed with the changing political scenario in the Indian sub-continent. In fact Rushdie portrays Saleem as the democratic India which was born with unlimited dreams on that magical midnight , but which could not really be a perfect nation in the days to come. Some two decades from independence, the nation witnessed a day when Saleem’s son was born, a day when democracy gave birth to Emergency, a day when Jawaharlal Nehru’s daughter Indira Gandhi curtailed the rights that Indians had been bestowed upon by independence. The book very much seems like an expression of Rushdie’s infuriation against the Emergency, the darkest consequence of independence and democracy in India. Of course the novel also focuses on other major political changes taking place in the sub-continent right from the Jallianwala Bagh massacre to the military rule in Pakistan and the liberation of Bangladesh. Written in Rushdie’s sublime style of writing, the plot races through places like Kashmir, Amritsar, Bombay, Delhi, Pakistan, Bangladesh and even the Sundarbans.

Who would like this book?

It is a book worth-reading for anyone who loves English literature.

Acclaim

Published in 1981 this book has been acclaimed worldwide and has touched the hearts of millions. It has provided the western world a sneak view of what the Indian sub-continent has been like in the mid of the 20th century. It won both the Man Booker Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1981. The book was later awarded the 'Booker of Bookers' Prize in 1993 as the best novel to be awarded the Booker Prize in its first 25 years. Midnight's Children is also the only Indian novel on Time magazine’s list of the 100 best English-language novels since its founding in 1923.

Reviewed by : Avinash Upadhyaya

A Tinge of YeLLoW !

It took me a bizarre one and half month in Assam before I could get the motivation for writing this new post in my blog. It all started in 23^rd May 2011 and seems to be never ending till now. I doubt if I really want it to end. Life in Assam is indisputably easier than that in the desert land of Pilani. All I have been doing is making trips to the oldest public sector refinery in India, better known as IOCL Guwahati Refinery. Life had been the same - trips to the refinery, usual stuff called Practice School and then back home until a series of events in the capital of Assam brought some interest to my life; and some motivation to instill some life to my dormant blog.

For those who don’t know what has happened, the story goes on like this. A popular bearded social-worker of the state launches a strike against the ruling government. Nothing new! The bearded man has an acclaimed fame (or notoriety) for suing the government for every trivial reason. A minister buys a new car. The bearded man sues him. Another minister gives donation to a guest-house and even he gets sued. This time the reason was the illegal eviction of the aborigines of Guwahati from the hill-slopes and so-called reserve forest lands. Justified point! For a state which has not been able to evict thousands of illegal immigrants from neighboring countries, making attempts to evict aborigines just on the pretext of reserve forests or whatever seems irrational.

But then the strike turns ugly. Three people fall down dead. The police get beaten up. Vehicles are ignited to flames. Tear gas gets released and the media starts an   uproar labeling 22^nd July 2011 as a dark day in the history of Assam. And then we get a vivid view of what is called yellow journalism.

Almost a year back, two short-stories written by me were published in The Assam Tribune (a leading daily in north-east India). One of them dealt with the strikes in Assam and the other one delineated the yellow journalism prevalent in the state. Exactly a year letter, I feel as if those two fictions have come alive. There are two popular news channels in Assam. One of them belongs to an influential minister. The other belongs to a strong leader of the opposition. So the aftermath of this strike resulted in both the news channels playing blame-games. One channel blames the government for all the causalities that happened. The other puts the entire blame on the bearded social-worker. The junta of Assam thus gets a blurred view of what is going on in the state. Take a ride in the local buses of Guwahati city and you will overhear people blaming the government for all the deaths. But is the government to blame for everything. Wasn’t the act of burning down buses a heinous crime committed by the strikers? You have the right to initiate strikes in a democracy. But you don’t have the right to harm the public and its property.  Well, I am no advocate of the government of Assam. The CM of Assam is no uncle of mine. But the impact of yellow journalism has been too much evident in this state. In fact, too much praising of the government by one of the news channels has created a negative attitude of the people against the government. This YELLOW in a democracy, if not removed can hinder the progress of a region, as in the case with Assam.