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. 

Hyderabad Files.......

We pleaded with our teachers the whole of our second year begging them to take us to an excursion out of Mumbai. But our requests were turned down like we were asking them to burn down the college. But this year, maybe because it was our last year in college and maybe because we were a ‘good batch’ as the teachers always put it, a five day industrial visit was planned to the city of Hyderabad. It was planned just a month in advance by taking our suggestions and Chetan sir was the appointed in-charge of the whole thing (he did not like that one bit). Even though this was the last outing our class has had together, three of them couldn’t attend it, one of them being our friend Unain. We truly missed her and her presence could have made our trip even merrier. And perhaps more than me, she wanted this blog to be written so in a way this is for her. So here it goes. A simple description of our trip. Given the gravity of the tour, I would take a little liberty and make it a little longer than usual. Hope you all find the patience to see the end!

DAY ONE: - Excitement galore! I got up early in the morning as usual and packed my bags. I prefer to travel light and that reflected in the weight of my baggage. The train was departing at 12.45 pm from CST and we were asked to assemble there an hour before time. I caught an auto rickshaw to Andheri station and picked up Neha on the way. A minor accident and screwed up train timings caused us to reach CST only by 12.30 and this especially made me a target of ridicule for Hafsa because I had always poked fun at her for being late.

Anyways all arrived and we boarded the train and it set off at the prescribed time. The initial two and a half hours were spent getting everyone together as much as possible. Some passengers were offered seats two or three rows away while some were sent packing to another compartment. Lunch was fun with Sahir sir inaugurating it by gorging on Chetan sir’s tiffin. By the time he returned what left was just the smell of good food which was once upon a time present in his box. Some of us also removed our lunch boxes and started a kind of mixed food festival with dishes ranging from butter chicken and chicken gravy to fried rice and tamarind rice to methi ki rotis and scrambled eggs. After lunch all the students assembled near one row away from the teachers as if they were smuggling alcohol into Saudi Arabia and started imitating them. Every one from the faculty to the students were imitated. It was a laugh riot. And when the students finished, Sahir sir imitated some of the students with near perfect accuracy. It was then time for the regular Antakshari and Sahir sir showed that he was a walking, talking jukebox of old songs who could utter it in a matter of seconds. All this while playing cards with me and Vivek! The fare moved on to dumb-sherads and here again Sahir sir single handedly turned the tide with his selection of movies. The boys nailed it anyway averaging at 30 seconds while the girls took atleast two minutes for each movie. The noise was getting louder and louder until an imposing lady police officer asked us to shut it. Everybody immediately started with dinner and the same procedure followed as it happened in lunch. The problem was everybody got food for atleast five people so ultimately a lot of food was wasted. After fooling around for some more time, we prepared for sleep and the first to sleep was Mohsin followed by me. People like Mukul, Mahendra and Mohammad never really planned to sleep and were disturbing people who were trying to. Some like Manali with Mohammad were applying tooth paste on the faces of people who were asleep. Mohsin like the Joker in The Dark Knight rubbed it all over his face and continued sleeping. But they left me alone because they have this false image that I am grumpy and cannot tolerate fun…….

DAY TWO: - My eyes opened at 5 am in the morning and I found Mukul, Mahendra and Mohammad stark awake like owls on a starry night. I got out and brushed my teeth and freshened up. Hyderabad was supposed to arrive at 6 in the morning and it was almost 5.30 now. Chetan sir (who apparently had motion sickness and could never sleep on a train) was covered from head to toe in his blanket and was fast asleep. Sahir sir was sleeping adjacent to him. All of them were woken up and I particularly had a tough time waking up Mohsin ‘Ultimate Sleeper’ Sheikh.

Nevertheless Hyderabad arrived and all of us got down. It was a lot cooler than Mumbai; around 22 oC. We walked to the bus and thankfully it was a lot better than what we had in Jaipur. Our hotel, One Continent Atria in Abids was just ten minutes away. If the hotel at Jaipur was great this one Hyderabad was just awesome. Swanky modern architecture with graciously furnished wooden interiors and huge green sofas adorned the lobby. Four people were supposed to share one room and we had five – Myself, Mukul, Mohammad, Mahendra and Nikhil. We were asked to assemble at the breakfast buffet by 8 am and we knew we were never going to make it. We however reached there by 8.30 and the breakfast was simple yet delicious. Bread, cheese, butter, omelets, idlis, vadas, sambar, chutney, fruit salad, fruit juices, milk shakes etc constituted the huge and rich buffet. We boarded our bus and set off to our first location; the CCMB – Center for Cell and Molecular Biology in Habsiguda. It was founded in 1977 under the CSIR and got its own separate land in 1987 which was inaugurated by the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

The compound was adored with a wok of art by the late M.F Hussein and so were the interiors with paintings by various other artists. Inside we met a middle aged man who was supposedly an instructor who trained new recruits. We were seated in a mini amphitheatre kind of a with a projector screen waiting to start a short movie of about fifteen minutes. The instructor sang a lullaby for half an hour so during which all of us including our teachers dosed off like newborn toddlers. Me and Nikhil had to keep our eyes open forcefully because the man was looking just at us during the whole session. Trust me; it was hilarious trying to maintain a ‘don’t-worry-we are-listening-to-every-damn-thing-you-are-saying’ face! He then took us first to an electron microscope and showed us an actual focused nucleus of a bacterial cell under it. Over the next few hours we just roamed from one building block to another seeing different rooms and different machines. All of them essentially looked like big boxes- blue or white; some as expensive as three and a half crores. After some time we shot off to ICRISAT – International Crop Research Institute for Semi Arid Tropics which was another hour of journey from CCMB. The guide we met at ICRISAT was just opposite to the guide we had in CCMB. Murli M Sharma, atleast 70 years old and tonnes and tonnes of experience. Charismatic speaker, inspiring narrator, acute philosophical views; he was a personality who had to be met to be believed. I just sat listening to him during the whole 30 minutes tour of the ICRISAT farm area. I am sorry for some of my friends who made fun of him and again some who had the audacity to sleep callously in front of him and snore! They missed the whole thing. With ICRISAT our official industrial visit was over and what remained were two and a half days of fun.

So we headed of to our final location of the day – The Snow World. We reached there by 6.00 in the evening and got dressed in the snow attire which they provided us. People were very excited leading upto the entry time which was 6.30 pm. When the gates opened people rushed in like the Greek army in the movie 300. But two minutes inside and people developed complications in breathing and felt chest heaviness. So it all turned out to be the volcanic mountain that never erupted. But nevertheless we had a lot of fun. I had a soaring headache before entering snow world and it vanished the moment I got in. Most of us took the slide twice and thrice but avoided it later as carrying the slide up was a demanding task at such high pressures. Chetan sir was targeted by one and all and he got so laid off that he left the arena huffing and puffing well before time! The time was up and we left for the hotel. A hot shower bath neutralized everything and we felt fresh and we headed for dinner on the fourth floor of the hotel. The dinner was laid out as a buffet and it was great though the chicken was ordinary. Returning back to the room I borrowed the prayer mat from Amina and spent my time praying all the times of namaaz I missed during the last two days, while others left me to peace and enjoyed it out at the corridors. Occasionally I would hear howls and cries and I would wonder whether I am in the company of humans!...

DAY THREE: - Though I slept late I woke up for the Fajr prayers and also woke up Amina through the intercom because she had wanted to be. When I woke up Mohammad, he mumbled something in Gujarati and apparently slept in the bathroom for half an hour. Mukul was shutting of his alarm again and again and was going back to sleep. So in a way we were late for breakfast today too and Hafsa poked fun at us again (I suspect she ever took a bath!). After having the same breakfast as the previous day we set off for the Nehru Zoological Park which was almost at the borders of the city.

Now the Nehru zoo is something which will make the Mumbaikars believe that their beloved Jijamata Udyan is some kind of a practical joke. The zoo was home to a host of wild beasts - the majestic tigers, the handsome lions, the swift cheetahs, the unparallelly vicious leopards and jaguars, the agile jungle cats and the tiny fishing cats, the buffoons, the chimpanzees and almost all of the primate family, the huge rhinoceroses and the sloppy hippos, the cute but dangerous bears, the wolves, the jackals, the hyenas and other volatile pack hunters, the healthy Asian elephants, the towering giraffes, the charmingly bulky nilgais and the ever impressive birds – I can just go on and on. Compare that with a week, aging, frail, arthritis infected lioness of the Jijamata Udyan and you have the results! Most of us (even quiet and reserved people like Zainab) borrowed a cycle on rent and zoomed around the huge area like it was Tour de France! Ask me and I will tell you I felt like Alberto Contador! I and Hafsa even got lost in the huge park and it took us twenty minutes of cycling to get out. It was pure fun!

After the zoo we headed back to the city, straight to Charminar. When we reached there I heard the muezzin give the call for the Zohar prayers and turned to see that I was standing in front of the humungous Mecca masjid. Not one to miss out on the occasion, I along with Mohsin attended the jama’at prayers. The masjid inside was pure Persian architectural grandeur. The ceilings were as high as a normal three story building with fans and glittering zoomers hanging down. By the time we finished our prayers, others had already visited the Charminar. So I am not capable of commenting on it here. The plan initially was to allow some time for shopping. But the day was marked by pro-Telangana activists enforcing a bandh all over Hyderabad and it was better and safe to reach the hotel as fast as possible. But ofcourse girls have a taste for the theatrical and practicality is not something embedded into their genetic composition. Many of them went to the extent of cursing the teachers and the poor tour guide. At the hotel, after having lunch we had a three hour hiatus period till 6 pm. We spent our time loitering around the corridors and making prank calls to other rooms. We were supposed to go for a cruise ship ride at the Hussein Sagar Lake and visit the Buddha statue there but again, the pro Telangana protests played spoilsport.

Instead we went shopping to the famous Karachi Bakery which was a twenty minute walk away from the hotel. All of us bought fruit biscuits and some other delicacies which were hot sellers. We returned back to the hotel and had our dinner which was the sumptuous Hyderabadi Dum Biryani. All the girls forgot their weight issues and gorged on the food as if they had been hungry for days on end. We went back to our rooms. Fun like the last night was not possible because someone (you know who) was determined not to let people loiter around in the corridor and wanted them to just go to sleep. And I am particularly thankful to Amina; she knows what for! Rocky V was on TV so we boys watched it till 2 am and then went to sleep. Nothing is as gripping as the Rocky series!......

DAY FOUR: - I missed the Fajr prayer because I slept late. I hated myself for that. The first one to get up was Vivek who moved out to the next room after taking a bath. The rest of us woke up at 7.15 which was extremely late by everyday standards. It was a race against time because we had to check out of the hotel today and were asked to assemble at 8 am for breakfast with all our bags and parcels packed. Anyways we made it by 8.45 and had our breakfast one last time. We bid adieu to the wonderful hotel and loaded our bags into the bus. Neha’s photo fetish caused her to forget her Karachi Bakery sweets at the hotel parking lot but realized it only later in the day. The bus moved out of the town towards the Ramoji Film city which would be our last visit in Hyderabad and we would be there for the whole day. For the uninitiated, the Ramoji Film city is the biggest film city in the world and holds the Guinness world record for the same. It is spread over 1,666 acres and houses 67 film studious and consists of various sets like airports, airplanes, railway stations, whole colonies, landscapes resembling European and other foreign countries, gardens etc.

 At first we had a bus ride to actually enter the film city which was fifteen minutes away. There we first moved into an enclosure which contained fun activities like slides, the rain dance, the scare house (which was laughable) and the skating rink to name a few. Even though I had never tried skating before, I put on the skating shoes and went for it. Though all I did was fall, fall and fall, Hafsa, Sahir sir and Vivek zoomed around me like professionals. Mukul who always thought himself to be a master in all sports was perhaps as good as me! After that all moved on to the rain dance which I conveniently boycotted. So did many others like me. But ultimately all of them had to get wet because the clouds opened up to five minutes of heavy rain. There were other attractions like the stunt show which I must say was commendable given the amount of effort they put into it. Some of the actions could prove fatal if gone wrong but it didn’t and it never did. Ofcourse there were people who called it stupid and over the top but people never stop ranting so you let them be. There was this mini world tour which was a novel experience. It was a sort of puppet show meant to showcase different places all over the world. I particularly loved Bangkok, Paris and Oklahoma because of the keen observation they put into make these sets.

There were many other shows to be experienced and lived but there was this time crunch so we moved on to lunch at the Chanakya restaurant within the film city. It was good and we finished off with some ice cream. We all moved straight for the bus tour of the film city. The guide spoke when the bus passed each important place and mentioned the importance of the spot in terms of its use and would mention some famous Hindi and Telugu movies shot there. The pseudo railway station and the airport were highlights; you could hardly differentiate the real from the reel! The bus halted near a huge square building. It was the studio used as sets for Indian mythological dramas like the Ramayana and Mahabharata. It was mainly made of King’s courtroom with his council of ministers sitting about and a background voice playing a small chunk of an episode in repeated loops. Though everything in there was made of just plaster of paris, it all felt and looked real. So real that you would feel yourself transported to that world of the kings and the masses. Almost like you have gate crashed into some all important meeting going on between King Dashrath and his men!

After that we were allowed to tour the various gardens that were so mesmerizingly charmful. First up was the Deviyani garden with five huge statues of a naked Deviyani in various dancing positions. You can call it art to satisfy your questioning mind. For me it is just the tradition of pure objectification of women that the world is ever willing to follow. The other gardens like the Sanctuary and the Japanese gardens were also exceptionally good and made a good photo op for the girls. The final spot was the replica of the Ajanta & Ellora caves. Though I have never been to the real caves, looking at the replica made me feel I have visited them. It was that beautiful! The rains bellowed and we returned back were we started. Though most of them went for the rides in their spare time, my upset stomach (very upset with the biryanis!) caused me to have a peaceful time sipping hot tea with the Chetan sir and Sahir sir. And giving me company were Mohammad, Saylee and Vivek all there for their own reasons.

So all of it ends here. We went straight to the Hyderabad railway station. After waiting in the waiting room next to the filthy toilets for an hour, we boarded our trains. Nobody minded adjusting their seats because all were tired and wanted to go to sleep. The dinner was from our hotel and it was great; something like a farewell gift from Hyderabad. The people there were extremely friendly and cordial. It is not an exaggeration and I and Amina witnessed that at many instances. Sahir sir, who was always the epitome of the serious, no nonsense individual turned out to be the showtopper! Archana Ma’m showed an aspect of her personality which we never knew existed. And Chetan sir. He was mimicked so much, he had a hard time herding the girls at every location like a shepherd, he was taken down and targeted everywhere by students (remember snow world!), in short the water had gone above the nose for him. When asked about the part he enjoyed most during the trip he simply replied, ‘The part when we return back to Mumbai.’

But nevertheless we had a lot of fun and this was something we would treasure for the rest of our lives. Those merry times we had with our friends. The train halted at Dadar station and we all got down and went our separate ways with alluring memories that would linger in our minds for days…..

The Beauty Within.......

Rafique sat at the corner of the bus avoiding public eye hushed up in that one man seat. It was five thirty in the morning and the bus was ferrying passengers from Kamanpur to Chokdi. Rafique preferred these early morning rides to the town even though he had to report to his workplace at nine; where he worked as a tailor in a small shop where they repaired bags. The morning bus travels always allured him. The cool breeze, the aroma of dawn when the early strips of light meets the earth, the foggy atmosphere, the lush greenery, the pothole ridden roads; all of these gave him an immense sense of peace and tranquility. Some thing which he never found in his twenty four years of life on earth.

Rafique’s life to be summarized in one phrase was just silent suffering. He was born to a poor peasant couple in his native town of Kamanpur. Rafique was born with shockingly absurd features; almost as if he was among the most disliked people of God. He had an unusually huge head which seemed as if it would burst at the temples. The broad forehead ended with two bulging but drooping eyes almost ready to fall off at the sockets. It was worse when he developed his teeth. If his milk teeth were distorted, his permanent teeth became a symbol of ridicule for his classmates at school. His hair grew in patches and fell of before they covered his head. His shoulders always sagged; like they were tired of carrying his head and his hands were thin and bony with veins jutting out like fingerprints. All in all, Rafique was ugly; very, very ugly. If Prophet Yusuf was blessed with half the beauty on earth then Rafique was cursed with half its ugliness.  

His father -if he ever wanted to call him that- was a downright drunkard who spent more money on women and liquor than on the welfare of his family. When he saw his son for the first time he blatantly accused his wife for sleeping with the man next door and threatened to kill Rafique. His mother on the other hand defended her little boy like a lioness defending her cub. To her, Rafique was her son and nothing mattered more. She didn’t care what the world thought about her son. She loved him and that was that. When Rafique was four, his father’s dead body was found floating at the community pond nearby. Postmortem reports revealed he was heavily drunk.

At school Rafique always sat alone; not by choice but by force. Later on it became an act of preference. He didn’t wait for his classmates to distance themselves from him. He would choose a corner and sit there. Throughout his school life, he never made any friends, not even acquaintances. Hell; he hadn’t even talked to half the class when he passed out. His mother –his only comforter- died when he was 15 of a degenerative lung disease. From that day on, it was a struggle for dignity and survival. He didn’t want to study further. He saw no possible benefit in that. All he saw was disgust and contempt in he faces of people he met. Some even showed pity and he hated that. He never understood why he was to be seen as a monster when all he had was a different physical structure. Why was he treated like an outcast, like a leper? Why couldn’t he be accepted as he was; without those shrugs of difference, looks of fright and sympathy? But these were questions Rafique never found answers to. There were times when just the sight of a dangling rope or the kitchen knife at his home gave him heavy suicidal thoughts. But his faith in God never wavered and he fought through these tough times every time they confronted him. He had nightmares of people chasing him down the street with sticks and stones. He would wake up with panting breath and then not sleep for the rest of the night. From his heart he knew that people are not that bad and no one hated him. But his appearance made him such a weak man mentally that he couldn’t take it any more. He saw volumes and volumes of darkness everywhere he turned.   

 After doing all kinds of odd jobs, he landed up as a tailor repairing spurned and torn bags in Chokdi. This job didn’t require him to face people and it made him happy. He was happy he didn’t have to walk around trying to hide his face from people he met. He would come by the early morning bus, when it was still dark and sit on that single seat at the far end of the bus. No interactions. No reproaches.

Rafique was woken up from his usual self retrospecting thought processes when he heard sounds of screeching followed by a booming crash sound. A crimson colored SUV zoomed past them into oblivion.The bus got to a stop. He craned his neck outside. In the still lingering darkness he could make out a figure; a woman, probably a young girl, crouched along the divider in an awkward position with fresh maroon colored blood just beginning to spread out onto the road. A bicycle was lying besides. Someone had just knocked the solitary cyclist and sped away.  It was dark and they were almost in the middle of the forest. The nearest hospital was four kilometers back along the route they had come from. Helping the victim meant taking a detour and heading back were they came from. And no one wanted the headache of getting stuck in law loops trying to save accident victims. Being a rural area, the police often were uncooperative and intimidating. The driver had learned to turn a blind eye to such incidents a long time ago.  The bus started moving forward. Rafique couldn’t believe what was happening.

“Hey! She needs help! She is bleeding!” he screamed at the driver.

The driver turned around and after the milliseconds of frown he gave at seeing Rafique’s face, he said, “This is common here! You know what happens if you try to save them.”

“But she will die..”  he tried to explain. He was shocked to see such coldness from these people. There was no one to support him. All sat there like lifeless bodies staring back at him with indifferent eyes.  

“Go ahead. Help her. Get off and leave us.” The driver said. The conductor shrugged as if to show that his loyalties lied with the driver. Rafique couldn’t make sense of what was happening. He obviously couldn’t leave the girl behind. She was someone’s daughter, someone’s sister. He jumped out of the bus. She was there, bleeding profusely. Rafique knew that the nearest hospital was an hour of walking and he didn’t expect any vehicles at this hour. Bu it was nearer if he took to the forest.

He picked her up and lay her over his shoulders and ran through the forests. It had rained the night before and the land was marshy. His shirt was red with blood but he could still feel her breathe. He was a frail man and this was proving to be a physically draining act. Within fifteen minutes of pacing he could feel heavy cramps in his legs which urged him to stop. But he knew that if he stopped he won’t be able to walk again. He prayed to God to grant him the strength to move on. Then the rains arrived.

Half an hour later it was still raining and Rafique could see the end of the forest and the main road. His heart was pounding like a grinding machine. His heavy head ached. His bony hands were filled with blood. But he still went on. He reached the hospital in another five minutes. Attendants came rushing to him and took away the girl. His eyes blurred. All he could see was a group of people taking her away. Someone shook his shoulder to ask something and he collapsed.

Rafique was discharged two days later. He made inquiries and found out that the girl was safe. He thanked God for His help and left the hospital contended. It was back to schedule as usual for Rafique.

A month later when he returned home he saw the girl waiting outside his shanty with her father. She was young. Maybe twelve years of age.

“You are a tough man to find! What did you think? You can save my daughter’s life and we will never know who it was?” the girl’s father asked smiling.

 He was shocked and surprised at the same time. He didn’t know whether he was happy to see her or would he have liked that she would not have known how her savior looked like.

His first instinct was to hide his face consciously as much as he could. The girl saw this. She moved closer to him. She moved his hands away from his face and touched his cheek. Rafique was taken aback by this behavior. Nobody wanted to take a second look at him let alone touch him.

“You know? They said all sorts of things when we came searching for you. But you know what? They were wrong. All of them. You are the most beautiful person I have ever seen!” saying so she moved closer and hugged him tightly. “ Thank you! Nobody helped me when I lay there dying. Those were the ugly people. God gave you a wonderful heart and that makes you beautiful!”  She was crying now.

Tears flowed down Rafique’s eyes. Two and a half decades of pain and suffering all washed away by this one act of benevolence and love from this little girl. And that was enough. He will never hate his life again. This unprejudiced gesture from an innocent child was enough for him to keep his spirits alive till the end of his life! He closed his eyes and thanked God for the lesson He had given him. He was now ready to take on the world.