Political Alchemy

 Well, an attempt to write a poem churned up politics, God help me !!

Political alchemy

Don’t shout

Put things on flame

Fumes rise

Use ashes to cover the shame

Beat someone

Its good if he dies

If dead are none

There’s room for lies

Inflict pain

The more you do

The more you inflict

The more you gain

Skull hunting

That’s the new game

Use blood for painting

Shed it and make your name

In Conversations With.... Part 2

On Adoptions, with Ankit Agarwal and afterthoughts

I don't know whether it was the effect of the weather or the Chai that we were having at a roadside tea-stall, but we were feeling back to good old college days. Returning back from the office at 11 30 pm in a chilling, foggy nite, we decided to have Maggie opposite the CSC office, sector 58, Noida.

We were toying with the idea of joining an NGO in Noida, impart education to kids, and even considered the idea of starting something at our own, towards creating oppurtunities in the life of under privileged kids.

Call it stupid, but then we jumped towards our own future kids. I wished I had a girl child, he wished he had a girl and a boy, an ideal pair. And then, out of nowhere, I suggested, is there a probability of adopting a child?

We both discussed the option. We both acknowledged the fact that motherhood is an essential part of the life for most of the women. Motherhood, the whole process right from fertilisation till the birth of the baby, transforms a lady. That whole period of nine months, are unique for the couple, and especially, for the lady. We men can only understand, but cannot experience that pleasure and pain. In that case, we may consider the idea of having one baby, and adopting another, was my simple reply to Ankit.

He brought out the various practicalities involved in the whole process and we decided to go home, for it was already close to midnight.

I reached home and kept wondering. I know there are thousands of reasons that come in way of adopting a kid, especially when the couple can bear a baby, or the couple already has a child.

Social status, economic status, genes, love, emotions, there is just almost everything at stake.

I know there are millions of orphan kids in the world, and that every man has his own destiny, but then, will I not help one change his?

I will give this a long long thought.........................

In Conversation with..... Part 1

The last few days have been quite exciting, and I have had some really intersting and enriching conversations with my friends.
I am writing the extracts here for future reference, for they are quite engrossing and may lead to a better clarity in my thought process.
On Reservation with Ananya Sri and the afterthoughts

Reservation to the SC, ST and OBC as provided for by the constitution of India is an issue which needs a matured relook and solution. Is the sacrifice of merit justified? Or, to be precise, does providing reservation to over 50 % of the population of the country, majority of which is under-developed, help in imparting social justice or strengthen the caste and class divide in our society? Is the provision for reservation a political weapon, or an essential component of the Indian democracy?

The fact cannot be denied that majority of the members of the reserved category have been exploited for ages by the dominant upper castes.

Also, the Indian government has been told by the Directive principles of the state policy to create social and political justice in the society.

Few intellectuals advocate providing reservation to the under privileged on economic criterion. Practically, this is not possible, for there are 500 million + people in India who do not form a part of the economic workforce, and stats can be manipulated by the remaining 600 million.

I as a member of the unreserved category, have seen my merit being under mined by the policy of reservation. If I look at the bigger picture, I see some sense in the policy of reservation, for we need to reduce in equalities. But then, it has been 60 years since independence, and yet, the situation has not improved much. Has the pain of losing on merit by a general candidate gone waste when he sees the benefits of reservation being exploited by generations of many of the so called reserved classes?

Or, if I as a candidate of the reserved class use the benefit of reservation, why does the state not make it my responsibility to seek social upliftment of my community, why does my child need the same qouta which got me a job, why?

Who gains here, and what?

Both the general and the deprived masses are on the losing side, yet, hold each other responsible for the outcomes of the reservation policy.

I am not sure, how are we going to eliminate the evil of caste from our society until such policies hold ground.

Freedom Struggle Revisited-Revolutionary Terrorists- An Intellectual Quest-Part 1

In a message from the death cell, Ramprasad Bismil had appealed to the youth to give up
" The Desire to keep revolvers and pistols, not to work in revolutionary conspiracies and to participate in the open movement"

A die-hard communist, a rebel, a revolutionary, appealing people not to emulate his own path, why?
Going through the pages of the most reverred factual acount of the Indian struggle for freedom, by noted Historian Bipin Chandra,I was dumbstruck when I came across these quotes from Ram Prasad Bismil.
How can heores of our past debate their own stance so easily, did they repent the path they choose for themselves?
As I continued to read further, I came across one of the tallest figures of Indian freedom struggle, a young lad named Bhagat Singh. I was amazed to discover that this fellow had quite an apetite for books, and even at the tender age of 20 years, he was a giant of an intellectual.
His political ideology was shaped significantly by three things:

• The Jalian Wala Bagh incident, which showed him the naked nature of British Imperialism
• The taking back of Non-Violence Movement by Gandhiji when the movement was in it's full swing, which demolished his hopes for a free India at the prime of his youth
• In depth readings on Socialism, Communism, the Russian Revolution, Marxism and Capitalism

Before his arrest in 1929, Bhagat Singh had abondoned his belief in terrorism and individual heroic action. He had turned to Marxism and had come to believe that popular broad-based mass movements alone could lead to a successful revolution.

Prior to his execution, the great Indian rebel, wrote to his young political workers:

"The real revolutionary armies are in the villages and in factories.

Apparently, I have acted like a terrorist. But I am not a terrorist.Let me announce with all strength at my command, that I am not a terrorist and I never was, except perhaps in the beginning of my revolutionary career. And I am convinced that we cannot gain anything through these methods."

Few weeks before his death, he wrote an article, "Why I am an Atheist"

I would love to grab one copy.

And what did the word revolution meant for them:

The draft of the famous statement of revolutionary organisation HRSA, THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE BOMB, co-authored by Chandra Shekhar Azad, Yashpal, and Bhagwati Charan Vohra, defined a revolution as:
"Independence, social, political, economic, aimed at establishing a new new order of society in which political and economic exploitation will be an impossibility"

Are we anywhere near to this colossal definition?

5 Past Midnight in Bhopal

03.12.1984

Something happened 5 past Midnight in Bhopal, the capital of the Heart of India, Madhya Pradesh which left it's most bloody imprints on the face of mankind.
The Bhopal Gas Tragedy.

03.12.2007

I was in the final year of my engineering in NIT Bhopal, when I heard the name Warren Anderson, seriously, for the first time in my life.
Out on the streets of Bhopal, there were ghostly creatures, for they looked too special to be part of the same brethren of mankind to which I belonged. One fellow had joined limbs, another one had the face that would have given the Marsians a run for their money and what not.
Yet, they had that peculiar syndrome of mankind, pain, agony and disgust.

Anderson ko waapas lao, Anderson Hatyara Hai
Gas Peedeton ki Madad Karo
Bhopal awaits for Justice
It could have been you!!!

Slogans such as these could be heard across whole of Bhopal, be it MACT square, Mata Mandir, Topn Town, Railway Station, Lake.
Stirred by curiosity, I turned to the doors of the sacred British Library of Bhopal for help.
And then, Eureka, I found it!!
Five Past Midnight in Bhopal, by Dominique Lapierre.

After I finished reading the book, I wished it was fiction, I was not ready to accept that it was not a Ghost story of our childhood, but a glaring account of the genocide of about 5000 innocent Indians by a corporate, and of the millions of survivors by the petty system of our country.

03.12.2009

The memories of reading about the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, meeting it's survivors last year in Bhopal, and the pathetic state of the government authorities in dealing with the whole matter remind me of the fact, it could have been me too, it's just chance that I was not one of them.
But Yes, today, I can be one of them, stand with them, for them, for myself, for our common shared future.
As a responsible citizen of India, I will strive towards bringing justice to the victims and ensure that the lessons of Bhopal are well learnt and we should lobby in favour of stricter safety norms for our industrial as well as civic safety.

And as an informed and active citizen, I will strive towards exposing and filling the loop-holes in our system.

That man needed help

Yesterday
10th November 2009.
It was around 9 30pm.
After a good class on International Relations and an enjoyable discussion with Kannan, the "spolied genius", as Himani( his better-half) says, I was breezing past the dark and cold streets of Noida.
And then, something caught the corner of my eye. It was the image of a crowd, some 15 of them, in a circle, and looking down at something, near the UFLEX main gate, opposite Shopprix Mall. I don't know what prompted me, that after almost speeding past that scene, I halted and turned back my bike towards the mob. By the time I reached there and parked my bike, the number of people had soared to almost 30 and there was definite panic in the air. The sight of a bike crushed as a gunny-bag, whose pieces were spread across the width of a road, was a good enough reason for that. And then I looked down, in horror, to see a man lying down in a pool of blood.
The people surrounding that man had recovered his mobile and tried giving calls to the last dialled no, but no one responded from the other side. We called for an ambulance but none came in the next 10 minutes. He was lying on the road, unconcious. In an effort to gauge the damage, I just lifted his chest by pulling his shirt, someone held his head from falling down. My worst fears were coming true. His head was almost crushed in the back side and leaking blood like our municipality pipelines. That man was in serious trouble.

I had to literally bully an autowala to help me take that man to a nearby hospital, Fortis.
I requested two young men to sit in that auto with that man, while I showed him the way to Fortis on my bike. The police had also bursted into the scene by that time, and took that fellow's mobile and wallet and told us to to continue to FORTIS and they will follow suit.

As soon as the Emergency Staff of FORTIS transferred our victim from the auto to the strecther, they told all three of us that this fellow was in extreme critical condition and that the case may get complicated.
I could see the same fear that was gripping me inside, in the eyes and faces of the other two fellows who had bravely brought that man to the hospital. I knew from my experiences in college, things may turn messy. I thanked both of them and told them to leave instantly. I also apologised to the autowala and thanked him for showing courage.
"You have done a good job by bringing him here, but you need to take a decision immediately.
His pulse rate is 20, his pupils have expanded and his eyes are not responding to light.
We would request you to either call his relatives or take him to some other hospital, for we need written permission to carry CT scan and decide on his survival chances. You are an educated person, please decide boss"
As soon as the doc on Emergency duty said this, meri phat gayee.
I was concerned for the man, but also worried about what responsibilities would come on me if I sign on his relatives behalf. Tense, confused, I tried calling my room mates, but the network could not get me through them. I called Kannan, his phone was switched off. I knew I was running out of time. I then called Ananya, desperate to decide what to do. I thought of calling my parents and di, but that would have brought them more anxiety, so I skipped that thought.
And then, I decided, what would have I done if I was still in college?
I would have tried my best to save a life, and I am still the same.
As soon as I arrived at my decision, I walked back into the emergency room, only to be relieved a bit to see his relatives talking to the doc. I gave a huge sigh of relief, for i was still worried about the condition of that man.
After about 15 mins of explaining the whole situation to them, I felt comforted by the fact, that the same UP Police, who had harassed me two days before, was applauding my efforts and speaking for me in front of his relatives.
That man works in Noida Authority, age around 35, and according to his wife, one who drives regularly while high on alcohol. His condition was fading with every passing moment, yet, his relatives, mostly of rural back ground, decided to shift him to another low-cost hospital at that crucial time, when he was struggling to live again. I could not control my anger and bursted at them for not realising the fact that their loved one is critical, severely critical.

I returned from FORTIS at 11pm, full of praises, accolades and thanks from the relatives of that man, staff of FORTIS, and on-lookers who never miss to comment:
"Aaj ke zamane main itna kaun karta hai"
I hope, that man survives, and will pray for him.
I have seen blood in my college-life, and maybe that did not allow me to panic.

His relatives arrived at the right moment.
What if they hadn't?
What if anything went wrong? Would I have been able to defend my stand as a sensible one?

I don't have the answers.

Angry Young Man

Chutiye
Saale tere jaise itna maar khate hain, bhaag yahan se, nikal saaleee, bc...........

Humiliated, that's how I felt.
Slowly, I turned my back, put back my papers in the bag, put on the helmet, and with misty eyes, started again for my class, on my stunner.
I don't know, whether it was the Smog around, or the feeling of being humiliated in public by the UP Police, my eyes were burning, and for once, the sound of my heart pounding against the walls of my rib cage, seemed to compete with the throttle of my Japanese Honda engine.

What I saw yesterday was rape in broad day light by goons in Khaki uniforms.
In the name of Traffic Month, these people were simply out there to harass the common man.
If you had a DL, where is your RC?
If you had a RC, where is the pollution control certificate?
When did you renewed it?
Even if someone had all the papers, the manner and tone in which these goons were talking was simply untolerable for anyone who respects self-identity.

They are pure extortionists, state-sponsored mafia, and I saw their bloody dirty face yesterday.
Inspite of all my best efforts to stay calm, I lost temper, and said:
" I have already shown all my documents. If I don't have my RC because it will take another week, I cannot help it yaar"

The moment I uttered the word yaar, I had committed the gravest crime in the world.
M****C**d
Bc
Hum tere yaar hain.


After 15-20 mins of teasing, they seemed to be getting bored, for more fools were in the queue.
Chutiye
Saale tere jaise itna maar khate hain, bhaag yahan se, nikal saaleee, bc.........

Angry, humiliated and disgusted, I had no option but to leave.
Is this my country?
Is this my police, whose duty is to protect me?
Why am I a Chuitya, because I respect the rule of law, I wear a helmet while riding my bike, or because I stand for what is just?

Bhadwe hain, dalaal saale, aur ismain galti us police waale ki utni nahi, jitni hamare system ki hai, kyunki use bhi uske political boss ne target diya hoga, jao aaj Noida se itna chanda lekar aao.

Is system main system follow karne waalon ki na koi aukaat hai aur na hi koi izzat.

I don't understand why don't these Khaki people realise that they are one of us, and if not for that Khaki, I would have really made them understand who the real Chutiya is.

One more thing, whenever a cop abuses, wo gaali lagti hai.