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.

Straight from the shambles

Why do I see myself down there? Down in the ruins of an unfathomable grave. Is this me speaking? Speaking from the shamble I created for myself. Disowned in the blatant reality of life, Prospero's wands are not shooting a divine abracadabra to heal me up. Macbeth's fairies are not soaring up to predict “greatness” for me there. But still I look up there. Trying to extract the hope from where I have been thrown out. It is not for the first time I had fallen from the ladder. “Had I been repeatedly so unlucky like you, I would have given up”, says one of my closest friends. But I don't give up. As if I can't. I never had.

Loss has been inherent in me since half a decade. But I had not been always on the other side of destiny's wrath. I had my own time. My own days of glory. My own cherished days of love. My own days that might be coming up. As I stand here amidst my ruin, I boast of it. Of my upcoming days. Days where I will be living for myself. Days where I would not be thrown in ruins after sacrifices I made. Days where I would not have to see from the depths of my ruins, people basking in the glory of my sacrifices. And I am being laid standalone in a place wondering where I would be led to; wondering if this mess of mine would go on and on. Can these ruins ever end? Sometimes I perceive, the deep graveyard is just being dug and I am being thrown out there? But this feeling cannot sink in within me as it would not be me who would be trying to be myself thereafter.

Shifting Sands - From the editor's desk

EDITORIAL (published in the first issue of "Shifting Sands" - the official newsletter of MATRIX, BITS Pilani)

Far away from the sophisticated din of life, as the shifting sands of Pilani shape up to create the oasis called BITS. As the complex equations of engineering and technology reverberate across the minds of every BITSian, the Shifting Sands of MATRIX make an attempt to introduce you to a new exciting world. A world where you would be enthralled by books; a world where you would fall in love with movies.

Is it possible? For a busy BITSian always lost in the tumult of tutorials, tests, labs, assignments and comprees to admire, appreciate and analyse books and movies.

Have a look at the Shifting Sands which tries reiterating to the dwellers of this oasis “Go for a change.”

MATRIX has always made an attempt to approach the BITSians and urge them to engulf themselves in this labyrinth of art and literature. The numerous book-reviews, movie screenings, quizzes and workshops organised by this club have proved successful in bringing about this culture.

Shifting Sands is another small endeavour by this club that can help some more people to realise the prowess and beauty of this exciting world. Contributions in the form of book-reviews, movie-reviews or other relevant articles are invited from the BITSian junta for the forthcoming issues of this newsletter. The best contributions will find a berth in the pages of this newsletter and the contributors will be handsomely rewarded for their efforts.

Hoping that the Shifting Sands help in refreshing minds for a while as the busy and stressed BITSians try to look beyond their heavy books of science, technology and engineering.

Avinash Upadhyaya

Random Thoughts

What do you do when you realise that you have to sit in half a dozen exams in less than a week? And then you remember that it has been ages since you have touched a book. A sensible mind might prefer to go and study, so that at least something hopeful might be generated. Some other extra-sensible minds might think of taking things in the "lighter" sense. Facing with such a situation in BITS has been a habit for people like us who have to live in a world filled with exams, exams and exams. Still, we mange to do so much of other things in this world.

The last few months have been eventful for me. I have ventured into doing new things, plunged my nose in new adventures and witnessed some of the diversity in this planet. Yes, a few months back I was very close to the snow-capped Himalayas. I witnessed the dreary Aravallis. I perceived the extent of the never ending Arabian Sea. And I come from a place which itself is a piece of Nature's most exuberant creations. (Come to the North-East and you will feel its beauty!!)

Nature has always mesmerised me. I find beauty in the semi-arid small town of Pilani. It is nature's way of showing her diversity. The same diversity that we see in human-beings. And still the unity that persists. 

Wasn't the unity divulged when millions across the nation prayed and cheered India to victory in the cricket World Cup. Watching the semi-finals and finals in the jam-packed BITS audi with tricolour in our hands and faces makes me feel privileged. I was a part of the historic moment!!!

Isn't the unity divulged when a nation stands united to support a 73-year old man fighting against the rampant corruption in this democracy. This is the same land 

where 72% of its population live below the age of 40. 

Regrets, I could not attend the "Support for Anna Hazare" movement in our college owing to two exams I had yesterday.

I can't help wondering how many people who have been successful in their lives had been successful in their exams too !!!!

 

Such is my perception

A few days back I had a long talk on the phone with an old friend of mine. It had been almost a year that we had talked to each other. I went on blabbering to her, narrating every bits and pieces of my present life. She seemed to be pretty jobless during the time I called her up. I hadn’t imagined that anyone would bear to lend an ear to my stories for such a long time. After I was done with my stories she made an abrupt unexpected comment “You seem to have a busy life Avinash. So you must be very happy.”

This startled me. I had never tried to answer this question. In real sense, I had tried never to think of this question. Was I happy?

 I wanted to reply back “I try to remain busy so that I can keep the past out of my head.” Frustrations and inertia have been a part and parcel of everyone’s life. Maybe I would be blowing off myself too much if I keep on retelling these past failures. So I refrained from telling anything to my friend about the reasons behind me being busy. I just winded up “Yes I am busy and I am happy.” …...………………………………………………….

There once lived a writer called Samuel Smiles who happened to write a couple of books on virtues like self-help and character. Somehow, those books made a way to my mom’s reading table. A couple of days later I was given instructions to go through these books. I tried reading one of them for an hour only to realize that I had fallen down asleep for the next three hours. I tried reading another of these Samuel Smiles book and fell asleep for the next four hours. (I was in the seventh standard at that time!!). Years on and today world makes me realize the necessity of these virtues like self-help. These are lessons which are best learnt by falling down and getting injured in the path of life and not merely by falling down asleep as a seventh standard student……………………………………..

The world has indeed gone a long way from the time I was in the seventh standard. There came the year 2010 and hence came BITS Pilani to my life. This has indeed been a long way to me – from the remote, desolate town on the bank of the Brahmaputra to the din of New Delhi and henceforth to the desert of Pilani. Surprisingly, this has been true for me both literally and figuratively. ( You can’t travel to Pilani from Assam without reaching Delhi !!).

The world moved on in 2010. It tackled with epidemics like H1N1. It suffered with Mexican landslides, Indonesian tsunamis and Javanese volcanoes. The world went beyond its realm and surpassed records of putting man in the outer world. It respired with life as Aung San Suu Kyi got released and finally it marked the occurrence of the lunar eclipse on a solstice. The world still moved on. But I seemed to stop. My seventh-grade self-help books could not take me beyond. Inertia encompassed me. Neither the dreary sand of Rajasthan nor the inexhaustible waters of the Brahmaputra could soothe me. Time moved on. And hence I got busy so that I could be happy. The past is gone. The future is not unknown. But still, live in the present.

Finally........Wrote Something

It was 4am in a chilly December morning.After 5 long months I was moving towards home. The cab that was taking me and a few of my friends from Pilani to the IGI Airport stopped on the way near a roadside dhaba. It was somewhere near Gurgaon and the driver wanted to fight the biting cold with a cup of tea.I found myself too lazy to get down from the cab just for the sake of a cup of tea. A Bollywood movie was being played on the dhaba. I could hear some 90s-like dialogues. The people sitting on the back of the cab seemed to be relishing the movie. I could hear someone telling "Chunkey Pandey". Finally with great effort, I moved my body and faced the dhaba just to catch a glimpse of the movie. The first thing that I saw on the screen was "THE END" written in bold yellow letters............

Finally after four months, I seem to have penned down something on my blog. I had almost turned obsolete in the blogging circuit for the past few months. No wonders, laziness had overpowered me. I would unhesitatingly admit I am no busy soul that I could not afford a little time to share my thoughts in the blogosphere. But as Marquis de Vauvenargues quoted "lazy people are always anxious to be doing something". I seemed to be always more-than-ready to update my blog, then I postpone it off to later and later. Eventually, it took me four long months and a some serious days of illness to realize that life has turned too lazy for me.

As I turn back to the long semester I just got done with (although semesters in BITS never seem too long enough), I feel I could have done many more things than what I had done. Agreed, my life revolved around my friends, my non-stop exams, a few extra-curricular clubs and preparations for an international event that we are organizing the next year in our campus. Agreed, I had an awesome trip to Kanpur for an MUN and a couple of mad,mad trips to Delhi. But still I find something missing within me. I feel I had not given my best in my endeavors. I presume, I could have still done lots more for myself, for my academics, for my clubs, for our big event. Maybe, when one falls sick and then lies on the bed having nothing to do, one gets such weird thoughts about being more productive. I might be no exception to this. It was indeed after a long time that I had fallen ill. I had never been bedridden during my past one and half years in Pilani. As I laid in my room gasping and turning, yearning for someone who could go and get me a glass of water in the dead of night, I started missing my home. For the first time in many years, I actually had such a strong urge to go back to my home - some thousand miles away in the other end of the nation.

Never in the wildest of my dreams had I contemplated that the journey back home would be worth a remembrance for me. The four-hour journey by cab had nothing much significant except for the dhaba episode in Gurgaon. The next 2-hours of flight from Delhi to Guwahati was spent in deep slumber. Of course, the breathtakingly beautiful Terminal 3 of the IGI was a treat to the eyes. The magnificent lounge, the state-of-the-art runway and the cup of coffee that cost nearly a hundred bucks!!!!!! Finally, it was my journey from Guwahati to my hometown Dhemaji that was worth recounting. In the middle of night and in the midst of nowhere I found myself caught in a strife between passengers and a bus service. The bus that was supposed to take me to my hometown got damaged beyond repairs. A new bus was supposed to arrive instantaneously. But nothing such "instantaneous" took place for the next few hours. The passengers soon got enraged and there started a series of events where the bus-guy nearly got beaten up. It was late night and the weather was cold enough to let shivers down your spine. I do admit that the cold of Assam is not as severe as that of Rajasthan. But having traveled many a miles since morning, I was in no mood to sit in that open night in the group of a few furious strangers,yearning for a bus that could take us to our home still 500 kilometers away. Finally, this heavy drama ended when we caught hold of a bus that was on its way to Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh. We coaxed the driver and bribed him (a bit!) until he agreed to divert his bus to Dhemaji instead of going to Itanagar. The people going to Arunachal were made to get down and wait for the next bus while we boarded the bus and took it to my hometown. I realized at the end of this drama that all my sickness, all my illness had disappeared after this episode. I found myself rejuvenated as I finally embarked on the journey that would finally take me home. 

Finally, after three days in home as I set out for the Himalayas (yes, in this winter!!!), I presume I still have some productivity left in me and I have not been bellowed down by the ravages of laziness. And hereby, I promise to myself that I would be more active in my blog henceforth and try to write down things that would make more sense.

The Independent Me

Well I had been raring to write this post since the 15th of August. But owing to a few obligations and a poor net connection in our hostel rooms, I had to postpone it for the next few days.

It was early in the morning of the Indpendence Day when a friend woke me up asking if I would accompany him to the flag-hoisting grounds in our campus. Did I really need to get out of my deep slumber, leave my beautiful dreams and walk all the way to watch our new Vice-Chancellor hoisting the tricolour? Definetely it was worth it. But I did not go and went back to my dreams. Someone reading this post might call me unpatriotic. But  it was not me alone. I would say for sure that half of India might have been disappointed that Independence Day was a Sunday this year. A holiday wasted!!!!!!

Are we really independent? Have we become independent just because the Union Jack got replaced by the Tricolour 64 years back ?

15th August, 2004. Dhemaji. My hometown in Assam. A powerful explosion blew down 13 people to death in the parade grounds of our town - minutes before the Tricolour was hoisted in the parade grounds. Amongst those thirteen victims, ten of them were schoolchildren. The rest three were ladies. Later, post-mortem reports revealed that two out of  those three ladies were pregnant at the time of their death. What was their fault that they were made to cross the Ajax for no reason? Going for the celebrations  of Independence Day could not be a fault. Till today, the sight of the thirteen bodies laid on the grounds of our district civil hospital flashes in my mind. Still, the wailing voices of the mothers who lost their kids echoes in my heart. Still, every Independence Day reminds the people of Assam this dark day in our state. Therafter, parents in Assam stopped sending their kids for Independnce Day parades. 15th of August became just another holiday for most of the people in the state. Many children who have grown up in Assam in this decade have almost lost the habit of attending Independence Day celebrations. Did the terrorists who hated India win through this bomb-blast? They did not. They will not. For people like us, Independence Day need not be celebrated by hoisting the National Flag. In heart and mind, I am a  citizen of the independent India - the world's biggest democracy. Basting a few crackers (read : bombs) could stop the people from atteding flag-hoisting ceremonies. But it could not take away from the heart of the people the feeling of Indianness. The pride of being a part of this great nation.