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.

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 !!!!