He goes to the sea side,
but doesn’t wet his feet
he puts not his fingers in the froth
but a few shells he does cheat.

The sun yellows it out
through my window grey
it roughs out the light
but doesn’t deaden the crawling day.

He talks of love,
he mumbles passion divine,
the rain moistens his words
they fall on clay supine.

The bricks climb up,
to make my wall
they make me touch the skies
a moment before my fall.

I fall empty,
I fall blind
I fall dead
for all I couldn’t find.

He eluded still
his feet were bare,
sand drops clung to them
but he never answered the water’s prayer!

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day…
To an admiring bog!
~Emily Dickinson

There was something about being just under the massive vessel that fascinated him, made his hands clutch the grill so tightly every time he heard an approach. The muscles of his feet would began contracting as the hum of the engine came nearer and then his eyes would shoot skywards, right when the aircraft was bang above him. Sometimes he felt the moment to be so exact that the two wheels of the plane were directly parallel to his eyeballs. If only for one millionth of a second.

He revelled in the fact that while the world saw only the surface of the polished craft, he saw the rusty, the ugly and the cork-screw underbelly. This vision was his alone. That’s why when an occasional car stopped at the airport perimeter to see a similar view, he would miss that one flight, visually, never mentally and stare at the strangers instead… That was always a moment of life slipping away from him.

No body stopped beyond one landing. And in that temporality, lay his triumph.

He didn’t remember the day when his life became equated with the descending of airplanes. It had been so long. He didn’t even remember the number of times that he had been questioned by the police-wallahs of various uniform colors: white, mustard, green, black and blue. How did the color matter? The wheels were all black.

It was a log walk to the airport from his his house in the dingy lanes of Mahipalpur. But he never minded. Not when he started at 4 AM on December mornings, nor when he walked back through knee deep water to reach his home last July. Or was it September?

The railing felt like burning coal during some months, but he still sat on it as ever. He never noticed the reddish-orangeish smears across his buttocks and the rust on his Levi’s 518.

He often looked back to the day, when he missed his flight. Or as his friend Dinesh always said, missed his chance, at sanity. It has to be several years back. He reached the airport, then a shabby, small and smelly place well before time. He even paid rs.5 extra to the auto-wallah who dropped him at the domestic terminal and wished him luck in his funny english accent.

He walked swiftly towards the entrance since he only had a small polybag in the name of luggage. He carried that in his right hand, his scholarship letter and a shabby printout of the ticket gripped tightly in his left one. They had looked suspiciously at his almost empty shaving cream tube. The tall guy had even smelt it once. Strange, he thought, as he went past the security and sat in the only empty chair in the corner of the waiting “lounge”.

For the sixty-seventh time since morning, he checked his flight timing, 16:45.. the ticket in his hand read. He gazed at the ticket for a while. The sogginess of his hands had crept into the paper. It felt almost wet. He folded it again and held onto it tightly. He tried to remember what it was that he had to say on the stage…something about wheels, the black rolling balls. Something that he wanted to make out of them… Something that they told him this scholarship would help him make. He knew he will change everything about aircraft wheels in some years. They will be unlike the screechy, roaring, angry, and dangerous monsters.

His would be gliders. Differently fitted and never for landing and lifting alone. No, his would be weightless things. Always on the plane. His would not shy back in the moments of glory of their carriers. His will glide and shine through the skies…

What was it that he had to say about wheels? He had prepared it well, but too many sleepless nights had fogged his thoughts out.

He kept on dozing and getting up with a start in the waiting room. He still remembered the face of the little girl who had climbed on his knee and tried to take his spectacles off. He, fresh out of a snooze, had thought that he had missed his flight and jumped to run. But there were still 80 minutes to go..

When a brawny voice asked the passengers of AI 416 to assemble in a line, he went to the washroom, splashed some water on his cheeks and ran wet fingers through his hair. He knew his beard had gone too wild but he will clean it in time. That was the purpose that his almost empty shaving tube was to serve.

He went and asked an uncle if this was the line for 416. He got a reply in the affirmative. So he just stood there, watching a thin stream of water trickling into the waiting room through the toilet. The sun was golden and white outside and the long black tarmac seemed like a shimmery mirage. People ahead of him walked directly into the mirage and disappeared into a yellow and blue box like bus.

He heard a female voice asking him for his identity proof.

Oh! so this is what Dinesh was talking about. He took out his faded brown leather wallet and produced his repaired college ID card… Dinesh had found it after hours of rampaging through their one room PG. He kept saying that they won’t let him pass without it. And when Dinesh finally found it he was shocked to see the condition of the poor thing.

The ID had no lamination and where his own name had been once, there stood only random marks of ink..blue or black no one could decipher. It was torn from one side and his photograph, nothing that resembled the present him was staring out from a dirty, spotted, white margin.

With a crinkled forehead and a painful sigh, Dinesh took it upon himself to give his ID a makeover. So he took the Before and with the aid of a lamination, a black marker and a wet tissue to clean the photo and make the college stamp visible, he churned out the After. Dinesh even ironed the paper by keeping a towel between the paper and their rusty and taped iron…

All this he recalled as he handed his ticket and the revamped ID to the female voice. She thanked him and looked. And then looked again, and then did a re-take. He casually ran a hand on his thorny beard and smiled in explanation. She didn’t smile in return. Instead, she asked him if he had another identification proof.

“I thought only one was required?”.. “Yes, but does he have another, a license, a ration card…anything?” “No, I don’t have anything else”. “Are you sure..anything else?”. “No, nothing.”

They both could sense the impatience of the people behind him so she asked him to step aside and beckoned a blue jacketed man to examine this “case”. The man came and the same thing happened, and then a police-man came and the same thing happened. It was like a same record playing over and over again, on some old, falling apart gramophone.

They didn’t let him go. He heard his flight shriek and go to the clouds… He remembered how the people had turned to look at him when he was being led away, loud in protest, yet mute in resignation.

Not that he expected to be shut in a cellar or something. There were too many people who’d take him out. He wasn’t even angry at the injustice being belted out to him… he was just numb, like a static buzz because he knew he would miss the function.

As he sat in the small cubicle answering questions and seeing the contents of his polybag strewn all around him, his eyes were fixed on the wheels… the wheels that went in every time the vessel touched the air. The wheels that were visible from the windows of the PCR at the rear tail of the airport.

Dinesh and his landlord came to take him away. Dinesh said something to the police-wallahs. He also talked to airlines people. He said that they can arrange a seat on tomorrow’s flight, but all that didn’t matter any more. After a silent auto-ride back to their room, he went to his bed, shoved to the floor the pile of clothes on it and slept for 18 straight hours…

It was raining when he got up. The window of his room was a cloud of white mist, veins of water streaking down the muddy glass…it smelt of mud too, wet, damp mud. As if a new earthen vessel had just been filled with water. He too felt full, brimming to the edge, but with what? What was it inside?

Dinesh sat on the computer typing frantically. He offered to make some black tea, but nothing registered with him. How could a person already full hear something. His ears were already jammed. But with what?

He got up and went hazily to their small stinking toilet. 15 minutes later, he walked out. Clean shaven and freshly clothed. Dinesh smiled. He smiled back. And then he walked out…

…The airport perimeter, he figured out after 50 mins of walking, must be around 9-11 kms from his room.

Ages later, sitting on the cold iron on that densely white day he tried to put a date to the event that they say made him a “lunatic”. But it seemed like a far, unreachable, untouchable memory. It was like a root of a dead plant, so deeply welded into the soil that you couldn’t touch it… even when your hands disappear in the soil and your eyes are closed and your fingers are groping hard. You can reach many other roots and shrubs and shoots..they feel like hairy pricks..but you can’t touch that one root… only that one.

His memory was as foggy as the day was. It floated in front of his eyes and settled on his nails. And it was white. So white that his black beard shone in contrast. So white that the white of his eyes dissolved into it.

He knew that there will be no aircrafts descending today. The fog will engulf them. But he reached there at his usual time. Feeling the mist settling down on his bones as he walked the narrow lanes and then the broad expressway, lit up by thousands of car-blinkers..like a kaleidoscope of red and gold.

He just sat there. The grill was cold and his feet were numb. His vision white and breath smoky. In his mind was the perpetual never ending growl of the engine. The hum that vibrated in some pulse of his neck and touched some vein in this thigh. The buzz that made him speak and walk. The buzz that deafened the silence that had filled him up, years back..

He could easily discern the churn of his soul from the roar of the engine. But today he wasn’t trying to. For his years told him that the white envelope that surrounded him, licked at him and caressed him will not let any engine come alive or any wheel screech.

… He thought he is imagining it when he heard a bang somewhere. Loud. Piercing through the cold. And then there was a glint of orange in the white sky. A trail at first, and then a wild, fluttering robe. It blinded the white, it dispelled it. It pervaded the white of his eyes. It shone in his teeth. He stood bathing in it… Unless he heard the shrieks.

Shrieks. Sirens. People. Thuds. Metal. Rubber. And then the growl. The engine growl. Close. Real close.

“Its caught fire. Its fire” was the chant in the air that got mixed with the growl that was a wild blast, nay, a series of wild blasts now. A piece of metal came flopping down, emerged from the fog and clanked loudly against the grill on which he sat. He ran to pick it up. It was hot. And charred. Then another sooty chunk landed on the grass beyond… A hint of silver still gleaming on it.

They were shooting water at it, from below. Some streams reached. Others stooped and went tumbling down without any contact with the orange ball. He could smell aluminum now, burning aluminum.

And as his eyes took in the untamed orange, the wheels appeared. Black at the core, but haloed by a shivering orange. It was coming down, the orange ball was hurtling down. It was obvious that the plane won’t reach the tarmac. Everyone knew it.

… It hit the grass first. The green lit up. It blinded the white fog. There was a deep scar of fire as the wheels dug into the damp mud. The poignant smell of wet earth brushing past his nostrils once again, only this time it was mixed with the burning smell.

The grass flew towards them with the flurry of hair that has been caught unaware by a dust storm. Some of it struck to his shirt too…

There was metal everywhere. And shrieks. And sirens. A small black ball of mud struck his leg with force. He winced in pain but didn’t bend down, and the ball settled itself beside his lose shoe-lace. The clanking of the metal grew louder and the orange animal was moving no more. The grey and the white fog had caged the beast at last.

…….. He knew it was the end. For him. Because the engine had died and the wheels had disappeared. He knew that there will be no more wheels today. Only shrieks and sirens. He turned to walk and stepped over the ball of mud the pain of which still reverberated through his thigh.

It felt soft and surprisingly warm beneath his thin shoe sole. His nostrils took a breath to tell him that this was rubber, not mud..

It felt hot in his palms, even though it was wrapped in cold mud. He shuffled it around. He rubbed off the mud and saw the black. The black of his eyes. The black of the wheel. The black that was laced with orange a few seconds back…

He gripped it tightly and brought it closer to his chest. And he started his walk back. Towards home…

He held onto the black tightly and let the fog that had settled on his fingernails seep into the wheel.

Humara sar toh uncha bacchon se hota hai. Bas woh kuch ban jaye toh….
…..
….
Ok mam…Mam, thank u…Yeh aapka bill…

P.S- why I chose to narrate this tale? because this story of a cab driver, made me realize that behind every ordinary man lurks something extraordinary. Some action, one story, one circumstance, one minute, even a second..that sets everybody apart from every one else. This man, a cab driver like thousands of others, is still unlike them, for he has a mission, an extraordinary cause, and is going on struggling for it under ordinary circumstances…
And ofcourse, its heartening to see a girl child being the center of a parent’s world. Parents who belong to some remote village and are living hand to mouth. They have all the reasons and the conditioning to want and nurture their boys, but….
Its true after all…everyone does have a story worth listening to…and you shall find the best of the lot out on the streets.

A tweet on Womens’ day read– “Rajya Sabha adjourned till 2 pm over Women’s Reservation Bill – isn’t it ironic, this on Women’s day?” And this got me thinking- so what’s the big deal about it? And I refer here both to the parliament as well as the bill. Politicians stomping out of and disrupting the parliament is as common as swine flu cases these days and fights over bills and propositions can be dated back to the prehistoric era.

So what is it about the women issue that has got everyone talking? Well, for one, this only goes on to emphasize how everything about women, from nudity to reservation, tends to get over-hyped in this country.

And while media attention can sometimes bring about common good to our sex, it can be equally disgraceful and demeaning at others. However, all that endless feminist debate apart, my question is that why do we need the reservation at all?

We have had enough of the history of how women have forever been suppressed and need the upliftment etc. But are we sure that providing a few seats in the parliament is the correct need analysis or an egalitarian cure? I’m not so sure.

Lets see how fair this bill will be for the fairer sex. For one, there will be more women MPs occupying the hot seats, and given the well proven things like commitment levels being high amongst women will certainly do our governance a lot of good. Beyond that- I really can see little logic to it, (except ofcourse that it will create a great vote-bank.)

If we really want more female voices in the parliament, then is just labeling some chairs as “for women” the solution? If yes, then we should be prepared to see wives of politicians, and women with criminal cases and some more with caste politics (much like our male counterparts) hammering their way into the parliament. My contention is that how does gender alone entitle you to power?

Instead, it should be you, your education, your intellect and your good sense that should make you deserve the seat, things you can control, things that differentiate you from others, and not something like gender which is beyond everyone’s control. If we want to see more women representation, lets make our women capable, lets make the path to that place a bit easier. Instead of just putting women in the parliament, lets make women reach there on the strength of their own capability.

Come to think of it- lets see who are the most respected women politicians that we have today or have had? Sonia Gandhi, Sheila Dikshit, Ambika Soni, Priya Dutt, Mamata Banerjee, Vasundhara Raje Scindia, Agatha Sangma – apart from the respect and recognition (even though highly regional in some cases) the other thing that is common between these women is that they are all well educated people, who hold their positions thanks to their merit and have struggled to make a mark for themselves.

Yes, like in any other profession, parentage has had its role to play. But then , it is not just that which has made these women respected. And they indeed have done tremendous good in areas it mattered. On the other hand, we also have women who lay claim to power on the basis of dirty caste wars and ugly gender politics, and well, we pretty much know if sane people respect or look upto that sort.

Yes, Im totally of the view that we should have more female representation- everywhere and not just in politics alone, but we should start at the bottom and not at the top. We should provide the women of this country with education, the security, the assurance and the confidence it takes to scale up the ladder.

Instead of making them greedy and uneducated and easily made politicians lets give them safe roads and egalitarian education. Instead of giving them a seat, lets give them the road to reach that seat.

What we need is the means, and not the end. For as is often said, power obtained without struggle and skill is sure to be misused.

Mohsin Hamid, in The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Im calling rape a word here because today we regard it as just that. The word is sprawled over the newspapers that we read, the channels that we watch and the entertainment that we partake in. But many of us have forgotten to look beyond the word. We as a society have ceased to remember that what we deem as a word, is not merely that. It is a phenomenon. An ugly one at that.

A phenomenon that has become so embedded in our society that our collective consciousness has become agnostic to its brutality. The reports are read, and followed by a shake of head and some angst,but forgotten the next hour.

Why is it that we have become immune to a crime as grave as this one? Why doesn’t it shake and stir the nation anymore. A few isolated cases do, but the attention is very temporal and recedes into the background as soon as something more “interesting” comes up.

Why is it that no wrath towards the criminals lasts? Well, the answers to all this are many. And all segments of the society are to blame. We as a nation have become so news hungry that things catch our attention only so far as the next attention grabber comes our way. We as a society have become so immune to the word rape, thanks to its commonality that we have come to accept it as a part of life. And we, as citizens have lost all hope of any justice given the condition of our legal infrastructure.

We all somewhere know that in all likelihood the offenders will get away, with the help of money or influence and the victim shall never be avenged, infact, she will be harassed yet more by the same people.

The rape victims today, with their lives scarred and bodies violated are nothing more than “cases” scribbled on police registers- those who do find their way to the police stations. The others are like cancers, they eat the victims, and perhaps their families, till death comes as a relief.

We have all heard hair raising accounts of black incidents, we have all seen the fearlessness with which all this is done and we have all heard and seen and felt for the victim whose body has been so objectified that she begins to hate it, whose life is so bruised that any other pain matters no more. But then, why have we not stood up for them?

I think we have lost our ability to stay loyal to our causes. We have given up, we have moved on, we have a new cause everyday and every old cause loses its significance as the next day’s newspapers make their way into our homes. And the media is equally to blame, for they too have failed to stick to their stance, and mobilize the nation for a cause. For a cause as worthy as rape, for an evil as gory as sexual violation.

I, for one, believe that rape is a crime much worse than murder. Its stigma and the pain has to be borne by a person who has been murdered but is yet living and breathing. And no punishment is enough for a rapist.

Its us who have failed all the women and girls whose rights and lives have been perpetrated. Our law and order system is disappointing and slow because we allowed it to rest, by staying silent. The rapists get away and are growing fearless by the day because they are not scared of us, of what we can do to them.

And all this because we have given them reasons to be fearless, we have made them fearless.

But why? Are we not strong? Dont we feel for victims or have we stopped caring at all? The thing is that we have ben too dormant all this while. And that has what made the criminals so active and the law so drowsy.

Without fear of punishment every crime shall leap and more lives shall be ruined. We have to create fear. We have to stand up.

Let’s not just read reports in newspapers, or watch news on televisions. Let’s get out of our slumber, and recognize our causes. Let us shake our judiciary out of its laziness.

Iam all for death sentence for rapists. As I said, their crime is worse than murder. And even if everybody doesn’t share that opinion, Iam sure that no one disputes that these people should be punished and that too speedily and staunchly.

Whatever form they are in, let us not our beliefs go waste. Let’s not be silent anymore. We are the only ones who can prevent this nation from being mass raped, by standing up for those who are bearing our burden for us.

Let us scream, shout and silence the triumphant roar of these wild animals, who have grown too fearless in their victories.

shore peacefully in my barren lap,

they knit together my papery day,

as I dream in corridors empty,

and pour sand in that glaring gap.

Light! That rests on my window closed,

and the static jingle in the air,

the picture that I carefully tossed,

has moved not an inch,

being entangled in my hair.

The rusty moment on my pillow,

and its yellow glow,

it bathes the love lying on my right,

which stirs not,

for he hasn’t spoken to it all night.

The empty casket and the crumbled words,

lie strewn about my feet,

folded in a blanket of birds,

that stretches its hands,

to reach my lap and embrace the heat.

Rivulets in the bedsheet,

and pants of the white marble,

the intruding mirrors they greet,

and with courtesy unending,

introduce them to my floored towel.

The rusty moment on my pillow,

and the love on my right,

which does not with passion glow,

it stirs not,

because he hasn’t spoken to it all night.

Lucknow (Lko-as Indian Railways has christened it) is a city with multiple shades. Like most other places in India it is a confused, yet cheerful city.  Most people will rave about the kebabs that you can savor here, but there is something else that caught my imagination this time.

Needless to say, the kebabs are awesome. So are the biryanis and the akbar chicken. But the city that is known mostly for food, actually cares little about it. The people here want little else saving their Paan and Supari. The sad part is that the tradition of carrying spittoons got lost with time. The world is their spittoon now and nothing (roads, shops, historical monuments, house walls, vehicles) have been spared. It a place, that is quite literally, scarred with red.

And then there is the smell..the pungent smell of the betel leaf that is everywhere. Apart from that, there is the smell of beef..the prime ingredient of the much-loved tunde kebabs.

The auras apart, Lucknow is a place of a weird inter mesh. The mingling between two religions, millions of different people and a clash of histories. Most hindus in Lko eat beef kebabs, because the mutton ones just don’t taste that nice. And it’s not about religion or blasphemy, it is about belonging. This is where you live, and this is how you have to live it.Besides, what is the point of just staying at a place and not living it?

Lko is full of these questions, questions written loudly on faces and gestures. And there is no singular influence. If Hindus eat beef then muslims also relish butter chicken. If we can spot hindu women visiting the Dargah, we can also spot burqa clad women entering the Shani Mandir. If some hindu and indeed Punjabi girls have learnt to mellow down their wardrobes given the culture there, there are equal number of muslim women who have given up the burqa in favor of jeans and liberation.

But the essence lies in the fact that none of this raises any eyebrows. It is calmly put under that category of human behavior that alters itself as per its surroundings. What indeed does raise eyebrows are the affairs and marriages between the two religions. That is violation, all else is merely adaptation.

Every single person in Lko is used to namaz blaring through the loudspeakers at set hours of the day. And everyone is comfortable with the immense muslim history that is scattered all over the place.

Lko is full of muslim history. The imaam bada’s being the most popular. It is interesting to observe the crows here. While the muslims come with all due reverence, hindus come for various reasons..photography, history and architecture. Nevertheless, there is this mutual understanding and non-interference sort of pact.

There are a lot of places in India where the respect for other religions is co-existent with ways of life. But Lko is different. The respect factor apart, there is an acceptance of the way of life. People here don’t want to change the minorities and majorities. They are simply okay with all of it. There is nothing called a muslim or a hindu dominated area because there are hardly any boundaries.

A cloth brand name like Banarasi Das does extremely well as does shekhawat ke kebabs. And there are a lot of other examples. I know that for people here it will be all so familiar that it might just be in the cliché category. But one has to visit Lko to feel this thing-that i can’t call co-existence. For that is common. What I can call it though is a calm acceptance. And blurring boundaries between this life and the other life. Here every hindu is living a part of his life in a muslim way. And vice-versa.

We went to taj, and we went to Chowk. And if I being a Delhite could pin point the change in my behavior patterns at the both the places, it was only because the other people were so oblivious to it all. The ladies who do bulk shopping at Banarasi Das are every bit clever businesswomen there, but when in taj, with their kids and husbands, they are quiet wives and considerate mothers, a little hindu because they don’t wear the hijab, and a little muslim because their heads are covered. Partly hindu because they will first go the butter chicken way, and then a bit muslim because they shall return to their mutton gosht at the end of the meal.

That is what is different, and yet  so utterly familiar that no one shall even stop to consider it.

Its amazing actually-to see the collection of the most beautiful chandeliers in the world in the chotta imaam baada,and to sit comfortably in the Taj lobby, with a set of people who are certainly confused, but so comfortable with it that they forget that there is any confusion at all.

And before I start sounding all that confused myself, maybe we should stop. As an epilogue- I suggest that everyone visit the place to know what I mean. Enjoy the food and take in the monuments. Gulp in the history and shop in the malls. And do it all as a part of them, because Lko is one city that will not make you feel like an alien.

Yes, there is eve teasing and there is bad crowd, and we, being a girls gang went through it all many times over. Yet, there is comfort. The comfort of roaming in the residency park on a cold winter day and watching the old uncles laugh and walk. And when it is namaaz time, a few of them will simply go and kneel at some quiet corner. The others will silently walk away a bit and lower their laughing sound..enough for us to hear, but not enough to disturb them.

P.S- as soon as I manage to upload them, there shall be a photo feature on Lko coming up!

Not a sound,
neither a word,
they hummed the melody,
that in my palm rested.

Not tempted by the crisp biscuit,
nor by the loose button,
they floated past the stone precious,
that on my neck breathed.

Not verse,
neither any song,
they weaved the tale,
that got eclipsed in my eyes
not before long.

Not scattered,
Neither haphazard,
they fell clear,
like a pile of water,
on ground of clay.

They fell off my clock,
mounted on the wall,
a few seconds,
just a few….

So few,
that he never even noticed.