Confused Scared Dirty Angry

image from here

What can a guy possibly know about sexual abuse? After all, he can only have a second hand experience of what the female population of this country goes through on a daily basis. That is why I have to tell you my story.

I was a very shy kid in school. I never bullied anyone or picked up a fight. All I did was study diligently and top my class every single year. When not studying, I was neck deep into Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy and Arthur Conan Doyle. My sports teacher were perplexed to come across a boy who did not like throwing and hitting balls. I had great difficulty in striking a conversation with strangers and was terrified at the prospect of leaving the warm embrace of known faces in my school and join a college. To my utter discomfort, that is exactly what life had in store for me.

I got admission in a good college in Delhi University. The college was a one hour bus ride from my home. In those Metro-less days, The DTC buses as a mode of transport were as good as Manmohan Singh as our Prime Minister. So, the only way to get to the college was to board the notorious killer machines called Blueline buses. Sometimes, the buses were so crowded that you won’t find space to expand your chest to breathe. All I could see was a mass of hands holding the metal rods and pressing the windowpanes for support. The crowd was like a giant, single animal with multiple hands protruding from all sides.

The year was 1997. It was a time when we still talked about a lot of topics in hushed voices. Topics like rape, sexual abuse, child molestation, sexual orientation were not openly discussed. And yes, Rape and Sexual abuse happened only to women. Add to it my complete disconnection to the real world because of my nature and you would realise that I was shockingly naive.

So one fine day, I left the college in a hurry to get away from the awful place full of strangers and boarded a Blueline bus chock-a-block with more strangers. I squeezed in somehow and stood completely surrounded by unidentified torsos. A few moments later I felt a hand on my crotch. At first I ignored it, considering the number of people in the bus but then I felt that the hand was not there by mistake. It was slowly rubbing my crotch. I looked down and traced the hand back to the human attached to it. The person who was doing this was an elderly uncle in his late 50s. He looked straight into my eyes and kept rubbing. 

The first emotion that hit me was complete confusion. Why would a person who is of the age of my grandfather rub my crotch? I knew he was somehow getting aroused by this but I failed to understand how. I went red in the face and moved away from him. To my surprise, he came after me. He again stood near me and tried to rub my crotch. By this time, I was completely agitated and it showed on my face. I had no idea what to do in such a situation. I was this scared, timid boy who did not have the courage to push him back. When I look back, I understand that courage and anger are the last of your thoughts, especially when it is happening for the first time. Confused and scared – that is what I felt at the moment. Why was this even happening? I again moved away from him and this time he sensed trouble and did not follow.

When I reached home, I felt anger erupting inside me. I still could not make sense of an old man touching me like this. I felt dirty and disgusted. I did not discuss this with anyone but my parents did notice that I was a bit sad. I encountered the man two more times in the bus back home. He recognized me and tried to come near me but I was not going to let him get away with it, so I always moved near to the driver where I was not completely surrounded by people. He gave up after that.

It took me a long time to get over the incident. 

I told my wife about this incident a few days back. She asked me that how would such an incident play on my psyche if it happened again and again. I told her that I would be devastated till the point that I will require medical help to come out of it. She told me about numerous incidents that happened to her while traveling in buses. She told me how she was groped many times and how she sometimes received help. The women not only survive such abusers but they have to then survive the fingers pointing at them. I cannot imagine someone coming to me and telling me that what that uncle did was my fault. I would spit in the person’s face. 

So you see, I know a bit about sexual abuse. It is a tiny blip in comparison to what happens to women in India but I understand what they go through. I understand how it plays with your mind, how it makes you jittery in the presence of strangers, how it makes you wonder about a life in a parallel universe where you are respected, where people will not touch you without your permission, where they will not treat you as objects. 

I still feel angry that he got away with it. I feel angry that so many people get away with it in our country, in this world. Yes, the world around me has changed in the last 16 years. We are more vocal, more angry. But the abuses haven’t subsided. 

I am a different person from how I was in 1997. I have lived alone, managed my affairs and have shed most of my phobias. And if it is any consolation, if that incident happens now, I would grab that uncle by his balls and toss him out of the moving bus. It would save many more youngsters the trauma they would have gone through by his hands.

Slaughterhouse Country

image from here

I remember a tragic incident from the time when I was in school. There was a narrow two lane bridge on Yamuna close to my house. One fine day, a school bus plunged into the river from that bridge. Reason? The driver lost control because of his rash driving. The children could have been saved if the bridge had a strong concrete railing instead of a feeble iron one, similar to the one used in the balcony of houses. I still remember the face of a mother whose son was never found. The water was too muddy – the divers said. They searched for five days.

Do you know how many children were there in the bus? 120.

One of my British colleagues once made a very interesting observation. He said that we do not treasure life because we believe it is cyclical. We believe that anyone who dies will be reborn and thus don’t care about anyone dying.

Laughable?

But look around you. 4,97,686 road accidents were reported in 2011. 1,42,484 people died in road accidents in 2011 [link]. The statistics are easily available. A lot of us know about them. Still we see people incessantly breaking traffic rules. I have seen school buses jump traffic lights and ply in the wrong direction.

I remember a particular flyover that was constructed in Delhi. It was faulty with a very dangerous curve. It took the sacrifice of 8 human lives on that stretch before the administration woke up. Yes, DDA waited for 8 people to die before they installed safety measures.

How many pilots have died in the faulty MIG airplane crashes? Of the 872 MiG series fighter aircraft purchased by the government till 1980, a total of 482 planes have crashed till now, killing 171 pilots and 39 civilians [link]. Well, we have 390 more airplanes to go.

What happened in Uttarakhand was a mass murder of the first degree. More than 10000 people massacred in cold blood. Warnings were ignored and there was no disaster management plan in place, hotels made on soft riverbed crashed into the river, food didn’t reach the needy on time even though the whole country chipped in to provide supplies.

There are so many buildings that are deemed unfit in case of an earthquake but people still live in them, work in them.

There are buses and trains that run over capacity as people hang dangerously from the doors. They don’t have an option. They have to go to work, put food on the table. I knew a boy who fell off a train, went into coma and died after 10 days. He was in college.

We leave rape victims to die helplessly on the roads. It has taken the sacrifice of thousands of acid attack victims for the rulers to wake up and do something about it. [link][link2]

In 2010, 8391 dowry death cases were reported across India. It means that a bride was burned every 90 minutes [link]

It is estimated that more than 10 million female foetuses have been illegally aborted in India. That is 6 million less than the number of people who died in World War I. In 2011, 15,000 Indian women were bought and sold as brides in areas where foeticide has led to a lack of women. [link]

India contributes 25 percent of the world’s child deaths [link].

Grains rot and never reach the needy. 21 million tonnes of wheat is wasted every year. [link] That is equivalent to the wheat production of whole of Australia.

2,56,913 farmers have committed suicide since 1995. Maharashtra posts a dismal picture with over 50,000 farmers killing themselves. [link]

Don’t even try to count the number of riot victims. [link] Religion in this country is like a woman who was tied-up and hidden in a cowshed and was raped by a different man every night.

What is it if not an utter disregard of human life? What is it if not a country that has turned into a slaughterhouse?

No, I do not find the cyclical life argument laughable anymore. What makes us think that even a single life lost is Ok? It is not just a number. It is a dead human being. Who could have been saved.

And then I wonder if it has something to do with abundance of life? We deem life worthless because it is available in excess in our country? What is another man dead when we have crores of them?

Or is it the fact that we are never taught compassion. An outsider is not the same as your family. We have a shield firmly placed in front of our feelings when it comes to anyone who is not of our own blood. And I have seen this feeling grow over the last decade. We are more self-centered, more suspicious, more inhuman.

And of course, there is money to be made. We believe in compensations after tragedies. We believe in forming committees to probe deaths when we could have averted them in the first place. Committees about which the dead don’t care and neither the living after a while.

Some of us believe in repenting. Yes, we tend to do that after an accident. An accident that could have never happened.

Sometimes I wonder if we deserve each other. The politicians and citizens. Many of us have blood on our hands. We have wrapped our dead unborn daughters in newspaper and thrown them in dustbins, haven’t we? We have allowed our children to sit in a bus filled with 120 souls instead of objecting.

Yes, this slaughterhouse is a joint venture and a successful one. It is said that when the battle of Mahabharat ended, the soil in Kurukshetra was thick with blood. It is still red if you dig it a bit. But we don’t have to do it anymore. Just look at your hands. It will be invisible at first but you will see the red stains if you concentrate.

A handful of us who can still maintain our sanity have to believe that there is always hope. What else can be there after so much bloodshed?

Message in a Pen – I

Based on a true story. The names have been changed to protect the identity. This is a 3 part series. 

I stared at the flaps as they extended. A few moments later the wheels were kissing the airstrip amidst roaring air. It was a strange feeling. The city felt alien and that too in just three years. My parents were waiting outside the airport, scanning strange faces for a glimpse of familiarity.

“You are dark,” mother said the moment she filled her hands with my face.

“Don’t worry, winter is almost here,” father said and smiled. I smiled back. 

Even if you have lived in a city for years, there is something inexplicably uncomfortable when you see it after a gap. The sunlight feels different. The air smells strange. New bridges and buildings have sprouted. There are monstrous pillars on road-dividers with trains snaking on them. Faces are buried in more lines. 

Rajat called in the evening. The cheerful baboon wanted the gang to meet even before I had unpacked my bags.

“Where shall we meet?” I asked.

“Saahil’s place. Tomorrow,” he said. 

The four of them have been meeting regularly. I was the outcast, thrown away by destiny. I had been to Delhi twice in the last three years but the trips were fleeting, not stretching for more than four days. I haven’t seen any of them. Saahil was married now – the only married man of our gang. Who would have thought? 

I was late. I bought a box of chocolates and a kilo of apples. Kirti opened the door. I had never met her before. There was a one year old in her hands who was playing with her gold chain.

“He is here,” she turned around and shouted at the living room.  

There was a sudden roar from the sofa and a crowd of faces filled my eyes. The moment was surreal. Rajat, Gaurav, Sumit and Saahil encircled me like an eight armed octopus, the way they had done three years ago on our last night in the hostel. I was engulfed in sounds of laughter, questions and recollections of the better days my complexion has seen.

“Chennai does that to you,” Gaurav said.

“I will be ok in a few weeks. It doesn’t matter,” I said.

“Really?” Gaurav asked raising an eyebrow.

“It’s just skin.”

“How is the job?” Sumit asked.

“I pay my bills regularly,” I said and smiled.

“We missed you. Every time we met, we always wondered if the five of us will ever be together some day,” Rajat said.

“At least all of you met. All I did was sulk.” 

I tried not to look at Saahil and he noticed the gesture. My face was brimming with questions. It would have been an embarrassment. He was holding his son as Kirti had sprinted towards the kitchen after greeting me.

“I am still angry with you for missing my marriage,” he finally said as Kirti appeared with a cup of tea and some biscuits.

“I know,” I said staring at the tea. 

There wasn’t any reason to be cross with Saahil but I was. I could not explain it to myself. It was immature. He made a choice and he was blissful but then how could he just whisk away all that had happened? I wanted a moment with him to give my mind some rest. 

“Is anyone in contact with the girls?” I asked. Chatter fell off the air and everyone looked up at me. The question was a mistake.                                               

*           *           *

Kurukshetra was a scary place. The fact that I had to travel through unknown villages and towns of Haryana in a roadways bus to reach my college made it scarier. I had never lived alone in a hostel and my parents were failing miserably to put a brave front. My mother behaved as if I was a soldier going to war. Dad tried to be emotionless and strong. The college was three hours from Delhi and I promised to be back every weekend with loads of opportunities to use the washing machine.

Dad went with me to the hostel and helped me clean the room. Thankfully I did not have to share it with anyone. He gifted me a Nokia mobile so that I can call them in case someone was trying a sword on me. Certain narrow-minded communities in Haryana were famous for their flair for weapons. Dad stayed for the night in a hotel in case he had to take my body back. He was relieved to see me alive the next day and bid me farewell. Suddenly the fact that I was all alone in a town in Haryana manifested itself in all its glory and I went weak in my knees.

I met Rajat, Saahil, Gaurav and Sumit in the hostel. I clung to them as I found them surprisingly calm. I was later told that this was not their first time in a hostel. Saahil and Rajat were from Sonepat which was another small town in Haryana. We were ragged incessantly by our seniors but the versions were mild as we were post-graduate students.

Classes commenced and I met inhabitants of the girl’s hostel. There were five of them – Neelam, Ruchi, Sneha, Amrita and Kiran. The fact that the ten of us were away from our families brought us closer. Also, there was a hope that five love stories might blossom in the process. It was too much of a coincidence that the gender equations were so levelled out. Our dreams were shattered a few weeks and a few unsuccessful wooing attempts later when Ruchi and Sneha confided that they already had boyfriends while Amrita and Kiran were too scared of their families to even think about it. Neelam gave a mysterious smile and did not disclose anything. Their heartbreaking revelations were made during a game of truth-or-dare in the ruins of Sheikh Chilli’s tomb, a Mughal monument in Kurukshetra. By the time we reached hostel that evening, Saahil was having great difficulty in breathing.

“Neelam is not engaged to anyone!” he screamed with joy the moment the five of us were alone in his room.

“Yes, we noticed that and also the drool from your mouth reaching your foot,” I said.

“I am going to propose to her tomorrow,” Saahil said.

“What!” the four of us shouted. The windowpane vibrated.

“What is wrong in that?” Saahil asked innocently.

“What is right in that? She belongs to a Jat family from Haryana. They are influential businessmen,” I said.

“So?” Saahil said.

“If you want it so bluntly loverboy, then here goes. You belong to a Scheduled Caste community. If her family comes to know of your affair, your family will end up collecting pieces of your body from farms all over Haryana,” I said.

Rajat, Gaurav and Sumit nodded. There was silence while the news sank in.

“I think I love her,” Saahil said.

“Oh for God’s sake!” I got up and threw my hands in the air.

“They can always talk to the parents. They might agree,” Sumit said nervously, with an unconvincing tone.

“Don’t encourage him! He will die!” I shouted and stormed out of the room. 

*           *           *

“Lunch is almost ready,” Kirti said from the kitchen. She and Saahil were making the chapattis. Rajat, Gaurav and Sumit were cutting salad while I was playing with Arnav, Saahil’s son. Arnav held my finger firmly in his hand and was staring at me as if trying to place me from his previous birth’s memories. It is said that children remember their previous birth till they begin to speak. I looked at Arnav’s face and wondered if that was true. And then I wondered how his face would have turned up had Saahil married Neelam. I suddenly felt ashamed.

“There was no need to ask about the girls,” Gaurav whispered.

“I am sorry,” I said.

“As you know Ruchi and Sneha are married to their respective boyfriends and happily settled in Bangalore. Amrita is divorced as her parents married her to a jerk and Kiran is in Sonipat, married to a businessman,” Rajat said.

“Amrita is divorced? When did that happen?” I asked a bit taken aback.

“Two months back. She is in Gurgaon working in an MNC,” Rajat said.

“And…,” I said.

“And nothing,” Sumit said pointing to the entrance to the dining area where Kirti has appeared with the cutlery.

“Why are you so glum? What has happened to you?” Gaurav asked.

“I don’t know. All of you have moved on but for me our life together is frozen in that hostel. I can’t time travel,” I said.

“Pretend to be normal. Ok?” Sumit said. I nodded. Rajat wiped tears from his eyes. He was slicing onions.

Read part 2 here    

[image from here]                        

Misanthropically Yours

Image from – http://wall.alphacoders.com/big.php?i=177417

I am turning into a misanthrope. I don’t want to but when I see a five year old raped and tortured, when I hear news of a bottle and candles retrieved from her vagina, when I see a policeman offer Rs 2000 to the raped girl’s father to let go of the thought of an FIR, when I see a policeman telling the survivor’s family that they should be thankful that the girl is alive, when I see a policeman slapping a protesting girl, when I see politicization of the issue, I don’t see how I can stop myself from hating mankind.

My generation has not seen the World Wars but I have read enough books, seen enough movies, seen enough documentaries to understand what happened. I know how a culture was obliterated, how it was turned into gaseous fumes coming out of a chimney of a camp. I know how millions of carcasses were shoved into pits using trenchers, I know how two entire cities where vapourised in the name of peace. The images are entrenched in my mind. I can never forget the image of a four year old naked Jew boy running towards a barbed fence of a concentration camp as a German shepherd chased him. I felt lucky that I haven’t lived in those times but the ironical bit about history is that it doesn’t matter. It is an embarrassment everyone wants to forget and then commit again. And no, you are never lucky enough. The end of barbarism can never be a done deal.

Has the world turned into a better place to live? Is this a meaningless question? Can our society function without brutality or will it crumble to pieces in its absence?

I do not understand this race anymore. I do not understand why I have to live in a constant fear of losing my loved ones. I do not understand the brutal images of what could happen to my family that spring in my mind every other day. I do not understand the utter abjection with which we treat each other.

I sometimes feel that my mind will explode into a million tiny pieces. I sometimes want to howl with pain, scream so loud that the sound exterminates every human from the face of Earth. I want to give this planet another chance, something that is not possible till humans infect it.

They tell me that I should be grateful for the good life God has given me. I have a loving family and a happy life. Is that good enough reason to be satisfied, to count my lucky stars? How can I be happy when I look around and see misery? How can I be happy when I read about men exploding themselves in marketplaces to serve their God? How can I be happy when I belong to a country where the fragile culture is all about encouraging rapes and molestation? How can I be happy when I see a doctor telling the parents that they can wrap the dead female fetus in a newspaper and throw it in the dustbin on their way out? How can I be happy when I see the subjugation of the weak at every nook and corner? I don’t know how people cocoon themselves and live a detached life. I feel violated.

They tell me that there is good in the world. I would like to believe that but how is good a part of the solution? Is it growing? Is it reducing the coldness? How many more sacrifices before it takes over?

No. Telling me that there is good in the world is not good enough. Tell me how the world is getting better because that is what I want to know. And don’t call me a pessimist. I am only numb with horror. I see things getting worse all around me.

I am scared to bring a child in this world. I am scared that I will spend the rest of my life worrying for the safety of my kid. Apathy has no boundaries. It is a limitless ocean, it is a black hole that has sucked everything that was good in this world. I don’t want my child to live in its shadow and I don’t want to put a cage around my child. I don’t want to live the rest of my life pretending that I live in a war zone.

I wish to meet that 5 year old girl. I wish to hold her in my arms and tell her that it will be all right. I wish she looks at me and smile. I wish to live in a world where this heavy burden of fear does not exist on my chest. I wonder how it feels to live without it. Just thinking about its absence makes me feel rejuvenated, makes me feel like a freed slave. I wish to live in a world where power is not brutal, where humans are not derailed psychopaths, where life is treated as an invaluable gift, where happiness is not insulated and confined to a selected few, where God has no face.

The night sky fills me with awe. The stars and planets are nature’s way of telling us about our insignificance, about our diminutive presence in the universe. And we still have the intrepidity of hurting each other, of clawing at each other’s soul, of raping a 5 year old.

Isn’t that enough reason to be a misanthrope?

Same City Different Light

A few days back I went to my office for an implementation. I had to reach office at 6 am which meant I had to leave home at around 4:45. The cab driver woke me up at 4.10 am because he could not find my home and I ended up being his GPS for the next 15 minutes and choked on my toothbrush in the process.

As I sat in the car and covered the distance to my office in 1 hour which I usually cover in 2 hours during peak rush hour, I felt disoriented. Dawn looked like a struggle to me. I hadn’t experienced Delhi in this light. I was expecting at least a façade of calmness.

The streetlights were wrestling with the Sun to maintain their dominion over the roads. I saw them fight a losing battle as the Sun attacked the roads the streetlights had held with such élan all night. It was a clash the streetlights fought and lost every day but that never dissuaded them from putting up a worthy fight.

There were hoards of trucks on the roads, especially on the highway and the Ring road. The car looked like a petrified deer passing through a herd of elephants. The driver was doing his best to remain wide awake, popping out his eyes and alarmingly touching them to the windshield.

A tired truck driver stopped his truck in a corner of the road, stepped down and laid on the footpath. He covered himself with the quilt of the bright yellow glow of the streetlight. He could not bear the weariness anymore. He had to sleep before he could carry on with his nomadic life. I looked at him and thought – he must be bone tired. How else can someone sleep on a stone? I wished I could turn off the streetlight but the Sun was already winning the war.

Traffic policemen were stopping random trucks trying to collect money for the future of their children. There was no remorse – only the crunching sound of a bigger fish eating a smaller one. Morality looked like a fish bone stuck in their throat. They either had to spit it out or die. In a way, the truck driver and the policeman were like the streetlamp and the Sun – each one fighting a battle of their own.

Patches of men, women and children were sleeping on the footpaths, covered with dirty sheets of cloths and plastic, just like dead bodies pulled out of a train wreck. The fight will be delayed in winters. There will be times when the army of Sunrays would not bother to come and someone will give euthanasia to the tired streetlights much before the battle begins. The humans of the streets will have to find some more tattered pieces of clothes to cover themselves up, burn a worn out tyre, find a shed, cocoon each other.

The roads were near empty once we crossed the Ring road. I noticed the symmetry – the equally placed streetlights, the blob of lights passing through the windows of the car like a heartbeat on a monitor, the lane markings blurring into a single line. It was tranquil without the chaos of humans, without the display of their feeble egos, without their bodies lying on cold stones. But then, a monster bird flew over the car, hiding its wheels and the momentary serenity was broken by its deafening wail.  

My office stood like a morgue. The usual receptionist was replaced by a yawning man, ready to devour the phone. For once, the lift moved towards me on my command, not jostling to serve someone else before me. The flight to the 7^th floor was effortless – a perfect cuboid being pulled away from Earth by pulleys without a halt. The floor was deserted; a sole tube light was taking its last breath.

I sat on my computer and did the implementation. In two hours, men and women started pouring in, filling the room with randomness. I looked out of the room. The city was recognizable now as the multitude churned in their chores. The Sun had won the war. The streetlights were picking up their wounded, getting ready for the battle in the evening. A battle they were destined to win. 

I can see them

I belong to the generation who, while growing up, treated the word internet as something divinely unattainable. It was like a spaceship from another planet which crash-landed on Earth – exclusive and quarantined. I remember, while doing my Masters, someone pointed a guy to me in college and whispered in my ears that he had an internet connection at home. I looked at that guy with awe and from then onwards behaved with him as if he was Tom Cruise. I came very close to kissing the ground on which he walked.

At that time if anyone would have suggested that one day internet will be available on mobiles, he would have ended up like Galileo.

Sometimes, the leap which technology has taken in the last twenty years boggles me. From a time when mobiles and internet connection were unheard of, we have reached a point where a street vendor has a better mobile than me, where my maid talks to her boyfriend all the time while doing the dishes. My mind still does not comprehend the fact that I can browse internet on my mobile. Was it another life when I visited an internet cafe to browse for twenty rupees an hour on a rickety 56 kbps connection? Was it another life when I had tears of joy in my eyes when I heard the mechanical sound of a dial-up connection in my house for the first time? It is amazing that I once had the capability to derive joy from such minuscule things.

I also belong to the generation who has lost a lot of friends to distance. Leave aside internet, telephone connection was a distant dream for my family when I was in school. The only way I could keep in touch with my school friends was by calling them from a local PCO (which I did religiously) but then soon gave in to my college studies. When we finally got a telephone, it was a necessity not a luxury.

It is being argued that internet has killed real-time conversations. I do not think internet has anything to do with it. Our life is not similar to that of the previous generation. My friend circle is spread over continents. We do not meet in years. In India too, we are spread over various cities. I haven’t seen so many of my friends in flesh since ages. So, it’s not internet that is responsible for the changing equations, it’s our work culture, it’s our lifestyle that has changed. Sitting with friends over a cup of tea in the evening has turned into a privilege only a few could enjoy, just like an internet connection two decades back. The irony is palpable.

Time flies!

That is why I think internet is a blessing. I can pick up my mobile, login into a social networking website and share a moment with my friends. I can see them going for further studies and enjoying their new friend circle, I can see them getting engaged, getting married, going for honeymoon, having babies, celebrating birthdays of their children, enjoying their holidays. I do not need a PCO to hear their voices, I can have a video chat with them. For someone who once tried desperately to keep his friends from dwindling, you cannot begin to imagine the joy all this brings.

Time is a running Cheetah and we are sitting on its back. But then all of us need our moments of sanity and who else can give them if not our family and friends?

My mobile is like a window in each of my friend’s life and internet is the latch. I can open the latch any time and be a part of their lives and make them part of mine. It’s amazing how our lives are shared virtually by zeroes and ones. Who knows, a few more decades down the line, we might be sharing pictures of our children getting married. And who knows humans might have discovered teleportation by then and our children will laugh at how we used internet to connect. But, till then, I have realised that I still have the capability to derive joy from minuscule things. I have my mobile and my internet connection and I can see my friends.

Yes, I can see them.

[This is my entry to Indiblogger’s Internet is fun contest]

www.vodafone.in/fun

[images from 1,2,3]

When I met God in a Bar

I was drinking beer waiting for my friend in a bar when this gorgeous girl walked up to me.

She: Hi! How are you?

Me: Hi! I am good. How are you?

She : Great. Can I sit here? What’s your name?

Me: Rohit. And yours?

She: God.

Me (coughing in my beer mug): Which one?

She (smiling): All of them, I guess. Rolled into one.

Me: Listen, can I buy you a drink, dear lord?

She: Sure Earthling. I’ll have a beer too.

So, God and I sat comfortably on the sofa sipping beer, eyeing each other. She was a pretty God.

Me: So, God. What are you doing here on Earth?

She: Just roaming around. Checking how you guys are doing.

Me: And how are we doing?

She: You want me to answer that? All right. You guys are pathetic. I am thinking of ending your race. I am thinking of bringing the dinosaur back.

Me: Really? That is a noble thought. But we are an advanced species. We have made such scientific advancements in the last 200 years. Why would you want us dead?

She: You guys are in such awe of yourself! It’s amazing how being in awe can make you blind to everything else. Tell me something. Point out one thing in the world you would like to change.

Me: Whoa! That is a very difficult question. Hmmm. Let me try. Weapons. Remove all weapons from the world. Yes, that would be perfect.

She: Your stock markets will probably crash if I do that and half of the nations will either be bankrupt or lose their purpose of existence. Anyways, that was a noble thought human. *She smiled* What next?

Me: Vaporize all the terrorists, I guess?

She: What about the people in the position of power who actually fund terrorism? Do you want them to be vaporized too?

Me (emptying my beer mug and ordering another) : Sure.

She: Do you even realize what you are asking for Earthling? Your whole system will collapse if I do that.

Me (realizing that she was getting quite serious) : Relax. You need another beer?

She: Yeah sure. What else?

Me: You really want me to keep going, don’t you?

She: You are angry, I can see it pulse inside you. Out with it.

Me: Okay. You asked for it. I want people to stop littering. I want the spit of a person to fly back in his mouth the moment he spits on the ground. *She giggled* I want people to respect each other’s decisions. I want freedom to express myself. I want girls to be respected. I want politicians to understand the gravity of their position. I want all the black money confiscated. I want honking to be banned. I want poverty to be eliminated. I don’t want to see a single human die of hunger. I don’t want any farmer to commit suicide. I don’t want a single child to be blinded to beg or a girl pushed into prostitution. I want all rapists to be castrated. I want peace. I want people to love this gift of life and give it the respect it deserves.

God stared at me for a while. Her beer arrived. She sipped it thoughtfully.

She: That was quite a mouthful. Now say all this in one sentence.

Me: Ummm. I would like people to be more helpful, to smile at each other, to be honest, to respect.

She: Do you understand now?

Me: Yes. Yes, I do.

She: Killing terrorists and destroying weapons will not solve your problems Earthling. They are the manifestations of decades of wrongdoings. You have to begin from the beginning. One person at a time. From here. *and she tapped her finger on my heart*

It was my turn to stare at her.

Me: Who are you, again?

She: I told you. I am God. *She gulped down her beer in one go* My second glass of beer is over.

Me: And you pick a random stranger one at a time to have a chat and drill your point?

She (smiling): No. Not one at a time. I can appear at a million places at one go. Surely you know that? And besides, I get free beer. 

My mobile beeped. It was a text from the friend for whom I was waiting. He was not coming.

Me: Do you want to walk?

She: Sure.

We walked for a while. The air was cool. It felt good. I slipped my fingers between hers.

Me: Can I call you sometime?

She: Of course you can. *She turned and faced me, moving her fingers on my cheek* You were my greatest creation Earthling. You can always close you eyes and call me.

With that she started walking towards the next turn.

Me (shouting as she turned the corner) : I was going to ask for your mobile number.

She smiled and turned. I ran after her. There was no one there.

I started walking towards my car scratching my head. I saw an old man walking by. I looked in his eyes and smiled. He hesitated and then smiled back.

[This post has been written for IndiBloggers Time to Change contest

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How not giving a bribe lead to a Honeymoon in Paris

I was in Manchester when Geet and I decided to get married. It was an arranged marriage and our parents had given us a month to talk and decide. We liked each other from the first telephone conversation we had. It wasn’t awkward. It was like talking to an old friend. Then a few webcams later, we said yes. Just like that. Without actually meeting. Geet was in India.

I flew back to India for a small ceremony. That was the first time we saw each other in flesh and everything felt warm and happy. It was one of those days when the world seemed beautiful.

Our marriage was four months later and thus telephone conversations and Skype chats sessions started. We were never physically there during our courtship but we never felt the distance. After all we were going to spend our whole life together. There was sweetness in that longing. I sent her chocolates, teddy bears, flowers and romantic songs.

As the D-day approached, I started preparing for our Honeymoon. I was coming to India for three weeks and I booked a room in Leela Kempenski in Kovalam. The hotel was located on a cliff near the ocean and you could see the whole ocean from your room. It was heavenly. I kept it a secret. It was a surprise for Geet.

Marriage happened with all the riot of colours, dancing, food, loads of relatives and photographs which an Indian wedding happens to provide. Both of us were exhausted and exhilarated by the end of it. We slept like a log for two days. After we woke up, the plan was to get our marriage certificate done, go to Kovalam and then apply for Geet’s Visa on our return. We were relying on the assumption that the marriage certificate will be done in two days. Many of our friends asked us to bribe the clerks in the office so that it was not delayed. We reached the office, filed our application without bribing anyone and waited. Soon the main officer called us and asked for Geet’s residential proof of my house! I told him that we just got married. How was she supposed to have a residential proof so soon? He asked us to open a joint account in a bank and use it as a proof. Basically, we did not bribe the clerks and so they had decided to ruin it for us. After all, people had got their marriage certificates in the same office in two hours. So, we opened a joint account in a bank and submitted it as a proof. We finally got our marriage certificate in three days but there was no time to go to Kovalam. I called up Leela Kempenski and asked them to cancel my booking. The amount was non-refundable. I asked them to take the money. They were taken aback. Finally, they didn’t take the money. I figured someone else might have booked the room after I cancelled.

I was sulking. I was angry. Our honeymoon was ruined. Geet told me that it was ok and we could go somewhere else later. I promised myself that I would not let a loser ruin my happiness. We got Geet’s visa done and came to Manchester. And then I got the perfect idea of a honeymoon. It was a dream and I was scared to touch it. I kicked myself for not thinking about it before. I applied for Schengen and soon our tickets to Paris were booked. Take that for ruining our honeymoon you loser, bribe sucking clerk!

Paris was a different planet. It was utopia. We were like two wide-eyed kids lost in the streets of Paris, sometimes deliberately. We did all the touristy things – kissed on the top of the Eiffel Tower, visited Mickey and Minnie in Disneyland, bought expensive French perfumes, took a Seine boat cruise, ambled in the gardens of Versailles, gawked at Mona Lisa in Louvre, sat in silence in Notre Dame, marvelled at the modern art collection at Georges Pompidou, devoured mushroom and cheese croissants and travelled in Paris Metro but all this was not what defined Paris for us. It was a tune played on an accordion.

It was our first day in Paris. We got down from the automatic metro which took us from our airport terminal to the one at which we could get an RER train to our hotel. The train soon chugged in and we took a corner seat in one of the almost empty compartments. Two women were chatting in French a few seats away, a drunken beggar was sleeping on another and a man was standing near the door with an accordion in his hand. Soon he started playing a tune and suddenly there were goosebumps all over Geet and me. We looked at each other and smiled and then Geet’s head was on my shoulder, her hand curled in mine. The tune was so unreservedly romantic that somehow the moment stood still. We wanted him to go on forever. The tune dissolved effortlessly with the rhythm of the train. That one moment defined Paris for us, not the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre or French perfumes. For us it was a city where two lovers could hold hands and melt away in the spell while a stranger played an incredibly dreamy tune for them on an accordion.

I gave the stranger a generous tip after he finished. He was surprised and said Merci. I almost asked him to play it again.

And then I did something I had never imagined I would do. I thanked the clerk who delayed my marriage certificate.

(image of accordion from – http://www.music.vt.edu/musicdictionary/texta/accordion.html)

[This post has been written for Indiblogger Incredible stories]

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Cliffs, Ships and Spotlights

Going to Manchester was a high. I had always wanted to smell the soil of another country, take a lung-full of alien air. It was a whole new world. Different. Exciting. Scary. I learnt to say thank you, even to the bus drivers. I saw roads filled with flower petals in autumn. I saw endless rows of green hills during my train journeys to London. I absorbed the beauty of Britain like a sponge.

It was February when I landed there. The cold numbed my hands and I had to wear gloves to warm them back to feelings. It snowed later that day. It was the first time I had seen white cotton falling from the sky. It was overwhelming. Soon, I with my three flat-mates started to plan for a trip to Isle of Wight. No one went there in winters but then in Britain you pretty much don’t go anywhere in bleak winters.

I took upon me to plan the trip. From creating a map of the small island on the southern tip of England on a piece of paper to hiring a car on an online portal to booking a B&B, I did it all. I was like Alice in wonderland, wide eyed and not too sure whether all this was real. So, I pinched myself and planned.

There were no bridges to the Isle. You have to tuck your car in a ferry. We landed in Fishbourne and drove to our B&B. The island was awfully quite. It was off season. We stayed on the island for three days, visiting the deserted beaches like Shanklin, Ryde, Sandown and Yarmouth. We watched sunrise braving unexceptional cold winds. We went to the Needles, late for the sunset and ran into people coming back. They were beautiful three days but there is one incident which stands out. It changed something in me.

We were at the Yaverland beach looking at the seagulls and the waves lapping the shore. I was staring at the white cliff on my left. I was fascinated by it. I wanted to run and reach its top. I asked my friends if we could walk up there and they were horrified. I told them that I was going up and I will meet them for lunch. Excitingly, I started walking up the Culver cliff. The cliff was completely deserted and after walking for fifteen minutes, I could see no signs of humanity. I was walking very close to the edge of the cliff and there were red danger signs all over asking people to stay away as the edges had a tendency to break free. The horizon was receding as I walked up and ships which were hidden earlier started appearing. The sky was dark greyish cloudy but the wind was less wild up here.

The cliff was less broken at the top and there were wooden fences at the edges. I glanced at a few black sheep roaming around and a small house far off from the cliff edge. But that wasn’t something that caught my eye. I was staring at the vast expanse of ocean and ships looking like small toys, lazying around in the calm water. The only sound which I could hear was that of the wind, dancing around in slow rhythms, broken once by a speeding water scooter which looked like a shooting star from where I stood. A man walked by with his dog. He was going down the cliff.

“Beautiful day”, he said.

“Yes. Yes, it is”, I said, still staring at the ocean, inhaling deeply.

And then the clouds parted.

Spotlights started falling on the ships. The ocean was shimmering. It was as if something divine was making an appearance. I knew at that moment that I was looking at something I would never forget my entire life. The sun played hide and seek with the ocean for a long time, hiding behind the black clouds and then appearing somewhere else. It was peaceful. I had never felt such calm. It was like watching a play in a theatre, spotlights falling on artists performing with tranquillity and poise.

The play of nature forced me to reflect. Our life goes through a lot of turmoil as we grow up, wishes to be fulfilled, goals to be achieved. Something similar to the sky with dark clouds hovering over the sea. But then sunshine breaks in once in a while and we are so wound up in the race that we fail to acknowledge it. We fail to absorb the placidity it brings with it.

I called my friends on their mobile and asked them to come up.

“You are missing the sunshine”, I told them. They walked up finally and all of us sat near the edge of the cliff for a while, staring at the ships and spotlights. There was a smile on everyone’s face.

It has been five years since I walked up the Culver Cliff, perhaps for the first and last time, but I still recreate that scene to appease myself whenever I am tense. I close my eyes and imagine myself standing on the cliff, staring at the divine spotlight falling on the ocean. I have always believed that there is so much to see in the world that it is a sin to visit the same place twice. But, then, someday I might walk up that cliff again for old times sake, for the spotlights and the ships.

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[[This is my entry for Indiblogger’s Incredible Stories contest]]

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The Sentimental Indian

Dr. Grace Augustine: [to Selfridge] Those trees were sacred to the Omaticaya in a way you can’t imagine.
Selfridge: You know what? You throw a stick in the air around here it falls on some sacred fern, for Christ’s sake!

~ Avatar

When I heard this fiery interchange for the first time, moments before they blow up the Na’vi mother tree, I felt what Selfridge said defined the Sentimental Indian very aptly. Of course, we are as different from the inhabitants of Pandora as apples and oranges but for a second I though he was talking about us. The Na’vi was a much intelligent race, sentimentally attached to their soil. Being incredulously sentimental comes easily to us too but in a variety of ways the Na’vi can’t even begin to imagine. Consider the following scenarios:

When she heard the news of SRK replacing her

When SRK replaced Nirupa Roy

Indians are such sentimental creeps at times that it can give you the heebie-jeebies. Look at our glorious cinema. Our Bollywood heroes cry more than our heroines now-a-days. The way SRK cried like a lost puppy in the climax of Kuch Kuch hota hai could even shame Nirupa Roy. I really wish Shah Rukh Khan was never discovered and we would have still been drooling over Sunny Deol’s hand-pump uprooting abilities. Even Akshay Kumar and John Abraham cry. Yeah! That’s how bad things are.

Hiding women as pubs+drinks+women = Rapes

Being sentimental about our Indian culture and values is another way we love to police everyone who do not agree with us. A girl goes to a pub, drinks and gets raped and suddenly everyone gets sentimental over the incident. The Chief Minister of the state in which the rape happened gets sentimental about the future of her political party and blames the opposition for the rape. The guardians of our culture (who are avid porn fans) get sentimental over the fact that a girl was in a pub and drunk. The rest of the population gets sentimental about the safety of their mothers-sisters-wives and start debating on how we have to ensure their safety by not allowing them to go out of the house and stop them  from wearing jeans. The police get sentimental over the fact that there is another FIR in their kitty and they have to do some work and end up making a “clerical mistake” of revealing the victim’s identity.

You are turning your child into a steam engine

Drink my dreams child. They are tasty!

We get sentimental over the future of our children and almost choke them to death in the process. We make them study till their eyeballs hurt, reminding of the harrowing times we went through to make them stand on their feet. We sentimentally shove our dreams down their throat and remind them how they have to take care of us in old age. The children, oblivious of the albatross around their neck, shed a few tears and hug us, realizing a few years down the line that they have been sentimentally tricked.

Rainbows and fragile cultures

Gay and lesbian rights are also something which ruffles the sentimental feathers of a majority of our population. It’s against our culture, they say, secretly praying that their sons and daughters don’t end up with the “sickness”. The fact that a man can love another man horrifies us. Our underdeveloped sentimental brain refuses to understand that it is not a matter of “choice”, something similar to the fact that you cannot choose to have 17 nipples on your chest.

Prince eating Pauper food

Princes and Paupers

The politicians are sentimental about their votes. They promise quotas till there is no general category left. Promising something (like FDIs) and backtracking is the norm as such promises end up making the opposition froth sentimentally. It gives them a chance to overdramatize the situation and vouch to burn all the Walmarts. Votes make Princes of dynasties very sentimental and they end up eating food in huts with the poor people who are sentimental enough to vote for the prince for their 30 seconds of fame on national television. Politicians also are dangerously sentimental about their black money and they end up following their heart and do foolish things like

• throwing Anna Hazare in jail just before a protest is about to begin.
• ordering the police to beat and kick people sleeping peacefully at night at a protest venue.
• blaming Facebook and Twitter for any future riots.
• Trying to pass a Jokepal Bill which had more holes in it than Amitabh Bachchan in the climax of Coolie.

Suck my religion

Try throwing a stone up in the air and chances are that it might hit a sacred tree, a sacred animal or a sacred river and you might end up starting a riot where hundreds will be burnt alive. Yes, we are deeply sentimental about our religion. A wise man said once that religion is like a penis. It’s good to have one and be proud of it but please don’t open your zip and flaunt it in public and don’t shove it down our throat. Well, sentimental Indians believe that it is important to flaunt it in public (religion that is) and so we always have our zip down and we love gagging people with it. We throw writers and painters out of the country because they have hurt our fragile religious sentiments. We make foreigners apologize if they just mention any of our gods or religious buildings in a fit of good humour. We love shouting “Hail Mother India” with moist eyes even though we have no idea what it means.

A sentimental conclusion

Of course our sense of humour is as dry as the Thar Desert but we are as abundant as the oceans as far as shedding a sentimental tear is concerned. We turn dangerous when we are sentimental. We rape, butcher, burn and dance with swords in our hands. And then suddenly, there is war with another country and we stand united and shed copious tears for the dead soldiers. Ditto for a cricket cup.

Yes, that is how much sentimental we are.