My Book Shelf on Shelfari

Very recently, some friends invited me to Shelfari. This website offers bibliophiles from across the globe an opportunity to come together to talk about what they love most: BOOKS. I recommend it immensely.

Embedded below is a (virtual) Shelf of some of the books that I have loved. I have also put it permanently on the left sidebar (under the THIS BLOG RECOMMENDS section- since removed because certain readers like "The Inhuman Humanist" strongly felt that it gave it a cluttered look, which distracted from the main page. The list continues to be available on the Shelfari link above- AJ: 10.10.2007). Readers will need to download Adobe Flash player to scroll through it. Needless to say, I intend to keep expanding this list.

AJ Read More (आगे और पढ़ें)......

Showcase: Dr. Sushovan Roy

This brief clip showcases the musical talent of Sushovan Roy. Dr. Roy is the one person I truly envy: a brilliant AIIMS-educated psychiatrist with a blooming practice in Thatcherite-London, he left everything to become a teacher in Pokhra under the icy-slopes of the Annapoorna in faraway Nepal. About a decade ago, he returned to the Motherland after being suspected by the Royalist Government of being pro-Maoist (as a matter of fact, several of his former 'students' now occupy high positions in the present Nepalese administration). In this straight-from-the-heart rendition of the Gulzar-RD Burman number, Tujsé Naraz Nahi Zindagi (I am not angry with you, Life), notice how he infuses fresh angst into each word he sings.

Personally, I find both the choice of song as well as its rendition by Dr. Roy particularly apt in light of yesterday's development (for those who haven't already heard, our longtime bête noire Mr. Vidya Charan Shukla finally marched back to the Congress ahead of an imminent midterm poll).

Also seen in this clip are Dr. Krishna Reddy and Dr. Saibel Farishta.



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Death by Blogging: A NEW LOOK FOR UNDERTRIAL?

Over the past few weeks, commentators to Undertrial have suggested changing its look. In a month long multiple-option poll hosted on this Blog, almost all of the 90 odd people who voted were in agreement about reducing the length of the posts (76%) while also opining that the entries were, on the whole, “intelligent” (92%). Surprisingly few actually said that they were incomprehensible (17%).

Dr. N. Subba Reddy, a South Korea-based scientist, and Hitendra Singh, a Nagpur-based educator, found that the black & white contrast cast an avoidable strain on the eyes; on the other hand, Aman, a Jabalpur-based environmentalist, felt that the dark background was more in tune with ‘Undertrial’; Dr. Chayanika Uniyal, a Delhi-based youth activist, discreetly hinted at simplifying the language of the entries to make them more comprehensible to ‘the general reader’, who might otherwise be put off by big words; Atul Singhania, a Bangalore-based computer engineer, strongly felt that the title of this Blog must be replaced with another, since I am, technically speaking, no longer an Undertrial (after my acquittal by a Trial Court).

Dr. Saibel Farishta, a Raipur-based orthodontist and a sometime-amanuensis, advised that my “Lists”- of books, movies, music and cuisines that I like- not only cluttered the sidebar, but also smacked of ‘shameless showing off’. To drive home his point, he then quietly proceeded to delete all entries posted by him (during the one-month long period when I was in Jail) as well as my tribute to him, and in what can only be described as ‘a fit of rage’, he changed the password without bothering to tell me the new one, thereby preventing me from posting on my own Blog.

Whatever other illusions I might entertain, the message is clear: “change the look of this Blog”. To that end, I invite visitors- and commentators- to help me in my Quest to reinvent Undertrial to the satisfaction of its readers. Your comments would not only be welcome, but in light of what I’ve written above, they’ve also become absolutely essential for this Blog’s survival!

Regards,

AJ

POST SCRIPT: FOLLOW UP

1. SIDEBAR UNCLUTTERED:
A. LISTS Removed from SIDEBAR. They can be read in the VIEW MY COMPLETE PROFILE Link. (courtesy Dr. Saibel)
B. Lengthy INDEX replaced with a new Label CLOUD INDEX (-do-)
C. A SECOND SIDEBAR ADDED

2. CONTRAST REDUCED: BLACK background replaced with WHITE; Text in BLACK (courtesy, Hitendra Singh and Dr. Subba Reddy)

3. POST SUMMARIES with a READ MORE link rather than FULL POSTS appear on the MAIN PAGE (courtesy, the POLL)

4. The "DARK" UNDERTRIAL THEME continues (courtesy Aman):
A. White on Black retained in SIDEBAR TITLES
B. HEADER TITLE has a new PICTORIAL CAPTION

5. YOUR COMMENTS now appear on the MAIN PAGE (my way of saying THANK YOU!)


AJ

PS- ATUL, I can't think of a new title. Can you?
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Film Review (E): Chak Dé

Like most Indians, I don’t much care for hockey, more so women’s hockey. Once upon a time, Hockey was indeed our National Sport: those were the days of Dhyan Chands & repeated winnings of Gold Medals at the Olympics & inflicting crushing defeats on world-superpowers, which promptly shamed them into abandoning hockey-sticks altogether. But that was long before the Plague of Cricket descended upon India, creeping out of carefully trimmed bougainvillea boundaries of hallowed Residency Clubs with gateposts proclaiming “Indians and Dogs Not Allowed”- upon whose manicured lawns, our erstwhile Rajahs & Nabobs (presumably, the writing on the gatepost did not apply to them) were permitted the pleasure of proxy-battles with their Imperial suzerains but with nothing more lethal than a bat, a ball and three long sticks- and quietly spilling into those wide open spaces that the ‘natives’ used for no particular purpose other than perhaps, answering nature’s call in the wee hours.

Sport historians- in this Age of Superspecialities, I’m sure we’ve some of those too- would find that the Rise of Cricket didn’t automatically lead to the Fall of Hockey; some will no doubt attribute it to Cricket’s tremendous potential as a revenue-rainmaker on primetime television (the end of each ‘over’ and every ‘out’ and ‘boundary’ provides plenty of time to advertise such life’s necessities as “Fair & Lovely Men’s Fairness Cream”) vis-à-vis Hockey’s paucity to do so (half times, anyone?); others, not quite content with this slightly ‘Marxist’ interpretation, will cite the example of Football, which suffers all of Hockey’s handicaps (‘it’s Football with a stick, really’) and yet manages to be the West’s most popular sport. What they will not dispute, however, is the imminent coup de grace of Hockey. Not so anymore: “Chak Dé”, a film starring Bollywood’s current heartthrob, Shahrukh Khan and eleven incredibly entertaining women, might well have postponed the Death of Hockey if not entirely Resurrected it to the national centrestage.

Like Hockey, I am not much of a fan of Mr. Khan’s over-the-top theatrics: frankly, I found his stammering-Kks a bit of an annoyance (not to mention the fact that most women I liked crooned over his life-size posters while barely noticing my real-life existence). It was, therefore, after much resistance that I finally yielded to the inevitable: Mummy’s diktat that I see the movie, pronto. Quite sensibly, I did so after a rather satisfying lunch, comprising a delectable Ghost ka Salan prepared by a friend whose ancestors came from Kashmir, carrying with them culinary secrets of the Wazwan; in short, Chak De was intended to be little more than a substitute for a much-needed afternoon siesta. That it wasn’t. Au contraire, it was a movie unlike any other I’ve seen in a long, long time; quite certainly, the year’s best. And not because of Hockey, or even Mr. Khan.


At its heart, lies the full-throttle Celebration of the Underdog's Comeback. Yash Raj Films, Chak De’s producers, are no fools: they haven’t risen to the top of their business by making movies about outdated sports hardly anyone watches anymore; it’s because of their incredible capacity to tell stories that make us feel better about ourselves, about who we are, and what we might become; all of it happily peppered with the age-old recipe of Unity in Diversity. In this case, the story is inspired by real life. India’s humiliating defeat in hockey in the 1982 Asiad Games was attributed to its Goal Keeper, Negi, who apparently “gave away” not one or two- but seven- goals to her archrival, Pakistan. My father was there, sitting in the spectator’s gallery of the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium at New Delhi (thanks in fact to his current archrival and then Sports Minister, Mr. VC Shukla), when it happened: they- the nation- felt betrayed. Mr. Negi, needless to say, was disgraced, and retired to a quite life in Indore (where Papa was posted as Collector) until he resurfaced as the Coach of India’s nondescript women’s hockey team. Under him, it went on to win the Asian Games (if not the World Cup).

On the whole, Chak De remains faithful to this tale: the only notable- perhaps, necessary- difference is that unlike Mr. Negi, Mr. Khan’s character doesn’t quite yield seven goals to Pakistan for even a star of his stature cannot hope to carry the audience after a blunderbuss of this magnitude (notice, that I refrain from using the word ‘betrayal’). Instead, his character is allowed to get away relatively lightly, with no more than a penalty-miss. Let’s just say that it wasn’t his best day. The consequent disgrace, then, is attributed, in part to a witch hunt led by a hyperactive media but mostly to the fact that Mr. Khan’s character, like his real life persona, is also Muslim (hence, it would seem, the affinity with Pakistan). In fact, this subtext of communal ambivalence, so prominent even today in the majority community’s attitude towards their Muslim counterparts during India-Pakistan matches, makes the film’s adaptation prescient to contemporary India’s socio-cultural discourse, and more than justifies this corruption of Mr. Negi’s lifestory.

It also exposes, perhaps for the first time on the silver screen, the sloppy underbelly of “sports administration” in the nation: “the Federation,” remarks one player, “exists for us; not the other way round.” At the Atlanta Olympics, India’s best shot at winning a Gold in the Light Weight Wrestling Category was squandered because some blessed official of the Wrestling Federation entered our contestant (who, like Mr. Negi, also happens to be from Indore) in the Medium Weight Category, leading eventually to his- no, not the official’s but the contestant’s- disqualification. Apart from this evidently insurmountable bureaucratic malaise, the film also criticizes the political compulsion to provide adequate ‘representation’ to all the states while constituting national teams. In an early roll-call scene, Mr. Khan’s character bars players from playing so long as they continue to introduce themselves by shouting their names followed quickly by those of their domicile-states; and it is only after they realize that they are all infact playing for IN-DI-YA that they’re allowed to commence training.

Frankly, I find it difficult to subscribe to the film’s anti-reservation stance: in a Utopia of equalities, it might well be different; but where not every state has the facility to produce world class players on their own, it would be insane, not to mention unfair, to populate the team with players from say, Mumbai, on the sole pretext that they’re better. As it is, better players are, like everything else, increasingly becoming products of laissez affaire market forces, which are yet to permeate into the nation’s predominantly rural hinterland. Sui Mui Kerketta, a key-player in Mr. Khan’s inimitable team, hails from a remote part of Jharkhand (in actuality, however, she is a Tamilian): this fact, more than any other, would have weighed in her favor in ultimately landing her a spot on the national team.

For the record, this Blog believes that Affirmative Action is intended to ‘promote equal opportunities for all’ where they do not formerly exist; to do away it, therefore, would be a validation for inequalities- historical, social, regional and economic- to continue in perpetuity. Needless to say, over time, the scope of affirmative action itself is intended to reduce in direct proportion to the overall reduction of inequalities; to increase its prevalence simply due to considerations of Macphersonian votebank politics, as is often the case, defeats its very purpose. For instance, the basis for the application of affirmative action to Muslims ought to be “The Sachar Committee Report”; not the indiscreet wooing of the minority voter (but this is a subject matter befitting a separate entry).


The issue of Gender Politics is also dealt with somewhat unabashedly: in one mise en scène, the women’s hockey team quite literally beats a bunch of juvenile eve-teasers at a local McDonald's, no doubt drawing inspiration from their counterparts on the women’s wrestling team. In yet another scene, a ‘senior’ player, passed over for captaincy by Mr. Khan, offers her body to him (needless to say, he refuses, pontificating that “this is the reason why you aren’t captain in the first place”). Even more intriguingly, the onscreen portrayal of an ultimately doomed romance between the team’s centre-forward and the celebrity Vice Captain of Team India, who couldn’t care less about his paramour’s profession, becomes a metaphor for the off-screen relationship between the two sports: Hockey and Cricket do make rather strange bedfellows.

In the end, what makes this film work, especially with non-hockey, non-Shahrukh viewers like me, are the heartwarming performances of the eleven women players; none of them are professional actors, and it is perhaps this fact, more than anything else, which imparts to their characters, a kind of spontaneous vulnerability that has us rooting for them all the way: Chak Dé, India!

AJ
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Comment: Murder on Orkut

The murder of Adnan Patrawala, a Mumbai-based teenager-student (seen here wearing a t-shirt that reads IMPOSSIBLE with the 'IM' scratched out), raises certain disturbing questions about how virtual social networking is transforming real lives, and- atleast in Mr. Patrawala’s case- also, deaths. Perfect strangers, who hadn’t heard of him before, suddenly feel motivated to mourn him by filling his “scrapbook(s)” with profound eulogies as well as hosting fast-mushrooming rest-in-peace (RIP) communities with memberships crossing five figures. Even more perplexing is the fact that many of these scrapbooks aren’t really his: some mourners are actually quite horrified when the late “Adnan Patrawala” promptly adds them to his friend-list, or approves their testimonials; it’s almost as if the Adnan Patrawala, who was killed in the real world, continues to live on in the virtual one.

As it turns out, one of the more successful “Adnan Patrawala” profiles, with more than two thousand obituary-scraps posted daily, actually belongs to one Tehman, who is not even Indian, but Pakistani. Now, why would these people, who are no doubt both real and alive, assume the virtual-identity of someone who was brutally strangled to death by a bunch of amateur-abductors out to make a fast buck, who, like his mourners, came into contact with him only through Orkut, Google’s social networking website? Needless to say, most mourners find this in rather poor taste, but the scraps keep coming, like the bouquets in front of Buckingham Palace following Princess Diana’s death. But Adnan was no 'Di'; unlike the People’s Princess, we now know him only in his death, and the peculiar manner of it.

Perhaps- and this is pure Freudian-speculation, of course- the vast community of Orkutians is actually feeling Guilty- maybe, even Ashamed- about what happened to the unsuspecting Adnan? For many, his death has brought home the only too Terrifying Reality of what can happen when one crosses the relatively safe sanctuary of the Virtual World and moves into the Real? This is a 'War of the Worlds’ (to use H.G. Well’s evocative phrase) that we haven’t quite come to terms with.

The media- and the police- have both labeled Mr. Patrawala’s killing as ‘the Orkut Murder’. From what one is able to decipher, his would-be killers cunningly lured him with the promise of a tet e tete with an enigmatic entity who went by the nom de plume, Angel. If this is the case, then ‘the Orkut Murder’ isn’t very different from the classic ‘honey-trap’ ploy, which has been in usage for centuries: “for God (sic) sake,” exclaims a fellow blogger accordingly, “Internet is just a medium, it is no killer.”

Frankly, this sort of reasoning doesn’t quite absolve the Internet- and more specifically, the numerous social networking sites it increasingly plays host to- of its responsibility in the Adnan Patrawala Murder. Would his killers, for instance, have known who their prospective-victim was, or how exactly to entrap him had Mr. Patrawala not decided to reveal himself- where he lived, what car he drove, the mobile phone he used, who his friends were, whom he liked, even his bedroom fantasy- on Orkut where virtually anyone could find him? In retrospect, that does seem a rather adventurous- not to mention, foolish- step.

Echoing an earlier post of this blogger's, other bloggers too are no doubt quick to take lessons from Mr. Patrawala’s mistake: “Students have to be told, with examples like this unfortunate incident involving Adnan, that dangers exist,” warns one somewhat sagaciously, “and like one would not share personal information with a stranger or accept food from someone (one) didn’t know(,) similar behaviors are inappropriate even when the Other is a virtual entity at a computer screen miles from home.” Whether this recommended-addition of “How to Avoid being Killed on the Internet” to the already much-too-cumbersome school-syllabus would indeed reduce chances of Orkutians dying prematurely is anyone’s guess. To me, it seems more a matter of common sense.

In any case, the teenagers who plotted his abduction and strangulation weren’t exactly strangers: they were his friends, with whom he shared a rather long and apparently healthy relationship (to which his scrapbook readily testifies). It is this fact, more than anything else, that helped nail them in the first place. Unfortunately, this is also the principle reason why he was killed: once Mr. Patrawala became aware of his abductors’ identities, the latter knew they wouldn’t- couldn’t- be safe; to kill him, therefore, became necessary. Orkut, therefore, was both the chief enabler of his abduction and subsequent murder, as also the main reason why his killers couldn’t get away with this dastardly crime. Sadly, this latter fact is not likely to offer much solace to those who knew- and loved- Adnan. If they could have him back, then I’m sure they’d tell him ‘to stop using Orkut’. And perhaps, at this time, that’s their advise to us also, Adnan’s alien mourners and anonymous identity-assumers.

That might well be too drastic a recourse: one might as well stop leaving one’s house for fear of getting run over by a passing truck. In my opinion, the only worthwhile lesson that Mr. Patrawala can teach us from beyond the veil is this: the virtual is, for better and worse, becoming only too real, and there cannot be different sets of rules for the two.

AJ
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August Diary: Of Conspiracies and Calamities

This morning’s ‘Haribhoomi’ carries a story on an attempt to implicate me in yet another criminal conspiracy; apparently, the present BJP dispensation in the state believes that I should be put safely behind bars in time for next year’s assembly election. A similar story appeared in yesterday’s eveninger, ‘Tarun Chhattisgarh’. Now, ordinarily I wouldn’t get too worked up about what, at first glance, seems to be in the realm of speculative reportage.

The chain of events, however, leads me to believe otherwise. On the afternoon of August 10, as I was on my way to a village in Balod to preside over a function to commemorate the birth anniversary of the Freedom Fighter, Dau Dhal Singh, Papa telephoned me with the briefest of instructions: “leave whatever it is you’re doing,” he said, “and come to Delhi.”

Upon reaching the capital, he told me of a conversation he had had with a senior functionary in the state administration. “There is to be a shooting,” this functionary had confided to Papa, “and Amit will be arrested.” He further informed Papa of the existence of a ‘recovered mobile telephone’ containing a video-clip of a ‘meeting’ in which ‘plans’ were allegedly discussed to eliminate one Yogesh Agrawal, brother of a state minister, Mr. Brij Mohan Agrawal. This clip was to be cited as evidence of my complicity. To extract maximum mileage, the whole thing was to be executed ‘on or around Independence Day (i.e., August 15)’. Was any of this true?

There was, as it happened, only one way to find out: wait and watch. Consequently, I accepted a long-standing invitation from a family friend, who is heading the Patna circle of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), to visit recently-excavated late-Mauryan Buddhist sites; and left for Bihar. There were two other things I had hoped to accomplish during this trip: one, to visit Patna University, breeding ground of most if not all of the present lot of the Bihar leadership; and two, to get a first-hand estimate on flood-relief work in the post-Laloo era. Mr. Law Kumar Mishra, a journalist with the Times of India who had previously headed the newspaper’s Chhattisgarh bureau, very kindly agreed to be my host-in-absentia cum telephonic-guide (since he was obliged to remain mostly at Dhanbad, the place of his current posting).

In the 1950s, the excavation at Kumrahar (the only remnant of the fabled Patliputra) had yielded two monuments of note: an eighty-pillared Hall, reputed to have been the site of the 3rd Buddhist Council held in the Asokan Age; and the outlines of a somewhat cluttered hospice. I failed to see either of these sites since they were both flooded. As the base of the Hall is wooden, there is a justifiable apprehension that it might now be lost forever. The ASI people blame the mushrooming buildings around Kumrahar for this plight: apparently, the eighty-pillared Hall now functions as the principal receptacle for their over-flooded sewers. In any case, we pacified ourselves with a rather quaint memorabilia: a photograph of us standing before a reconstructed plastic display case of the excavated site (see below). A similar fate awaits the site of the historic mahajanapada of Champa in Bhagalpur: the HOD of the Ancient Indian History department at the local university bemoaned that it is for the best that this NBW (northern black ware) sites remain unexcavated. "If you cannot conserve them," he said, "then best to let them lie undisturbed for future, more sensible, generations to unearth." In any case, despite an aid of two hundred crore rupees from the Buddhist countries (notably Japan), the erasure of histories, to paraphrase Lord Naipaul, is lamentably nearing completion.



Thankfully, things weren’t quite as dismal at the Patna University, situated majestically on the banks of the Ganga overlooking the plains of Vaishali: almost everywhere, there were visible signs of reclamation. ‘King’ Mahendra, a local coal-trader and MP, has donated twenty million rupees from his MPLAD (MP Local Area Development) fund to the ASI (sensibly not the PWD) to restore Darbhanga House, his alma mater. Elsewhere, work was underway to repair broken windowpanes, falling roofs and bricked-up windows of long-abandoned hostels. Encroachments had been removed, and the police station had a lazy-air around it. The students, on the whole, seemed disgusted with politics. Most, if not all, of them continue to nurture the IAS dream. The corporate world seemed somewhat distant to them; it was something that they’d rather not think about, atleast for now. Both they- and their teachers- grudgingly attributed the beginnings of this “Renaissance” to the new Telegu Vice Chancellor, and to the Chancellor (an ex-officio position held by the state’s incumbent Governor). Elements of continuity from the past too remained visible: the VC was locked up in his first-floor office, heavily guarded by personnel from the state’s armed constabulary.

Mandarins in Patna like to joke that Flood Relief is Bihar’s “third crop” (after kharif and rabi). That might not be entirely incorrect. There was rarely a time when an IAF helicopter wasn’t hovering above the capital: the state’s immense political clout at Delhi (due mostly to its teeming population) ensures a fairly good harvest of this third-crop. Just recently, the Congress President had surveyed flood-hit areas, accompanied by the Union Railway Minister and the state’s chief minister: newspaper reported that she had been visibly moved to tears at the plight of those displaced from their homes, their lives, by the ravaging flood. The chief minister, on whom the people of the state have put great faith, recently suggested ‘interlinking’ the state’s rivers à la the Ganga-Kaveri project to prevent this annual recurrence. His argument that the amount spent on this project would be far less than the amounts spent every year in relief operations makes sense. But would it work? Atleast two such ‘mammoth’ projects- the Bargi dam and the Sardar Sarovar Project, both on the river Narmada- faced massive earthquakes, which very nearly destroyed the city of Jabalpur and the state of Gujarat. If Ms. Arundhati Roy’s polemics are to be believed, then even the World Bank, the erstwhile principal funder of such large-scale earth-moving projects, has come around to the view that their long-term disadvantages (population-displacements and earthquakes included) far outweigh their short-term gains, if any.

At the local paan-wallah’s shop, two khadi-clad gentlemen were heard lamenting that nothing has changed since the ouster of Mr. Laloo Prasad Yadav's regime: “even if (Mr.) Nitish (Kumar) doesn’t take money,” they said, “the people below are the same.” There may be some truth in this remark. The kidnapping-industry shows no signs of stopping. The only cars one sees on Patna roads are Ambassadors (many of them topped with beaming red lights), Maruti 800s and vans, and even fiats: it’s almost as if Bihar has somehow managed to remain entirely unaffected by the liberalization of the nation’s automobile sector. LKM explained rather matter-of-factly: “a new car, especially a foreign car, is an invitation to the kidnappers.” Consequently, all signs of conspicuous consumption remain conspicuously absent. There can be another reason for this as well: the near-total absence of roads. Whatever little remains of the road is flooded. I saw three autorickshaws overturn when their drivers accidentally stumbled upon underwater potholes, very nearly drowning their overcrowded passengers, including a little girl. The plight of the historic Gandhi Maidan at Patna, where the chief minister unfurls the tricolor every year, was hardly better: every available pumpset in the state had to be requisitioned to drain the water. Despite what I had hoped, things in the state don't seem to have changed a lot.

Politically, caste-feelings continue to predominate. There is an overwhelming feeling among local Congressmen that the party should ‘go it alone’; they are obviously tired of playing second fiddle to the RJD (the party’s dominant alliance partner). Many of the former party bigwigs, including its last chief minister, Jagan Nath Mishra, have joined the current chief minister’s JD(U). I spoke to a former Congress home minister, who is also now in the JD(U). “What other option do we have?” he said. I don’t mind so much this exodus of senior partymen to the JD(U) as I do the paucity of those from the younger lot joining the Congress. At the Patna University, the walls were plastered with posters of all possible political hues (including the Shiv Sena): notably absent was the Congress-affiliated NSUI.

On Independence Day, when I unfurled the tricolor at a local school at Bhagalpur, there was talk of a cow having been slaughtered in Shuja mohallah, the Muslim-dominated area. A local journalist confirmed this, and when I asked him wasn’t cow-slaughter banned in the state, he replied: “it is but this isn’t Bihar, or even India. This is mini-Pakistan.” Much later, when I spoke to a higher official to verify the veracity of the rumor, he totally denied it. Whatever be the truth, I could sense the presence a strong communal undercurrent, as also politicians- and news-hungry journalists- only too eager to exploit it.

Suddenly, I was reminded of something that Alberuni, the Arab scholar, had written at the dawn of the last millennium: India, he observed, is ‘a mixture of pearls and dung.’ Returning from Bihar, I felt that not much has changed in the last thousand years.

Back home, a firing did take place at Silyari, Raipur’s industrial hub, on the 13th. Nobody was injured, and no complaint was lodged. Why Silyari of all the places? The motive of the crime-that-did-not-happen lies here, in the railway sheds. Yogesh Agrawal, the minister’s brother, controls the loading and unloading of all goods- manufactures as well as raw materials- to and from the railway-wagons: no industry, howsoever big or small, may do so without his ‘blessings’. An industrialist-friend, who also employs Mr. Agrawal’s services, estimates that his daily income from this business is in the region of two hundred thousand rupees. Not a small sum. Now, it is rumored that persons allegedly close to me, who are associated with the Youth Congress, have acquired this land around the railway sheds, which has led to some ‘tensions’ between them and Mr. Agrawal. The firing-incident was supposed to be a culmination of this rivalry, and along with the mysterious mobile video-clip, a way to unearthing a deeper, more sinister plot to murder the minister’s brother. Needless to say, I was supposed to be the mastermind.

The mysterious Mobile-clip

For whatever reason- maybe because I was not present, maybe because the minister didn’t want his brother’s name involved, maybe because better sense prevailed and they thought that like previous such ‘moves’ to implicate my family, this too would boomerang?- this did not happen. What I am sure of is this: my opponents’ paranoia- again for some inexplicable reason, they’ve come to see my hand behind everything that goes wrong with their politics (the latest being the revolt brimming in the BJP’s legislative party even though I was living in the remote village of Tala)- will not allow them to desist from their efforts to falsely implicate me. However, it would be equally foolish of me to succumb to these ploys, and not do what my heart- and mind- tell me to.

AJ
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30th BIRTHDAY BLUES

I’ve much to be grateful for, I keep telling myself, and yet, for some inexplicable reason, there is a deep sadness within me: the telephone is ringing nonstop, well-meaning callers no doubt wanting to wish me on my 30th birthday, but I am afraid to pick it up, scared of overwhelming them with my corrosive-melancholy.

Three decades is a long, long time; long enough to make one feel older than one actually is: most of it has been happy, but the Pain of the last seven years, beginning with Anu’s death, the turbulent years in power, followed by Papa’s accident, my terrible trial and indefinite incarceration, makes the happiness seem distant, blurred, as if it belonged to another person, not me. Looking back at my life, I know only one thing for certain: I would not wish it for anyone.

I could’ve been so many other things today, living the Quiet Life of contented anonymity, happy to be in the company of family and precious few friends, enveloped in a blanket of warm affection, but here I am instead, adamantly refusing invitations to ‘party’, sitting alone at my desk: and hating myself for not choosing any other life. Come to think of it, this life that I now live chose me; I never had a choice, really. Now, whether I like it or not, I am condemned by Fate to make the best of it.

And then, suddenly, this Regret dissolves: maybe, I wonder, is there an ultimate purpose to this pain, our undeserved suffering?

For one thing, it made me see things, dark things, that I hadn’t known existed: not just on the outside, but also, within me. No longer distinct, I felt myself suddenly connected with Life around me, all its beauty, its ugliness, its mysteries, by an unseen umbilical cord, and I marveled at how people living in such close physical proximity could remain so blissfully unaware of each other, as if they inhabited two separate, disjointed worlds; with what ease they blocked out unpleasant things; and above all, at the endless human-capacity to endure in every conceivable condition.

Am I not selfish for wallowing in my ultimately meaningless sorrows when others, less fortunate than me, struggle simply to exist? Except that there are no Others: they are me, the Same; we- you, I, them- are one human. And the Pain that I now feel, the cause of my melancholy, is not mine alone: it belongs to us; from all around, it permeates my pores, silently suffocating my soul...and I know there is something to be done: it has to be done alone and without ambition.

All desires die; ironically enough, this birthday marks their solemn burial. For myself, I want nothing...Already, I am excessively blest: if the suffering of the last few years was undeserved, so also were the outpourings of Love- from my Parents, the twin-pillars of my strength, my Friends and well-wishers too many to count- that sustained me through it all: even now, this Love continues to empower me everyday, every step of the way. If this is a life I would not wish for anyone else, then paradoxically enough, it is also a life I would not replace with any other. I have lost much; but in losing, I've gained so much more.

And if this life can be of some little service to those who suffer silently, then perhaps, it might not be an utter waste. When the time comes, as I’m sure it will one day, then at least, I can face my Maker, knowing that I’ve done my best not to let Him down.

Pray, dear Friend, for me, as I go forth to embrace the remainder of my Destiny.

AJ
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