Born To Fly

Two friends were sitting on the beautiful lawns of Hindu College watching a warm up football match between the two rivals across the road. St. Stephens were victorious that day beating Hindu on their home ground and it couldn’t have been more insulting to a large crowd gathered there. The losing team looked dejected as the Director of Physical Education of the college gave them a solid dressing down in chaste Hindi.

“Chal, let us join the college team trials from tomorrow,” said the taller of the two. “As it is after studying hard in the First Year we barely got through the exams.”

“Ya, I attended all classes, went to so many libraries from Central Secretariat to ICHR, studied all the reference books, made long notes but when the exams came up couldn’t remember things I had read many times. With 40 and 42 percent, we must be the laggards in History Honours in the college or maybe in the university as well. It would have been so much better had I at least played football for the college and enjoyed a bit of college life with friends.”

“Don’t worry, let’s us try and get into the college team. As far as studies are concerned, I will get you the best of tutorials. You are the brainy Bong who will compile them and we will surely do much better than what we have done this year.”

The pact was instantly made and the next day the two landed at the football ground and after two days of tough selection, both were picked to be part of the team. The fair and handsome one was chosen as the goalkeeper and the shorter one got selected as a forward. The first acid test for the team was a repeat of the warm up game with St. Stephens and both the friends were selected in the playing eleven. With even a larger crowd now watching the two teams fighting it out, Hindu College beat the team from across the street by three goals to nil and the man in the forward line scored one goal and assisted in the other two while the goalie made some dramatic saves. Both became instant heroes in the college and found a permanent place in the playing eleven for the next two years.

Brothers in Arms

The bonding on the field was strengthened when both gave the exams that year. They appeared not only for the second year but also repeated the two papers from the first year and got high fifties which was remarkable considering they had stopped attending classes and library cards had been handed over to the other studious types who needed to borrow more books.

Thank you Ranjeev, my friend, for convincing me to play for the college which gave me the happiest time of my life and along with sports, you also helped me get good scores in studies. But for you my friend, I would never have got an identity in college and develop such a passion for the game.

Today, as I remember my friend Ranjeev, memories keep flowing through the shadows of my mind. He was everything I wasn’t and always wanted to be. He had a way with girls as no one I had seen before and never saw another later, while I was always the shy and the meek one.

The two friends would, on some days after football practice, walk to Patel Chest from where the University Special buses originated in order to get seats. It was on one such day that they found themselves seated comfortably next to each other. As the bus started moving and stopping at various colleges picking up students, at Indraprastha College a pretty girl boarded the bus and stood near their seat. He looked at the girl and almost ordered his friend with a straight face, “Get up now!” Stunned by the strange behavior, the friend still gave up his seat and asked the damsel to take his place instead. Within no time, Ranjeev struck a conversation with the girl and by the time the bus had reached Rajghat, the two of them were laughing and talking as if they knew each other for long. When the bus reached Lutyens Delhi and the girl stood up to get off, Ranjeev, too, got off. Next day the girl was at our college chatting with The Boss.

When it came to girls, if there ever was a Speedy Gonsalvez, it was him. There was something about him that attracted the best looking girls to him at all times. Was it the twinkle in his light brown eyes or was it his tall and fair looks or was it his quick repartee or possibly it was all of them and more in him that made the girls follow the Pied Piper.

In school I had done many things from writing chits and copying from the neighbour’s answer sheets but I wasn’t as daring as Ranjeev. He had the audacity to keep his bag containing the notes in the college staff room and would often go there to take a look before coming back to his desk to complete the answer sheet. What happened as we sat down to give our last exam of Third Year was beyond anyone’s comprehension….

Ranjeev had not been keeping well and had not been able to study the jointly prepared answers or tutorials as we used to call them. It was our last exam before we passed and got our graduation degrees. He was sitting two seats ahead of me. As the question papers were being distributed, my friend started a conversation with the invigilator. European history was always a subject I loved and started writing my answers with great speed and began filling up one answer sheet after another. There was pin drop silence when I heard Ranjeev talking aloud with the invigilator,"I am asking for the answer sheet from him,” as he pointed a finger towards me. The invigilator said nothing and Ranjeev now almost ordered me,"Pass me the answer sheet, nothing will happen.” I was afraid to do so as this might jeopardise my future if something were to go wrong.Still I took courage to ask the invigilator,”de doon kya(should I give)?” The watch dog just smiled at me and I rolled one of my answer sheets and threw it towards Ranjeev who caught it and started writing his answer. In the next one hour all my answer sheets had reached Ranjeev and he was able to complete the paper and was pretty satisfied with his efforts. As we handed over our answer sheets to the invigilator, Ranjeev thanked him and as we stepped out of the classroom, he started laughing hysterically. We both graduated together and didn’t do too badly. He never grudged me getting a few percentage points more than him. He was more pleased at getting a decent score.

Ranjeev was the friend who introduced me to good life that ought to be the birthright of every teenager. And in giving me this joy of living, he never had to make any special effort. It came to him all so naturally.

I lived in the smaller of the government apartments while he lived in a larger one where senior bureaucrats were stationed. In my colony , we enjoyed dance only when there were marriages and people of all shapes and sizes would wriggle around the ghodi, on which the groom sat, with a garland made of currency notes. The band would play Come September and tunes from Hindi movies and men and women would dance as if in a trance and the senior citizens would throw up some currency notes and the band players would catch them as extra baksheesh. Ranjeev and his friends organized dance parties at their Chanakya Puri Club and,at times, at his home. He always made sure I was invited. He made me see what proper dance parties were, what it meant to dance with girls.

In one such New Year’s Eve party, I was sitting near the bonfire with some boys and girls sitting around it. Ranjeev was the star of all the parties and he came out and asked me to come on to the floor. I felt a little shy. He not only pulled me into the hall, he also asked a girl sitting there to get up and take to the floor with me. At another party, Ranjeev and his other two associates, Ravi and Niraj, made sure I got the first close dance of my life. Of course, the party ended pretty awkwardly for me and the girl, but then my fear of dancing was gone. Pappu can dance saala!

Thanks to my idol, I started enjoying the parties and learnt to shake a leg, much more than I had ever learnt living in my colony. My fear of girls was gone. All my twenty long years I had waited for such  good times which only he gave to me and surely to many others like me.

I could go on with many more instances of his fun loving and free flowing life but must at this point take a break. He joined the Indian Army after clearing the IMA exam while I went my way into the world of insurance. Ranjeev always loved flying and so when I met him, after some years, in Mumbai he said,” I am from the Army, am on deputation to the Coast Guard flying choppers…army, navy and air force all in one!” He became Lt. Colonel and took voluntary retirement, whereupon he started flying choppers for private operators. A couple of days ago, I got the sad news of his chopper meeting with a fatal accident as he, along with two others, were returning after supplying relief materials to flood affected areas of Uttarakhand. This was not the first time that Ranjeev had undertaken such bold rescue operations. He was among the first to reach out to the helpless and devastated people at Gaurikund and Kedarnath in 2014 and later in 2017 in Pithoragarh. He truly knew no fear. His Whatsapp status read…Born to Fly!

You were born to fly

You were born to be free

And truly you’ve flown away

High as high can be

I am sure God needed you

Needed you to give lessons to all

Lessons of love

Lessons of friendship

Lessons of bravery

Lessons of service

Or maybe to run His chopper services

To recue humanity in disaster

Born to Fly, from here to eternity.

In life, a man is always indebted to his parents for many things and so am I, but never ever another man can be as indebted as I am to you for giving me so much joy, helping me discover my real self…no wonder I am not ashamed to say Tu Mera Hero Number One. You were everything I wanted to be and you changed me for good. Today a part of me got blown away…I cried and deep inside me, chanted Om Shanti Om Shanti Om Shanti.

SS

KHOYA PAYA

War was in the air. A madman had just crashed his explosive laden vehicle into a CRPF convoy. Indian Air Force had intruded into enemy war zone and blasted terrorist camps from the face of the earth. The other nation upped the ante by flying F16 aircrafts over Indian territory and in the ensuing scuffle an Indian pilot who ejected from an aging MIG 21 Bison was captured by the Pakistanis. Both the nations moved their armed forces to high alert and towards the bordering regions. Airports in India were asked to conduct extra security checks on passengers.

But for India’s flying salesmen it was just another day in paradise. Our man on the go, Sadashiv Rao, entered the Mumbai Airport at 5.30am in the morning to take a 7.15am flight to Delhi. He went straight to the self check-in kiosk for a print out of the boarding pass. This action is always so easy and smooth and it is a pleasure to see the fine piece of check-in paper slip out. As he bent low to collect the paper, his eyes caught a brown envelope lying on the floor. Surely it must have slipped out of a rushing traveller’s bag. To pick up or not to pick up was the question and he opted for the first.

His eyes popped up as he read the addressor and addressee details and a box on the right hand corner written in red in block capitals, ’SECRET’. He looked around and waited a while to see if someone came looking for it, but no one came. He started thinking of the options before him. Option one was to throw it into the dustbin and walk away. Secondly he could have gone to the airport manager and made a public announcement. The final option was to hand the envelope to the CISF men posted there. He decided against all the three and put the envelope in his computer bag, cleared the security hurdle on way to the boarding gate admiring the beautiful pieces of art on display at the airport.

As he waited for the boarding announcement, his fingers twitched as a few more awkward options popped up….How about opening the packet to know what’s the official secret? Would be nice to see what constitutes a state secret beyond the Bond movies. What if the contents were to reach some news channel?  He also wondered what would happen if the CCTV cameras at the airport had picked up his picture and the security men caught up with him with the envelope in his possession? Aa bail mujhe maar…was the only way he described his present situation.

Sense prevailed as he checked the envelope once more. Since the addressee was in Delhi, the city he was going to, he decided to hand over the same personally. So for the next three wintery days in Delhi, he kept waiting for an opportune time to go to deliver the document.  While his car did pass the address on the envelope a couple of times, he wondered how he would explain the presence of a top secret envelope in his possession and even if he were to survive the initial grilling by the security personnel, what would happen to the man who was supposed to actually carry it? If truly the document contained some state secret and was meant to be hand delivered, Bhai ki naukri toh jayegi…aur kya hoga kya pata.

So nothing happened at Delhi and he returned home. The envelope remained in the front zip of the bag only to be brought out a couple of times at night to check if it was still there. Finally, after two more days of further thinking, Sadashiv started locating the sender whose name was on the envelope…Google, Linkedin and FB…all failed in their search for once. The man was incognito! Next stop was a visit to the official website from where he could get the landline office board contact number. He punched in the eight digit number…trrrinng trrinng…after a couple of rings a bored voice of a lady was heard from the other side and he hesitantly asked,

“Kindly connect me to Mr. Pattanaik.”

“Which department is he in?”

“I don’t know the department but I think he works in the Director’s Office.”

“Which director’s office?  We have eight directors working here.”

“Madam, I don’t know which director but let me tell you why I am trying to reach him. I have an envelope  which I found Pattanaik’s name written which I picked up at Mumbai airport 5 days ago. The envelope is marked secret and I am sure it must be important for the organization. So please help me locate the man. Just want to give him the same and I can assure you I have not opened it at all.”

“What did you say an envelope marked "secret"? What colour is the envelope- white, yellow or brown?”

“Madam, please give me your mobile number and I shall send you a picture and you will understand what I have in hand.”

“We are not allowed to keep mobile phones here. Sir, so please give me your name and number and someone will contact you soon.”

The name and number were shared and phone put down. Within ten minutes he got a call from a land line and he knew it was from the same office.

“Mr. Rao, I am Mrs. Madhu Sharma  speaking from the Director’s office. Can you repeat what you just told the receptionist?”

And so he repeated, now with a lot more confidence in his voice knowing the chase was moving in the right direction.

“Thank you for what you have done. Please hold the line as I transfer it to the head of security here.”

Again Rao was made to repeat the story. The gentlemen on the other side finally said, “We do have a Mr. Pattanaik working here. We have cross-checked with the date when you found the envelope at the airport with our records and are aware of the sensitivity of the missing envelope that is in your possession. It is very important for us to get it back. Please tell me your location now and I shall have the same picked up immediately.”

In the next 60 minutes the designated person arrived. He showed his official identity card as Rao took him to his desk, pulled out the envelope and handed it to him. He smiled, thanked and said, “Thank you so much Mr. Rao. Pattanaik is in Bhubaneshwar today and he asked me to come personally to collect this letter from you. I cannot reveal the contents of the letter to you but I can tell you for sure that this was an important letter containing some vital information meant to be hand delivered to none other than the highest executive of the country. Had this got lost or reached wrong hands, hell would have broken lose.”

Our hero felt as if he had just been given the Superman’s cape. He felt like a hero, having saved planet earth and slept well that night. Next morning the phone once again rang from a land line.

“Mr. Rao this is Bijay Pattanaik here. I am eternally grateful to you for what you have done. I am saving your number and shall keep it forever and should you ever need help please do not hesitate to give me a call. It is good to know that there are good people in this world still around.”

Sadashiv felt happy as he put the phone down but his mind went back to an incident that happened more than half a century ago. It was the time India was up against China in 1962. A war dispatch had come for the Brigadier in the Army Head Quarters in New Delhi. It was handed over to a young woman who was in the lower rung of civilians working in there. Since it was lunch time the woman kept the paper aside as she finished her roti subzi lunch. She returned to her table after washing the tiffin box and was aghast when she couldn’t find the important piece of war dispatch. She was panic stricken and informed her superior who too tried searching for the document but in vain. The superior asked the woman to keep quiet and not tell about the inward document to anyone. If the Brigadier were to come to know about the mistake, she would surely lose her job. But the naïve woman started crying and started checking under every file, every drawer in and around her. The commotion reached the Brigadier’s office, who soon came to know about the missing paper. The woman was called into the army man’s room and the man in full military attire asked her,” Are you sure there was a message for me?” “Ji haan, Sir.” She replied. The Brigadier was furious as she stood there shaking from head to toe.

She couldn’t do any work after the humiliating dressing down as her mind was preoccupied not with the thought of losing her job but at the impact the loss of a confidential document would have on the armed forces during war time and so she started her search once more.  And then she found the missing paper in another file on her table. In trying to be extra careful, she had tucked it away between pages of another file. The document was promptly delivered and the woman was called once again by the officer. This time the Brigadier was pleased at the honesty the woman had shown and told her if any time she needed any help, she should let him know. She said I have a sick child and it would be nice if she were to be allotted a government accommodation. The Brigadier smiled and in no time ensured the woman got an out of turn allotment of accommodation which in normal course would have taken over a decade. This was in early 1963 and by the year end Sadashiv was born to the woman.

Double helix at work you might say.

SS

Animal Farm

While driving to work from home in the morning, the radio was  playing an all-time favourite song by Kishore…mere saamne wali khidki mein ek chaand ka tukra rehta hai…instinctively I looked out of my car ki saamne wali khidki and lo what do I see….a minivan laden with chickens. There were chickens of all sizes and shapes but inevitably they all looked alike…sad and low. As I passed the van I found the driver merrily moving his head from one side to another. Surely the man must have been enjoying another exciting number on the FM radio. As I drove the last 2 kilometers, felt bad for the chicks in the van. What a miserable life they have. From the time they are born, the creator knows the end game. The chick is fed, some things good and not so good, made to look healthy then one day carried off to a trader who lets his foster parents make ends meet.

Then it struck me. Am I any different from the chicks inside? They with their red plumes on their heads and me with my Zodiac tie hanging down my neck!  Just that they were in an open minivan with grills to prevent them from flying away and me in my air-conditioned car with doors and windows locked down, with responsibilities of home and work preventing me from flying away into a world I love. The chicken driven away meets her fate sooner than me while I keep driving this burdensome car of life day in and out not knowing what fate awaits me at the next turn. While Kishore was yodeling on the radio, I felt like making a sound cock-a-doodle-doo!

Depressed was I as I entered the office early in the morning only to be greeted by a short and dark lady who in the early morning shift cleaned up the place every day. When I saw her smiling so beautifully at me, as she does almost every day, I realized how wrong I was to feel low despite my being so much more fortunate than the little lady before me. I quickly changed my mood and decided I will be happy no matter what the situation was. So I promptly went to my workstation to begin a lively new day.

One of the first mails I saw was an organizational announcement saying they had added another portfolio to my already heavy and diverse one. Hmmmm…let my boss come. I shall refuse to be the meek chicken anymore. An hour later the boss walks in and goes into his glass cabin. I walked into his room and said,” I need to change my business cards. I want to write below my name Hanuman!”

The poor fellow on the other side almost puked out the water in his mouth when he heard my request. With great respect and dignity he asked me to sit down and tell him the cause of anguish of a quiet good chap. And so I explained.

Tell me Boss, in Ramayana Sita was the wife of Lord Ram. When she was kidnapped by Ravan why did Hanuman have to go to Ashoka Vatika to meet Sita and later agree for his tail to be set on fire. Who puts his tail on fire for someone else’s wife? No one but Hanuman will. 

Tell me more Boss, the only time Lord Ram’s brother took to fighting a man was when he fought Meghnadh or Indrajit and in the fight our man almost lost his life. Again, it needed someone to go to get the  Sanjeevani  buti.  Who do you call? Hanuman, of course, for he brings not only the medicinal herb but whole of the mountain as well. 

Tell me finally, Hanuman and his folks could have lived happily in the forests. Yet in the final war against Ravan, Hanuman first made his people build a setu (bridge) across the sea and then fought shoulder to shoulder with Lord Ram and also lost many of his brethren. Who else would take such risks, but Hanuman? 

In short, whenever Ram was in problem he needed Hanuman. Similarly, whenever this organization needed to get out of trouble, they made me take the plunge. You give me all roles where others had failed in the past and lost their jobs. You keep adding to my work and make me do much beyond a single man’s ability so I consider myself a Hanuman. So please approve my new business card with the new designation even if it sounds funny and outlandish. Saying this I left my Lord Ram very confused and bemused. 

I felt relaxed having spewed my venom before my boss, now it was time to get back to normal work. And as luck would have it a big proposal came our way and I got engrossed in planning how to win the same. 

I suddenly developed stripes and became a tiger on a prowl. Having seen my prey, I started measuring the distance, calculating my speed versus that of the prey and laid a trap all around…this was going to be my lucky day. My gait changed, my looks became sparky and there was a roar in my voice as I made my move. For every problem I had an answer, for every situation the client and the broker pushed, I was a step ahead of them and seemed to enjoy the challenge. The tiger was hungry, the tiger was sure and the tiger wanted to prove his powers and made a dash. The tiger forgot there were other hunters in the forest and just as he made the final leap, a pack of wolves had made their killer move and took the prey away. The tiger was angry but was helpless before the wolves who outnumbered him. The tiger accepted his fate and turned back into his pin stripe suit and drove back home. 

After an exhausting day and a tedious drive, I reached home. Rang the bell and entered home, my sweet home. Then suddenly a barrage of questions was thrown at me:

Did you get the prints I sent you?

Did you pay the bills I reminded you about?

Oh you didn’t eat the lunch I made for you this morning…why had a working lunch at a five star?

Why would anyone want to come home early with young beautiful girls hanging around?

 The gait became unsure, the baritone voice suddenly seemed to have left my side and the tail went between my wobbly legs. India’s tiger population just got reduced by one as the big striped cat became a small domesticated cat. Forget the tiger, save me!

All this in a day’s time.

SS

Sunn Kabira

Respected Kabir Ji,

I hope you are doing well in Heaven. Where else can you find such godly men like you who, over the centuries, have inspired people to follow the noble path. Sir, I am not one of those enamored by your gospels of truth called Dohe for they have wrought more misery in my life than joy. So this is my letter of complaint to you and, if possible, you need to use the delete button in your super computer to erase the dohe and ensure future generations are not misled by your thoughts.

Childhood  Days

Every time the report card would be given out in class to be signed by the parents, I would always get a pinch of guilt. This guilt was not for my father who, out of his paltry salary, went out of the way to give me education in a fine Catholic school, but it was more of self-realization…..had I studied a little more and played a little less, had I listened more to my father and teachers who went hoarse trying to put the subjects into my thick cranium…..and less about the friends who were found more outside on the playing fields than at home. Maybe, I would have done better…at least slightly better… and the Red Sea on the face of the report card would have been a bit narrower. Father was always prompt to quote you:

रात गंवाई सोय के, दिवस गंवाया खाय ।
हीरा जन्म अमोल सा, कोड़ी बदले जाय ॥

It meant that I had wasted the night sleeping and the day eating away. The life, which was meant to be like a precious diamond, is now wasted and is no more valuable than a cowrie…simply nothing.  I tried explaining to my father in your words that studying books in life was not real education and he should himself learn the language of love especially when dealing with his misery stricken son:

पोथी पढ़ि पढ़ि जग मुआ, पंडित भया न कोय,
ढाई आखर प्रेम का, पढ़े सो पंडित होय।

I would, with bowed head and tears in my eyes, go to my father for his signature promising him better times ahead. No prizes for guessing what he retorted with… what is the use of repenting now when you wasted your days in unnecessary activities:

आछे / पाछे दिन पाछे गए हरी से किया न हेत ।
अब पछताए होत क्या, चिडिया चुग गई खेत ।।

Times of Youth

As I grew older, I tried using your wonderful lines on damsels at Durga Puja pandals. Sorry Boss for twisting the essence of your godly love to love of mine by saying “if you were to enter through my eyes, I would quickly shut them and then neither will I see anyone else nor will let anyone see you.” How romantic it ought to have sounded to the pretty faces.

नैना अंतर आव तू, ज्यूं हौं नैन झंपेउ।
ना हौं देखूं और को न तुझ देखन देऊँ॥

I tried convincing her by saying that he, who has not tasted love in life, is no better than a guest who enters a house which is lifeless and empty and gets nothing.

कबीर प्रेम न चक्खिया,चक्खि न लिया साव।
सूने घर का पाहुना, ज्यूं आया त्यूं जाव॥

Sadly, the pretty faces were not at all impressed by my knowledge of your gospels. Possibly, they were seeking someone who could recite Shakespeare and Wordsworth…the Desi Gully Boy had no place in their eyes nor hearts. So you couldn’t help me in my youth as well.

Corporate World

Then as time passed, I went up the corporate ladder with a number of people reporting. While the Human Resource Department would inhumanly impose the Ghanta (Bell Curve) Policy during appraisals, I just could not give the subordinates anything below 3 rating for which I was often pulled up for being too soft and unprofessional. Here too you were the cause of my misery I always got reminded of one of your dohas while doing the appraisals:

बुरा जो देखन मैं चला, बुरा न मिलिया कोय,
जो दिल खोजा आपना, मुझसे बुरा न कोय।

As I went out seeking weakness and failings in others, I first judged myself and found that no one was as bad as me. So if I expected to be rated good , how could I rate others badly. And so my climb up the ladder got halted as I saw more able and professional men and women walking and scrambling past me.

As if all the failings were not enough, now in my fifties, you have once again caused me great loss of face. As I go out looking for an able groom for my darling doctor daughter, the people on the other side ask me in hushed tones…”Does she drink? Does she take drugs? Is she aggressive? Beats up people?” All this image bashing because someone made a film where the protagonist is a doctor with your name…Kabir Singh.

In short, Kabir Das Ji aap ne meri zindagi ki waat laga di!

While my love-hate relationship with you was a lifelong story, one of your verses touched me positively.

जाति न पूछो साधु की, पूछ लीजिये ज्ञान,
मोल करो तरवार का, पड़ा रहन दो म्यान।

Which meant, never ask the religion or caste of a good man. And a good man I found recently called Salabeg. Not many would have heard of him and I too came to know of him when one of my friends’ daughter had her formal initiation into on-stage dancing of what is called Arangetram.  Here the beautiful young girl danced on lines composed by Salabeg which was surprising. How on earth could a TamBram take to serious dance on lines written by a man whose name definitely sounded less Brahmanical and more Persian? On asking my friend I came to know about the man a little more.

Salabeg was the son of a Mughal Subedar called Lalbeg who, during one of the military campaigns, married an adivasi widow. As soon as Salabeg was old enough, he took up fighting and joined his father in the military campaigns. Folklore says that once, when he was badly injured, his mother asked him to chant the name of Lord Krishna which he did and miraculously he got cured. Feeling indebted to Lord Krishna, he came to know more about him from his mother who explained that Lord Jagannath is the incarnation of Krishna. Salabeg went to Puri but was refused entry into the Jagannath Temple as he was a Muslim. Disappointed, but not completely put off, Salabeg went to Vrindavan where he started living an ascetic’s life along with other sadhus and began reciting bhajans in praise of Krishna. After a year, he decided to go back to Puri to see the Ratha Yatra festival but suddenly fell ill before reaching the town. He feared he would not reach in time to see the festival so he offered prayers to Lord Jagannath asking him to wait till he arrived. It is said that on the return leg of the journey, Lord Jagannath’s cart did not move until Salabeg arrived and got a darshan of the Lord.

Salabeg composed many hymns in praise of Lord Jagannath. He was cremated at the same place where the Lord’s cart stood still for him. Even to this day, every year Lord Jagannath’s cart stays for a while near the Samadhi of this great poet devotee. Salabeg did not write in chaste Oriya and, possibly, that is why his popularity among the local people is even more. He was instrumental in the local language entering the sanctum sanctorum which till then was an exclusive domain of Sanskrit language. Here’s an excerpt from his poem on Ratha Yatra:

Brother Balabhadra leads the way,

In the middle comes,

The sister with a pretty moon-face,

Mingling with the noisy crowd

The Dark One follows behind,

Says Salabega

This was in early seventeenth century and here we are, after three hundred years, fighting over temples, cows and chants of one Lord as opposed to the Lord of another religion.

हिन्दू कहें मोहि राम पियारा, तुर्क कहें रहमाना,
आपस में दोउ लड़ी-लड़ी  मुए, मरम न कोउ जाना।

Dear Kabirji, it is not me alone who gives a miss to your message of love, brotherhood and compassion in today’s world but also a vast majority of people of my beloved nation. No wonder you vanished when the different sects of people were fighting over your corpse to lay claim.  They seem to be still fighting against each other since then not just in your name but more.

In this turmoil, blessed is the child who, so pure and untouched by such worldly schisms, dances to the music and composition that makes her reach a blissful trance.

SS

eArrival

Circa 1968, Delhi

Today we will be getting our fridge, said the mother.

What is a fridge? How does it look? What does it do? Why are we at all getting it? Questions poured forth from the little boy of the house, a shade less than five years old.

Will you please keep quiet? We have to now go to bring the fridge and you can see it for yourself.

I want to go with you to get this thing home.

No..Yes..No..Yes…Finally the boy’s perseverance paid off and he was included in the fridge party.

Two gentlemen came in scooters, one was a Lambretta and the other was a Vespa. The father, who was mortally afraid of two wheelers, hesitantly sat on one with both his legs on one side, the way you would find ladies of old. The mother sat quite comfortably and confidently on the other. Our young boy tried sitting between the mother and the driver but the mother’s size was slightly big so he quickly found a place of pride standing between the handle and the driver’s seat enjoying Delhi’s hot summer winds blowing on his face.

They went to a house where a handsome man, whom all referred as Colonel Saab, greeted them. He took the family inside and showed a huge thing which looked like a steel almirah- it was much taller than him and had a word written in cursive on the door starting with G. The boy was amazed when he saw what the mother called a fridge.  The off-white almirah looking object of wonder on opening had a few aluminium shelves  and a separate counter on top with two trays.

This huge and heavy almirah was loaded on a tempo waiting outside the house and then the journey back home started.  When the tempo reached their small one bed room government house in Moti Bagh, an expecting crowd had gathered. As the almirah was unloaded, people started clapping and asked the mother, Bhabhiji mithai khilayiye. As this huge, monstrous piece was placed in the small living room, the father pulled the wire at the back and put the plug in the socket before pulling the lever down. A loud sound emanated from this monster as the light inside it lit up and the clapping went into a crescendo.

The lady of the house filled the trays on top with water and also filled some old XXX Hercules Rum bottles with water and kept them inside the almirah. The neighbours were examining the coming of the first fridge in the locality with great inquisitiveness and amazement. Every five minutes they would ask the lady to open the fridge and check the bottles which she would do. After about thirty minutes she smiled and pulled the bottles out and poured the water into a dozen steel glasses. The people almost fought with each other to get hold of the glasses. The mother, however, had kept one small steel glass separately and gave it to the bedazzled boy.

Ma this is thanda….and then he gulped the cold water in one go. The mystery of the almirah was now solved and he realized that this was a magical thing which could turn hot water to cold. In some time the neighbours came with small utensils  and the mother, in all generosity brought out the trays from the upper section and placed it for a while in the normal tap water. Soon the ice in the trays rolled into the waiting utensils. A cube of ice was handed to the boy and now the mystery was completely unraveled.

The matka or the earthen pot was soon moved out of the house and a smaller surahi was bought each time a railway journey to Calcutta was to be undertaken. All neighbours became extra friendly but would often curse the family when the cold water or ice was denied. The boy would fill his water bottle everyday with cold water and drink it well before reaching school lest it turned warm.

When the boy and his family shifted to Mumbai in 2001, this piece of wonder, which was very much working and had seen the history of the family over thirty -two years, was given to an old family friend in the vicinity. During their intermittent visits to Delhi  they found this wonderful gadget functioning well for the next ten years…never stopped working…the paint work had come off at places  but no more. Wonder why they only talk of grandfather’s clock going non-stop tick tock tick tock.

Circa 1974, Delhi

The boy had now moved from one BHK to a two BHK government quarter at Rama Krishna Puram.  Television had just been introduced to the Indian public but it was still out of reach for most people. With some good bonus money that the father had got, the television came into the boy’s house in the winter of ’74. The brand was JK with a hammer as a logo. The jewel was placed on a small round table with the finest table cloth available in the house. The television worked for a couple of hours only in the beginning starting with the unforgettable signature tune of Doordarshan which was always followed by Krishi Darshan. And then were the few English shows and the hourly news. Star attraction, however, was the Wednesday 8pm Chitrahaar when we enjoyed the Hindi film songs. That half an hour seemed so wonderful and they all waited for it every week.

Come Republic Day when the crowds thronged on both sides of Rajpath as the military might of the nation was on display along with the cultural tableaux. If managing these crowds at Rajpath was a problem, managing crowds at home on such days was an even bigger problem. The TV walas had to finish their morning chores well in advance. Then out came the old blankets and durries which would have to be laid out on the floor for the multitude of public who could not get the passes for the grand parade. Chairs and big metal trunks were put in the back row for the senior citizens who had to be shown great respect. With every marching contingent on the screen, the cheering in the house sounded as if the country had just won a war against their arch rivals. While there were these fixed people who would come often and were welcome, many had to be turned away for want of sitting space. Then there these ‘other boys’ of the colony, with whom the boy did not get along, who were never permitted inside- TV kharaab hai was the normal excuse given.

In the biting  January cold of Delhi, the mother  would have to go and make some hot tea and serve it with the Marie biscuits. In the past the family would never miss the opportunity of going and witnessing the spectacle live and also enjoy a picnic sitting in the lawns afterwards with packed parantha, pickle and hot tea in Eagle Thermos flask. But now with the onset of television, the picnic had moved home with a lot more people enjoying the hospitality. Not a moment was missed right from Bismillah Khan’s shehnai vaadan to the fly past where often the aircrafts flew past in great speed that viewers at home could not see it properly on the screen. The crowd, determined not miss a minute of this grand spectacle, would quickly scamper from the TV room to the terrace and see those fighter planes return to Palam Air Force base which was not far from the boy’s home. Heartbreaks were common whenever signal  was not clear despite five people trying to move the antenna on the terrace and another twenty shouting from inside the room…thoda right…thoda left…abhi bhi nahin aaya!

The home became more of a community centre but surprisingly in the small space available there was life…today when we look back we find a television in every room for the wife wants to watch her movie and the man wants to see English Premier League and the kid opens up the laptop or the iPad to watch the latest episode of GOT…all sitting in different rooms…alone…aloof…lifeless.

Circa 2000, Delhi

The action now shifted to an independent house in what is known as Bengali Colony at Delhi. The boy, all grown up and father of an eight year old kid, working with a public sector insurance company but with aspirations to join the private insurers who were yet to open shops in India. At office, the files were examined and handwritten notes were given to typists to type. Exposure to what we know as technology today was limited to issuing Overseas Mediclaim Polcies on the computer. A handful of fields had to be typed and then print command given for the dot matrix printer to come out with the policy. Insurance stamp was affixed and policy was hand delivered on receipt of premium in cash.

Someone gave the news of a gentleman at Friends Colony who was the liaison man for an international insurance company waiting to get the license to start business in India. With great difficulty a Curriculum Vitae was typed and printed as our man set off to meet the liaison man. He wore no suit but definitely bought a tie costing a mere twenty five rupees from the footpath next to the Regal Building and reached his destination. The man asked our hero to sit down and surprisingly said, “I do not wish to see the CV where you would have written only good things about yourself. What I want to know is how will you do business in the new world opening up? Come back in a week’s time with your detailed answer.”

Phew…with great difficulty, our man created a business plan of which he himself  was not very confident of. He reached out to Mr. Liaison who once again did not see the note  and ignored it the way  he had ignored the CV earlier  and instead asked, “Have you read the proposed Agency Regulations issued by IRDA?” “ No Sir”, said our man. “Then take this book with all the regulations and come back with a better answer”. Funny man- won’t see the CV, threw aside the work done and now wants me to study regulations! Anyhow, the work was done and finally submitted. Our man waited for some positive answer which never came for months. Then one evening whilst having dinner with his family the telephone rang. It was our liaison man who after a few pleasantries asked,  “Do you know how to work on Microsoft Excel”? “No Sir, but will learn quickly”.

A laptop was needed and a friend in the IT Department was helpful in allowing our man to take home an unused laptop for a few days. With great difficulty, slowly our man learnt how to use the computer and started taking first baby steps in using the Excel. By the time proficiency was achieved the position in the new company was lost to a more computer savvy candidate.

This was the beginning of computer in the boy’s house. From the borrowed laptop which had a letter key missing, he went on to buy a desktop computer with a printer. A nice computer table also entered the house and a plastic cover was procured to ensure no dust entered the instrument. The cover was fascinating…it had the globe printed on it. While the computer has been changed in our man’s house many times, a portion of the ‘globe’ cover remains intact till this date…tattered slightly but still gives great protection to the key board at home.

Another magical instrument had entered and life was changing but for good or worse only time would tell.

Circa 2002, Mumbai

The boy had moved to Mumbai and was working as a manager in an insurance company. The family had not yet shifted so he would work almost seven days a week. His immediate boss would often tell him, “Buy a mobile phone. It is very useful”. Our man would promptly reply, “Why do you want me to buy a mobile phone when I am in office 24X7? I will not buy any such instrument. If office feels I need one, it should pay for it”.

As luck would have it, the boss was to travel to the USA for a couple of weeks and he wanted our man to take all the official calls and so he requested once more. “You now get good salary, buy yourself a phone. Everyone has it”. “No, I won’t”, was the standard reply. In desperation the boss gave our man his own cell phone, as he had one spare, and asked our man to at least get a sim card. This request he did comply with and so our man was now in possession of a mobile phone even though a second hand one whose battery would not last  for more than a couple of hours. It, however, served Boss’ purpose and all his official calls began to be attended to by the donkey below.

Now the day had come when our man had to shift his family of wife, daughter and a sick mother who had just returned home from hospital after a bout of serious aliment. Since there were too many pieces of luggage to cart around and, in the confusion, our man left his leather satchel in the airport trolley at the gate while loading all the stuff into the cabs. The lost bag contained not only the valuable mobile phone but the house keys and some other important personal documents. No sooner had he and his family reached their residence than they realized that the bag was missing. Fortunately, he had made a duplicate key which his able wife had handy and all were able to enter the house. Our man rushed to the airport, filed a police complaint and then finally got the bag which had everything in it except the handed down Nokia handset. He returned home with a crestfallen face and next day went out to buy the simplest and cheapest of mobile phones available in the market.

The Boss was happy to know his lost phone had initiated someone into a life of 24X7X365 of solitude, drudgery and slavery.

Circa 2025 Mumbai

The boy, now an old man in his sixties, is awaiting delivery of Sita's tax saving eVaahan.

SS

This Land is My Land

On landing at Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport at Guwahati, I was welcomed by a smiling young man called Khan. He would be driving my colleague and me as we went evaluating some primary schools in the interiors of Bongaigaon District as part of the official CSR program. I often enjoy talking to the locals and drivers wherever I travel and soon I discovered that Khan Bhai’s real name was Ghulam Mustafa Khan Mohammad and his forefathers were from Bihar but they had settled down in Assam. My inevitable next question was whether he had faced any issue with NRC or National Register of Citizens where the government wanted to identify the genuine citizens from the illegal immigrants. He smiled and said when he got his papers like driving license and Aadhaar, he had given his shortened name of Khan Mohammad even though his school records showed his full regal name of Ghulam Mustafa Khan Mohammad Khan. Khan Bhai said that the NRC official checking the documents was a good man and accepted his school certificate and cleared his as well as the papers of his other family members. Today all their names figure in the list of citizens. Just then our car reached Kamrup district and Khan Bhai said one of the local sons from this district wasn’t as lucky. 
I knew who he was talking about….Mohammad Sanaullah.

Mohammad Sanaullah had just been released on bail after spending many days in prison including the auspicious day of Eid. Sanaullah had joined the Indian Army in 1987 and served for thirty long years. He was posted twice in J&K and once in Imphal. He was a Kargil War hero and a decorated man. He retired in 2017 as Honorary Lieutenant in the Indian Army and was conferred a medal by the President of India. Sanaullah produced a large number of documents to prove his true identity including voters' list, school leaving certificate and village certificate before the NRC officials but the tribunal was not in a mood to listen and categorized him as an illegal immigrant and was put behind bars. After sometime, his appeal was heard and investigations revealed that the earlier investigating officer in 2008 had made a mistake by mixing the fauji Sanaullah with that of a labourer with the same name who had ‘come into India through a secret route for a better living’.  

Sanaullah suffered ignominy like no one should have, his name tarnished beyond words which no ordinary citizen should have faced leave alone a man who has served the country for thirty years. Despite all this, the man so far has not said one bad word about the establishment nor has he given up his medals of honour received for bravery and service to the nation. He still says with pride, “ I am an Indian and will always remain one.”

Rewinding the Time Machine

Exactly a century ago on 13th April 1919, in the holy city of Amritsar, the British forces led by General Dyer opened fire recklessly on a peaceful crowd gathering at Jalianwala Bagh  after blocking the only exit route from the garden. Hundreds of men, women and children died from the bullet wounds, many more jumped into a well and died, not many survived the barbarism the like of which can only be compared to the holocaust two decades later. The inglorious general returned home to a hero’s welcome. One Indian stood up and wrote a letter giving up his decoration of Knighthood bestowed on him by His Majesty King George-V of England in 1915. The transcript of the letter dated 31^st May 1919 given to Lord Chemsford, the Viceroy of India, is quoted below:

Your Excellency,

The enormity of the measures taken by the Government in the Punjab for quelling some local disturbances has, with a rude shock, revealed to our minds the helplessness of our position as British subjects in India. The disproportionate severity of the punishments inflicted upon the unfortunate people and the methods of carrying them out, we are convinced, are without parallel in the history of civilised governments, barring some conspicuous exceptions, recent and remote. Considering that such treatment has been meted out to a population, disarmed and resourceless, by a power which has the most terribly efficient organisation for destruction of human lives, we must strongly assert that it can claim no political expediency, far less moral justification. The accounts of the insults and sufferings by our brothers in Punjab have trickled through the gagged silence, reaching every corner of India, and the universal agony of indignation roused in the hearts of our people has been ignored by our rulers—possibly congratulating themselves for what they imagine as salutary lessons. This callousness has been praised by most of the Anglo-Indian papers, which have in some cases gone to the brutal length of making fun of our sufferings, without receiving the least check from the same authority—relentlessly careful in smothering every cry of pain and expression of judgement from the organs representing the sufferers. Knowing that our appeals have been in vain and that the passion of vengeance is blinding the nobler vision of statesmanship in our Government, which could so easily afford to be magnanimous as befitting its physical strength and moral tradition, the very least that I can do for my country is to take all consequences upon myself in giving voice to the protest of the millions of my countrymen, surprised into a dumb anguish of terror. The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in the incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part wish to stand, shorn of all special distinctions, by the side of those of my countrymen, who, for their so-called insignificance, are liable to suffer degradation not fit for human beings.

These are the reasons which have painfully compelled me to ask Your Excellency, with due reference and regret, to relieve me of my title of Knighthood, which I had the honour to accept from His Majesty the King at the hands of your predecessor, for whose nobleness of heart I still entertain great admiration.

Yours faithfully,

Rabindranath Tagore

31 May 1919

Tracing Roots

Masterda

Bengal was at the forefront of the Indian independence movement. There was a vast majority who followed Gandhiji’s path of non-violence and non-cooperation, there was also another stream of violent and revolutionary freedom fighters. One such firebrand leader was Surya Sen or popularly called Masterda by his students in the Sripur Village of Chittagong, now in Bangladesh. Masterda and his band of young men planned and executed the most daring raid on Chittagong Armoury and fled with the arms of the British Army in April 1930. After a bitter battle most of these revolutionaries died fighting the colonial forces and some escaped. While the elders were part of the armed revolution, there were many youngsters in their teens who had been initiated into the revolutionary fold by the teachings of Masterda. Among them was a young lad Gopal Krishna who had lost his father when he was no more than five and lived with his mother in Sripur Village. These youngsters were used by the revolutionaries for many an errand including sending small messages from one home to another, carrying stolen weapons hidden in jute wrappings from one place to another. In one such incident, the police caught Gopal and his accomplice carrying two guns and both were arrested. Being a juvenile, he was deported to far-off Burdwan Prison for six months in another part of undivided Bengal.

After release, Gopal returned home. His maternal uncles were well educated and some of them had already moved to Calcutta. They asked him to come over and start life afresh. In  Calcutta with due help from his well-connected uncles, he got himself a new identity and became Gopal Chandra. The uncles knew that Gopal’s past would haunt him in future when he would go out looking for work. The police records would be checked and surely he would not get any job whether in British India or even later in Independent India which was still a distant dream. Years passed and Gopal Chandra completed his college education and moved northwards and got himself a job in Delhi and settled down there. Later, he got married and had three children.

The past was almost forgotten and he would never speak about himself to his children. However, in the mid-1970s, when the Government of India decided to honour freedom fighters, Gopal never stepped forward to claim the award and the pension. He was still in touch with some of his mates from Chittagong, some of whom were now in Calcutta and had claimed both the tamrapatra and the pension. They tried hard to push him to accept the same but he wouldn’t budge. Some years later, the government once again asked the living freedom fighters to claim their pension, his wife nagged him and pushed him to go to the government office where after much scrutiny of all his papers and an affidavit signed by two of his freedom fighter friends from Chittagong before the court, that Gopal Chandra alias Gopal Krishna finally got his freedom fighter’s pension. For the family, more than the pension,  the invitations to Rashtrapati Bhavan for high tea with the President on the eve of Independence Day every year, felicitations at Chattogram Parishad and elsewhere, were a matter of pride. Though he himself would hardly ever go to any of these functions and would peacefully spend the days reading about the same in the newspapers and watching the events on the television set. That was my father, Gopal Chandra Sen.

You don’t need to thump your chest always to prove your love for the country. It is not always that war, freedom struggle and ‘award wapasi’ which prove your nationalism. You can do it in your own way quietly and peacefully as well. Love for the nation must be instilled in all but it need not be forced down the gullet. We can all do our bit for the nation by saving that drop of water which gets wasted every day from a leaking tap, switching off the electricity that goes waste when we leave the room, ensuring we don’t leave behind any muck after a picnic in a park or even by stopping at red lights.

Never said it when you were alive but am saying it now, I am so proud of you Baba.

Happy Father’s Day.

SS