The Flower in my Garden

The lotus flowers in my garden bloom but rarely; and when they bloom, they do so in vais’akha, when the summer is at its harshest. And yes, the deep evergreen, lustrous oval leaves are a perennial relief to the eye, whatever the season.
My ground floor flat does have a space around it—alas, all so meticulously smothered under the dead RCC after the urban fetish. The lifeless RCC was a sore to my eyes; and it was then, some three years back, that i had the fancy of have a lotus pond!
Soon, the water-proof masonry was ready. What remained was to prepare a fertile water bed, an underwater mixture of black soil and cow-dung. And of course, i could not forget the guppy fish to keep the mosquitoes away.

So, half a truckload of black soil is procured. Self help would be the best, and well, the most economical. And then, one fine day (when the family is away for vacations), this brave dreamer decides to accomplish the task all by himself.

Ten minutes of the job are enough to bring home to me my fool-hardiness. Tons of unloaded soil all around; hardly a fraction of the job done; the sun and the unaccustomed physical effort already sending down streams of sweat; and backache already set in: and worse, nobody else to blame for the mess! Well boy, enough of the do-it-yourself self reliance!
What next?


“Sir...”
Turning around, i see three kids at the gate: weak, malnourished, dehydrated and bare-footed; their discolored hair unkempt, and clothes dirty. No, they are not beggars: one of them carries a pick axe, and the other, a spade.
“Sir, may we do the job for you?”
‘Ha! The angels!’ - exult i for a moment.

Next moment, the cautious householder within, checks the exultation.
I survey the kids, size up the unfinished job, and promptly put up a stern, prudent mask.
“How much..?”
“Fifteen rupees..?” says the boy tentatively.
“FIFTEEN?” screams the prudent man, who would never protest paying seventy rupees for a scoop of ice-cream, or one-hundred-and-eighty for a ticket at the Multiplex.
“No sir, fifteen rupees for all of us, together.”
“Hmm… look, i want a neat and clean job. And mind you, i won’t pay a single rupee if i am not satisfied. Is that clear?” I tell them, who is the boss.
“Right sir”’ says he meekly.
“C’mon brothers!” the leader cries triumphantly. The younger kids are already at job.

Relaxed, i sit on a bench in shade. The boys are methodic, seem to be expert in what they are doing, and fast. Unmindful of the scorching sun; unmindful of the streaming sweat; unmindful of all their deprivations; unmindful of the world around, soon they have moved most of the heap into the pit – the task which almost killed me in ten minutes! And how merrily they sing, chat, and play pranks with each other as they continue with the labor that killed me in ten minute. Blessed be the childhood that mellows down the harsh reality.

I am ashamed of myself.
What childhood do I talk of? Famine severs the poor children—the eldest one, not more than twelve, and barely older than my younger daughter—away from the family, and i, the romantic urban fool, eulogize some blessed childhood and all! Hungry and helpless, the kids sweat for their daily bread when they should be playing and studying, and i pat myself for having driven a hard bargain.

Where is their home? Do homes break suddenly - or crumble bit by bit, day by day? What goes wrong in life? What forces the parents to abandon the children to their fate? Or do the children, precociously and painfully wise, leave the house? And how do they walk all the way to this distant unknown land, so far away from home? And, does the broken family, if at all it survives, ever look forward to a reunion, when seasons would be more merciful?


“..and, what is sir going to plant here, onions?” the youngest one, made bold by familiarity and innocence, comes up to me.
“Not onions, lotus.”
“Lotus? Real lotus? Wow! They are so beautiful, aren’t they? Gods like lotuses, i know, i have seen in pictures!”
“And then you will sell the flowers in the bazaar, and get lots of money?” asks the middle one seriously.
I am speechless.


Enough of the prudent mask. Let me be myself; let me be somewhat imprudent and humane; let me follow my heart. This prudent mask always chokes me.

Finally, the job is over. Exhausted, they ask for water. They wash themselves clean, drink greedily, and give a sigh of fulfillment like an artist reviewing a just-completed work.

Arrives the pizza which i have meanwhile ordered for the boys. Let them have a small treat—perhaps a lifetime treat, heard of, dreamt of, never realized or likely to be realized.
Humbly, i pay them fifteen rupees—each.
They cannot thank me enough. And the more they thank me, the more humble I feel.

The lotus flowers in my garden bloom but rarely; and when they do bloom, they remind me of the three beaming faces, as the boys heartily ate their hard earned pizza.

God save me from prudence, so that the lotus flowers bloom in vais’akha, when the summer is at its harshest.

EGO TRIP

The smoke-alarm shakes me rudely out of my nap. Next moment i am aware of my paraphernalia: the IV line, the catheter, and, worse, the dangling Urosac. How do i run and save myself?
The duty nurse promptly rushes in, puts the alarm off, opens all the windows of the AC room, and with a firmness that comes only with a professional finesse, makes the erring patient understand: “Sir, you are not supposed to smoke in a hospital.”
“DO YOU KNOW WHO AM I?” explodes the guy, in an all-caps-bold-italics-double-underlined 72-size-impact-font, red, and highlighted yellow.
“That does not matter,” she responds coolly.
The coolness sets the man and his faithful wife ablaze with fury.
“What do you mean by ‘not supposed to smoke’?” screams she, “my husband is under arrest or something? We are bloody paying for our stay! We are not going to take those ‘don’t do this’ and ‘don’t do that’ from anybody! Do you know whom you are talking to?”
“I AM THE VP OF THE PRESTIGIOUS ‘24X7’* CHANNEL! DIDN’T ANYBODY TELL YOU? DON’T YOU EVER WATCH THE TV? OUR CHANNEL DRAWS THE HIGHEST TRP, AND I AM THE BOSS THERE! AND YOU TELL ME –ME?– NOT TO SMOKE?”
The nurse leaves the room quietly.

Phew! So that’s the Big Boss that shares the double-occupancy ward with me!
I am waiting to get my prostate, swollen with age, trimmed. The surgery will be tomorrow, and i am going through the preoperative protocol, a bit prolonged because of a minor urine infection.
The VIP has been brought to this room only last evening from the ICU, where he was under observation for a day for high blood pressure. It is indeed a great condescension of the part of His Majesty: all single-occupancy and deluxe rooms are occupied.

I never knew that hospital stay could be so full of entertainment. Ever since the Big Boss came, the room is alive with non-stop cell rings, the yelling and yelping telephonic monologues,; and the 24x7 blaring ‘24x7’ on his laptop. Every ward-boy, every nurse, every RMO, every consultant who visited – and, more often than not, summoned to - the room is administered a viewing of, and a briefing on the history, the modus operandi, and the market share of the channel.
So continually runs his live commentary, deriding and ridiculing the entire world – the politicians, the police, the judiciary, the industry, the NGOs, the country, the system, the public – that i am afraid i would leave the hospital a cynic.

Next, he is wild at the lunch served by the hospital.
“CALL THE DIETICIAN!” – goes off the shot.
The dietician is a young girl with pleasant manners, and she knows what she is doing. The brat does oblige her, but not before extracting a promise for a sumptuous 7-star junk, complete with the nip, for dinner.

Following lunch, the Supremo is again restless for a smoke. He sneaks out of the confinement past me ( i do not exist, for all he cares), walks down the corridor, and goes up to the elevator. Alas! The attendant is too dim to appreciate the exigencies of the nobleman. He stalls his honorable mission, calls the Floor Manager, and hands the delinquent over to him.
What ensues next, would go down the Annals of the Hospital History for decades and centuries.
Enter the entire repertory- the PRO, the Administrator, the Security Officer, the Matron, the nurses, the doctors, the CEO, the ward-boys, the ayahs, and all the ambulatory patients; at the center stage is adorned, of course, by the grandiloquent Thespian, and the faithful prima donna.
And then follows the most flamboyant of the soliloquies:
“DO YOU KNOW WHO AM I? HOW DARE YOU DICTATE ME-NO SMOKING, NO DRINKING, NO THIS, NO THAT? MIND YOU, I AM NOT USED TO TAKE A ‘NO’ IN MY LIFE. I WILL PUT ALL THIS STORY ON MY ‘24X7’, AND CLOSE DOWN YOUR HOSPITAL – I AM THE DE FACTO OWNER OF THE CHANNEL! I TRAVEL ROUND THE GLOBE ELEVEN MONTHS A YEAR! I CHANGE MY CAR EVERY MONTH! YOU GUYS DON’T KNOW WHAT I CAN DO! I WILL BUY ALL THE HOSPITALS AND THE DOCTORS OF THIS WRETCHED CITY! YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT A BIG SHOT I AM! I WILL CALL THE POLICE COMMISSIONER NOW – please go and get my cell, Dear! – YOU KNOW, THE COMMISSIONER IS MY NEIGHBOR’S COUSINE’S CLASS-MATE! I WILL TAKE ALL OF YOU THE COURT FOR. .I AM. .I AM. . .”

The ego trip, however, ends in an anticlimax.
A treaty is signed in the evening, almost unceremoniously, whereby the Lord leaves the hospital against medical advice and against an interim payment, to be settled by him, with the Insurance Company, later.

I am operated upon the next morning. Properly discharged, i leave the hospital not a cynic, but with a bit of wisdom:
‘A man’s ego may be directly proportional to his status, and is, for sure, inversely proportional to his stature.’
However, i don’t know whatever the Grandiosmo did with his BP.

My tree on the Border

It was years before they captured me roaming around the border.


“Hey! What are you doing here? Don’t you know, this is supposed to be a no-man’s land?”
“I just planted a few seeds here, right on the border. The rainy season is around. The heavens will water the seeds, and I am sure, some day one of them will grow up into a huge tree, offering shade and shelter to people on both sides of the border in this arid land.”
“Borders are supposed to have barbed wire fencing, and not trees; fencing so high that, not even birds can fly across.”

They arrested me and dispatched me to the jail, but not before digging up along the border, a couple of miles both ways, to throw out the seeds. They could not.
I laughed, and they tortured me. I laughed more.

Years passed by. They kept me rotting in the jail, which really did not make any difference to me. It was same for me on this side of the border, or the other. I had nothing to lose or to hate on either side. It was the same sky above, the same earth below, the same wind around, and the same seasons caressed me.
Whenever I closed my eyes, I saw my tree on the border growing day by day, shoot by shoot, season by season. I saw the tree swallowing up the border. I saw it uprooting the barbed fencing. I saw birds nesting in its dense expanse. I saw travelers resting in its cool shade.

Years passed by. Nobody noticed the tree growing. The cold war, the perpetual stalemate in the peace talks, and the arms-race assured both nations of peace. No nation would attack each other, none would dare. No one needed to patrol the border any more. Anyway, it was a long border, and those who would infiltrate, would do it anyway: this was a matter of the great mutual understanding.

The jail authorities forgot why was i there. They even forgot who was I. Back home, there was nobody who would remember. And, this made no difference to me.

Years passed by. I was an old man now.
The international situation changed. Nations got bored with peace, and started toying openly with the idea of a war game.
The war idea rejuvenated everyone. Guys suddenly became alert along the border. It was alive and happening again. This excited and entertained all concerned. Patriotism got rabid.
And then someone noticed the huge tree on the border. It was blatant violation of the international protocol of war-mongering. Birds of diverse feathers, ignorant of nationalism, flocked together, and the huge tree sheltered all. That took out the fun out of the killer game.
They traced out the culprit.
The international court had a novel punishment for me.
I was to be hanged till death from one of the branches of the same tree, with great ceremony.

Somebody appealed against the decision. Hanging me would be mercy, they said.
Finally, I was made to cut down the tree on the border, amidst the same great ceremony.

For Those who Love ...

I dont know what made me Post this ...

Zindagi Mai Toh Sabhi Pyar Kiya Kertay Hain
Main Toh Mar Kar Bhi Meri Jaan Tujhay Chaahunga
Tu Mila Hai Toh Yeh Ehsaas Hua Hai Mujh Ko
Yeh Meri Umar Muhabbat Kay Liye Thodi Hai
Aik Zara Sa Gham-E-Doraan Ka Bhi Haq Hai Jis Pay
Mai Nay Woh Saans Tere Liye Rakh Choddi Hai
Tujh Pay Ho Jaunga Qurbaan Tujhay Chahungaa

Apnay Jazbaat Main Nagmaat Rachnay Kay Liye
Main Nay Dhadakan Ki Tarah Dil Main Basaya Hai Tujhay
Mai Tasavvur Bhi Judai Ka Bhala Kaise Karun
Mai Nay Qismat Ki Larkeeron Say Churaaya Hai Tujhay
Pyaar Ka Ban Ke Nigehbaan Tujhay Chahuungaa

Teri Har Chaap Se Jal Jaate Hain Khayalon Me Chiraag
Jab Bhi Tu Aaya Jagmagatah Huaa Jaddu Aye
Tujh Ko Chu Lun Toh Phir Aye Jan-E-Tamanna Mujh Ko
Dair Tak Apane Badan Say Teri Khusbhoo Aaye
Tuu Baharon Ka Hai Unwan Tujhay Chaahungaa

Zindagi Mai Toh Sabhi Pyar Kiya Kertay Hain
Main Toh Mar Kar Bhi Meri Jaan Tujhay Chahuuga

TUNNEL

It was a one- stroke decision like the drop of guillotine: we leave this place. It has been our native place, OK, but so what?
Treading the scorched wasteland, we reach the railway station, some couple of miles away; and just mob the overcrowded train to the metro. Buying a ticket is simply out of question. We climb onto the roof-tops. The dead don’t care for safety.
The train speeds head on, as if out of control. The roof-tops, slopping both sides, are plain slippery: no hold, no grip. Each one clings desperately to the other, also equally precariously perched. About a half of us on this compartment, the other on the one ahead of us.
The way we travel is illegal. The way if someone falls off the roof-top and dies, would be illegal too. Life itself has been like this: illegal, unauthentic, unaccounted for. Supercilious lights shone brilliantly at distance, but we were eternally condemned to gloom, at the fringes of existence. Nothing more than bare sustenance was ever asked for, but even that was denied.
So here are we, following a blind dream to a strange metro. The metro won’t leave anyone to die; it never lets anyone live, either.
The metro knows no rest. It speeds and screams round the clock, and won’t let anyone sleep, thankfully so. Dreams haunt sleep. Men are scared of dreams. They prefer the speed chasing them to death. No one misses anyone: like a burning bidi butt thrown down the drain.
The roof-top is overcrowded, but not a single word. Everyone is quiet. Words no longer carry meanings. Even curses and abuses have become stale from overuse. The sky has swallowed all questions; the void, all answers.
Strange terrain. Miles after miles disappear beyond the sight. The train gets crazy with speed. Ghat after ghat, planes after planes fall back. Settlements, nameless and faceless, appear from nowhere, and disappear without a trace: like someone suddenly dead. Threatening speed makes us unsteady, all the more precarious.
The journey seems to be never-ending. The hot roof-top burns our bums. The afternoon sun grows vindictive. Horizons steam. Empty bellies, gritty eyes, even the breaths are ablaze.
At long last the day sets: like an exhausted funeral pyre. Burning embers still glow in the west. The evening still smoulders like hot ash.
Night creeps in, spreads like an evil spell. The half moon hangs there - shines bright like a piece of broken skull.
It gets hilly as the train approaches the metro. The huge hills appear like monstrous torsos through the dense fog.
Numerous tunnels truncate the hills, one after the other. Like open jaws of giants, they swallow the train. The rocky interiors of the tunnel are flogged by yellow whips of light throwing a long stream of stroboscpic patterns. Frightened, i shut my eyes. No! - i don't want an epileptic fit here, on this slippery roof-top.
A cyclone of noise quakes the hills as the train crosses a deep tunnel with maddening speed. The tunnel seems to be unending..it feels as if one is passing through the entrails of a tremendous reptile. The train emerges out of the tunnel, and the face next to you shocks you with its chalky, deadly pallor in the sudden moonlight.
Hunger is dead; it no longer gnaws us. The speed stupefies us, makes us drowsy. Slumber overcomes fear for life. We doze off.
“Hey! watch out..stoop down!” someone cries excitedly.
Startled, we look ahead. The speeding train is about to pass through another tunnel. But something is amiss here, like life gone awry. The tunnel is wide enough, but hardly a foot taller than the compartments- just a foot! And here, on the slippery roof-tops, are we, some fifty of us. How low do we stoop down, how much do we shrink to save our life? At more than a hundred kilometers per hour, utterly helpless, we are speeding helplessly towards the inevitable. The low tunnel ahead, the uncontrolled speed, and we..?
Confused out of senses, one of us just flings himself in the dark. The thundering rattle swallows his thin scream.
Even terror has frozen. We stare with unblinking eyes, resigned to the fait accompli.
Next moment, men dash against the deadly tunnel, and fall off the roof-top ahead of us. Skulls break open, blood spurts out, and life ends without a cry. One after the other. Some twenty, in a single moment. Mutilated corpses, line the uncaring train. Just a moment ago, there were a score of them, each with a different world in mind, and now..just a mass of convulsing body parts, scattered all over the bloody roof-top. Shreds of quivering flesh, lining the rail track. We, doomed onlookers, too stunned to react. Just awaiting our turn. . .
Here’s the thud, and here fall i..down the dark abyss. Helpless, gasping, choking under the piling dead, unable to move a limb, unable even to utter a cry..wet and sticky with blood. . .
Somebody calls me aloud. I strain to open my eyes. Dead stillness in the endless tunnel, with not a glimmer of light..the train has passed long ago.. the rattle still echoing in my heart. I am all alone..at 3 in the morning, lying in my bed, drenched in sweat.
Outside, the night has frozen like the dark interminable tunnel. Much time to go before the
day-break.

I switch on the lamp. Darkness scares me. Sleep scares me. Dreams scare me. I stay wide awake for the rest of the night. The weak lamp accompanies me. I get up, drink some water.some times we have to make things
I forget all my failures, my loneliness, my deprivations, my pain.
I am grateful to life that i am alive.

Juta ( shoe ) no. 8

I am not into politics. (although i like discussing politics) But if Indian politics has plummeted to a level where we have the need to throw shoes (catharsis, thats what the psychologists call it) at our politicians (to be more specific; sports shoe, size 8), all I have to say is ‘what a pity!’

Politics, like any other profession is a noble profession. In fact, may be even more noble because it is answerable to every query the citizens of a country make. It can therefore afford no loopholes in the system and very strictly demands clean chit in whatever it does.
We all swear at the system but that is all we do. This blog is also an example of the same. And we are good at it too. We all know what is to be done. We all agree that we need the youth to revolutionarise the system. But all we actually do is sit back and let the country go to dogs-literally.
I have no plans to go into politics. I want a comfortable life ahead. I respect my country. But not at the cost of losing my comfort. I am selfish.
Many have struggled to gain independence. Good they either died a natural death, were assassinated or sentenced to death. They would have died even a more painful death had they witnessed the political scenario today. I am happy that they are not alive to see the fate of this country. These people at least died in a hope of better India. If I struggle for my country, i wouldn’t even be privileged to die in a hope of better India. I guarantee that my work will be short lived and I will carry it to my grave with me. And it will be all square to one.
True, i may inspire someone. But to inspire someone primarily demands utmost self dedication and trust in the job one does. Dedication-yes. Trust-no. Let’s accept this that I alone cannot ameliorate the situation. We need a whole lot of I’s to change the system. The problem with all the I’s is perhaps lack of trust (trust that yes I can do it and the situation is not as bad as the media projects it) and not the lack of dedication.
To vote for the right person is not a problem provided someone tells us who is the right person. The ones in the limelight are entangled in some or the other scandals. The remaining ones with transparent deeds are either turned down and tagged as inexperienced or do not come into focus at all and are drowned into the pompous shows of propaganda and campaigning. Money matters, huh?
We need to adopt a new way to decide whom to vote for. Tell them to reveal their sinister secrets instead of telling us their positive deeds-if any. The former will outweigh the latter one. And accordingly we will decide who is less corrupt. We all know where the money goes. We all know that the vote bank comes from a mob where an individual has his own brain to think, but collectively has no brain at all. Clearly, this is with respect to reservation.
This blog is dedicated to all those who plan to join Indian politics. I appreciate your guts to get throttled..

GuilT

As usual, the first shift bus takes us back home. It’s 4 in the evening, the most indifferent and ill-defined hour of the day.
We surrender ourselves to the driver’s acumen, and doze off, exhausted from the day-long boredom, the non-happening routine, the inertia, and the ennui. Nothing happens. Nothing excites. Life, whether at home or at work, is a stalemate.
Sudden brakes jerk us violently out of sleep. Still confused, we scan the surroundings, smacking, swallowing, and mumbling incoherently.
Our bus slows down. Onlookers have crowded both sides of the road.
Ha! Something seems to have happened!
Quick observers are the early reporters.
“A horrible accident-!”
“Both of them dead-!”
Hey presto! Gone are the boredom, the inertia, the ennui, and the snooze in a jiffy! We all spring from our seats to have a peep at the scene outside.
A horrible accident indeed it is. A bike – one of those new hi-tech beastly machines- probably speeding in the wrong direction, has dashed against the road divider, throwing off the two poor teenage riders.
Blood flows sluggishly from the broken skull of one of the boys: a bright red pool, sparkling in the slanting sun, slowly thickening and blackening on the rough concrete surface. The lump, that was the brain, still convulses in the dust. The other boy lies spread eagled, still and stiff, without the slightest scratch on his body; probably internal bleeding killed him. The new brand sturdy hi-tech bike is almost unscratched.
With nothing else happening, even the fatal and the morbid is a welcome diversion.
“O God-!”
“O shit-!”
“Both were just kids..”
“Think of the poor parents..”
“This new generation..”
“These modern bikes..”
“These road conditions..”
“These contractors..”
“This corruption..”
“This system..”
By now, our bus has wormed its way through the road block. Freshened up by the lively discussion, we reach home.
The newspaper, the TV, the net, the gossip, the family, the kids, all take me through the rest of the evening, to a dreamless sleep. Never again the accident comes to my mind, except in those deeply reflective moments, in the ultimate solitude of the WC.

But horrible indeed was the accident. Not forgotten easily, it crops up at the coffee table, next morning.
A colleague who worked in the general shift yesterday, joins us.
“Yea, our bus too passed the spot at about six. The two guys were still lying there, still crowded by the onlookers, and no police anywhere as yet.”
“Disgusting!” react i, over a sip, ”two boys lie on the road, dead for hours, and . . .”
“Didn’t you read the newspaper today? In fact, one of the boys was actually alive, when the police took him to the nearby hospital- but it was too late. He had severe brain damage, with more than two hours already lost.”
“We are a nation of idle onlookers”, sighs out somebody.

Everyone of us is silent.

We too had passed the very spot.
We too had seen the accident.
We too had assumed both the boys dead.
We too never bothered so much as to check.

The accident injured the boy; our apathy killed him.