The Demonetization Quandary

These notes are worth jackshit now!

In Chris Nolan's genre-defining film, The Dark Knight, the character of the Joker, immortalized by the late Heath Ledger said, "Introduce a little anarchy, upset the established order and everything becomes chaos!" Little must have Batman's arch nemesis realized how true his words would turn out to be 8 years later in the world's largest democracy!

On the evening of the 8th of November, my phone's pop-up notification told me about a briefing our Prime Minister had with the military chiefs of our armed forces earlier in the day. Nothing much to it, I remember thinking to myself as I put my phone away. A few hours later, my phone beeps again, this time to tell me that the PM shall address the nation at 8 in the evening. Address the nation? Like how the US Presidents do? My mind begins to race and I recall his meeting with the military chiefs. He is not mobilizing our forces on the ground, is he? Declaring war against Pakistan? Hell no, he wouldn't do that! He won't, right?

For over an hour, I vacillated between apprehension and hope until the time arrived when our PM majestically declared his grand kingside attack plan on black money and fake currency - the move to demonetize the 500 and 1000 rupee notes. 

My initial reaction to this, like everybody else’s, was awe and respect. I have never showered the man with undue adulation. I am someone who believes that his party came into existence, prominence and then finally to power, all on the basis of their inveterate demagoguery. But being objective as ever, I never questioned Modi's leadership and his will power to see through things that he wanted to get done. And thus, despite the government filing an affidavit with the Supreme Court in August of last year refusing to bring political parties under the ambit of the RTI and despite the government sitting on the names of people with black money stashed in Swiss banks abroad and despite refusing to open the party's funding records to the public, I believed Modi when he told me, in his usual oratorical brilliance about how demonetization will bring in billions of rupees in unaccounted money to the government's disposal, about how banks will be full with defaulters trying to declare their off-the-record income and how this will lead to an increase in their lending capacities thereby reducing the interest rates on loans that they hand out! What a win-win situation for all!

Of course, in the midst of all this theatricality, I forgot that I was nothing but a neophyte when it came to economics. I do have a working knowledge of the country's financial system, but in no way could I picture the fallout that was to come after, and how most of the claims which I believed in with all my naiveté, were just wind and words!

When everybody was jubilant and getting high on the balls that Modi had, I chanced upon a live television debate of Kerala's finance minister, Dr. Thomas Isaac. Unlike me, Dr. Isaac is a badass in economics and is perhaps the best finance minister the state has ever had. When everyone around him was busy showering praises on the PM, Dr. Isaac appeared unimpressed AF, and dare I say, a tad bit condescending. He blithely put the whole thing aside as a sham and went about giving structured arguments to his point. Now, Dr. Isaac is a communist, so naturally, I believed he was just being partisan and doing what politicians ought to do. After all, who doesn't see the good that's coming out of it? Isn't that pretty obvious? You demonetize high-value currencies and hoarders get caught with their pants down. Either declare the money and pay a legal fine or lose the entire money altogether! Wow! Masterstroke! Right? RIGHT? Apparently not!

Now, to begin with, what the government just did isn’t demonetization at all! Demonetization by definition means retiring a currency note of a particular value, once and for all. An example would be the complete demonetization of the 10,000 rupee note in 1978, never to be used or seen afterward. What the government intended to do here is just replace old currency notes with new ones so as to force defaulters to declare their undeclared income and to give a solid Joe Frazier like left hook to the fake currency industry. And to some extent, it may have succeeded at both these endeavors. But is it enough? Is the cost versus benefit ratio favorable? 

You see, only a minuscule percentage of the black money economy in India is in the form of hard cash. Indeed, very few people are idiotic enough to store bundles of cash below bathroom tiles and in the false ceilings of their bedrooms. And that's because there is absolutely no guarantee to what can happen to physical cash. They can, for instance, go so out of value, that you may need to carry a sack full of them to buy a ticket for a 2 km bus ride as it happened in Zimbabwe, or they can just be removed out of circulation by the government as it's happening now. The logical thing to do would be to turn the cash into real entities that’ll appreciate in value over time, like gold or land or put it in circulation in the stock market industry buying bonds and shares and hell, earn more money out of it! And if you are still too paranoid, send it off to offshore tax havens like the Panamas, the Swiss banks or the nearby Southeast Asian countries like Thailand and Singapore.

Point being, this demonetization thing literally means diddly-squat to the smarter hoarders. And most often, the smarter ones are the bigger fish. Don't you find it perplexing when known crony capitalists like Adani and Ambani, and film stars blacklisted in the Panama Papers praise the shit out of this move and call it monumental while the common daily wage worker breaks his back cursing the government all day out? Does it not tickle your inquisitiveness when the people that we wanted to see get booked, spend $750 million on their daughter’s wedding or throw a lavish party because their niece just got engaged while the middle-class son can’t convert the 5 lakhs he has accumulated into legal tender for his father’s cancer treatment? 

I am in no way alleging that these people had prescient knowledge about the shit that was about to go down. All I am saying is that this move is so ineffective in catching the people that actually matter, that the very same people go ahead and praise it openly! And even among those who had their blacks stored as cash, there were some who could get it converted into white overnight. How? A branch outlet in Mumbai of a famous jewelry chain in Kerala did business worth $450 million on the night Modi announced this plan. The salesman, a friend of mine remembered how people came in frantically and bought off gold and diamond chains without so much as looking at them. The store was open till 6am the next morning and then remained shut for the next three days because they literally had nothing to sell! If this was the case with one small branch of one jewelry chain in one city, imagine the situation and the business done across thousands of jewelry stores across the nation? Seems like this whole black to white transformation isn’t that tough after all!

The next biggest bullshit being peddled around is how the investments in banks have surged to a record high of 1.7 million crores and how this will force the RBI to further reduce the repo rates. Our former Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram deftly exposed all the holes in this line of argument. The RBI just reduced the repo rate a month back and that reduction itself happened after a period of 6 years. So expecting another rate cut is expecting too much. Secondly, the record money that’s coming into banks isn’t windfall by any means. People are depositing money into their accounts not because they have a lot of extra cash or because they just don’t need their money right now. They are doing it because they are being forced to. All they want is to exchange their old notes with new ones and the only way to do that is via bank deposits. Most of the money deposited today will be withdrawn tomorrow. This isn’t any windfall. This is just a temporary influx of money that’ll disappear as fast as it comes, and the banks, in the end, will have no perceptible increase in deposits for the RBI to even consider another repo rate cut. So hold your horses!

On the other side of the spectrum, what followed was total bedlam for the common, middle-class man and woman. ATMs weren’t functioning the first few days, while banks received an in-flow of the new 2000 rupee notes in small chunks each day. Although, why the RBI would introduce notes of higher denomination before notes of lower denomination still beats me. The official explanation is that the government wanted to give people their money back as fast as possible and that meant printing fewer notes but with more value. But how the government and the RBI, with their team full of world class economists, failed to understand the basic fundamental that the 2000 rupee note will remain virtually useless till the 500 rupee note comes into the picture, is something none of the experts out there could figure out yet! And how replacing lower value notes with ones having a higher value will aid in the fight against black money is a question for which I still have to find a solid answer! All it’ll do is make it easier for people to stash their money back into those false ceilings.

It has been more than a week and a half and what was promised to be a minor inconvenience of 2 days in the beginning, is now standing at a death toll of 50 plus with people sacrificing their jobs and their family to spend a quarter of a day in queues outside banks and ATMs. As if the torture wasn’t gory enough, the government has placed strict caps on the amount of money each person can withdraw and exchange! Can you see what an infringement that is on the economic freedom of the people? The government holding out hard-earned money of the masses is some serious crime but since it’s not purposeful and is being done more out of necessity than out of a ruthless need to implement a fascist policy, the public in general, are willing to forgive. But for how long do you think? For how long can parents watch their children go to bed starving or the son see his mother suffering because he can’t withdraw the required amount from the bank or the mother keep quiet about the death of her poor baby because the hospital won’t accept demonetized notes or the father run around trying to convert the money he accumulated over years for his daughter’s wedding? For how long?

Also, the government’s errant behavior of increasing and rolling back the limits looks like a two year old kid fidgeting with a Rubik’s cube – it literally has no clue! It’s way in over its head now. All observations after 10 days point to a gross underestimation and mismanagement of resources on the government’s part. Surely, how did the government not see that removing 21 billion notes out of circulation overnight and replacing it with 21 billion new notes is not something that you could accomplish in a matter of days? How did it go ahead with the plan when it knew that our country with 1.25 billion people has only 0.2 million ATMs and just over 3000 technicians to calibrate them? Why where the ATMs shut down for two days after the 8^th of November only for the Finance Minister to tell us afterwards that recalibration will take another 3 weeks? If the numbers above are to believed, complete normalcy can return only after a minimum of four to five months. I for one happen to believe that that amount of time will only test the patience of people a bit too much. All it takes is a spark to ignite a bottle of Molotov cocktail. A little riot here, a little vandalism there and before you know, people will follow suit. And if there is anything history has taught us, it is that this can come true without any iota of doubt.

So, let’s shed this false façade of the greater good and let’s not rope in the army every time to cover for government inadequacies. I didn’t see anyone getting worked up when our great soldiers were made to work like laborers to build pontoon bridges for Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living program in Delhi. Let’s just cut to the crap. The government needs to first acknowledge that it is in fact in deep shit and that’s getting part of the problem solved. 

I of course, am not the person to say anything about further measures that need to be undertaken, because if I could have, I would have been on the board of the RBI or assisting the Finance Ministry. What I said, was entirely based on common sense. There was no statistical drivel in there and no lofty concepts of economic parity. Just as I saw through the bullshit, millions of Indians also have. Like me, they too are angry because the government couldn’t wait to take credit for a relatively good idea and ended up rushing it without proper planning which resulted in the total mess the country’s economy is in currently. As each day passes, the situation moves from bad to worse. 

And the government, now too egotistic to even admit that they messed up, has started to shift blames already. The beginning was yesterday when Piyush Goyal declared in the Rajya Sabha that the whole demonetization thing was the RBI’s idea! Is that why Mr. Modi addressed the nation beating his chest out and took all the credit for this when things were all sunshine? I don’t know. Nothing looks like anything to me anymore!

Knowing the Real India - Part I

I sit on a half-broken bench at a rather empty stretch of the platform with the setting sun casting its weak rays onto my tired eyes, my luggage placed awkwardly on my lap, my throbbing head tucked into my chest, my stomach aching, my muscles full with the lactic acid build-up and my throat parched with an unusual thirst that just wouldn’t disappear even after having emptied two bottles of mineral water into it.


I am at Hazrat Nizamuddin station in New Delhi and it is somewhere in the last week of June 2014. The harsh North Indian summer is putting up its last, brave fight before it fades away for good, for almost a year, and then it shall return next May. I am severely nauseated for quite some time now accompanied by a very strong aversion to the sight and smell of food. Even a passing reference to the word makes me want to puke. I look at my watch and it says half an hour to go before sunset. My train which will be my escape to Mumbai will arrive half an hour before midnight. This means waiting another five hours in this strangulating atmosphere. My intestines churn when I arrive at this conclusion. I occasionally look up to check on the creepy-looking rag-picker who has made himself comfortable on the edge of the platform. I curse when I catch him staring at me. Or is it my bag that he has got his eyes on?


I start wondering about the day that passed behind me. I had arrived at the New Delhi station just early today by the Rajdhani Express, the most pampered and favored train in the Indian Railways. And what a fruitful journey that was! My co-passengers were all people holding some of the most enviable positions and jobs and had a lot to talk and share about their accomplishments among themselves. A retired government service man who was now a full-time voice actor for television soaps, his son an eminent cardiologist; an old man with Gandhi spectacles, a wavy beard, a free-flowing mustache, and his hair tied up in a ponytail who might as well have had the words ‘intellectual journalist’ written over his forehead (he was one by the way); a research scholar in mathematics (of all subjects!) who was on his way to the Clay Institute – which if you don’t know is Hogwarts to math wizards; and a Delhi based woman and her two-year-old son who now lived in Mumbai with her husband.


Together, they all discussed issues. Everything from the mundane and commonplace to the more serious ones like politics and economics. The journalist was particularly sympathetic to the AAP and that piqued my interest in his views and conclusions about the fall of the party-led government in Delhi. The cardiologist spoke about increasing coronary diseases among Indians and how one day we will overtake Americans in that regard! The voice actor simply rambled about his adventures and the people he dubbed for on television. The housewife recognized every name he mentioned with the enthusiasm of a teenager who just got to meet a band member from One Direction. The others though, sat scratching their heads, bored out of their heads by his impassive storytelling. 


‘You don’t dub for film actors?’, the journalist asked finally.


This visibly irritated the voice actor beyond measure and he then did not speak for the remainder of the journey. The woman, for her part, kept going on and on about why she thought Mumbai was a much better place than Delhi (I know lady!).


In the midst of all this elderly talk, there was another interested listener like me. Her name was Shivani Pete. She was perhaps two years older and ridiculously beautiful with a face carved out with queen-like features – a Roman nose, high cheekbones, eyebrows that conveyed control, and olive skin that was adequately tanned thanks to the Mumbai heat. She was traveling to attend her first semester at the Delhi School of Economics. Though she was seated next to me, we didn’t talk much initially. But I could tell from whatever little she spoke that she was one of those rare kinds. That down-to-the-scale combination of beauty and brains. No, I wasn’t attracted to her nor was it one of those senseless love/infatuation at first sight scenarios. I was, truth be told, highly impressed.


When the old men got tired of all the non-stop talking, I searched for an apt conversation starter to engage with her. You are not a flirt, I reminded myself as I thought of a perfect line. I looked at her and she was eating yogurt out of a plastic container. She had requested an extra box from the waiter and the bewitched man had given in. She was finishing off the final bits when I finally managed to spit it out. ‘It's lactobacillus. Good for your stomach’ I said that and flashed a smile that ran from ear to ear as if I had spotlessly uttered a Shakespearean quote on Broadway.


Now this line could have been an enormously epic fail with every other girl on the planet. Mentioning some lowly gut bacteria in your first sentence with a female is not exactly what they call ‘smooth'. I could already picture all those ‘stud gurus’ from shit-soaked MTV programs shaking their heads at me in discernible contempt.


But this one was different. ‘Biology student ha?’ she smiled back. And then it began. Never in my life had I come across a girl so aligned about things that mattered to me. Things like your country, its diabolical neighbors, its unsteady economy, its uniquely structured political architecture, its still ethical refusal to permanently side as an ally with any superpower in the world, and the list runs pages.


We agreed on almost everything and disagreed on a great deal too. The biggest difference in opinion was the time when she matter-of-factly blurted out that the concept of development in this country is so clichéd and so far from the truth and that in reality, India fares far worse than even some of the most poverty-stricken African nations. India was in fact still a major Third World country, she had said. I argued to the contrary. I asked her to look at India’s space programs, her status as an undeniable stakeholder in global markets of multinational companies and nations themselves, and also the line-up of states all over the world that wanted to make strategic and economic treaties with her. She shook her head at this and replied that a country does not attain greatness by its triumphs outside, it attains greatness by the quality of living among the people that exist under its name, the amenities they receive, and the social, political, and economic harmony that prevail therein. And in this regard, India was nowhere within a hundred miles of being labeled a world leader.


I couldn’t argue further. I had a valid point. But she had a valid point too. I checked the time and it was approaching three in the morning. ‘How about we catch some sleep? Tomorrow is going to be a busy day.” She took the cue to end this never-ending debate and climbed up the berth and laid down. I spent another hour looking through the window at the darkened silhouette of the trees melting away outside before my eyes closed and I fell asleep. 


The train creaked into the New Delhi railway station at exactly nine in the morning and I got down with my luggage – a backpack and a small carry-on bag. She got down with her luggage – a minaudiere clutched in her right hand, a backpack, and a travel bag half her size. It was so immense she could have easily stuff­­ed a dead body in and no one would have suspected a thing. We took the underground metro that lay opposite the station and separated at Moolchand. Simple goodbyes and courtesies were exchanged as she left the metro cabin and I watched her disappear into the office-going morning crowd. That would be the last I ever saw or heard of her. The philosophy of a ‘single-serving friend’ from the movie Fight Club sprang into my head. Edward Norton was right after all.


I reached my college by ten thirty and finished my job by eleven. I then waited half an hour for Kabeer. He is the younger brother of my teacher at graduation college. He arrives and looks, talks, laughs, and behaves the same way as his elder brother. The similarities are so striking that I had to message my teacher halfway through the conversation about it. Also, like his brother, Kabeer too is an absolute foodie. His eyes beamed with excitement around mid-afternoon.


‘Chalo, aaj tumhe Dilli ka khaana khilaata hu!’ Come, today I will show you the food of Delhi!


Half an hour later we were seated at a very famous Mughlai restaurant near the university. Smoke from hot tandoors serenaded our way with the refreshing odor of charred flesh. I hadn’t eaten much since I got off the train so I made it a point to gobble up as much as I could. The waiter arrived and I asked Kabeer to order the best dish on the menu.


‘One chicken kadai full, one chicken tikka full, and six butter rotis. Oh, and before that get two plates of shawarma as starters.’ he shot off at the waiter whose eyes darted from Kabeer to me repeatedly as he took the order, a genuine look of surprise visible in his eyes.


I too was astonished at the sheer quantity of food that was being ordered for just the two of us. I leaned across the table and spoke in a hushed voice not wanting the waiter to hear. ‘Are you sure Kabeer? This much?’


“Arree don’t worry Altaf Bhai. I will adjust!” he said and laughed heartily, much to the vexation of the other customers. I, too couldn’t control myself and joined in.


I always had a low appetite, so it was natural for me to get full just fifteen minutes into the feast. Kabeer though was still going sturdy and looked like he had space for another item or two on the menu.  He pompously declared how his was a family of people who just went wild bananas over food (It was only later that my teacher told me that Kabeer could eat one kilogram of mutton in just one sitting. My word!).  


We stepped out of the restaurant and moved towards the ring road. Kabeer asked me what time my train was and I told him it was at eleven thirty that night. He invited me to stay over at his place till nightfall maybe freshen up a bit, take a bath or so, sleep an hour or two, watch a bit of television. I was tempted but I declined. The reason was that Kabeer was staying with his friend who in turn was staying at the winter residence (in summer!) of his aunt. Barging into the house of my teacher’s brother’s friend’s rented apartment unannounced isn’t exactly good manners. He pressed. But I still refused, giving him a thousand inconsequential and fatuous reasons until he relented. He hauled a rickshaw for me and bargained with the driver for over a minute about the right price to Nizamuddin Station. “Dilli ka hi hu. C****ya mat banao mujhe.”, he said repeatedly until they finally agreed on a fee, no love lost between them. I got in and thanked Kabeer for making my day and also hoped we meet again when our semester starts. He guffawed again, this time even louder, and waved off my thank yous with a brush of his hand.


That was then and this is now. I snap back to reality. My co-passengers, Shivani, Kabeer, the chicken tikkas, and shawarmas, everyone, and everything felt so distant and illusory. Nebulous memories from a forgotten past life. My physical discomforts which had given me a temporary leeway have found their way back in. Looking back now, the decision to reject Kabeer’s offer seems such a huge blooper, one even bigger than Napoleon’s decision to challenge the Royal British Navy. Napoleon at least went into exile after his gaffe. I for one, am trapped in this ostensible hellhole of a place, gasping for breath with every passing minute.


I look at my watch. Time has moved. But at a snail’s pace. It’s still only seven forty. Almost four hours still left to sublimate. I fervently wish and pray that time passes off like it does when you watch a good movie or when you play a game of cricket. Four hours seem such a short period then, it seems so long now.


I see people forming a queue under the supervision of a police constable on the platform next to the one I am on. They are lining up for a ‘first come first serve’ entry into the unreserved local compartments of long-distance passenger trains. The ones where you have to forget your seat when you go take a piss. An idea sparkles inside me. I pick up my phone and log into the Indian Railway app. Usually, it is like what you expect from a government application – slow and taxing, it makes you want to pull your hair out in anticipation. But luckily this time it jumps to life in an instant. I flick through the list of Mumbai-bound trains this evening. I find one. I can’t exactly recollect the name but this one starts out from here at exactly eight forty-five and reaches Mumbai by four in the evening the next day. The ticket I have in hand currently belongs to the eleven-thirty train and it is waitlisted. If the confirmation doesn’t come through, I travel to Mumbai sitting near the toilets. With just a few hours to go, that seems highly improbable. On the other hand, I could get a local ticket and travel on this train that I have just fished out from the app. But that means sacrificing a possible seat and the obvious comfort that comes with it. But I also can’t take to this waiting business anymore and desperately want to be on the first train that gets me out of this netherworld. I am in a dilemma. I have to make a decision. Should I or should I not? To be or not be? Aristotle’s classic metaphysical question.


It is then that memories and images from my childhood come dancing past me like logs of wood on a free-flowing river. Memories of the elders in my life, my uncles, aunts, father – especially my father – constantly lecturing me and my brother about how we had an easy and ‘silver platter’ childhood. How they had it hard and exhausting, how they walked for miles to school and back, how they lived without electricity for most of their infancy, and how they left homes, families, friends, and foes, in search of a better life. “You never had to worry about that my son!” my dad would often proclaim emphatically. Behind all these constant reminders of their arduous and demanding childhood and adolescence and youth, I had always felt the presence of a slight insinuation. An insinuation that we, having lived in a city were soft and tender, an insinuation that we were a people who would wince and cry at the first sight of hardship, an insinuation that we could never even think of stepping out of our comfort zone, an insinuation that we were sissies.


Of course, this was my smothered and suffocating brain whipping out these dumb ideas but at this particular moment, they seemed so logical and true. It increased my determination. I wanted to prove to my father and my uncles and aunts that I too am forged with the same metal as them, that I could do things that they thought were impossible for me. And what was a better opportunity than the one that had presented itself now? Me traveling in the local compartment of a passenger train with hardwood seats and no berth to sleep and no space to tuck my baggage in. That would make a good story to tell!


And this was the tipping scale. I turn towards the ticketing counter that lay behind me and stroll in with the determination to buy a single local ticket to Mumbai.


Little did I know that this decision would prove to be one of the worst that I have ever made and that I would be made to suffer for this sudden burst of imprudence in me. It will teach me what a vain thing a fool’s idea of glory is!

Behind Enemy Lines......

The press convention room was abuzz with a lot of unusual chatter and activity. Media personnel were being shown into the sixty seater hall after being put through rigorous frisking and security checks. The camera men were busy mounting their microphones on the orator’s podium. Occasionally there would be hushed snares and glares among the men as they vied for the spots that would command the most space on the international telecast of the event that was to air to the view of the entire world in just a few minutes.

Young journalists, many of whom who had never been to the historic parliamentary press room where just taken aback by the sheer majesty and architectural grandeur of the hall; even as they themselves were somewhat nervous about the happenings that was to follow. Besides them, experienced veterans sat with an air of petty confidence and calmness but they too would be lying if they claimed they weren’t anxious. And why wouldn’t they be. It was, after all, the biggest political sand storm that had kicked up after the 2004 beheadings of three Indian soldiers belonging to the border security force that manned the volatile Indo-Pak border. Though Pakistan had explicitly denied the hand of their armed forces in that brutal tragedy; it was nevertheless an open secret and every third grade dimwit in India knew the truth. The opposition had pounced upon the opportunity and every minister in both Houses of the Parliament left no stone unturned in declaring the government impotent and incapable of defending the nation. The government though, for their part had claimed that they were doing everything they could possibly do through diplomatic channels and that it was not in the nature of international protocol to take up arms and act in haste over such incidents without tangible proof. The media went berserk over all these developments and the fire that ensued lasted for over a month.

Now, after almost a decade, a controversy similar in nature but more grotesque in pattern had emerged. But the tide and in which they emerged were different. The opposition was the government and the then government had been reduced to a miniscule minority in the House. The new ruling order was seen as more authoritative and stronger than the older one and it was expected that this time, India’s response would be threatening. But the situation itself was delicate and not as simple as three servicemen being killed in combat. It involved a topic which no country on the face of the earth was comfortable talking about, though it was something which every country did and had to do for their own defence and survival; to maintain internal security and peaceful integrity of their international borders and to some extent play political hopscotch. The topic was espionage.

The sounds in the press hall were silenced immediately as the Prime Minister’s official media spokesperson Nirupama Roy entered the hall and went straight to the podium. She climbed the dice coolly like she had done countless number of times in the past, dragging her long embellished sari beneath her feet. After adjusting the microphone she began addressing the assembled journalists.

“Good morning everyone. I will keep this short. As you all are aware, this press conference was called by the Honourable Prime Minister in view of the alleged infiltration remarks by Pakistan in which it was claimed that the Pakistani Army had captured a secret agent working for the Government of India in an undisclosed location along the Pakistani side of the LOC. As scheduled, the PM will present his statement shortly. And he will not take any questions so I would request you to refrain from asking him any. Thank You.”, saying this, Roy cleared the podium and left the hall as fast she had appeared.

The ‘no questions’ clause let out a collective sigh of despair among the assembled media wolves who had spent their whole adult life jumping up and down at the opportunity of asking questions. Nevertheless, they would still try to incense him with blazing one liners and hope to make him feel compelled to answer atleast some of them. The issue was contentious and had ignited heated debates on international spy networking and insurgency. It nevertheless was expected by the general masses that the government would come out in full support of the captured agent and try to extradite him and get him back to his country and honour him with the highest gallantry medals. But this was just public, layman fancy – imbecile, foolish and driven by passion over brains. It didn’t work that way in the real world. There was no scope for patriotic sentiments or public opinions. The only thing that worked was diplomacy and every foreign relations expert in India knew what the PM’s response would be. So there were no surprises why the reporters felt deprived or even marginalized at not being allowed to question him on such a politically significant affair.

The doors opened and the bulky frame of Yudhishtir Sinha, the fourteenth Prime Minister of India stepped in holding a manila envelope in his hand. Giving his usual courtesy smile, he moved on to the podium clustered with innumerable microphones belonging to different news corporations. After having settled the envelope which contained the statement on the desk, Sinha took one long look at the assembly. His eyes swept through each and every reporter in the room, identifying some, being intimidated by some, and recording some new faces to his memory.

After taking a long, deep breath, he opened the envelope and pulled out the four page statement drafted by his expert team comprising of speech writers and eminent political advisors. Even though Sinha knew everything written on the statement by heart, he ignored the text at the last moment and began speaking extempore.

“As the Prime Minister of India, and as its numero uno representative, I hereby categorically deny all the allegations of espionage labelled by the Ministry of External Affairs, Pakistan as completely unfounded and baseless. The individual in question, Mr. Jasif Jamshed, has not been found to be part of any military or paramilitary regiment or troop under the command of the President of India. At the most he is an Indian citizen who has erringly wandered off into Pakistani territory. I assure the country that all possible means would be undertaken to get the concerned individual back to India safe and sound. Thank You”. Sinha stepped away from the podium and briskly walked towards the exit door even as he could hear those journalists hammering him with nasty questions like a group of hyenas attacking an infant deer.

Yudhishtir Sinha walked straight to the Parliamentary exit and out into the huge lawn where his official vehicle the BMW X5 – fortified, armoured and solidly bulletproof – waited for him flanked by guardsman belonging to India’s elite Special Protection Group, the force responsible for protecting PMs, former PMs and the President of India and their immediate families. The SPG was instituted after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi by LTTE militants of Sri Lanka. Experts felt the need to have a dedicated protection force for the Prime Minister analogous to the American Secret Service. The selected individuals were cherry picked from various sources like the Armed Forces, the Police and sometimes even the Navy and the Air Force. Traditionally, the SPG is headed by an officer belonging to the Indian Police Service or the National Security Guards. As Sinha moved towards his SUV, he was flanked by two of these guards on the either side, alert and holding their MP5 submachine guns in a combat ready position, and they trailed him till he had entered the vehicle and closed those huge armor plated doors.

Once inside, Sinha picked up his secure handset rigged with speed dials to his most important official contacts. Not being a man too fond of technology, he began dialling a number out of his memory. A number he had called atleast fifty times in the past few days. After a few rings, Jai Rajeevan, a 1977 batch IPS officer and the present chief of R&AW, the Research and Analysis Wing, answered the phone.

“Yes, Mr. Prime Minister.”, the voice was bold and intimidating and the words spoken with a tone of awareness.

“The press conference is over Jai. Go ahead with the operation and call me back with the news that you have acquired Agent Jamshed back”, Sinha hung up the receiver back where it belonged and rested his head back on the seat. 

That was all that was needed to be said. He had just ordered an operation to rescue the same Indian citizen who had ‘erringly wandered off into Pakistani territory’; though he knew that was a statement far from the truth and that agent Jamshed had gone there as part of an infiltration attempt; as part of the many counter insurgency operations that are carried out by R&AW against Pakistan and ISI. And Jamshed was a son of the soil. Disowning him was never a choice. His service to the country can never  be repaid; but by bringing him back from the fangs of torture from under those ISI bastards, the country would have shown its own small gratitude towards him.     

Welcome to D'HELL'I!!!!..

So me and my friends end up in Delhi for our post graduation in biological sciences. Now Delhi is a place not famous for its serenity and peacefulness. It is a place famous for its horrendous crimes against women, for the number of people that die each year of the merciless winter, and for being the epicentre of the most prolific race of blood sucking maggots the country could produce; the political elite!. So naturally, before I set off from Mumbai, I had people from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Mumbai, USA and Uganda telling me to be careful and not fall prey to the huge array of popular vices this place offers.  For the part of me and my friends, I can confidently say we share similar sentiments. We had been to the city once before to appear for the exams, our first time, and the experience was nothing close to exemplary. Infact, a Delhi Corporation Bus conductor tried to fool us by accepting money and not giving a ticket! Hell I lived in Mumbai for two decades and never remotely had such an experience!

So if the University of Mumbai wasn’t as half as bad as they say it is, it would have probably tipped the scales and I would have chosen to abandon this wretched capital of India. But unfortunately it is and so Delhi is a necessity. Add to that the fact that I am nurturing Civil Services dreams, and Delhi becomes entirely unavoidable. 

They say a man doesn’t understand the value of sight until he loses it. And in similar fashion, I failed to understand the value of my home city Mumbai until I left it. I was someone who addressed Mumbai as ‘garbage city’ and ‘shit box’ the whole two decades of my life. But now when I am in a city which is hell on earth (use that term literally during summer), I dearly and heavily miss my city. And when I say I miss my city, I mean I miss everything that’s in and around it. My parents, my brother, my friends, my teachers, my cat, my house, my buildinmeg, the BEST, the autowaalas (oh how I yearn for rickshaws that ply on meters!), the Metro, the vada paavs, the bhajjias, the pothole infested streets, the floods and the list goes on and on! 

Now sitting in my room in Jamia Nagar, I think of Delhi as a completely alien place to me! Even the hindi they speak is with a slight Haryanvi slang. The men here are aggressive and hot headed and the women aren’t half as pretty. Ganesh Chaturti is probably the biggest festival in Mumbai. Here, no one cares about Ganeshji! Even the schools and government offices remain open on the day. Diwali is just a one day affair and people laugh at you cynically when you ask them about Diwali vacations. The academic sessions run a month late; so when your mid term ends around October in Mumbai, it sums up around December in Delhi. So you have your Christmas-New Year holidays and mid term holidays combined into one. I bet Mumbai students won’t like that!

Talking about food is a sacrilege. Mumbai is an open kitchen where you can enjoy cuisines from all over the country whether it be Gujarati, South Indian or Punjabi. In Delhi there are no Gujaratis. Atleast I haven’t seen any yet! So talk about their food is an utter waste of time. But you do have those schemers selling pseudo Dhoklas and pseudo Khandvis as though they are futuristic rarities imported from Mars, charging you fifteen rupees per piece (what horseshit!). South Indians are not as endangered as the Gujaratis here but their food is in a serious threat of disavowement. Idlis and Dosas are served in select ‘South Indian’ restaurants. Though the idlis are fine, it’s the sambhar and the chatni that will want you thinking of abandoning food for the rest of your lives. 

Being a south Indian, fish is a necessary part of my diet. Whilst in Mumbai I had fish every alternate day. But you can’t find fish in Delhi and thats because you can’t find the sea within a 1000 miles of this place! So if you want fresh marine food, you have to either go to the Bay of Bengal or to Gujarat; both of which are too far away. But you do get freshwater fish at a place called CR Market which I am reliably informed is the only market of its kind in here.

Now when you walk along any street in Mumbai, chances are that you will bump into a roadside vada paav stall or a dosa vaala or a farsan store every hundred metres. The peaceful corner where you can have that cheap and spicy daily snack of yours. In Delhi, you don’t find any roadside stalls. Even if you do, they have no freaking clue about a vada paav nor do they sell bhajjias. Some have samosas that look like two dimensional triangles and taste like molten rubber. And when you know you are paying ten rupees for this greasy piece of crap, it makes the already torturous process of shoving it down your throat all the more painful. You then have the famous McDonalds joints at select places where they charge you extra for every packet of ketchup and laugh when you ask them for coke floats. And KFCs are almost unheard of here! So that means even Westerners have a tough lunch here!

That was all the talk about food. Now lets talk about the pains of finding a house to stay in. People here still live in the old world mindset of religious differences! My friend could not find a room in the area I lived because he is a Hindu and the place is predominantly Muslim! So we try to find a room in an area with a Hindu majority and guess what? They won’t allow me because I am a Muslim! Now seriously, I am appalled. I thought this Hindu-Muslim bullshit was a matter of yesterday and subjects in stupid Bollywood films. But here in the capital of this great country we call India, we have such factors still playing an integral part in determining how these people live!

We have known or heard about the coal mafia, the mining mafia and even the sand mafia. Putting all these old school maifias to shame, in Delhi we have the water mafia! In simple terms, people in Delhi ‘buy’ the water needed for their daily household activities, especially drinking, from water vendors who turn up every morning with big plastic drums and equally big funnels. When I asked around a bit, the answers I got were shocking. No one knows where these people come from but they believe the water they bring is purified and free of contaminants.  And the standalone reason why people rely on these water retailers is because the water provided my MCD (Municipal Corporation of Delhi) is so full of shit that even a dead man would contract hepatitis. Its so bad that I don’t even make wudu for my prayers using that water! I would however like to say that only the area that I stay in has this issue and its not synonymous for the whole of Delhi.

Now transport in Delhi; although legions and legions away from Mumbai; is the only silver lining. Delhi is a radial city and so a bifurcating rail network like the Mumbai locals is not a solution. The answer was discovered ten years ago when the first metro train rolled out. For all my criticisms of this place, I must give in to the fact that Delhi has an elaborate and complex network of metro services which is cheap, well connected and fully air conditioned; something which is direly desired both during summer and winter. You can reach almost any place of commercial, academic, political and historic significance using the metro. Compared to this, the newly running Mumbai metro may look like a nipple sucking baby but its just a matter of a decade and a half at the most; and then the Delhites would lose that one echelon of superiority they had over the Mumbaikars. 

The bus service is good but not great. You have buses to reach any place in the city but its just that. The buses here don’t traverse every nook and corner of the city like the BEST buses; which has an impressive fleet of well-coordinated bus routes that can almost drop you at your doorstep! The rickshaws as usual don’t use their meters. They charge you by your looks. If you are naïve enough to let him know you are not from Delhi, he will burn a hole the size of a watermelon in your wallet. Thats the reason when Indians from different parts of the country visit Mumbai, they are most surprised seeing these meters actually being put to use. One thing I found peculiar in Delhi is the cycle rickshaw whose engines are men themselves. The socialist in me didn’t allow me to travel in these vehicles. To me these were yesteryear atrocities that should have been abolished long ago with the caste system. But as time passed and when the other rickshaw proved expensive, I hesitantly started using them. And now I travel by them everyday. Oh how young minds get corrupted in this vicious place!  

Then there are those battery operated trailers which ferry you at a much cheaper price. These are not strictly classified as vehicles and are driven around by young boys in their early teens. They have no licences, no permits, no road traffic regulations or anything remotely connecting them to the established transport laws. They left the auto rickshaws red faced because they paid much more for their licences and permits and their fuel charges and then carried less passengers at a higher price. Naturally people preferred the electric trailers. This went on until one fine day a bus smashed one of these vehicles into orange pulp and the driver, a twelve year old boy died on the spot. The Delhi High Court then ordered all the trailers to be taken off roads until they secure a proper registration and are driven by licenced adults. Now, in clear disregard for a High Court dictat, these trailers have appeared back miraculously, driven by the same young children who at their age are supposed to be attending elementary school with the other kids. Atleast in Mumbai people take contempt of court seriously!  

But the most shocking, eye-ball popping fact remains that in Delhi, getting hold of a gas cylinder is as easy as buying eggs! If you have a few hundred rupees to invest, you can buy your own gas cylinder. When comparing it to the fact that in Mumbai, you need to have a gas account and the government hammers you with cylinder limits each year after which they revoke your subsidy, this seems such a convenience! Use LPG as much as you like, whenever you like and however you like. And when you run out of gas, no worries. Just go to your nearest ‘gas-refilling’ shop and get your cylinder filled with fresh gas at ninety rupees per kilogram! But the sinister part is when you realise the immense scope of misuse this can bring upon the society. If one day some, deranged wackjob, frustrated with his life and the happiness of others, just decides to blow up an entire block, just for the heck of it; well; he can! And no one can check him!

So like the experimental scientist who draws conclusions after studying his observations, I too feel obliged to do so. The whole purpose of this blog wasn’t hate mongering. It was an oriental observation through the eyes of someone who is a completely new resident to the culture, social structure and anthropologic fabric of this city. Maybe the things I feel undesirable about this place would be the most alluring to the natives here. And maybe what I find good here (not much of that!) maybe the most hated here!  But as days pass by, I hope my heart comes to like this place. Though growing to like it as much as I like Mumbai is a big, big ask; I think I can do away with some of the grudges in a couple of months. Having said that I am apprehensive of the day some of my new batch-mates, some of whom are ardent Delhites, would read this. To them I would like to say that maybe now when your reading this, I have already turned into a big Delhi lover! A true Delhiphile! And if I have not, please forgive me because nothing tops Mumbai! The city of dreams! The city that never dies! 

In Search of The Prophet - 1

It was perhaps the most torturous day he could remember in a long time. The dry blistering heat just serenaded its way through the house and the somewhat busy streets of Taif, the sister city to Mecca which lay about a 100 kilometers southeast to it. The winds that blew over the city brought with it the sand and a sense of impending doom. Ofcourse he had seen many such heat streaks across his life, but this time he felt he couldn’t handle it; partly due to the flu he acquired two weeks ago while at a business trip to Syria.

 

Falah ibn Atah lay still on his cot, tired and wearied. His muscles reeling with fatigue, his bones so weak he thought walking would crumble them. Mentally he was a depressed man. His wife had given birth to a daughter again; her third. How would he face his fellow tribesmen now? He could hear them teasing and taunting him. ‘Look! Here goes Falah the man who has no one to carry forward his name!’ He sighed. He loved his girls. He would give up anything in this world to keep them. When the first girl was born, he defied traditional custom and refused to bury her alive in the sand dunes outside the city. Girls were a burden to the Arabian middle class. At a time when every tribe and town of Arabia were nothing but warring factions ready to spill blood for the silliest of reasons, not having a son to fight battles was a shame.

But burying newborn girls just because they couldn’t grow up to be bloodthirsty hounds was something he could not come to accept. But Falah was nevertheless still a man and he easily fell prey to the constraints and standards of society and becoming the subject of their ridicule was something that bothered him a tad bit too much. And not having a son wasn’t exactly why he was at loggerheads with his tribe.

After growing up and forming his own opinions and perceiving things his own way, Falah, at a very young age had refused to pray to the idols in his city and neither did he take part in the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca where tribes from all over Arabia paid homage to the 360 odd idols inside the Holy structure of the Kaaba. “When I travel the desert at night, I know that God is not kept in a house” he would often say to his detractors.    

Through his travels he had heard about Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus and the message they preached, that which of one God for the universe; the Unseen, the most Sublime. Attributing Him to idols and pictures which can neither harm people nor do any good to them, in his opinion was blasphemy and belittling of God. To prove his point to his father, he had once pushed the idol of the Calf from the tableplace at his house. When it fell and broke into a thousand pieces he commented, “Father, this idol cannot even take care of itself how would it affect the lives of the people who pray to it.”

He was slapped and beaten up for this ‘sacrilegious’ act and at the end his father out of love for his son advised him to keep his feelings about religion to himself if he wanted to live peacefully in the tribe. When his wife failed to give birth to a son the second time, some of his tribesman had observed that he might have incurred the wrath of the gods upon him. Even though in doubt, Falah never wavered and held steadfast on to his doctrine.

But life, as they say is not affable to everyone and he had seen his fair share of bad times and now he lay in this small bijou house of his not knowing what his future had for him. The fever had subsided and he felt a little better and proceeded to sit up at the edge of his bed. He had just got up to get some water for himself when he thought he heard some commotion outside. A clamor of people screaming and shouting aggressively. It was growing louder and louder with every passing second. He could not make any head or tail of what this was about. He turned and moved towards the door slowly, holding onto anything firm and steady for support as his legs still felt feeble.

He opened the door and was surprised to see his wife standing outside facing the street, the basket full of groceries still in her hands. He was about to ask her when she had returned when he realized that everyone was standing at the doors of their respective houses as if awaiting some passing by carnival show.  Falah trained his eyes in the direction of the oncoming pandemonium. He could vaguely make out two men being vigorously chased by children and street urchins of Taif. They were being pelted with stones mercilessly by children. As they came closer, Falah saw one of the men shielding the other with the long cloaks of his garment but this proved to be a futile exercise as both of them were injured pretty badly. He wondered what their fault was. He had never seen such punishment borne out for anyone in Taif in the past.  People were usually flogged for their crimes.

He turned to his wife for answers.

“Don’t you know? The one in the front is the man from Mecca who claims to be the prophet of God and the one shielding him is his adopted son.” She replied.

“Muhammad?” Falah tried to remember. Half a decade of information began to process in his mind. He had certainly heard about him throughout his travels along the desert, the man who talked about absolute monotheism. Some spoke of him as the awaited Prophet while many dismissed him as a madman; a lunatic who just kept blabbering consummate poetry. What did they call it? Ah yes! The Qur’an!

But that was all the much he had heard about him. He didn’t know what he professed or what he taught or what were the contents of this poetic prose they called the Qur’an. But first things first. Why was he here and why is he being pursued like this?

“Muhammad has gone against established order. He is challenging what the people of Arabia have been doing for centuries! Stopping the worship of the sacred idols of Arabia? I think he just wants to be seen as the ruler of Mecca. All he wants is power.”, his wife went on, a tone of evident bias in her voice; she obviously didn’t share Falah’s views on this subject.

“He obviously doesn’t want power.”, Salam al Uteybi, his neighbor interrupted. “He belongs to the very tribe that has custody over the Kaaba – The Quraish- they are Mecca’s defacto rulers. Early into his preaching, the chieftains had offered him wealth as much as he wanted and the sole leadership of the tribe. But he refused. His own uncle is opposed to him. So money; I don’t think so. He is probably mad, that’s what everyone in Mecca says he is.”

“Whatever. Overtime, life in Mecca became hard for this man and his small band of his followers. He was under the protection of his uncle who died last year. To top that even his wife passed away. He reached here today morning with his son seeking the aid and support of this city. The chieftains welcomed him and allowed him to speak freely of his message. But he started speaking of his monotheism and women rights and slave rights and what not! Some say he even told the chief of one of the tribes that in the sight of God, he is equal to his black Abyssinian slave standing next to him.” 

“He what?” Falah exclaimed. He couldn’t believe what he just heard. But he couldn’t say Muhammad was wrong either. This man was saying and advocating ideas which for years he thought were legitimate. What if he is indeed the prophet the Jews in Medina and elsewhere talked about? The ideas he preached certainly did not sound like that of a lunatic. And if he wanted power and wealth, he could have easily accepted the Quraish’s offer a long time back and escape being persecuted like this. He had no reason to be chased around the streets of Taif in this unsparing manner.

He was shaken out of his thoughts as the men neared their house still being pelted with stones the size of apples. Falah looked at the Prophet. Never in his life had he seen such exuberance and radiance emanate from a person’s face. He had a collective air of humbleness and sincerity. At the first glance itself, Falah could make out that this man possessed a very sound intellect and even when being assaulted ruthlessly, he still was not desperate as any other man in his place would be.

As they came closer, he saw that both the men were bleeding from cuts and bruises all over the body. He noticed that Muhammad’s shoes were clotted with blood and he barely could keep himself up to walk the distance to the city walls. When they reached Falah’s house, Muhammad almost collapsed but Zaid held him and they both kept on moving; half walking, half running till they saw a vineyard. Once inside, the chase stopped as the vineyard was private property and belonged to Atabah and Shaibah, two wealthy chiefs of Mecca. Falah saw Muhammad take refuge under one of the bigger trees and sit there breathing heavily. He wondered whether the people to whom this vineyard belonged would drive him out of there; afterall they too belonged to the upper echelons of the Quraish.

After some time he saw Adaas, their Christian slave come out with a plateful of grapes and inch towards the resting men. Maybe they took pity in their condition; religious ideologies aside, they both belonged to the same noble tribe. Adaas was having a conversation with Muhammad and then suddenly he fell on his knees and kissed Muhammad’s hands.

Falah was stunned. Who was this man? Should he be in awe of him or should he stay clear of him? What sort of sorcery did he possess that the poor herded towards him? He had known that one of the earliest converts to Muhammad’s religion was a black slave named Bilal. Why? What did he give them? Certainly not a life of ease and comfort. Instead, he had heard that they were persecuted like animals in Mecca. Why would a person abandon the pleasures of life and flock to this illiterate man to live a life of tyranny?

Questions began to build up inside him. He looked at Muhammad. He was just fifty yards away. He could walk straight up to him and get each one of his doubt cleared. But could he do that? If the chieftains got whiff that one of their tribesman made contact with this prophet of God, they would make both his and his family’s life a living hell.

Falah restrained himself. But he still was restless. He had to talk to Muhammad come what may. But not here; not at Mecca. As Falah sat at his bedside he felt his head getting heavier again and the fever that had once subsided was creeping its way up again. He turned and lay down his mind bellowing with uncertainties that needed explanations. After a few minutes he fell asleep.......

With Love From a Soldier.....

I started writing this blog while I was still in the train to Kerala. I hadn’t seen my sister for five years and even failed to attend her marriage. So when I learnt that she is coming to Kerala from Dubai for the vacations, I thought of meeting her up and decided to book a single ticket to her place. It was almost Christmas and rush time so tickets weren’t available but I still bought them on a waiting list believing that it would get confirmed. And so I stared down at my mobile screen in disbelief on the day of the journey as Indian Railways graciously informed me that my ticket has just fallen short of confirmation and the chart has been prepared. But I was nevertheless determined to make the travel, even if it meant travelling without a berth to sleep.

It was an AC coach so I didn’t have the option to adjust myself with fellow passengers who had confirmed seats. But I sure could travel near the door, adjacent to which lie the revolutionary Indian Railway toilets in which human poop crash land onto the tracks after passing through a tunnel; as in one of those slides in Water Kingdom! (eww). But nevertheless I was content I managed a ‘seat’ or whatever it is you want to call it. Now the next thing was company. I couldn’t afford to sit alone in this place for two days; I would be bored to death and may not even sleep properly. Also, having someone for company would discourage the ticket checker from kicking us out of the train on charges of travelling without reservation (they normally don’t but it would be perfectly justified if they did so). And so I waited and waited until a dark, burly man with arms like that of a freight crane climbed the compartment with a big metal suitcase and a large baggy green duffel bag. Definitely a member of the armed forces, I reckoned. I was delighted when he didn’t move into the compartment and started adjusting his bags near the gangway, which meant he too was on a botched up waiting ticket.

One thing lead to another and three hours into the journey we were sharing dinner. And in those three hours I felt like I knew his life story. His name was S.K.Nair and he was a unit commander in the 4^th Battalion of the famed Kumaon Regiment of the Indian Army. In his 28 year old career he had served in almost all forms of terrains from Northeast India to the Gujarat border and even in the tough, unforgiving glaciers of Siachen. But the one thing that stood out for me in his impressive curriculum vitae was that he was a Kargil war veteran where he was part of Operation Vijay. He even showed me the Yudh Seva Medal he received for his services during the operation where they fought against Pakistan Army members who had crossed into the Indian side of the Kargil Line of Control.

After dinner, we spread out our bed sheets on the corridor but sleep was a depravity thanks to the stinking toilets a few meters away. He plucked out a bottle of Coke from his bag but the odour gave it away; it was alcohol. He smiled sheepishly at me and called out to the soft drinks vendor who was roaming back and forth the coaches and bought a Coke (the real one) for me. After two gulps of his drink, words began to flow out like an express train. And so in one of the many unguarded moments, he related to me an incident that happened in his youth when he was just a few years into service. The incident definitely may sound straight out of a bollywood flick but it still was dramatic and needed to be documented.

“I was just twenty-six years old. You know, the young and the restless kind? My first posting was in Upper Assam for peace keeping activities. My transfer was just due in two months when the Government declared ULFA as a terrorist organization. Tensions in the area escalated and there were killings everywhere. The army had to fend of fights and minor skirmishes from both ULFA as well as Maoist troops. And when they were not fighting us, they were busy fighting each other. In any case, many tiny villages bore the brunt of the attacks and the army always intervened. In such conditions all transfers were called off indefinitely and more troops were being sent in. Everybody was pissed; all of them wanted to escape that hellhole. But not me.”  A controlled shyness cracked upon his face and he tried in vain to control his smile as it met his cheeks from end to end. I wondered how a bottle of alcohol can make even the hardest of them falter.

“She would come thrice a week with groceries from the nearby village and set up a makeshift shop for the morning. She was alone mostly but sometimes in the company of a little boy; not her son; she was too young to have a son that old; her brother maybe.” 

“Or it would be better if we put it this way – You WANTED him to be her brother and not her son.”, I pointed out. He was as sloshed as an ape so I saw no harm in adopting a more endeavoring tone.

“Nahh. I know boy. She must have been just twenty and that boy was easily over ten. Plus I am no good a soldier if I can’t tell a woman and a mother apart.”, he slurred and waited for my approval to move on. I nodded.

“So yeah this woman. My platoon was posted along the market and my shifts lasted eight hours a day anytime I choose. I ofcourse opted for the morning slot; that’s when she came; by the only bus that ferried people from the town to the village. And there were only three buses each day so timing myself to reach the bus stand wasn’t much of a task. I would stand there daily upon her arrival and would hold my INSAS rifle in a combat ready position, puff my lungs up with all the air I can take in, bark orders to no one in particular and strut like the ringmaster in a circus; all just to impress her. You know when…”

“Did you get anywhere with that? I mean with all those antics of yours?”, I interrupted, impatiently wanting him to progress forward.

“Yes ofcourse! By the end of the first year I could smile at her confidently, by the end of the second year she started smiling back at me..”, he beamed with pride while I remembered that I myself had spent three years just smiling at the girl I like and my conditions weren’t even as demanding as his!

“So you know we had started to talk and stuff. I even began buying groceries from her though I got enough of food from our base and didn’t need any more. She told me about her problems; how she had to leave school after the ULFA activities in her village increased to break-neck point; how she had to support both her brother’s education and her mother’s medical bills. She thought it was funny to think about medical bills when the nearest hospital they had was just bombed to shreds a few months back. But she never once did complain about what life had done to her. She was a tough woman. Those kind who have the guts to stand up to adversities and move on; the ones who can move mountains if need be.” , he went on and on and spoke with great fluency for a drunkard.

“So if you ask me whether it was love, I cannot say that. Maybe it was just sympathy that I had for her for the circumstances she was put through, for the determination she showed in wake of these circumstances; sympathy which later grew into empathy and then to a state of immense respect and awe which I must say looked to me a lot like ‘love’. I didn’t know if it was love or otherwise. I knew no other emotion of a similar kind.”, he was now beginning to get progressively moody. The initial nostalgic tone was now replaced by a less potent form of catharsis.

“I had even contemplated leaving the army and marrying her and everything. Ofcourse I wasn’t serious about it but that thought was gaining momentum with each passing day.” , he paused, opened the empty ‘Coke’ bottle and sucked whatever little drops of alcohol that remained.

“So one day I couldn’t make it to the bus stand on time; we had some extra combat drills to perform. It had happened before and I knew I would find her at the market. I walked through the morning crowd, patiently screening people ahead for that familiar face; the sole reason why this tempestuous place was tranquilizing to me. I saw her as I moved forward. She had had a busy day. Her baskets were almost empty and she was good to leave in some time.”, his tone getting heavier with each word.

 “As I inched closer she saw me and looked up and smiled; almost asking me where I had been throughout the morning. ‘Army drills’ I was about to say when right there in front of her a frag rolled in and before I could say or act, it exploded and with that she blew up into tiny bits of flesh and bone. And before I could lift my rifle, I felt the stinging sensation of bullets ripping through my torso; I fell down and blacked out never believing I would survive.”, he had said everything quickly without any dramatics, leaving me no time to anticipate this tragedy. He wiped his eyes before any teardrop could make its entry. After taking two or three deep breaths he continued.    

“Twelve civilians and one of my colleagues were killed. A regular Naxal attack. I survived despite four bullets punching holes in my body and also got the Parakram Medal; they give it away to soldiers who sustain injuries during military combat. To many that medal is a symbol of their pride and honor. To me though, it’s a symbol of loss, pain and sorrow. There are times I wished they had killed me along with her; I found no meaning to live this life with nothing to look forward to.”

“There are some love stories that never happen and there are some that just end tragically. But then there are also some love stories whose wings are clipped just as they begin to take flight rendering it handicapped for life. I guess I fell into the last category.” He didn’t speak anything after that. Wishing me a goodnight he lied down to sleep perhaps burying all his sorrow once again like he had been doing for the past twenty-four years. I didn’t feel compelled to ask him anything either. I had not expected his tale to have such an agonizing end and perhaps I needed some sleep to get over it.

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The next morning when I woke up, commander S.K.Nair was standing at the door sipping tea. He gave his best smile and said, “I bothered you with my stupid Assam love story didn’t I?” , he asked laughingly. “I am sorry! It seems like my wife is not the only one who has to hear that! I am sorry if it bothered you. Its just this old crap which I blabber every time I get drunk; I can’t help it. Want to have some tea?”

“Sure. Thanks.” I said. I was happy to know he was married and was having a fine life. But at the same time I fully accepted the fact that this man, who had not weathered after all these years of  hardened military service, clearly nurtured a broken heart, a heart which even after twenty-four years mourned the death of a woman he once loved.