I saw the images of the delhi blast on TV last night.
It was a regular after work night...
I watched TV over dinner,
when I saw people rushing for safe places,
injured people being brought into hospitals,
blood stained bodies,
people carrying the dead,
and people who have gone through pain and shock.
Delhi was shaken last night.
And many news channels said that Delhi was shaken
but the spirit of Delhiites wasn't.
Doesn't this sound like the recent Mumbai flood report?
Or the reportage straight from South America during Katrina?
Or was it what I saw on news channels during the London blasts?
Experiences are universal all over the world.
What we think of as our personal experiences are universal.
People go through the same fears, hopes, glory, failure and difficulties
in every part of the world.
What's so different about these blasts?
Sadly nothing.
We have got used to everything.
Be it natural calamities or tragedies of these kinds.
Media will write about the incident untill something else catches their fancy.
Politicians will make statements for a few days before they get
busy in their polictical game again.
People will panic for a few days but will get back to their normal life.
It' s true that we need to put things behind us and move on.
But what we do is, after we are shaken is, talk about it for a few days
and then everybody goes back into a kind of stupor till
something else wakes them up again.
We are fighting an invisible enemy.
What we need to do is make our intelligence agencies
sharper than the terrorist minds.
And have more stringent rules implemented against terrorists.
There are no straight answers
but whatever the answers are, they got to be universal.
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Once upon a time...
There she stood at the door.
I was high, so had to think hard to remember
that she was supposed to come over for the night.
I still remember when I first saw her few days back
she didn't look like someone who had gone through a lot in life.
Untill of course she shed tears over the thought
of being sent back to her husband and her verbalise her trauma.
There she was in front of me running away from somebody
who must resemble a demon or may be there was more it.
I think she was running away from the demons
in her past, running away from herself.
I asked her to come in. She looked tried.
I'm sure she was.
Walking out of the house one fine morning
and making a journey from Patna to Mumbai
was not something she did every other day!
She had landed here last Saturday.
She took a train and a flight
selling her jewellry to reach her destination, Mumbai.
Leaving her only child behind too!
that must have been tough I thought.
Once here she would get excited by little things.
The sea, the moon, the night life...
and other little things were enough to evoke the
feeling of a bird set free from the cage after years.
We spent one whole night out in Mumbai showing her
the flavour of the city because she didn't know
how long her freedom would last.
And we had a blast.
We drove from shooters to U Turn
to Juhu beach to versova rock beach
and even all the way to lonavla.
It is one night I will never forget.
Through out the night she laughed at
almost anything, she was soaking in
the life and beauty around her.
I gave her the bed sheet and pillow
asking her to relax.
I was groggy as it was past midnight.
I just imagined what the police might be thinking
at this moment.
Will they get hold of all of us and take her away?
They had landed at Janvi, Rahul and Deepak's
place in that evening.
That was why she was compelled to come
over to my place.
She couldn't possibly go back to Janvi's where
she had been living since she came,
the police could be on the look out.
I picked up my book, I was coming to the end
of the interesting tale.
She didn't sleep. Her eyes were sore.
She must have been weeping since she found out
that the police were after her and the people who
were helping her hide.
At that point I didn't even think that anything
would go wrong.
I woke up next morning, was just finishing
my elaborate breakfast when Janvi called.
"The cops had called up Rahul.
He's gone to meet them," she said.
Ok. Now what?
I was off without even considering
taking a bath.
We went down to Chembur police station
with the purpose of filing an NC.
Purna's brother-in-law had contacted
a social worker.
We had everything set. We'll file an NC
against her husband, get the support of an NGO
and then go to the police.
But when we reached nothing of that sort happened.
We couldn't file an NC and
the social worker didn't come down.
We wondered what to do, and at the same time
worried about Rahul and Deepak who had gone
missing since the cop's called them.
Their cell phones were swicthed off
and it had been hours since they last contacted us.
We walked to Kamat, a restaurant at Chembur Naka.
Janvi's mom decided to come there, with a
bag of clothes for the absconding girl, and also to see us.
Aunty was worried like hell.
Then came the much awaited call.
Rahul was on the line as relief replaced worry.
He asked us where we were and we told him.
He asked us to meet him at Cine Planet
and then he would tell us what the state of affairs was.
We decided to leave immediately.
Janvi's sis and brother-in-law came too.
So Janvi and I got into one rik,
and she, Janvi's sis and bro-in-law into another.
On the way I thought over things and told Janvi
that the cops wouldn't probably set them free
after hours of interrogation.
I sensed that something was fishy.
We decided to let her and others wait back in
a restaurant in Sion itslef while we meet rahul
and find out if everything's ok and we're safe.
Before we could think further we had reached.
We got down and walked towards a dead looking rahul.
He walked up to us and said, "It's all over. These
guys are crime branch people."
I looked and saw cops dressed in civil uniform
making their way towards us.
It was straight out of the movies!
I felt like shit. After all this, it's just over.
In minutes things were turned around.
We led the cops to her.
I couldn't stop the tears as I thought
what would happen to her now.
Janvi, I and she
sat into the police vehicle that
was to take us to the crime branch office.
The police told us that we need not go with
them to the police station.
Janvi too asked me to leave and
said that she could manage.
But I wanted to go.
In the beginning I wondered why Janvi did all this
for a stranger. Why didn't she just lead her own life?
I felt she had a big heart but still...whatever.
Today I couldn't explain why I had been caring for
a stranger since the day I met her.
I went.
Rahul and Deepak had been beaten.
Deepak had become unconscious and had been waiting
inside the police station for all this while.
Rahul's hands were stiff as the electric current
had passed through them.
These boys were fighting for her.
I was nervous as hell, so was everyone and of course
she was real jittery.
She didn't want to go back to a wife beating
husband, a sick and near death mother-in-law and
breathe the choking air that she had been taking in,
in the confines of the walls of what could in the least
be called home.
I'm sure that the picture of her little daughter
did flash in front of her eyes evey now and then.
Since we set foot in the crime branch office
everything started falling into place.
The police cooperated and listened to the story
behind the missing girl.
We had to sit for hours though, waiting
for things to be done and formalities to be completed.
We were worried about Deepak too.
I had met him just once before I think
and couldn't even recollect how he looked.
Yet I was worried.
He walked out of the room where they
keep the criminals as the formalities went on.
He looked like a wounded soldier, trying to
smile as he approached us.
Rahul and he had fought but had to tell the
truth at some point.
The pain must have been unimaginable.
Anyway the DCP had heard her out
and declared that she had come here
on her own will and that she couldn't
be taken away by anyone as she was an adult
and had the right to go wherever she chose.
That was it?
The police had made a fair decision I thought.
It kind of made me gain some faith in our crumbling system.
It's a democracy out here!
Though our dear social worker had to pull some strings
and speak to some top people to get the matter over
in a day's time.
The whole episode raises a lot of personal,
social and polictical issues in my head.
But can't get into all that right now.
Her husband? What about him?
Yes, she spoke to her husband in front of the DCP
and told him straight out that she didn't want to get back.
I had kind of tried to see the 40-year-old man
from the corner of the eye all the while.
For the first time I saw him properly as he walked out
of the DCP's office.
He and his sis tried to gain our sympathy and
convince her to get back with him.
He acted well I thought.
We just told him it was her decision and walked out.
As we drove out of the police station
at close to 9 pm, I thought to myself.
The fight has just begun for her.
My head was spinning by then, from the sleepless
night and the constant activity through out the day.
I don't want to think about how I reached home,
but I remember that I thought about a lot of things
through the long journey despite my
half drunk, half sleepy mind being tired.
P.S: One doesn't understand the importance of freedom
unless one has limits to overcome.
I was high, so had to think hard to remember
that she was supposed to come over for the night.
I still remember when I first saw her few days back
she didn't look like someone who had gone through a lot in life.
Untill of course she shed tears over the thought
of being sent back to her husband and her verbalise her trauma.
There she was in front of me running away from somebody
who must resemble a demon or may be there was more it.
I think she was running away from the demons
in her past, running away from herself.
I asked her to come in. She looked tried.
I'm sure she was.
Walking out of the house one fine morning
and making a journey from Patna to Mumbai
was not something she did every other day!
She had landed here last Saturday.
She took a train and a flight
selling her jewellry to reach her destination, Mumbai.
Leaving her only child behind too!
that must have been tough I thought.
Once here she would get excited by little things.
The sea, the moon, the night life...
and other little things were enough to evoke the
feeling of a bird set free from the cage after years.
We spent one whole night out in Mumbai showing her
the flavour of the city because she didn't know
how long her freedom would last.
And we had a blast.
We drove from shooters to U Turn
to Juhu beach to versova rock beach
and even all the way to lonavla.
It is one night I will never forget.
Through out the night she laughed at
almost anything, she was soaking in
the life and beauty around her.
I gave her the bed sheet and pillow
asking her to relax.
I was groggy as it was past midnight.
I just imagined what the police might be thinking
at this moment.
Will they get hold of all of us and take her away?
They had landed at Janvi, Rahul and Deepak's
place in that evening.
That was why she was compelled to come
over to my place.
She couldn't possibly go back to Janvi's where
she had been living since she came,
the police could be on the look out.
I picked up my book, I was coming to the end
of the interesting tale.
She didn't sleep. Her eyes were sore.
She must have been weeping since she found out
that the police were after her and the people who
were helping her hide.
At that point I didn't even think that anything
would go wrong.
I woke up next morning, was just finishing
my elaborate breakfast when Janvi called.
"The cops had called up Rahul.
He's gone to meet them," she said.
Ok. Now what?
I was off without even considering
taking a bath.
We went down to Chembur police station
with the purpose of filing an NC.
Purna's brother-in-law had contacted
a social worker.
We had everything set. We'll file an NC
against her husband, get the support of an NGO
and then go to the police.
But when we reached nothing of that sort happened.
We couldn't file an NC and
the social worker didn't come down.
We wondered what to do, and at the same time
worried about Rahul and Deepak who had gone
missing since the cop's called them.
Their cell phones were swicthed off
and it had been hours since they last contacted us.
We walked to Kamat, a restaurant at Chembur Naka.
Janvi's mom decided to come there, with a
bag of clothes for the absconding girl, and also to see us.
Aunty was worried like hell.
Then came the much awaited call.
Rahul was on the line as relief replaced worry.
He asked us where we were and we told him.
He asked us to meet him at Cine Planet
and then he would tell us what the state of affairs was.
We decided to leave immediately.
Janvi's sis and brother-in-law came too.
So Janvi and I got into one rik,
and she, Janvi's sis and bro-in-law into another.
On the way I thought over things and told Janvi
that the cops wouldn't probably set them free
after hours of interrogation.
I sensed that something was fishy.
We decided to let her and others wait back in
a restaurant in Sion itslef while we meet rahul
and find out if everything's ok and we're safe.
Before we could think further we had reached.
We got down and walked towards a dead looking rahul.
He walked up to us and said, "It's all over. These
guys are crime branch people."
I looked and saw cops dressed in civil uniform
making their way towards us.
It was straight out of the movies!
I felt like shit. After all this, it's just over.
In minutes things were turned around.
We led the cops to her.
I couldn't stop the tears as I thought
what would happen to her now.
Janvi, I and she
sat into the police vehicle that
was to take us to the crime branch office.
The police told us that we need not go with
them to the police station.
Janvi too asked me to leave and
said that she could manage.
But I wanted to go.
In the beginning I wondered why Janvi did all this
for a stranger. Why didn't she just lead her own life?
I felt she had a big heart but still...whatever.
Today I couldn't explain why I had been caring for
a stranger since the day I met her.
I went.
Rahul and Deepak had been beaten.
Deepak had become unconscious and had been waiting
inside the police station for all this while.
Rahul's hands were stiff as the electric current
had passed through them.
These boys were fighting for her.
I was nervous as hell, so was everyone and of course
she was real jittery.
She didn't want to go back to a wife beating
husband, a sick and near death mother-in-law and
breathe the choking air that she had been taking in,
in the confines of the walls of what could in the least
be called home.
I'm sure that the picture of her little daughter
did flash in front of her eyes evey now and then.
Since we set foot in the crime branch office
everything started falling into place.
The police cooperated and listened to the story
behind the missing girl.
We had to sit for hours though, waiting
for things to be done and formalities to be completed.
We were worried about Deepak too.
I had met him just once before I think
and couldn't even recollect how he looked.
Yet I was worried.
He walked out of the room where they
keep the criminals as the formalities went on.
He looked like a wounded soldier, trying to
smile as he approached us.
Rahul and he had fought but had to tell the
truth at some point.
The pain must have been unimaginable.
Anyway the DCP had heard her out
and declared that she had come here
on her own will and that she couldn't
be taken away by anyone as she was an adult
and had the right to go wherever she chose.
That was it?
The police had made a fair decision I thought.
It kind of made me gain some faith in our crumbling system.
It's a democracy out here!
Though our dear social worker had to pull some strings
and speak to some top people to get the matter over
in a day's time.
The whole episode raises a lot of personal,
social and polictical issues in my head.
But can't get into all that right now.
Her husband? What about him?
Yes, she spoke to her husband in front of the DCP
and told him straight out that she didn't want to get back.
I had kind of tried to see the 40-year-old man
from the corner of the eye all the while.
For the first time I saw him properly as he walked out
of the DCP's office.
He and his sis tried to gain our sympathy and
convince her to get back with him.
He acted well I thought.
We just told him it was her decision and walked out.
As we drove out of the police station
at close to 9 pm, I thought to myself.
The fight has just begun for her.
My head was spinning by then, from the sleepless
night and the constant activity through out the day.
I don't want to think about how I reached home,
but I remember that I thought about a lot of things
through the long journey despite my
half drunk, half sleepy mind being tired.
P.S: One doesn't understand the importance of freedom
unless one has limits to overcome.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Five point someone
Five point someone is everybody's story!
I started relating to it from page 1
and that's the strongest point of the book.
You can relate to the story.
In any case I always tend to go off on a tangent
when I'm reading.
Start thinking of a similar situation or people in my life,
and sometimes even get into deep and insightful thinking
about philosophy and my life.
And then I have to shake myself out of it and
get back to the book.
Well, this is happening more often with this book.
The protagonists live in a hostel, doing all things they are
not supposed to be doing (like us).
There are three friends who don't do things without each other
(reminds me of aanch, somu and me).
The race for grades and the way they manage to
finish their assignments at the last minute all resemble
our combined and cooperative studies during the XIC days.
It reminds me of my own days when I made new friends.
The hostel life, the different species of profs,
the drinking and listening to Floyd and all....
are such a big part of our life in Mumbai.
The book has kind of inspired me to put my life and times
on paper and I keep thinking about all that I could write
and how I could express it in my book.
Contrary to popular perception
I'm sure my life would be an entertaining read.
There's a potential book within each one of us!
There's so much about me, the people I have met,
and the situations I have been in, in over two years
of my life in Mumbai that I think I could write a book
called "The Sea and Me"
or something even more corney!!
I started relating to it from page 1
and that's the strongest point of the book.
You can relate to the story.
In any case I always tend to go off on a tangent
when I'm reading.
Start thinking of a similar situation or people in my life,
and sometimes even get into deep and insightful thinking
about philosophy and my life.
And then I have to shake myself out of it and
get back to the book.
Well, this is happening more often with this book.
The protagonists live in a hostel, doing all things they are
not supposed to be doing (like us).
There are three friends who don't do things without each other
(reminds me of aanch, somu and me).
The race for grades and the way they manage to
finish their assignments at the last minute all resemble
our combined and cooperative studies during the XIC days.
It reminds me of my own days when I made new friends.
The hostel life, the different species of profs,
the drinking and listening to Floyd and all....
are such a big part of our life in Mumbai.
The book has kind of inspired me to put my life and times
on paper and I keep thinking about all that I could write
and how I could express it in my book.
Contrary to popular perception
I'm sure my life would be an entertaining read.
There's a potential book within each one of us!
There's so much about me, the people I have met,
and the situations I have been in, in over two years
of my life in Mumbai that I think I could write a book
called "The Sea and Me"
or something even more corney!!
Thursday, October 13, 2005
yoga..i missed u again
We missed yoga yet again and I'm
feeling terrible.
Not because I'm a fitness freak and hate missing
my excerise.
That's not me!!
But I just hate to miss something that I have enrolled myself for.
I have done that in the past and don't
want to repeat myself.
I just keep dreaming about Jal nidhi
(you put water through one nostril and letting it out from the other).
How clear did I feel after doing it just once that morning!
And since then I have been waiting to do it.
That's what is making me feel terrible.
I am just missing the surya namaskar and the Jal nidhi
that I have managed to do just once since I joined.
I still remember how we three excited shishyas
reached the club for our first yoga lesson
that seems like the distant past when I begin to think
of what has become of us since then...
My room mates are of no help.
They never wake up themselves, leave alone waking me up.
Even if they do wake up...they go back to their
precious state of stupor.
God...only you can help me wake up in time
for my YOGA...Amen...
feeling terrible.
Not because I'm a fitness freak and hate missing
my excerise.
That's not me!!
But I just hate to miss something that I have enrolled myself for.
I have done that in the past and don't
want to repeat myself.
I just keep dreaming about Jal nidhi
(you put water through one nostril and letting it out from the other).
How clear did I feel after doing it just once that morning!
And since then I have been waiting to do it.
That's what is making me feel terrible.
I am just missing the surya namaskar and the Jal nidhi
that I have managed to do just once since I joined.
I still remember how we three excited shishyas
reached the club for our first yoga lesson
that seems like the distant past when I begin to think
of what has become of us since then...
My room mates are of no help.
They never wake up themselves, leave alone waking me up.
Even if they do wake up...they go back to their
precious state of stupor.
God...only you can help me wake up in time
for my YOGA...Amen...
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
She never sleeps
I slept at 4 am yesterday...
I had to finish reading "Catcher in the rye".
I had been carrying it with me every single day but
never read for more than 10-15 mins...at a stretch.
It was getting to me and finally I decided to get rid of it.
But as I neared the end...I felt like “No...
Why is it all coming to an end?”
I feel like this every time I read a decent book.
I feel like reading slower as I reach the last few pages
so that I could prolong the moment when I have to
put the book down.
It happens to me very often.
I feel like...there should've been more to read in this book.
Well, I mostly end all my books way into the night.
In any case I don't like to sleep...it's wasting precious time...
One should sleep only how much is necessary you know.
Staying up all night is not good for the body, I am aware.
But my mind is too funny.
It doesn't think about all that...when it's at it's best.
Sometimes it makes me read,
Sometimes it makes me roam around the house,
Like a ghost, makes me go through my stuff,
diaries, photo albums etc..etc…,
look for things to do…like eat may be..
or call or sms somebody.
Practically, it feels like doing everything but sleep.
No I’m not an insomniac; I don’t stay up till 4 am
every single night.
But I can’t be sleeping all that early.
What's the point in doing that anyway.
MISS MY MIND
I had to finish reading "Catcher in the rye".
I had been carrying it with me every single day but
never read for more than 10-15 mins...at a stretch.
It was getting to me and finally I decided to get rid of it.
But as I neared the end...I felt like “No...
Why is it all coming to an end?”
I feel like this every time I read a decent book.
I feel like reading slower as I reach the last few pages
so that I could prolong the moment when I have to
put the book down.
It happens to me very often.
I feel like...there should've been more to read in this book.
Well, I mostly end all my books way into the night.
In any case I don't like to sleep...it's wasting precious time...
One should sleep only how much is necessary you know.
Staying up all night is not good for the body, I am aware.
But my mind is too funny.
It doesn't think about all that...when it's at it's best.
Sometimes it makes me read,
Sometimes it makes me roam around the house,
Like a ghost, makes me go through my stuff,
diaries, photo albums etc..etc…,
look for things to do…like eat may be..
or call or sms somebody.
Practically, it feels like doing everything but sleep.
No I’m not an insomniac; I don’t stay up till 4 am
every single night.
But I can’t be sleeping all that early.
What's the point in doing that anyway.
MISS MY MIND
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
A Part Of Me Is Missing
I feel your presence.
But when I look for you
I don't find you.
Every place shows me your picture
Every song hums your tune
And remind me you are not around.
I can see you standing there
Saying something I dread to hear.
I avoid seeing you in the eye,
You might just spot the drop.
I click and hold on.
I don't want to move on.
Now I wonder
Will you knock on the door?
Will you run into me as I move around?
Will I see you in those familiar places?
No answers.
I smile, I cry
I reach for something,
A part of me is missing.
But when I look for you
I don't find you.
Every place shows me your picture
Every song hums your tune
And remind me you are not around.
I can see you standing there
Saying something I dread to hear.
I avoid seeing you in the eye,
You might just spot the drop.
I click and hold on.
I don't want to move on.
Now I wonder
Will you knock on the door?
Will you run into me as I move around?
Will I see you in those familiar places?
No answers.
I smile, I cry
I reach for something,
A part of me is missing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)