Ab Tak Chappan

29^th December 2019

It is 10.30pm I let myself sink into slumber knowing well that tomorrow would be a long day of never ending budget meetings, heated debates and haggling of give and take. Suddenly, I felt my nose being squeezed and woke up in an almost asphyxiated state, expecting my partner of thirty years trying to wake me up as my snoring would have reached a crescendo. No, it wasn’t her but a strange looking fellow in white, the way they showed Casper, the friendly ghost.

Who are you, Bhai?

I am no Bhai to you but your Bhoi (Fear).

If you are what I should be afraid of then who is this sleeping next to me…I thought that place was reserved for her.

Stop your cheeky one liners. In an hour from now the gong will strike 12 midnight and the date changes to 30^th December. Why is the day so important to you?

Sir, it is my birthday…I was born fifty six years ago on this day in 1963.

Prove it! Prove you were born on this date in which place and to whom! Birth certificate hai?

Kya Bhoot Bhai…I have my PAN, my Aadhaar, my passport, my thirty years of tax papers, service records, MTNL bills and all.

Birth Certificate hai?

My mother said that it was a cold winter’s night and it was raining when she was rushed to Safdarjung Hospital where I came into this beautiful world.

Every year in winter in Delhi you have cold and rainy days. So that is no evidence. That is like reading Amar Chitra Katha about birth of heroes and gods. Hospital ki chitthi hai? Birth certificate hai? Nahin na!

Bhoot Bhai I do have my Class X mark sheet which, for the lowly scores, I, generally, do not show to people but that is where my date of birth is written and so far has been accepted. I remember my father pleading with me to make it 1964 instead of 1963. He knew my abilities and could foresee how an extra year would have helped his nikammah son to appear in the examinations one extra time keeping in mind the cut off age the government services demanded. But I, for once in life, became a champion of Satyameva Jayate…No Baba, all my life you have taught me to tell the truth, nothing but the truth, and so it will be to give the right date and year of my birth when we fill up the school form now. And my honesty prevailed and so, till date, have had just this one day as my birthday.

I know you are a blogger and have the ability to weave a tale but this does not prove anything. You could have put any date and place in the school application form and they would have accepted it. In short, it was not based on any evidence. Therefore, I cannot accept the same fable of lies. Any other proof you have? Let me extend the logic…where were your parents born?

Chittagong, Sir.

And that happens to be in Bangladesh. You’ve got trouble, son.

No, sir, my parents came to India long ago. My father was a freedom fighter and I have a government pension book in his favour.

Nationality is what matters today and you have nothing conclusive. It is better you do not talk about the origin of your parents.

As both the arms of the clock touched twelve, like Cinderella, Bhoot Bhai vanished and so did my sleep…to celebrate or not to celebrate my birthday was the big question. With the roots of my parents chopped off from my time-line and no birth certificate it was going to be a long night awake.

The words Nationality Certificate took me back in history by a decade. I was in a government medical college in Maharashtra trying to get my daughter’s admission into the world of medical education. She had got this seat through an open all India entrance examination conducted by a central government authority. My wife made sure we had all original papers and adequate number of attested photo copies and passport size photographs. So when our turn came, after standing in a long queue, the record clerk checked every paper carefully and then looked up…do you have Nationality Certificate?

What is a Nationality Certificate? I have her birth certificate and passport.

Since your daughter does not have a domicile certificate, she needs to submit a Nationality Certificate. Only then can we admit her into the college.

There were many other hapless parents in the same predicament.We rushed to the Dean of the Medical College requesting why an Indian citizen should require such an archaic document. We showed him the newspaper clippings of almost all major dailies including some Marathi newspapers with my daughter’s picture as the all India CBSE science stream topper. If this girl has to prove her nationality with all her records in place, then I do not know who a real Indian is?

No means No. I cannot do anything in this matter. If the documents require a Nationality Certificate, then you must get it.

I came to know that this dreaded certificate, after sixty years of independence, could be obtained from the local court. So I went to Borivali Court a number of times and used all contacts to get a good helpful lawyer to get me this strange document. But here my efforts came to a dead end as I did not have a Ration Card.

I do not want subsidised grains or oil so I never thought of making a ration card.

You will have to get a Ration Card made with your daughter’s name in it. After that we can work on your Nationality Certificate.

So I was given the contact of a Mahesh Bhai who would get me a ration card for my family made in quick time. I approached my savior, paid a hefty sum of money and it took five days, including a police verification, before I got a white coloured ration card which I was told could not be used to avail the ration facilities. This is just an identity card.

Finally, my daughter became an Indian national. So now I have Bangladesh born parents and an Indian daughter and me, a man without a country.

About a fortnight ago, on the day Assam erupted over a bill on citizenship passed in the parliament, I landed in Guwahati late in the evening. By then the protestors had gone home, the ATMs were all empty and a few shops had re-opened. With a hotel room overlooking the famed Kamakhya Temple, flew to Silchar and then drove down to Karimgunj as part of the office CSR team to evaluate a school project. The village school at Lamajuar we went to was established in 1912. It had two small rooms and hundred and fifty children from class one to six were packed there. We were given a warm welcome and after the work got over, was invited to Abdul’s house where we were treated to a royal feast of Ilish and Pabda fish, mutton and chicken curries, chholar dal and paneer….of course, no meal in this part gets over without an excellent mishti. 

Kamakhya

We walked a little over five hundred metres when we saw a BSF check post and barbed wire fence. Across the wire was Bangladesh. Abdul’s uncle said in the good old days we used to swim across the moat and play with friends there. Against the backdrop of the evening sun, I saw Amar Sonar Bangla for the very first time and could picture my parents smiling at me from the other side of the fence.

 

We finally drove down to Sutarkandi which is the final check post on India- Bangladesh border. With us was Salim, whose house is the last inhabited place on the Indian side of the border.

Imagine there’s no countries

It isn’t hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion, too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace...

SS