Centuries ago; I take you so far back in history, that terms like Prime Minister and Democracy were not even coined, and being called a ‘King’ was not yet a matter of shame.
Kingdoms were won on the dint of the sharp edge of a sword and lost due to it. There was, in those days, no percentage, into manipulating a small section of the population, to press a particular button on inscrutable EVMS. That was the ultimate smart move, but it came later, much later.
Off course, even in those forgotten eras, some men were born smarter, and thus more ambitious then their brethren. Treachery, deviousness, and opportunism were valid currencies then, as today.
But what worried the ‘kings’ of those times, was their fate, once their sinews weakened. It was similar to that of the forsaken leader of a pack of wolves. No, you were not allowed to retire in peace, write your memoirs, and enjoy your loot.
They were simpler times, If and when you became the king life became a bed of soft bodies for you. The best of food, cloth, and women were yours for taking. Even the most superior of men bowed and scraped before you. But the route from the palace to the cremation ground was short and brutal .Your best buddies were ever ready to give a shoulder to your hearse.
The second-in-commands were forever spreading the seeds of mutiny amongst the ranks. The question asked was, “Why him? What’s so special about him?” No matter how much the king would distribute his goodies amongst these disgruntled lieutenants, they were never satisfied. They wanted more, they wanted all.
To desire your Boss’s chair, as well as his women, is an ancient desire of all men. You get one and you literally go one up on him.
Then one amongst the fraternity of kings chanced upon a God man. The man of God, was frailer of the body but glib with his tongue and a great actor, a thespian. He owned no sword. But still earned a rich living. He scared and bamboozled his followers into doing his bidding; else they would face the wrath of an all powerful, esoteric being. The best part was that the older he would grow the more followers he would garner.
His kingdom was must more permanent than the king’s.
Bingo! The two got together. The man with the muscles and the man with the scriptures. In return of a much more cushier life, to be spent in state sponsored temples, churches and monasteries, by what ever names called, the so called priests were told to coach the population about the reason of the king being the king .
God had willed it so!
Theories were coined and preprated. Cometh the populace cometh the theory. The king had the divine right to rule. It was his ‘karma’ from earlier births, when he had led the life of austerity and goodness. His progeny also had the same right. In return of ‘ governance’ he was entitled to take what he wanted, who he wanted. To rebel against the king was to rebel against the ALMIGHTY.
The God men worked like the modern day marketing and advertising Gurus, who take an arm and a leg as their fee, and in return give zilch as a real product .But they know how to sell your product. Thus they created a marketing strategy called religion and sold GOD! Forever.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Wings!
This one has been selected by “Women Era” group for publication. Have Received Rs.600.00.for it. See how profitable being a writer is. In the past few years I must have earned total sum of Ten thousand Rupees for writing.Princely.
Wings!
Five A.M. tiptoed in and gently shook me awake. Bleary eyed and groggy, I sat up on a much used, worn out, mat. That, valiant if threadbare, piece of cloth, had tried all night, to cushion my aching body from the unforgiving embrace of a dusty, ruthlessly hard, concrete floor.
I looked around and tried my best to recall where I was. I could not.
I could see, that I was in a huge hall. It was illuminated by single, naked, electric bulb. If anything, it served to increase the eeriness of the place, as it peeked down at us from the roof. Us? I was not alone. A little distance from me, a lot of bodies were asleep, in small huddles. Each was enveloped by a sleep so thick, that only deep exhaustion could have induced it.
The place was also infested with cockroaches and similarly eeky, slithery beings. I felt one wriggle up my leg, under my pajamas. My hand came down on it, hard; ending its journey on this planet. It’s, crushed, lifeless, body tumbled down to the floor.
Where I was, came to me in a trice!
I stood up and began tiptoeing amongst the sleeping lot, careful not to wake them up. I was looking the reason of me being where I was.
I found him. He was sleeping a little distance away, with his friends. I tiptoed back to my place.
If, even as early as a week ago, any body had told me, that I would have to leave the Five Star (wife, running water, television, cars, air-conditioning etc) lifestyle available to an average, middle class Indian male (none of these, except wives in plenty, was available even to monarchs such as Akbar The Great) and find myself, in this dilapidated place, more than sixteen hundred miles from home, I would have laughed at his face.
If he had still persisted and predicted that all this would happen due to the younger of my two children, I would have called him a fantastically fertile soothsayer. Simply, because, the boy in question was still a few months shy of his tenth birthday; too young, to drive me either bankrupt or to involve me in a crime scam.
Yet, he would have been absolutely right!.
At the present moment, however, there were some urgent things to attend to, like, answering the call of nature. Quietly, so as not to wake up any body else, I picked up my toiletries and clothes, and negotiated a path through a spate of bodies lying on the floor. I had to beat them to the toilets. Last night I had counted. There were only four such cubicles and my inmates easily numbered a few over sixty.
Once they got up, the queue would be a mile long.
After relieving my self on an ‘Indian style’ lavatory (a very uncomfortable posture for one not used to using it), I moved to the adjoining bathroom. Along with the door, its light bulb too was missing.
But there was no one around to admire my body beautiful, so I stripped myself and groped in the dark for the taps. Thankfully, the water, when it hit me, was refreshingly cool. I sat down under the steady stream, to enjoy, what seemed at that moment, like a major luxury. My eyelids sheathed my eyes, allowing my mind to hark back to the recent past.
It all did start some seven-eight-nine days ago. I was a bit a late that evening, and the three people in my life were awaiting me on the dinner table. One could cut it with a knife, so thick was the buzz around them. Naturally I panicked.
I rushed to only refuge available to a married father in his home; the washroom. I needed time to think. As I splashed some water on my face, I also started ticking off the list of things which the house hold did not need. Naturally, they were on their “must buy” list.
I cursed the television and the ad agencies.
I could not, however, stay in the bathroom all night. I had to look up at myself in the mirror. What was I worried about? Wasn’t I the MAN, the lord and the master of this house? I was. I mean at least on paper, I was. But that is where the problem lay. Being the man of the house is no longer an advantageous portfolio to hold.
But I am a fighter. Yes sir, I am. Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, I practiced the foulest looking frown that my visage could support and stepped out.
It had the desired effect. They went deadpan as soon as I joined them; that is, if you call smiling from ear to ear being deadpan. And I had them worried, as worried as a tigress and her cubs would be, as they saw dinner approaching them.
I decided to grab the feminine bull by her horns. Laconically I pulled a chair out and sat down. Leaning back on it, I raised my left eyebrow, stylish like, like I have seen the Big Bee do in countless flicks, and in my gravest and deepest baritone, asked, “Well?”
It plunged my daughter into spasms of giggles. “Well…?!” I repeated, this time a trifle sheepishly, even a bit plaintively.
“Limbdiiii!” whooped, Achyut, my younger one, fairly knocking his chair back, as he jumped to his feet and threw his small arms in the air.
A week later, soaked to skin in that small, door less washroom, I could not help smiling, as I recalled his obvious joy.
Limbdi! No it is neither a war cry nor a new expletive; actually it’s a small town, situated bang on N.H 8A.It is midway between Ahmdabad and Rajkot. We, my son, his team of sixty odd, and I, were on our way to this tiny blip on the cluttered geographical map of Gujarat.
All of us had reached Ahmdabad last evening, after a thirty-six hour journey from our home town. The chosen mode of transport had been a second-class bogey of an Indian Railways’ train.I wanted AC two tier at least if not a flight. Was overruled. Son dearest had insisted on, ‘traveling with the team.’
The ‘team’ would compete in various age groups (of both genders) in a national tournament of that new, in-fashion four-letter word of English language, ‘Yoga’.
However, seven days ago, I had not capitulated easily on the dinner table. No Sir! “How can we send you alone?” I had wondered. “Come on Papa…I am nine…!!” “Yes you are nine, sweetheart…nine! And I do not even know where of all the places is this godforsaken Limbdi?”
I had looked at the wife for support, she just looked back, wordless, So I said,” I did not know they held tournaments for… for…for yoga? That too Nationals?? And so far off …”
Thankfully, I bit my tongue off before I blurted, “How…Why did they pick you?!” Instead, I looked down at the itinerary Achyut had handed me, “Return…return after… ten.. TEN ! days!!” I glanced at the wife again. She simply rolled her eyes. I paused. There had to be something more.
What?
An invisible signal passed between son and mom, and Achyut leaned towards me, to put the gold medal he had been hiding under the table, around my unsuspecting neck. Amazed, I looked down at it and then at the certificate that his elder sister pressed into my hand.
It informed me that Achyut Mehra had won the first place in our state’s interschool yoga tournament!
I was floored.
But was still too scared to let him go. He did not even have an inkling that a life other than the Seven Star (add two parents and a doting elder sister, to my Five) one, he knew, existed. No, I could not send him. Did he know he would have to carry his own bags? And he was so fussy about the food he ate.
He went off to his bed, in tears. His equally distraught sister followed. Alone, the wife too admitted that she was torn between letting him go and the insecurity of sending him, so far away, with unknown people. No one from his school was accompanying him. We sat on the table, staring at the food. There was no appetite left.
Later, I tiptoed to their room and peeked, he was sleeping, snuggled against his sister. Gently, I ruffled his hair. He sighed. Secure in his little insulated world.
Back in my room, I sat down on my desk and began making a list. “What are you doing?” asked his mother.
“You know something? I never stood first in anything, anything, in life. Never!”
Wife was silent. She was not prepared for what followed, “My son is going,” I declared.” But not alone! I am making a list of people to call tomorrow, to cancel my appointments….things to postpone….”
“You cannot do that..” she gasped… “Your work.. You cannot afford it…ten days? Unplanned…! How will you spend time with these kids…? Let it be. I will talk to him. He will manage, let him learn. He will be fine.”
I was on that train, with my son a week later. The ‘yoga coach’ accompanying us had assured us that the ‘Ashram’ holding the tournament would have a welcome party ready to receive us at Ahmdabad station.
There was none.
Leaving me at the platform with the kids, the coach ran off with his assistant. An hour later he came back with the happy news that a nearby place of worship had agreed to let us rest our weary heads in its community hall.
I suggested a hotel room to Achyut. Overruled.
Nearby, meant almost two kilometers. And we had to walk the distance. Silently, I cursed his mother, for packing such a lot of clothes, and knick knacks for her darling. She and he had simply brushed aside my protests.
The other kids had much smaller bags. Obviously, as none else, had a dad around to pick the luggage. I had to lug his luggage as well as mine.
As I groaned under the weight , I looked at Achyut, walking ahead, happily chatting with his friends, even as the party trudged to their evening abode. When one of his newfound pals staggered, my little boy simply looked up at his dad with big, admiring eyes. I happily freed the friend of his load.
My son beamed. That is why I was there. To see him smile, laugh and enjoy. My own father never had the chance to do that for me. Life did not permit him. He was simply too busy and then he was gone. I smiled back. Happy as he was. Spontaneously without any bidding, he hugged me, enriching me. Father and son had found, hitherto unknown, kinship in the past two days.
I was actually doing nothing out of ordinary. I was simply repaying a debt, that too in part. Each generation teaches its next to fly, to survive on its own. I was there to look after mine, as he took his first faltering steps, tested his wings. For a while, I would fly alongside and let him soar. He would be diffident at first, but I would be there, always ready to put my wings under his, in case he needed to rest .
One day, I know he will take off and leave me behind, too weak and tired to keep up with him. Misty eyed, my duty done, I will smile.
Wings!
Five A.M. tiptoed in and gently shook me awake. Bleary eyed and groggy, I sat up on a much used, worn out, mat. That, valiant if threadbare, piece of cloth, had tried all night, to cushion my aching body from the unforgiving embrace of a dusty, ruthlessly hard, concrete floor.
I looked around and tried my best to recall where I was. I could not.
I could see, that I was in a huge hall. It was illuminated by single, naked, electric bulb. If anything, it served to increase the eeriness of the place, as it peeked down at us from the roof. Us? I was not alone. A little distance from me, a lot of bodies were asleep, in small huddles. Each was enveloped by a sleep so thick, that only deep exhaustion could have induced it.
The place was also infested with cockroaches and similarly eeky, slithery beings. I felt one wriggle up my leg, under my pajamas. My hand came down on it, hard; ending its journey on this planet. It’s, crushed, lifeless, body tumbled down to the floor.
Where I was, came to me in a trice!
I stood up and began tiptoeing amongst the sleeping lot, careful not to wake them up. I was looking the reason of me being where I was.
I found him. He was sleeping a little distance away, with his friends. I tiptoed back to my place.
If, even as early as a week ago, any body had told me, that I would have to leave the Five Star (wife, running water, television, cars, air-conditioning etc) lifestyle available to an average, middle class Indian male (none of these, except wives in plenty, was available even to monarchs such as Akbar The Great) and find myself, in this dilapidated place, more than sixteen hundred miles from home, I would have laughed at his face.
If he had still persisted and predicted that all this would happen due to the younger of my two children, I would have called him a fantastically fertile soothsayer. Simply, because, the boy in question was still a few months shy of his tenth birthday; too young, to drive me either bankrupt or to involve me in a crime scam.
Yet, he would have been absolutely right!.
At the present moment, however, there were some urgent things to attend to, like, answering the call of nature. Quietly, so as not to wake up any body else, I picked up my toiletries and clothes, and negotiated a path through a spate of bodies lying on the floor. I had to beat them to the toilets. Last night I had counted. There were only four such cubicles and my inmates easily numbered a few over sixty.
Once they got up, the queue would be a mile long.
After relieving my self on an ‘Indian style’ lavatory (a very uncomfortable posture for one not used to using it), I moved to the adjoining bathroom. Along with the door, its light bulb too was missing.
But there was no one around to admire my body beautiful, so I stripped myself and groped in the dark for the taps. Thankfully, the water, when it hit me, was refreshingly cool. I sat down under the steady stream, to enjoy, what seemed at that moment, like a major luxury. My eyelids sheathed my eyes, allowing my mind to hark back to the recent past.
It all did start some seven-eight-nine days ago. I was a bit a late that evening, and the three people in my life were awaiting me on the dinner table. One could cut it with a knife, so thick was the buzz around them. Naturally I panicked.
I rushed to only refuge available to a married father in his home; the washroom. I needed time to think. As I splashed some water on my face, I also started ticking off the list of things which the house hold did not need. Naturally, they were on their “must buy” list.
I cursed the television and the ad agencies.
I could not, however, stay in the bathroom all night. I had to look up at myself in the mirror. What was I worried about? Wasn’t I the MAN, the lord and the master of this house? I was. I mean at least on paper, I was. But that is where the problem lay. Being the man of the house is no longer an advantageous portfolio to hold.
But I am a fighter. Yes sir, I am. Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, I practiced the foulest looking frown that my visage could support and stepped out.
It had the desired effect. They went deadpan as soon as I joined them; that is, if you call smiling from ear to ear being deadpan. And I had them worried, as worried as a tigress and her cubs would be, as they saw dinner approaching them.
I decided to grab the feminine bull by her horns. Laconically I pulled a chair out and sat down. Leaning back on it, I raised my left eyebrow, stylish like, like I have seen the Big Bee do in countless flicks, and in my gravest and deepest baritone, asked, “Well?”
It plunged my daughter into spasms of giggles. “Well…?!” I repeated, this time a trifle sheepishly, even a bit plaintively.
“Limbdiiii!” whooped, Achyut, my younger one, fairly knocking his chair back, as he jumped to his feet and threw his small arms in the air.
A week later, soaked to skin in that small, door less washroom, I could not help smiling, as I recalled his obvious joy.
Limbdi! No it is neither a war cry nor a new expletive; actually it’s a small town, situated bang on N.H 8A.It is midway between Ahmdabad and Rajkot. We, my son, his team of sixty odd, and I, were on our way to this tiny blip on the cluttered geographical map of Gujarat.
All of us had reached Ahmdabad last evening, after a thirty-six hour journey from our home town. The chosen mode of transport had been a second-class bogey of an Indian Railways’ train.I wanted AC two tier at least if not a flight. Was overruled. Son dearest had insisted on, ‘traveling with the team.’
The ‘team’ would compete in various age groups (of both genders) in a national tournament of that new, in-fashion four-letter word of English language, ‘Yoga’.
However, seven days ago, I had not capitulated easily on the dinner table. No Sir! “How can we send you alone?” I had wondered. “Come on Papa…I am nine…!!” “Yes you are nine, sweetheart…nine! And I do not even know where of all the places is this godforsaken Limbdi?”
I had looked at the wife for support, she just looked back, wordless, So I said,” I did not know they held tournaments for… for…for yoga? That too Nationals?? And so far off …”
Thankfully, I bit my tongue off before I blurted, “How…Why did they pick you?!” Instead, I looked down at the itinerary Achyut had handed me, “Return…return after… ten.. TEN ! days!!” I glanced at the wife again. She simply rolled her eyes. I paused. There had to be something more.
What?
An invisible signal passed between son and mom, and Achyut leaned towards me, to put the gold medal he had been hiding under the table, around my unsuspecting neck. Amazed, I looked down at it and then at the certificate that his elder sister pressed into my hand.
It informed me that Achyut Mehra had won the first place in our state’s interschool yoga tournament!
I was floored.
But was still too scared to let him go. He did not even have an inkling that a life other than the Seven Star (add two parents and a doting elder sister, to my Five) one, he knew, existed. No, I could not send him. Did he know he would have to carry his own bags? And he was so fussy about the food he ate.
He went off to his bed, in tears. His equally distraught sister followed. Alone, the wife too admitted that she was torn between letting him go and the insecurity of sending him, so far away, with unknown people. No one from his school was accompanying him. We sat on the table, staring at the food. There was no appetite left.
Later, I tiptoed to their room and peeked, he was sleeping, snuggled against his sister. Gently, I ruffled his hair. He sighed. Secure in his little insulated world.
Back in my room, I sat down on my desk and began making a list. “What are you doing?” asked his mother.
“You know something? I never stood first in anything, anything, in life. Never!”
Wife was silent. She was not prepared for what followed, “My son is going,” I declared.” But not alone! I am making a list of people to call tomorrow, to cancel my appointments….things to postpone….”
“You cannot do that..” she gasped… “Your work.. You cannot afford it…ten days? Unplanned…! How will you spend time with these kids…? Let it be. I will talk to him. He will manage, let him learn. He will be fine.”
I was on that train, with my son a week later. The ‘yoga coach’ accompanying us had assured us that the ‘Ashram’ holding the tournament would have a welcome party ready to receive us at Ahmdabad station.
There was none.
Leaving me at the platform with the kids, the coach ran off with his assistant. An hour later he came back with the happy news that a nearby place of worship had agreed to let us rest our weary heads in its community hall.
I suggested a hotel room to Achyut. Overruled.
Nearby, meant almost two kilometers. And we had to walk the distance. Silently, I cursed his mother, for packing such a lot of clothes, and knick knacks for her darling. She and he had simply brushed aside my protests.
The other kids had much smaller bags. Obviously, as none else, had a dad around to pick the luggage. I had to lug his luggage as well as mine.
As I groaned under the weight , I looked at Achyut, walking ahead, happily chatting with his friends, even as the party trudged to their evening abode. When one of his newfound pals staggered, my little boy simply looked up at his dad with big, admiring eyes. I happily freed the friend of his load.
My son beamed. That is why I was there. To see him smile, laugh and enjoy. My own father never had the chance to do that for me. Life did not permit him. He was simply too busy and then he was gone. I smiled back. Happy as he was. Spontaneously without any bidding, he hugged me, enriching me. Father and son had found, hitherto unknown, kinship in the past two days.
I was actually doing nothing out of ordinary. I was simply repaying a debt, that too in part. Each generation teaches its next to fly, to survive on its own. I was there to look after mine, as he took his first faltering steps, tested his wings. For a while, I would fly alongside and let him soar. He would be diffident at first, but I would be there, always ready to put my wings under his, in case he needed to rest .
One day, I know he will take off and leave me behind, too weak and tired to keep up with him. Misty eyed, my duty done, I will smile.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
A Blessing In Disguise
She does not want her school friends to read it. But she wants your comments on it before she submits it for the school mag. So she has asked me to post it on my page. Plz comment.
A blessing in disguise
You own everything. You are on the top of the world. But your life still misses something. You feel lonesome, you are alive and happy in the lovely world of God, but your heart still cries.
So it was with the small child. It was missing someone. Being a small child it did not know how to spell out its emotions to its parents. It would sit with legs crossed and hands joined and with small pearls like drops over its pink, rosy cheeks. It would pray, every day. It needed something to make its life complete. It prayed to God to complete its life by giving it the blessing that will bring solace in its life.
The child cried and prayed for two long years.
Then a day came, when the child felt the world change. It received its wish. It was so overwhelmed that it was not able to pay attention to God’s voice when He said, “My child this is a most precious gift. Not every one gets it. Be careful!”
Now for all these years, the devil too had been observing the small child. He noticed that that the child had paid no heed to the divine warning.
The devil saw his chance. He followed the child to its beautiful home where it lived with its parents. He knew that the small child was too young to take care of such a precious gift on its own.
You all must be wondering what the precious gift was. Just read on.
The child and the precious gift grew up together. The child became a teenager. It was now time for the devil. His entry into the scene was now imminent
The teenager cared about its precious gift and used to advice it about the good and the bad. But the devil wanted to prove the teenager wrong and the devil used every method to separate the teenager and the precious gift. The precious gift started to keep away from the teenager and spent its time with the devil. The teenager could no longer hold on to it. The precious gift was now giving it tears of sadness instead of tears of tears joy. The devil won the heart of the child and poisoned the heart of the precious jewel towards the teenager was only sympathizing with the child.
It is said that by love one can obtain anything that one wants but here the devil’s glib tongue had overthrown love.
The teenager was actually an elder sister who as a little child had prayed fervently to the almighty to give her a gift of a younger brother, a precious gift indeed.
This is an appeal to all the brothers to understand their sisters’ love and emotions. They care really for you and have a very soft corner for you. They live for you. They want to protect you, even though they may seem too firm and straight forward you.
Actually it’s those who sympathize with you and encourage your bad habits who are your sour enemies.
Sisters are “Blessing in Disguise.”
A blessing in disguise
You own everything. You are on the top of the world. But your life still misses something. You feel lonesome, you are alive and happy in the lovely world of God, but your heart still cries.
So it was with the small child. It was missing someone. Being a small child it did not know how to spell out its emotions to its parents. It would sit with legs crossed and hands joined and with small pearls like drops over its pink, rosy cheeks. It would pray, every day. It needed something to make its life complete. It prayed to God to complete its life by giving it the blessing that will bring solace in its life.
The child cried and prayed for two long years.
Then a day came, when the child felt the world change. It received its wish. It was so overwhelmed that it was not able to pay attention to God’s voice when He said, “My child this is a most precious gift. Not every one gets it. Be careful!”
Now for all these years, the devil too had been observing the small child. He noticed that that the child had paid no heed to the divine warning.
The devil saw his chance. He followed the child to its beautiful home where it lived with its parents. He knew that the small child was too young to take care of such a precious gift on its own.
You all must be wondering what the precious gift was. Just read on.
The child and the precious gift grew up together. The child became a teenager. It was now time for the devil. His entry into the scene was now imminent
The teenager cared about its precious gift and used to advice it about the good and the bad. But the devil wanted to prove the teenager wrong and the devil used every method to separate the teenager and the precious gift. The precious gift started to keep away from the teenager and spent its time with the devil. The teenager could no longer hold on to it. The precious gift was now giving it tears of sadness instead of tears of tears joy. The devil won the heart of the child and poisoned the heart of the precious jewel towards the teenager was only sympathizing with the child.
It is said that by love one can obtain anything that one wants but here the devil’s glib tongue had overthrown love.
The teenager was actually an elder sister who as a little child had prayed fervently to the almighty to give her a gift of a younger brother, a precious gift indeed.
This is an appeal to all the brothers to understand their sisters’ love and emotions. They care really for you and have a very soft corner for you. They live for you. They want to protect you, even though they may seem too firm and straight forward you.
Actually it’s those who sympathize with you and encourage your bad habits who are your sour enemies.
Sisters are “Blessing in Disguise.”
Sunday, November 22, 2009
An Attached Bathroom!
Usually, ten plus two years is so short a period in the story of a nation, that you could liken them to maybe a couple of months of human life. They flit across, almost unnoticed by history. Not much changes in that much time.
Not the last dozen Indian years.
Hark back to 1997.
How many males then would have sent a ‘mail’ to their females? That too a new one every day!
What did terms like ‘net’ and ‘network’ mean?
Actually, a whole new dictionary needs to be written for new meanings that have been given to words we once learnt in school, as also for the arcane, newer terms. For instance, the word processor sill draws a zagged, red line under ‘texting.’ Can any one of us survive without the service?
Today, the Nokias, the Samsungs and etceteras have taken over the world. Effortlessly, they have become the ubiquitous companions of all men. Even more so of women. So much that many of the fairer sex keep them snuggled in such soft, intimate places, that the small hand- sets have become targets of envy of both the males and the Sun. Both manage even a peek into those valleys only if they get extremely lucky, and that is not everyday.
No male or his female goes to bed without their respective mobiles. They may do so without each other.
The biggest change however is in the attitude of women; young, old, and middle aged, towards life in general and herself in particular, especially, in the smaller towns of what is known as the urban(e) India.
SHE has changed in all senses of the word, sexually, sartorially, socially, sensually and spiritually. The change has been systemic and successful. It has also been determined and irrevocable.
Observe, for example, how casually, very middle of middle class parents, from very conservative, small town ‘mohallas’, have started sending their uninitiated, unmarried, nubile daughters, to work in cities, to which they themselves have never been to. Once there, the girl fends for herself, armed only with her degree and her new found independence. Far away from the scrutiny of the near and dear ones, she blooms!
Even as near as mid Nineteen Nineties, such events were unheard of. They happened only to the ‘forward’ and ‘modern’ girls of Delhi and B’bay. There too it was against the norm rather than the rule. A suitable boy was the only target for every parent of a pretty lass. No more.
The newfound economic independence has also liberated the girl’s father. Questions about dowry etc are now out of question. It is not uncommon for him to grill a prospective groom to determine whether he would be suitable for his daughter’s career plans.
On most occasions the daughters free their parents of even that much trouble. They find their own partners.
Along with HER, her HIM too has changed, more nilly than willy. In 2009,the condition of the male belonging to 40-50 age group, is the worst. The poor guy has been hit by a steamroller and has been swept aside. About fifteen years or so into his marriage, he has found that he is no longer living with the female he had once married. From being the lord and master of all he once beheld, like his father and uncles, he has had to do a quick makeover and has stepped back to being a mere co-pilot, companion and suitor.
‘An attached bathroom,’ quipped a much-married, fifty plus, lady, while describing her doting husband. Essential, comfortable, indispensable even, but entirely forgettable after use.
The best part is, that she whispered this to the mother of the girl, to whom her son was getting married, at that very moment!
Not the last dozen Indian years.
Hark back to 1997.
How many males then would have sent a ‘mail’ to their females? That too a new one every day!
What did terms like ‘net’ and ‘network’ mean?
Actually, a whole new dictionary needs to be written for new meanings that have been given to words we once learnt in school, as also for the arcane, newer terms. For instance, the word processor sill draws a zagged, red line under ‘texting.’ Can any one of us survive without the service?
Today, the Nokias, the Samsungs and etceteras have taken over the world. Effortlessly, they have become the ubiquitous companions of all men. Even more so of women. So much that many of the fairer sex keep them snuggled in such soft, intimate places, that the small hand- sets have become targets of envy of both the males and the Sun. Both manage even a peek into those valleys only if they get extremely lucky, and that is not everyday.
No male or his female goes to bed without their respective mobiles. They may do so without each other.
The biggest change however is in the attitude of women; young, old, and middle aged, towards life in general and herself in particular, especially, in the smaller towns of what is known as the urban(e) India.
SHE has changed in all senses of the word, sexually, sartorially, socially, sensually and spiritually. The change has been systemic and successful. It has also been determined and irrevocable.
Observe, for example, how casually, very middle of middle class parents, from very conservative, small town ‘mohallas’, have started sending their uninitiated, unmarried, nubile daughters, to work in cities, to which they themselves have never been to. Once there, the girl fends for herself, armed only with her degree and her new found independence. Far away from the scrutiny of the near and dear ones, she blooms!
Even as near as mid Nineteen Nineties, such events were unheard of. They happened only to the ‘forward’ and ‘modern’ girls of Delhi and B’bay. There too it was against the norm rather than the rule. A suitable boy was the only target for every parent of a pretty lass. No more.
The newfound economic independence has also liberated the girl’s father. Questions about dowry etc are now out of question. It is not uncommon for him to grill a prospective groom to determine whether he would be suitable for his daughter’s career plans.
On most occasions the daughters free their parents of even that much trouble. They find their own partners.
Along with HER, her HIM too has changed, more nilly than willy. In 2009,the condition of the male belonging to 40-50 age group, is the worst. The poor guy has been hit by a steamroller and has been swept aside. About fifteen years or so into his marriage, he has found that he is no longer living with the female he had once married. From being the lord and master of all he once beheld, like his father and uncles, he has had to do a quick makeover and has stepped back to being a mere co-pilot, companion and suitor.
‘An attached bathroom,’ quipped a much-married, fifty plus, lady, while describing her doting husband. Essential, comfortable, indispensable even, but entirely forgettable after use.
The best part is, that she whispered this to the mother of the girl, to whom her son was getting married, at that very moment!
Saturday, September 19, 2009
The Jungle Belle
It was ,My first and thus far, solitary visit to a real Jungle. It is In Madhaya Pardesh, a few hours drive from Nagpur. My kids were with me and we loved the trip……….I met her there….read about it in her own words….
Published: women era oct2008 first issue
The Jungle Belle
Far, far above me, the sky was breaking out of the night’s passionate embrace. With every passing heartbeat, it was shedding a layer of its inky cloak. In almost perfect synchronization, the sky’s new bride, a shining, somewhat crimson faced, dawn, was moving in, shyly but surely.
My own chosen mate too had not waited for a moment too long; his task done, he had dismounted and disappeared in the thick foliage, without as much as another glance at me. But before leaving, my paramour had had proved to be exceptionally strong and virile, surpassing all my expectations, quenching my thirst, fully.
Just a few, deliciously torrid minuets ago, our brief courtship had culminated in an explosive climax. And to admit the truth, I had demanded nothing less. For days at end, my urge to procreate had been driving me berserk.
I wished my lover had stayed. But there can be no hoarders in the jungle. Life itself is ruthlessly transitory here. One learns to celebrate each moment, as it comes…. if it comes. I was satiated. I was thankful. I was full; my belly with his seed and the earlier shared dinner; my heart with his love and hope. I was going to be a mother soon, I was sure. Even the usually sultry pre-monsoon, Central-India, daybreak felt pleasantly cool to me. I sucked in a lungful of its vibrant, spanking clean air. It promised rain, but not just as yet.
Thus sated, I turned and fairly pranced towards my favourite grove.
It is a large, fresh water pond, skirted on all sides by huge trees that always stand so proudly erect, that they remind one of alert sentinels guarding a palace. Which it actually was, my very own. It was the perfect place to lie down and snooze for a while, and give his sperms time to fertilize my eggs. That is if they had not done their job already. Actually I was being plain lazy.
All around me the jungle was waking up, but so noiselessly that one could be forgiven if one thought that there was no one else around, except the hungry birds. Their intermittent, shrill twittering seemed even more strident due to the all-pervading quiet. A lot of them were gliding over the water, looking for any fish that may have woken up too early; flying so close to the surface that occasionally their eager, outstretched claws, would tickle its calm visage, and set off a series of smiles. The fluid, widening ripples, in turn, let out loud gurgling sounds, which were hauntingly musical to my ears.
I stretched by the lake, enjoying the tranquil solitude. A cool, invigorating breeze had begun flirting with the innumerable leaves of the trees, rustling them, and teasing them into an ungainly yet soothing rhythm. In order to welcome me, they shooed the wind on to me. It caressed and tickled me, playing with my hair, making me feel even better.
My eyelids began to droop. Above me, the sky and dawn had mated too and their newborn, the as yet mellow, amber ball of fire had emerged to play, from the gates of heavens. I blinked, as it peeked bashfully at me, from behind the top-most branches of the trees. I made up my mind to luxuriate in a long bath, later in the day, when the same baby orb would grow young, hot and fierce, like my lover had been. A sigh of contentment escaped me as I closed my heavy eyes. All was well with my little world!
But ecstasy cannot last for long, not when humans have something to do with it. In just a short while, their Gypsy was there. On their part, they had taken care to drive in as quietly as possible, yet the rancid fumes belched by their vehicle, the low guttural growl of its engine, and the whimpering screech of its tyers on the gravel, were enough to wake the dead. Slowly I lifted my head, just a wee bit, hoping that they would miss me. But they had already sighted me. The binoculars were out.
There was at least two hundred yards of water between us. But I felt invaded. Oh! Was I bugged! I wanted to kick my self for lying down in the open. It really took an effort to restrain myself from rushing at them and giving them a piece of my mind. Instead, I just glared at them, my eyes flashing. They stared insolently back, gaping at my beauty. Gawd! Where does a lady go if she wants to hide for a while from the world?
I gave up, resigned to the fact of them being there. I knew they would have continued their shameless, voyeuristic vigil endlessly. All my plans towards a lazy afternoon were dashed. Instead, I decided to go home.
My mood, however, was still intoxicated by the delectable recent tryst. I decided to give them a blast, a view they would never forget. Yawing, I got up and stretched, letting them have a look at my wares. Even from the distance I could sense the current of excitement that ran through them. You would think that it was the first time that the poor sods had ever seen a female. It may well have been the truth; well at least, I am sure, that they had not seen one as beautiful as I am. My kind is getting increasingly rare. I may not have much of a bust, but an enchanting ass I do possess, and I may be a jungle belle but none of their so-called supermodels can ever hope to match my sexy catwalk. After all, my body is svelte, long and lithe and there is not an ounce of excess fat anywhere on me, despite my strictly non-vegetarian diet.
Languorously, ever so casually, pretending I had not seen them, I started moving towards them, deliberately taking a long, circuitous route. I was fully aware of effect I was having on them, as I swayed and swerved. I knew without seeing, that their jaws had dropped and their breathing had sharpened as they watched me close in.
It was only when I was almost within
eyeball-to-eyeball distance that I turned my majestic head to look at them. They were gawking at me, transfixed. Our eyes met, and I easily held their collective gaze. They were mesmerized. My mood swung again. What riled me the most was that there was a female amongst them. At least she should have been more sensitive to another of her sex! Blood rushed to my head, as I made up my mind to teach them a lesson. Slowly, ever so deliberately, I took a couple of steps towards them. Already, I could smell the odour of their nervous sweat, as it broke allover their excited, trembling bodies. I stopped, coiling my self, enjoying their fear, and was about to pounce, when a small child, nestling next to the quivering bosom of his mother, began to wail.
Here I was longing for a baby myself! I could not attack one, even though its parents may well have interfered in creation of my own. Slowly, I turned and moved on, into grass that was tall enough to immediately hide me. But not before I half squatted on my haunches and defecated in front of their Gypsy, to tell them exactly what I thought of them. I then swished my long tail to brush away the flies. Let no one say that the tigresses of Pench, Karamajheri Reserve, in Madhya Pradesh are heartless like their so-called keepers!
As I walked, I could hear them, now chattering away like excited monkeys. Looking up at the sky I mooned for the rains. At least for some months the gates of the Reserve will be closed and we will be rid of these pesky, nosey, interfering humans who had no business to be there, in my jungle. At least these had come armed only with cameras, unlike some of their brethren, who smuggle in snares, guns and what not. In a few years all of us magnificent beasts would be gone from this planet due to them. But do they care? They would easily recreate us on their computers and make movies about us.
Published: women era oct2008 first issue
The Jungle Belle
Far, far above me, the sky was breaking out of the night’s passionate embrace. With every passing heartbeat, it was shedding a layer of its inky cloak. In almost perfect synchronization, the sky’s new bride, a shining, somewhat crimson faced, dawn, was moving in, shyly but surely.
My own chosen mate too had not waited for a moment too long; his task done, he had dismounted and disappeared in the thick foliage, without as much as another glance at me. But before leaving, my paramour had had proved to be exceptionally strong and virile, surpassing all my expectations, quenching my thirst, fully.
Just a few, deliciously torrid minuets ago, our brief courtship had culminated in an explosive climax. And to admit the truth, I had demanded nothing less. For days at end, my urge to procreate had been driving me berserk.
I wished my lover had stayed. But there can be no hoarders in the jungle. Life itself is ruthlessly transitory here. One learns to celebrate each moment, as it comes…. if it comes. I was satiated. I was thankful. I was full; my belly with his seed and the earlier shared dinner; my heart with his love and hope. I was going to be a mother soon, I was sure. Even the usually sultry pre-monsoon, Central-India, daybreak felt pleasantly cool to me. I sucked in a lungful of its vibrant, spanking clean air. It promised rain, but not just as yet.
Thus sated, I turned and fairly pranced towards my favourite grove.
It is a large, fresh water pond, skirted on all sides by huge trees that always stand so proudly erect, that they remind one of alert sentinels guarding a palace. Which it actually was, my very own. It was the perfect place to lie down and snooze for a while, and give his sperms time to fertilize my eggs. That is if they had not done their job already. Actually I was being plain lazy.
All around me the jungle was waking up, but so noiselessly that one could be forgiven if one thought that there was no one else around, except the hungry birds. Their intermittent, shrill twittering seemed even more strident due to the all-pervading quiet. A lot of them were gliding over the water, looking for any fish that may have woken up too early; flying so close to the surface that occasionally their eager, outstretched claws, would tickle its calm visage, and set off a series of smiles. The fluid, widening ripples, in turn, let out loud gurgling sounds, which were hauntingly musical to my ears.
I stretched by the lake, enjoying the tranquil solitude. A cool, invigorating breeze had begun flirting with the innumerable leaves of the trees, rustling them, and teasing them into an ungainly yet soothing rhythm. In order to welcome me, they shooed the wind on to me. It caressed and tickled me, playing with my hair, making me feel even better.
My eyelids began to droop. Above me, the sky and dawn had mated too and their newborn, the as yet mellow, amber ball of fire had emerged to play, from the gates of heavens. I blinked, as it peeked bashfully at me, from behind the top-most branches of the trees. I made up my mind to luxuriate in a long bath, later in the day, when the same baby orb would grow young, hot and fierce, like my lover had been. A sigh of contentment escaped me as I closed my heavy eyes. All was well with my little world!
But ecstasy cannot last for long, not when humans have something to do with it. In just a short while, their Gypsy was there. On their part, they had taken care to drive in as quietly as possible, yet the rancid fumes belched by their vehicle, the low guttural growl of its engine, and the whimpering screech of its tyers on the gravel, were enough to wake the dead. Slowly I lifted my head, just a wee bit, hoping that they would miss me. But they had already sighted me. The binoculars were out.
There was at least two hundred yards of water between us. But I felt invaded. Oh! Was I bugged! I wanted to kick my self for lying down in the open. It really took an effort to restrain myself from rushing at them and giving them a piece of my mind. Instead, I just glared at them, my eyes flashing. They stared insolently back, gaping at my beauty. Gawd! Where does a lady go if she wants to hide for a while from the world?
I gave up, resigned to the fact of them being there. I knew they would have continued their shameless, voyeuristic vigil endlessly. All my plans towards a lazy afternoon were dashed. Instead, I decided to go home.
My mood, however, was still intoxicated by the delectable recent tryst. I decided to give them a blast, a view they would never forget. Yawing, I got up and stretched, letting them have a look at my wares. Even from the distance I could sense the current of excitement that ran through them. You would think that it was the first time that the poor sods had ever seen a female. It may well have been the truth; well at least, I am sure, that they had not seen one as beautiful as I am. My kind is getting increasingly rare. I may not have much of a bust, but an enchanting ass I do possess, and I may be a jungle belle but none of their so-called supermodels can ever hope to match my sexy catwalk. After all, my body is svelte, long and lithe and there is not an ounce of excess fat anywhere on me, despite my strictly non-vegetarian diet.
Languorously, ever so casually, pretending I had not seen them, I started moving towards them, deliberately taking a long, circuitous route. I was fully aware of effect I was having on them, as I swayed and swerved. I knew without seeing, that their jaws had dropped and their breathing had sharpened as they watched me close in.
It was only when I was almost within
eyeball-to-eyeball distance that I turned my majestic head to look at them. They were gawking at me, transfixed. Our eyes met, and I easily held their collective gaze. They were mesmerized. My mood swung again. What riled me the most was that there was a female amongst them. At least she should have been more sensitive to another of her sex! Blood rushed to my head, as I made up my mind to teach them a lesson. Slowly, ever so deliberately, I took a couple of steps towards them. Already, I could smell the odour of their nervous sweat, as it broke allover their excited, trembling bodies. I stopped, coiling my self, enjoying their fear, and was about to pounce, when a small child, nestling next to the quivering bosom of his mother, began to wail.
Here I was longing for a baby myself! I could not attack one, even though its parents may well have interfered in creation of my own. Slowly, I turned and moved on, into grass that was tall enough to immediately hide me. But not before I half squatted on my haunches and defecated in front of their Gypsy, to tell them exactly what I thought of them. I then swished my long tail to brush away the flies. Let no one say that the tigresses of Pench, Karamajheri Reserve, in Madhya Pradesh are heartless like their so-called keepers!
As I walked, I could hear them, now chattering away like excited monkeys. Looking up at the sky I mooned for the rains. At least for some months the gates of the Reserve will be closed and we will be rid of these pesky, nosey, interfering humans who had no business to be there, in my jungle. At least these had come armed only with cameras, unlike some of their brethren, who smuggle in snares, guns and what not. In a few years all of us magnificent beasts would be gone from this planet due to them. But do they care? They would easily recreate us on their computers and make movies about us.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Sardar Kushwant Singh had sent a letter to me praising this story. It is hand written on his own letter head. I treasure it. The story is one of my favourites and is inspired by a real life incident. I hope you like it
When I first saw her, Pooja was standing outside the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate of our city. A wave of TV cameras and mikes was threatening to engulf her, as they arched over her tiny form and converged before her taller parents.
The cameras drew my attention to her.
A thick crowd had formed an unwanted, jostling ring around the trio and their interrogators. I do not know whether it is the desire to see the news in the making, or a vicarious, voyeuristic, pleasure at knowing somebody else’s business, or simply the thrill of transmitting your bewitching visage across the nation, or what; but its is true, that the moment someone flashes a TV camera and a mike, they attract a horde of people, much like a skylight draws moths.
I was one of the moths. But I was looking at Pooja and not the cameras.
A mere wisp of a girl, it was easy to miss her, trying as she was, to disappear behind the folds of her mother’s sari. With some effort, I was able to catch her eye. For a moment, just for a moment, her defiant, smouldering, charcoal dark, pair looked into mine. Then she lowered hers.
That she was lost was obvious. Why she was so, was easy to understand, if you knew her story.
I knew it. Every body else present there did too. It had been all over the television. Let me tell you.
Ten years ago, she was born to parents, who had awaited a child for many years after their marriage. The long wait, ensured that there was only a mild disappointment at her gender, or her swarthy complexion, which contrasted sharply with her parents’ fair skins. Truly, only a parched throat knows the value of a sip of water.
Her parents were simple, reasonably well off folks. For the first nine out of ten years, life for Pooja had been fun, laughter, tantrums, toys, and school; till a fateful day, more than a year ago.
The day had dawned as usual, everyday like, in a flurry of early morning activities. Pooja never realized that it was a fateful day. No one did.
But then, fateful days are sly. Deliberately, they dawn like ordinary ones, so that they can catch us unaware. They go about their business quietly, hiding destiny in their wicked wombs.
That day, after putting Pooja on the school bus, her mother had picked the morning paper, handed it to her husband and had gone on to the kitchen to brew the morning cuppa,. It was daily routine.
She came back to him, with the steaming cups balanced neatly on a tray, and found him staring fixedly, at the paper. His face was drained of all colour.
Wordlessly, he handed the folded sheet to his wife. She too blanched visibly, as she recognized the shame faced woman, in the picture accompanying the news story.
The small item was printed on the inside pages of the city edition and on a more hurried day Pooja’s father could have easily missed it, but did not. On such tenuous, unexpected twists of cruel luck, are the lives of the mice and men dependent.
Later, that afternoon, Pooja did not find her mother home after school. She was not unduly concerned, being an only child she was used to taking care of herself. A neighbourhood aunt had let her in. But by the time it was late evening; the tiny tot had worked up a mighty tantrum to greet her parents.
A look, however, at their grim faces, warned her not to unleash her little storm. And from the way her mother pushed her away from herself, albeit gently, when she rushed to her, she sensed something was amiss, terribly.
Mother did not cook that night. Later, some relatives and friends dropped in. They all sat huddled together and spoke in hushed whispers, which would die altogether, whenever she came within earshot. That night, for the first time ever, the worried girl went to bed alone. She prayed, for her parents’ wellbeing. She thought that they were in some kind of trouble.
In his adjoining room, her father picked up the paper, again, and re read the headline for the umpteenth time, “Mid Wife Arrested For Exchanging Babies.”
The news item had alerted Pooja’s parents; their daughter’s colour was testimony enough. They too had gone to the police station, where the midwife was being held. The woman had nothing more to loose and admitted, readily enough, that their real son was living with another family in the same city.
She had sold him for a few thousand rupees. His adoptive parents had not wanted their child to know that he was not their very own. After all they were buying a real son with real money. The nurse had admitted during her interrogation, that it was her regular business. She was doing it to put her own children through costly public schools.
However in their case, the woman had not swapped the children. Pooja, she had got for free, from somewhere, and thus could not recall from where. Not that any one cared. The important thing was to get the boy back.
It was easier said then done. The boy’s incumbent ‘parents’ were not going to give up on their investment so easily.
It took a long court battle for the DNA test to be allowed.
The news was first published in a local paper. Later it had caught the imagination of the nationwide electronic media which is always desperate for new, slightly bizarre stories. It is a slave to a 24X7 devil, whom it has to feed constantly.
That day, after a year of judicial scrutiny, the CJM had pronounced the obvious verdict. Standing outside his court room, Pooja’s ‘mother’ was victoriously holding her son up in her arms.
Standing next to her, holding on desperately to her mother’s sari, the poor girl was facing the strongest, most potent, four letter word in English, ‘Mine!’ As in, me, my, ours …..MINE. It is the fulcrum on which our personal worlds revolve. Every emotion, be it, the much touted, ‘love,’ or its darker kin ‘hate’ (four letter ones again) is merely, its progeny. “Mine” comes before anything else.
A pretty young thing, from a national channel, asked her mother, “Madame, what will you now do with this girl?” Cheerfully, the lady in the limelight announced, “I will bring her up too. She is also like my daughter.” There were wide smiles of appreciation all around. Good people.
Distraught, Pooja looked up at her mother, who was too busy and happy to look down.
It had been an immense fall from the self-assured, peak of ‘my daughter,’ to an insecure, unsure, valley of ‘also like my daughter.’ On the way down, she had lost all that was hers. Everything, that she could once pick casually, without thinking, was now an obligation, a charity.
Later that day, her parents and her spanking new, fair skinned, brother visited almost every place of worship in the city, for obeisance before the munificent lord. “Bend, child, bend,” her mother would whisper fervently. Every time she would find her daughter staring accusingly at the Gods, and would urge, “Bend, for the almighty has blessed us!”
When I first saw her, Pooja was standing outside the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate of our city. A wave of TV cameras and mikes was threatening to engulf her, as they arched over her tiny form and converged before her taller parents.
The cameras drew my attention to her.
A thick crowd had formed an unwanted, jostling ring around the trio and their interrogators. I do not know whether it is the desire to see the news in the making, or a vicarious, voyeuristic, pleasure at knowing somebody else’s business, or simply the thrill of transmitting your bewitching visage across the nation, or what; but its is true, that the moment someone flashes a TV camera and a mike, they attract a horde of people, much like a skylight draws moths.
I was one of the moths. But I was looking at Pooja and not the cameras.
A mere wisp of a girl, it was easy to miss her, trying as she was, to disappear behind the folds of her mother’s sari. With some effort, I was able to catch her eye. For a moment, just for a moment, her defiant, smouldering, charcoal dark, pair looked into mine. Then she lowered hers.
That she was lost was obvious. Why she was so, was easy to understand, if you knew her story.
I knew it. Every body else present there did too. It had been all over the television. Let me tell you.
Ten years ago, she was born to parents, who had awaited a child for many years after their marriage. The long wait, ensured that there was only a mild disappointment at her gender, or her swarthy complexion, which contrasted sharply with her parents’ fair skins. Truly, only a parched throat knows the value of a sip of water.
Her parents were simple, reasonably well off folks. For the first nine out of ten years, life for Pooja had been fun, laughter, tantrums, toys, and school; till a fateful day, more than a year ago.
The day had dawned as usual, everyday like, in a flurry of early morning activities. Pooja never realized that it was a fateful day. No one did.
But then, fateful days are sly. Deliberately, they dawn like ordinary ones, so that they can catch us unaware. They go about their business quietly, hiding destiny in their wicked wombs.
That day, after putting Pooja on the school bus, her mother had picked the morning paper, handed it to her husband and had gone on to the kitchen to brew the morning cuppa,. It was daily routine.
She came back to him, with the steaming cups balanced neatly on a tray, and found him staring fixedly, at the paper. His face was drained of all colour.
Wordlessly, he handed the folded sheet to his wife. She too blanched visibly, as she recognized the shame faced woman, in the picture accompanying the news story.
The small item was printed on the inside pages of the city edition and on a more hurried day Pooja’s father could have easily missed it, but did not. On such tenuous, unexpected twists of cruel luck, are the lives of the mice and men dependent.
Later, that afternoon, Pooja did not find her mother home after school. She was not unduly concerned, being an only child she was used to taking care of herself. A neighbourhood aunt had let her in. But by the time it was late evening; the tiny tot had worked up a mighty tantrum to greet her parents.
A look, however, at their grim faces, warned her not to unleash her little storm. And from the way her mother pushed her away from herself, albeit gently, when she rushed to her, she sensed something was amiss, terribly.
Mother did not cook that night. Later, some relatives and friends dropped in. They all sat huddled together and spoke in hushed whispers, which would die altogether, whenever she came within earshot. That night, for the first time ever, the worried girl went to bed alone. She prayed, for her parents’ wellbeing. She thought that they were in some kind of trouble.
In his adjoining room, her father picked up the paper, again, and re read the headline for the umpteenth time, “Mid Wife Arrested For Exchanging Babies.”
The news item had alerted Pooja’s parents; their daughter’s colour was testimony enough. They too had gone to the police station, where the midwife was being held. The woman had nothing more to loose and admitted, readily enough, that their real son was living with another family in the same city.
She had sold him for a few thousand rupees. His adoptive parents had not wanted their child to know that he was not their very own. After all they were buying a real son with real money. The nurse had admitted during her interrogation, that it was her regular business. She was doing it to put her own children through costly public schools.
However in their case, the woman had not swapped the children. Pooja, she had got for free, from somewhere, and thus could not recall from where. Not that any one cared. The important thing was to get the boy back.
It was easier said then done. The boy’s incumbent ‘parents’ were not going to give up on their investment so easily.
It took a long court battle for the DNA test to be allowed.
The news was first published in a local paper. Later it had caught the imagination of the nationwide electronic media which is always desperate for new, slightly bizarre stories. It is a slave to a 24X7 devil, whom it has to feed constantly.
That day, after a year of judicial scrutiny, the CJM had pronounced the obvious verdict. Standing outside his court room, Pooja’s ‘mother’ was victoriously holding her son up in her arms.
Standing next to her, holding on desperately to her mother’s sari, the poor girl was facing the strongest, most potent, four letter word in English, ‘Mine!’ As in, me, my, ours …..MINE. It is the fulcrum on which our personal worlds revolve. Every emotion, be it, the much touted, ‘love,’ or its darker kin ‘hate’ (four letter ones again) is merely, its progeny. “Mine” comes before anything else.
A pretty young thing, from a national channel, asked her mother, “Madame, what will you now do with this girl?” Cheerfully, the lady in the limelight announced, “I will bring her up too. She is also like my daughter.” There were wide smiles of appreciation all around. Good people.
Distraught, Pooja looked up at her mother, who was too busy and happy to look down.
It had been an immense fall from the self-assured, peak of ‘my daughter,’ to an insecure, unsure, valley of ‘also like my daughter.’ On the way down, she had lost all that was hers. Everything, that she could once pick casually, without thinking, was now an obligation, a charity.
Later that day, her parents and her spanking new, fair skinned, brother visited almost every place of worship in the city, for obeisance before the munificent lord. “Bend, child, bend,” her mother would whisper fervently. Every time she would find her daughter staring accusingly at the Gods, and would urge, “Bend, for the almighty has blessed us!”
Saturday, September 12, 2009
The Theory of Relativity
These days, I play a ‘three bucket trick’ on myself. I use three buckets full of water to take my evening bath. Water conservationists, please excuse, but the weather is swelteringly hot, and my work entails that I stand in the Sun, for at least a couple of hours, everyday.
I use a submersible pump to suck the water up; from a bore well that reaches the deep innards of mother earth.
The first bucket full is almost warm, maybe due to the heated pipes that it uses to travel. The next two are progressively cooler. The third one being coldest of the lot but is still not ‘COLD’ by any standards set by the centigrade scale.
I use bucket number two first. It is refreshing. It washes the sweat and the grime off. Next I pull up the bucket number one. After number two, it feels ‘WARM,’ but still it is H TWO OH! An increasingly rare commodity on this planet. I use a larger water jug to run through it as quickly as possible.
Then comes the treat of the evening.
Bucket number three feels icy cold! I pour it over myself slowly, jug by jug, enjoying each drop as it carouses down my body. It tingles, it invigorates, it cools my scalp, and sends the body temperature plunging. The trick makes the water feel much colder than it actually is!
I
t enables me to wash the day off. I feel like a new man.
Theory Of Relativity: Rule One: Our feeling of discomfiture or pleasure are relative to the immediately previous experience that we have had rather than the real and actual parameters of the incident.
Let me give you another scenario. Imagine that you walk from a non air conditioned environment, into a room which had an air conditioner running in it, till a few minuets ago.
Your immediate reaction would be “Wow! Thank God! Its so cool, mmmmm…!” However, the people who had been there in the room, for some time, when the AC was running full blast, would be sweating bullets and cursing the utility company for shutting off power!
Relativity!
The theory does not end here.
Rule Two: We constantly compare ourselves with our relatives (the term includes, parents, siblings, cousins, uncles, friends, nieghbours, colleagues et el, but excludes our children). We feel happy or otherwise in accordance with the conclusions that we draw from such comparisons and set our targets accordingly. All our lives we compete with them and only them, whether consciously or unconsciously. In their misfortunes we take a vicarious if camouflaged pleasure, in their successes lie our insecurities and jealousies.
You do not agree? Answer the following questions:
If you buy a new car, whether a Nano or a Merc, whom do you want to show it to? Mr.Tata?
If you go on a holiday to Goa, Lonavala ,Shimla or Bangkok, do you put the pictures on the local newspaper or on Face book and Orkut? Why?
If you dream your dream house, do you plan its layout, landscape, height, interiors etc according to the houses of your ‘friends’? Or to a certain Mr. Mallaya?
If a son is not doing so well in school, whom do we think of? Mr D.B. Ambani; or a distant uncle, who made his millions despite having no college education?
Need I say more?
I use a submersible pump to suck the water up; from a bore well that reaches the deep innards of mother earth.
The first bucket full is almost warm, maybe due to the heated pipes that it uses to travel. The next two are progressively cooler. The third one being coldest of the lot but is still not ‘COLD’ by any standards set by the centigrade scale.
I use bucket number two first. It is refreshing. It washes the sweat and the grime off. Next I pull up the bucket number one. After number two, it feels ‘WARM,’ but still it is H TWO OH! An increasingly rare commodity on this planet. I use a larger water jug to run through it as quickly as possible.
Then comes the treat of the evening.
Bucket number three feels icy cold! I pour it over myself slowly, jug by jug, enjoying each drop as it carouses down my body. It tingles, it invigorates, it cools my scalp, and sends the body temperature plunging. The trick makes the water feel much colder than it actually is!
I
t enables me to wash the day off. I feel like a new man.
Theory Of Relativity: Rule One: Our feeling of discomfiture or pleasure are relative to the immediately previous experience that we have had rather than the real and actual parameters of the incident.
Let me give you another scenario. Imagine that you walk from a non air conditioned environment, into a room which had an air conditioner running in it, till a few minuets ago.
Your immediate reaction would be “Wow! Thank God! Its so cool, mmmmm…!” However, the people who had been there in the room, for some time, when the AC was running full blast, would be sweating bullets and cursing the utility company for shutting off power!
Relativity!
The theory does not end here.
Rule Two: We constantly compare ourselves with our relatives (the term includes, parents, siblings, cousins, uncles, friends, nieghbours, colleagues et el, but excludes our children). We feel happy or otherwise in accordance with the conclusions that we draw from such comparisons and set our targets accordingly. All our lives we compete with them and only them, whether consciously or unconsciously. In their misfortunes we take a vicarious if camouflaged pleasure, in their successes lie our insecurities and jealousies.
You do not agree? Answer the following questions:
If you buy a new car, whether a Nano or a Merc, whom do you want to show it to? Mr.Tata?
If you go on a holiday to Goa, Lonavala ,Shimla or Bangkok, do you put the pictures on the local newspaper or on Face book and Orkut? Why?
If you dream your dream house, do you plan its layout, landscape, height, interiors etc according to the houses of your ‘friends’? Or to a certain Mr. Mallaya?
If a son is not doing so well in school, whom do we think of? Mr D.B. Ambani; or a distant uncle, who made his millions despite having no college education?
Need I say more?
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