"Gittu"

Part One: Fiction vs. Reality

What makes for a better story? Pure work of fiction or something right out of the hidden, forgotten lives of ordinary people? Judge for yourselves.

My boss, Mr. Vishwajit Pandey is your run off the mill middle-ager with a happy family and two young kids...I never yearned to explore his life beyond the professional but ironically came to know of this fact today when I am leaving my job for good. It was just a passing question which brought to fore an experience so dramatic and chilly that I cannot resist sharing it with anybody who cares to know.

A jolly man, Mr. Pandey, looks like he would never have the guts to walk out and have a chat with a pretty damsel, let alone being extraordinary in any sense of the word; he was an exceptional person for me. The fact that made him exceptional was that he was born and brought up in Srinagar, Kashmir. Heroes they say can be identified by their looks; I disagree. It was a chilly night in February of 1990, since when he has never been to his home town again. The following was the experience that led to it; I am taking the liberty of narrating it in the first person because I heard it from the horse’s mouth (literally if you consider his size) and want you to share the same experience as I did while listening to it.

Part Two: “Gittu”

“Vishwajit! Yaar (mate) lets meet up after you get back from work, we’d go to Lambert Lane, hunt for the new girl, Javed was so crazy about the other day”, called out Satish. Satish was one of your small town machos, well built and a real maverick. He maintained a general store in Karan Nagar, downtown Srinagar. A bull of a man, he would run headfirst into anyone who even suggested bullying him.

Going to Lambert lane was our regular evening exercise. Every evening with itself brought about the most difficult task of our pre-college and college; that of distributing the most beautiful girls as our prospective future targets, let me clarify before your imagination takes you to the other side of decency, for becoming our girlfriends that is. We had a simple funda about it as well. “Woh! You see that pink one their, yeah the one with the red Duppatta, yeah that. That’s, mine.” “Yeah serves you right that pinky with that wonderful nose of hers, Pakoda. Look at my choice, you see that blue on there, yeah, the one in that group of four, isn't she a chobri (isn't she a "bomb").” And so went our evenings hopping around and living the bird’s life that youth brings along with itself.

The late teens had brought that “take on the world’ attitude to us youngsters and we were the "men" of our colony. From beating red and yellow, the boy from the next neighbourhood for hanging around with a girl of our colony to doing all the ‘social work”, helping elders carry heavy packages and cross roads to maintaining the locality temple, we did it all which makes youth take first tiny steps of responsibility to prepare itself for the big one; Life.

I had a four storied house, in Karan nagar, an atypical area of old Srinagar and a typical mixture of the ever-been-together Hindus (essentially Kashmiri Brahmins) and Muslims. The house campus had a small temple and the behind the temple was the silver stream of Kashmir, Jhelum. My father was a contractor and mother was a regular housewife. I was doing (or trying my best at undoing) a B. Sc in pass course from the University of Kashmir and used to work part time as a Medical Representative to earn crucial sources for our Lambert Lane excursions.
I was popularly known as Gittu.


Part Three: The Unwanted Guests

Our pretty lives, as you all would have guessed by now, were obviously affected by the recent exploits of the perpetrators of Azad Kashmir. However, we all knew, and behaved in the manner as well, that the general public of Kashmir was noncommittal to the issue. Incidents of terror were for us the whims of some fanatics who had conceived the impossible notion of a Kashmir separable from India. We simply did not think about it, apart from the times when some individual sorry incident caught our attention and we went about condemning it, all the communities together.

The temple I mentioned earlier, the one that was situated in the campus or the veranda of the string of houses was a derelict old construction. Not very well kept, it was seldom visited by any of us youngsters apart from the odd festival. The only regulars were God-fearing oldies who would “rotate on their own axis”, with hand cross holding their own ears, everyday, asking for deliverance from God as the community kids would looked on, astonished as to why Dadi was behaving like a chimp!

The area from behind the temple right down to the stream of the Jhelum (the whole bank that is) was populated the by the spoil that every city has. Essentially slum-dwellers, these people would work as day laborers or other such wok of drudgery. Thoughts of blocking out the area from the colony crossed the minds of people several times but would be given up due to lack of initiative. We also wanted to do something for the renovation of temple but as school or college kids would never have ample funds to initiate it.

The result was that the slum people slowly but surely were growing up to the colony. With time their belongings started to appear around on and over the roof of the temple like an algae growing and engulfing the landscape. We too as we grew older were growing restless about it. Also some of us had started earning, however meager but still money in our own hands. So the pot was brimming, waiting to explode.

Part Four: Our Promotion To The Post Of Colony Heroes

“Vishwajit, pick that log there, yes, that one; throw it away, right into the river.”, “Satish, the tin shed there, yes that has been causing the most trouble, tear it into halves and it will be easier to carry to the river.”, “Don’t forget that large piece, yes the one they use to close their back door at night. Remove that also, they always keep it over the roof of the temple”.

One early morning in early 1989, the temple was rescued thus, with the entire “stray” stuff thrown into the Jhelum and the area around the temple cleared. A wall was constructed overnight to block the whole area and thus cutting off all the contact between the refuse of the society and us.

We did not do it as a conscious response to an encroachment by Muslims against Hindus. They did not perceive it as a conscious response of Hindus to an act by Muslims. It was a mere coincidence that they happened to be one and we the other. It was not done to prevent “a” Temple as a place of religious importance. It was done to prevent “the” temple to insist the ownership over one’s property, the temple becoming merely a rout to it. But each one of us knew that there was an undercurrent of this feeling. We simply rejected it or perhaps did not think of it as it was never shown to us.

We were happy after the incident; the mavericks of the colony; the torch-bearers. The young-guns, on whose shoulders rests the responsibility of preventing the colony of such impending disasters as lack of civic facilities, overflowing drainage or as I mentioned earlier the prevention of a colony girl from unruly pursuits of neighborhood boys. The collars went up in a flash and we were sure the young girls looked up to us as their heros. The colony uncles and aunties would remain happy and some of them even silently hated us for our “guts”. We relished it both ways.

Part Five: “Jisko Kasmir me Rehna Hoga, Alah-o-Akbar Kehna Hoga”

The winters of Kashmir, no matter however beautiful they look on TV, wreck havoc and affect the daily lives of Kashmiris severely. While almost everything visible to the eye in good old summers almost unrelentingly goes out of sight under a ton (sometimes literally) of pearly white snow, the peoples of Kashmir strive to live through it with their everlasting zest for life. The Dal is frozen. But that does not matter to the mavericks of Srinagar. The sons of Dal, who take it upon themselves to challenge the worst fears of the lake and the sizzling chilly waters (and I am talking about summers here) to cross the Dal for the annual Dal-cross swimming championship, challenge the strength of the frozen Dal as well; they ride across the lake, ON THEIR BIKES! To win the Dal-cross indeed, but in a different manner all together. Srinagar is heaven in not just the sense that people of the whole world have proclaimed it; the physical beauty. It is lot more of a heaven because of that one element which makes the Kashmiris toil through the unbearable winters. The desire to Live!

Though some timid people like me and the government of Kashmir would rather run away from the adventures of Srinagar to the comfort of Jammu, and so was the schedule for my family every year. We would, every winter, go to our winter house in Jammu. This year, though, was different. It was January of 1990. I had a new-found job, the mark of my growing into a responsible young man from a college-brat, the power that enabled me and my friends to carry out the temple rescue the year before. The job changed the situation for me. I had to stay back. Perhaps, it was my first independent holiday; at home. I would work my day through and eat in the evenings at a friend’s place. Life was good.

The insurgency in Kashmir hand increased a lot over the period of last one year. Common people from our surrounding areas were becoming aware of the antagonism prevalent in the air. We could not discuss it as freely as we used to with our Muslim friends. But still that one crucial link, the open public support, was missing, in the absence of which militants were making little impact.

I woke up to distant chants if slogans and sounds of drums. The kind of sounds that run a chill through your spine. The sounds of a mob moving and chanting like a single headed monster with no objective but destruction, with no logic but just the same crude kind of passion with which a passion-struck bull chases cows. The animus of a mob where individuality is diluted and the heard and the moment guides your energies. It was late night on January 20th, 1990.

“JISKO KASHMIR ME REHNA HOGA, ALAH-O-AKBAR KEHNA HOGA”, “ASIGASI KASHEER BATAV ROS TA BATNIV SAAN (we want Kashmir without the Pandits but with the Panditayans-females)”….rose the chants of the monster. The first public display of people’s support to the quest for Azad Kashmir. No one in the crowd would have been able to give one logical reason for the demand. How could they? What does a child, eight years of age, Not one in the whole would have accepted the same chants against their community. They demanded equality and chose the path of treating their fellowmen with inequality to achieve it. It was crude, dirty, un-Kashmiri.

You may call me a coward, but I admit I was afraid that night. The Muslims of our colony did not participate in the procession. They also appeased us calling it only a procession. But I knew that night standing there, witnessing, the worst trauma of my whole life. It was not the fear for my life. It was the end of Kashmir-heaven on earth, that I was seeing that night standing there cowering in a forlorn corner beyond the sight of the monster. The zest to kill had won.

Part Six: The Act of Bravery?

“Where is Satish? Tell him to come outside and meet us. We have to settle some account.” It was a young chap of eighteen who was shouting from outside Satish’s house. He used to live in the slums behind our temple until recently. But over the last few weeks he had not been seen often. “Satish Bhayia has gone out of town”, explained Satish’s sister as Satish, in spite of his utmost attempts, heard the conversation from in side his room which he was confined to for the last two days, since the day of the procession that is. “Tell him to come and meet us if he is a man. Tell him his days of heroics have ended, the coward, and we are the people who rule now”…… “What did you say you Kafir, you bloody coward”, before anybody realized and thus restrain, Satish stormed out of the house and the Bull, ran headfirst into the “Kafir”.

They say Satish fought till the end. Even as he was falling he tried to grab hold of a brick and throw it at the head of the Kafir. But it is difficult to do, particularly when you have been shot twelve times, at point blank range, off an AK 47.

It was the third week since the incident. Unlike the winter schedule when we shift down to the ground floor due to cold and discomfort, I had moved right to the top. Fear was greater inspiration that winter. My parents, being in Jammu had not known of the incident with Satish, perhaps not.

The evening of February 21st, 1990, I had left for my evening meals to the friend’s house and was beginning to forget the series of unfortunate events. I don’t know how it feels to come back to your home and find a corpse in your bedroom. It must be terrifying. But I wonder if people know the experience of something a lot more grotesque, walking home to your own corpse. When I walked back to my house that night I came home to a sign at our house’s door, as if it were waiting there for me welcoming me from a long journey to a sudden realization. It read: “May we please request you to forgo your actions, which are becoming a discomfort to us or maybe you would meet the same fate as Satish.” I locked myself into the second floor of my house, out of reach of my unknown nemesis that was waiting to hunt me down, perhaps on the top floor or was on his way to it, entering my house that very moment. I was an animal ready to flee or bite at the sight of slightest movement.

I fled.

The definition of fear is so supple that you can only surmise various degrees of it when you come across one. The actions which you yourselves might have considered utterly foolish before then become an act of safety. I was alone at the house. This was my introduction to the highest of physical fears, that of danger to one’s life. One of the basest feelings common to both the animals and humans is the survival instinct. The difference is, for animals it is an act of no deliberation. It comes naturally to them. For Satish it was a matter of choice, like every other human being.
The definition of bravery too is supple. I realized this fact then. For Satish, bravery was to walk out and face the challenger who dared to challenge his manliness. I respect him for that. But that day I realized also, the amount of bravery it takes to run away. The bravery it takes for a man to forgo “his” manliness, when he thinks of his family-The parents who have brought him up with desires and expectations, the mother for whom, the son is the extract of every ounce of effort she put into making of a young man, the father who sees in his son, an image of his own self. Satish’s bravery was because he sacrificed his life. I had to sacrifice my self-respect. Which one’s a greater sacrifice is for you to decide.

Part Seven: The Reality That Fiction Cannot Conceive

As Mr. Pandey works away on his laptop, I realize the various roles he has been playing; forty year old father, a responsible son and most importantly a book. A book of memories that he has preserved over his quest to remain attached to his homeland.
I wonder only one thing. Can fiction think of such a reality?

After-word

The night Mr. Pandey fled, he was almost shot down by an armed guard. The whole of Srinagar witnessed a curfew for months at a stretch. He could not carry even a pair of clothes to his parents in Jammu. If it were not for an educated army Major he might not even have been able to reach the taxi-stand, some eleven kilometers from his house. All that can be said is that he was destined to survive. He drove overnight to reach Jammu in the morning. His instructions to the driver were simple: “Take me beyond the Tunnel (Jawahar tunnel) please, as soon as possible.” His parents were under the impression that he had come since he felt bored and they did not realize until one day accidentally in the market, his mother was informed by some of his Muslim friends about the whole incident. She fainted.
Today at forty, he is forbidden to go to Kashmir. The insurgency might be dying out, the fears survive.
Ashish Thakur

The Greener Grass

“The monsoon in Kerala evokes no feeling whatsoever in the locals’ hearts. For the people of Kerala the monsoons are as much a part of their lives as the overgrowing, at times even overbearing, greens. The only difference is that the umbrellas which had to deal with the heat of summer get to quench their thirst as the first raindrops pour in…” So went the letter from Ajoy, a really good friend who had relocated to Kerala on a corporate assignment.

That makes me muse. Rajasthan is a land of valor. It is represented not only in the countless fortresses and legends that run through the pages of history, but the mere existence of people there. Take a walk through any village of the state and the ever-smiling, welcoming faces of the people of Rajasthan would not so much as give you a hint of their daily stories. That old woman there yeah, the one with that funny nose piercing, she walks 15 miles, sometimes with no footwear, everyday to gather that priceless one pitcher-full of water. Only so she could feed her family of twelve and half-satiate the thirsty husband who’s toiling through the boorish earth which refuses to respond. Her walk, the husband’s efforts to derive respect out of a dead land, the child’s silent even peaceful wait, everything justifies the proud Turban (Safa) the eldest member of the family adorns on his head. His generation is fighting…true to the spirit of Rajasthan. I wonder why the world is so full of differences. What could possibly bother a land of such amazing greenery? Life comes easy for some people.

“...you know Avish (that’s me) it is amazing to see how much the smiling faces of funny young men and their half raised lungees conceal about their real lives. Every morning the Fishermen would venture out into the open ocean, their families praying not for their lives but for a good catch, that would feed the whole community after all. Death is a part of their lives, an accepted truth which may or may not happen; life is what they are concerned with. Some day when one of the boats would go missing, the families don’t stop they carry on. The boats would again venture out into oblivion…

The urgent brisk walk, that look of perpetual purposefulness, that slight rhythmic nod of the head to show gratitude, everything in return of the hardships they get. They get life easily there in Rajasthan mate…

With Love
Ajoy”

The Disappearing "Lifafa"

He began the evening with "Sason ki zaroorat hai jaise..." And as if that let loose the 90's man in him. Memories came gushing in with every note he changed..."Ai kaash kahin aisa hota...ki do dil hote seene me...", "Tujhe dekha to yeh jaana sanam....", "Dheere dheere pyaar ko badhana hai...had se guzar jaana hai...", and so on. Sitting in a forlorn restaurant of Chandigarh listening to a fantastic voice singing Hindi songs accompanied by the traditional "orchestra" style banding...was a welcome change from the cacophony of a Mumbai Sports Bars. But much more than that they were a reminder of the glorious past the orchestra enjoyed as an inseparable part of Indian marriages. And in fact how well these marriages reflected the changes our society underwent…or the ones it didn’t.

During our early years North Indian marriages, were typically accompanied by an Orchestra playing on stage beside the massive Red Thrones of the bride and the groom. I would scramble up onto the stage dancing along with the other kids on similar songs showcasing my talents to the world (I was 5 ...OK!! Well...maybe 10.) ...it was a tradition then wasn't it..your parents would hi-hello the other parents while whining kids would suck on their thumbs hiding in their mothers' Sarees and us cool kids were up there...in the lime light. The marriages would begin with parents running into people who you had no clue were, people you have never seen before, pulling at your cheek, kissing you on the forehead and noting how you had grown chubbier since the last time they saw you before "Mom" would correct them...."...arey he is Montu my sister's son....". Ashu is dancing up there on the stage!!"

With laughter all around, the procession would then move towards the fast food stalls. Scanning through the stalls like professional wine-tasters sharing notes on the sourness of Pani-puri and chaat and how they were far better at the Khannas' wedding, people would eat enough to last them an year's hibernation. "Montu's" expert eyes would by now have noticed the ice-cream stall and like a master-spy he would have sneaked away without leaving so much as a hint to mausi as to where he was. The food would however soon follow and Dahi-badas, Kaju Katlis were the show-stealers then with people loading themselves up until the next marriage season. Then would come the ubiquitous "Lifafa", an envelope filled with cash, slipping expertly into the groom's hand and then to the kid standing beside the groom and then to the groom's mother (such was the talent of our fathers at this particular act that in New York restaurants, they could earn a living as "Tippers" helping neophytes tip the restaurant staff for getting them seats) . The groom's mother would then record it in annals of their memory (the same aunty who confused Montu to be you)...the exact same amount would be duly returned to you when a marriage in your family occurred and so the chain would go on...the more money you paid on that one day, the closer relative you were deemed to be..."Hmm...500/-...must be a chacha - mama"....Smarter people however knew exactly same amount was going to return to them soon...they had decoded the "Lifafa" far better than miserly wives pushing their husbands to put in 25/- bucks every time.

The marriage reception was (and has been) the playground of our favorite sport. "Who's got bigger". The Fielding Side (or the couple's families) would leave no stone unturned to ensure the incumbent batsmen felt the awe. The location (vast lush gardens or pool-sides of posh hotels), the extensive menu and most of all the number of "Stalls" were definite markers of the strength of the fielding side. The batsmen meanwhile also came well prepared...women sported (apart from their own belongings) their cousin's best Saree and neighbour's gold bangles along with a million other trinkets to add to their batting form. While husbands took out that precious little bottle of perfume (or scent) and spray it sparingly (even lovingly) on their collars and cuffs and bathe their kerchiefs.

But in a few years this would change drastically. The first in the series was the Chow-mean generation. Suddenly the Indainzed dish became the litmus test of a successful marriage. "Chow-mean nahin hain...?", asked the drooling nasty neighbour with menace in her eyes.. " Haanji..chow-mean to nahin hai...par hame to bas bachchi acchi chahiye thi...aur koi demand hamne nahin ki!!" would come the reply of the poor father of the groom...he had been subjected to the worst torture ever....his sone was getting married without chow-mean!

But a poor dish was not able to sustain the rich people trying to make a mark in every marriage possible. Sooraj Barjatiya pounced on the opportunity and came up with a mariage salvagin masterpiece. Suddenly every marriage became more about the groom's shoes rather than the poor guy himself. From being a primarily Hindi-speaking belt phenomenon, shoes-stealing became the national rage. All of a sudden, Punjabis, Sindhis, Marathis...everyone seemed to be running behind an obscure pair of rented shoes! Guys would defend their brother's / friend's / neighbour's / friend's brother's /or practically everyone's shoes hoping someday Madhuri would come along looking for...."ahem...ahem"...shoes.

Sooraj immidetly knew he had hit a jackpot, the new "formula" for bollywood! The last of HAHK hadn't even died that in came in 2000 another of his Torch-bearers in form of Hum Saath Saath Hain. And it was turn for us kids to pass expert comments on snacks while the adults danced around trying to introduce the new family members to the bride!...That beacon has held fort for the Barjatyas for some time now...I am sure he has sensed the need for another one of those show-stealing marriage-enlighteners...and we will have an all new avenues to play "who's got bigger"!

But the truth is the match (the function) here was mere culmination of a series of mind games and off the field tactics. It would all begin with invitations.

The invitation card itself was like the Brahmastra of the whole affair. The kill-all solution. In earlier days cards would fashion a jamboree of Indian Gods as the protagonists with big pictures on the front, back, overleaf, inside, envelope and covering every available inch of the limelight. The second fiddle were all the fathers, mother, grand-fathers, grand-mothers and a couple of Family-guru's thrown in for good measure. Finally cowering in some obscure corner would be the name of the groom and the bride.

But soon things changed here too. Turned out the "special relatives" weren't satisfied with the courtesy phone call and exclusive Barat invite. They wanted in on the card too...after all the family guru was there as well! So came the addendum to the card. The groom and the bride would further reduce in font to make space for two conspicuous lists. One was "Aapke darshan ke mahtvakankshi" (Desirous of having you at the function or something to the effect) list. All the uncles and aunties and brothers and sisters would be fitted in here. And then on the opposite side, for the balacing act came the RSVP list...and for some obscure reason I have even seen the groom's business partners' names adorn this one. Its not as if there was a standard however as to which list belongs to whom...some cards fit in the children into one and adults into others..while some make the division based on men and women...

The Gods soon lost their top spot as loving messages and designing effects took away the remaining space. Now they generally peep from a small portrait on the envelope and guard the couple's names in small ikon avtars! To top it up...a most recent deft touch has occupied the final inch left at the bottom of the page. "Mele mama ki shaadi me jalul jalul aana!" or "Please come to my XYZ's marriage" in child lingo. (Invitaion cards in South Indian villages in fact are even more interesting. I was invited once with a card fashioning two famous south-Indian actors flashing their big hearty smiles from the front....but thats another story.... J )

Then came the innovation generation. Beginning with a folded paper sheet regular rectangle with all things neatly printed, cards came easy to fathom. You open them round the middle and there it was...all the information you need. But then they started dressing up. Initially merely cosmetic changes were added like a string of silk or a lace informing you where exactly the middle of the two-page card was. Then as if to add to the enigma, a couple of butter-papered pages were added. Sizes changed and shapes became weirder. People started sending cards made of cloth, polythene. But for me the real jolt came when, I was summoned by a Maharaja. On returning home from college one day I found a red scroll asking me to “grace the holy union of two souls (souls of two VERY rich people let me assure you)”. I sincerely thought that was it. The rich had achieved the Moksha (or the orgasm) as far as invitation cards were concerned! Little did I know that along the way was the “Power-shift”? It had been only a few weeks after my post-graduation that the rumors of a marital-website of a certain duo from b-school started doing the rounds…and then…there was another…and another, asking you to drop comments, look at photographs…even specifying present requests that the happy couple would appreciate! Really…tech-savvy MBA grads…are the reigning champions of Marital Invitaions.

It's Just Dadar

It's Just Dadar.

A day spent at Dadar Suburban Railway Station and you begin to question yourself..."Just how important getting on to a local train can be??". People start running alongside the train as soon as it enters the station. The adventurers on the foot board swing sideways, with less than half of one foot still on the train, holding the nearest window grill with one hand and the water-conduit on top of the entrances with the other, to allow people getting off and on. Within milliseconds of the train stopping a hoard of people just gush in irrespective of whether the alighters have finished or not...and in that small instance a train that looked way too full for any more people to put even a foot in somehow fits in as many more! (This whole exercise would also be accompanied by a particularly vicious and scary sound as if a million hoofed animals were scrambling for their lives). Incredible.

One really can put some logic to the fact that people really are desperate. To get back home in time in Mumbai where commute kills possibly all the time one could have for oneself, their kids, families...in a city where everyone is scrambling to make ends meet...all this mad rush, it is faintly understandable. But the point is...the madness is not just limited those few hours when everyone is scrambling home. Most any time of the day, irrespective of the fact that trains move fairly frequently and most of them are quite empty so as to accomodate all and many more of the commuters during those off hours...come Dadar and the sound of hoofs is still there and you'd still see the mad rush. People would start running alongside the train and hop on to it as if this was the last train of their lives! People would still rush to cross the railway-tracks to catch that one local lest they become 3 minutes late!

Maybe it's really a matter of habit. Its just the way we are expected to behave, in a given set of circumstances. Talk about Indian bad habits and we HAVE to become defensive. Praise the beauty of a city / country in fornt of us we HAVE to go "Oh but India / my city has better...". Come Dadar...we HAVE to get on, on the train first...even if doesn't really matter.

It's just Dadar.

Walk when you talk...

“No papa!! Don’t turn it on…the plane hasn’t stopped yet”. “Arey it’s alright…the phone needs to be turned off because it disturbs pilots’ communication…now we have landed…now who needs communication!!”, “No papa…they said not until the seat belt sign is turned off…and please don’t get up…the plane hasn’t stopped!!” and so went the conversation when I recently landed in Jaipur, a father trying to convince his 10 year daughter that it was okay to break rules because they knew better than a zillion experts who made them. In another instance at Chennai a suited-booted thirty year old snapped out his phone and chatted away to glory in the middle of the aisle completely ignorant of a hoard of people standing behind him not able to walk outside the plane. When pointed out his response was: “Are you new to India??”

When finally Police officials started acting on people using mobile phones while driving, we started a new trick…to hide the phone below the steering wheel as soon as we spotted one of those Khaki clads and then cheerily carrying on with the conversation, or to fix the telephones inside the helmet and give people driving around us the weird impression that we were speaking to them. “They are watching you”…went the PVR ad…“Let them watch” went we, and while the hero’s mother is dying on the screen a Gujju bhai sitting next to you, invariably is discussing Reliance’s fortunes on the stock market. Hutch should be made our national cell-phone operator…at least dogs aren’t allowed inside theatres or planes!

How is it that the simple logic of a 10 year old could comprehend a simple instruction so easily when a grown buffoon of a father refuses to! Who do we think we are fooling by hiding our cell-phones while driving…do you really think it does not affect your driving? Next time look around and see if someone is driving weird around you…9 out of 10 times it’s someone on a phone (except for Bombay…there it’s just the way they drive). And dude if your turning on the cell-phone was really so crucial as soon as you land your last name would have been Tata and you wouldn’t be flying coach (sorry sorry...the "Cattle Class"), so listen to the girl!!

"Chaliye sahab...aapko aaj chai pilate hain..."

“Bag!! My bag!! Where’s my second bag!!”

The harried looking Amby driver looked in the rear view mirror and asked in a tone which could mark his origins out in a zillion. “Ka hua sahib….ARE KA HUA”!!

I’d arrived on an overnight train in Patna and still half asleep caught a cab to my hotel.

“Mera bag kahan hai??”…”Are yeh kya rakha hai aage…itna bada”, he shot back. “Not this baba!! Woh chhota wala…”, “Hum ko to ek hi bag diye the aap sahib….hum nahin karenge aisa, humko to roj station pe hi rehna hai…”, he said almost pleadingly…the years on his face growing more pronounced. Suddenly he was looking guilty; as if it was his fault somehow, that I had lost my bag.

“Train!! Train me reh gaya hai!! Who agla station hai na…wahan chalo….jahan train jaati hai!!!” My laptop, blackberry and some very important papers had already started making me sweat in spite of the early winter chill of the morning. “Aree kaun sa station…kaun sa gaadi se aayein hai aap?? Reservation to tha na…!!? Dekhiye ghabrayiye nahin…mil jayega”…he said sounding more worried than I was!!

While I had gone completely numb, he made the decision for me and turned back towards the station. His ancestral Amby putting all her heart into the 43 kmph we managed. Danapur express it seemed went two further stations and if I went to CRPF and was in reservation dabba, I’d get my bag…probably, he assured me.

As soon as we entered the driveway, we noticed that the train hadn’t yet left the station, and I jumped out of the moving car, to start running towards the train, only to find the coach in which I was traveling locked when I reached the train. The attendant opened the doors as I rushed in shouting absently “mera bag…bag reh gaya hai mera!!”, “Kahan….kaun sa seat number??” His partner was wrapping up the blankets and broke into that same apologetic tone as the taxi driver. “Yeh sab chor ke kahan jayenge sahib…hamare liye yeh zaroori hai…humne nahin liya aapka bag…”, he said pointing towards the heap of linen and blankets. The same pleading look came to both their faces, as if they were responsible for the whole mishap. Meanwhile I let out a loud cry, because I had located the small red bag lying under one of the berths.

The driver and 5 other people who had found a conversation topic beside the daily news broke into a toothy grin as I walked in carrying the red on my shoulder. “Hum dekha, bhaga ke le ja rahein the wo Kotwali ke saamne se 100 ka speed pe…hum bola ee bhaiyan ko ka hua…dhuriya udaye chale ja rahe hain…”, one of them was saying... “aree woh bag rah gaya than a bhaiya ka”, the hero of the day responded as the knight restarted his Ambassador Classic Isuzu engine.

As I was sitting in the car, I pondered over this. Everyone I met during the past 1 hour seemed have assumed I was going to blame them for losing my bag. They were suddenly defensive, apologetic, even pleading in the manner they tried to assure me that they had no role to play in it. Why?

Bihar enjoys a terrible image amongst us. For an Indian living elsewhere, it is a state of miscreants, Gundas, Lalus and a state of anarchy. Bimaaru rajya. The state that took away the livelihood of all Marathis according to Raj His Highly Moronic-ness Thackrey. The state where Christian missionaries are murdered. The state where caste system is at its worst. The state where trains are looted. The state where you do not want to drive through at night because…hey….its Bihar.

The apology in those people’s eyes…it was the look in the eyes of an abandoned child who is cowering in the corner, scared. A child who has been pushed to the wall, by the bullies: this country which has all but forgotten about it except for in its jokes or for years, has tagged it as a blot on its name. Its own leaders, who robbed the state as its people died of hunger. Somehow, it felt, that those people had come to accept it. That it really was their fault, this image…that they really were the corrupt, thieving, uncivilized lot we make them out to be.

“Chaliye sahib…aapko chai pilate hain mast…sara tension door ho jayega…”, cooed my driver as he guided me to a hidden tea stall where lots of cowering children were laughing out loud enjoying a hot cup of morning tea.

"Rang Rangeela Parjatantar"

To the fancy MBAs,

Dear Sir,

My name is Gajendar Kumar. I own 15 different companies in various parts of the country and don’t do about 15 different businesses. I own Jaipur Textiles, and we are supposed to be exporting traditional handicraft fabrics around the world. The business model is simple. I manufacture something for Rs 10, bill it at Rs. 500. Since the government of India and Rajasthan give an “allowance” of 20% of billing, I get a “push-back” of Rs. 100 on each unit I export. The money I receive from the importers of-course is diverted to make payments for other stuff they have imported, from my other friends here. Since my friends under-bill their goods by as much as 90%, they need to receive the payment somehow. Since Traditional Garments are tax-free I don’t pay taxes of any kinds, and divert the money to these people who would have to pay taxes otherwise. Some years ago I was manufacturing pig-iron furniture because the push-back in those was 100%. Alas, my margins have dried up…and I have to do with a BMW 7 series instead of the Maybach always dreamt of.

But soon I think I will get the opportunity. You see I have started other businesses I’ll not do. For example I have started buying the wheat that the government is importing in the name of trying to prevent inflation. Those fancy Business Worlds say inflation goes up because the government support prices have gone up…pah! Sometimes I wonder if the Economics they studied was based on real world at all! Its I who keep the prices up, see. I bid for huge quantities of stocks from the government agencies. But since the obligation of actually lifting the stock from government storage houses is not really expensive, we never pick up the stocks. Which means government can’t now sell this into open market (Cause technically I won the tender and now own it) and I will not pick it from their storage. The market demand would go up, the supply not so much. Voila!! Inflation and great margins! The penalty for not picking up the stock for months is after all only minimal…I can manage that from my 300% profit. After all our Agriculture Minister, it is rumored, owns multiple sugar mills and several such. I wonder if he is such a stupid businessman to ruin his own profits. Our President's family has a history of Bank Fraud (never proved I am guessing). I am merely an 8th fail farmer who got up at the right moment.

I also am the Sarpanch of Khetarwas, a small village where my fathers were landlords, Meenas. My father was the second generation of IAS officers (oh its easy see...they were from the SC community). My third business is here. The Government gave us rulers our right-full by launching the multi-thousand crores worth National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. My village has 300 citizens, and I am paying the money to 3000!! :D See how simple, and know what these people do…na, they do not construct roads or sewage or schools. We ask them to construct boundary walls around the village and then ask them to break them down. Perpetual work!

Now I may go on…on how I was one of many people who conspired to take the Commonwealth budget from 900 crores to 11000 crores, or how I got bought a land worth 400 crores for just 30 lakhs or how the total amount of tax I have paid, including the government push is negative multi-crores. But what’s the point? Instead I will just tell you what my Australian Media agency says best describes you…
You Dumbass.

Disclaimer: All the situations given above have absolutely no reference to anyone living or dead or any kind of truth, all resemblance is purely coincidental. If they had…wouldn’t we be doing something about it.
More Disclaimer: I am not refering to any caste to be pejorative about it. I think most people within these castes should perhaps do an introspection as to what the reservation system has become. By the way you are all invited to drink water from the same well as I do.