DIWALI

"Demoralize the enemy from within by surprise, terror, sabotage, assassination. This is the war of the future. "
Adolf Hitler


Diwali. The festival of lights.














Vikramjeet Singh was a Punjabi. Just another Punjabi. Into his late sixties, Vikramjeet always sported a smile. So beaming a one that a hundred diyas couldn’t provide a luminescence so charming. A small scale shop owner. At one of the oldest localities of Delhi, Paharganj, Vikramjeet owned a shop that sold curios- soap, talcum powder, baby clothes et al. He had a thick white beard, reminiscent of Ustad Amjad Ali Khan and eyes as sharp as Om Puri’s. I used to frequent there for buying clothes, especially winter clothes for my kids.


During the time of partition, Vikramjeet was 7-8 years old. His ancestral home was close to Lahore. As someone satirically put it, ‘It became two after partition-Pakistan and Bakistan.’ Vikramjeet’s family was a tiny dot among the thousands displaced as a consequence of the partition. Initially, he was in a relief camp at Purani Delhi-for about 4 months.


He faintly remembered Jawaharlal Nehru as a person with a red gulab in his pocket and a charming personality that had a natural wound-healing effect, visiting his camp at Purani Delhi area. Within a short span of time, the Government allotted land for his family, as along with thousands of others, at a Muslim dominated ilaaka near Paharganj. Initially, he always used to say, that they were very much helped by a Moulavi of the local mosque-to the extent, he recalled, from possible suicide.


His shop was an extremely small one. Possibly smaller than a paan ki dukaan. But there was scarcely anything that was unavailable there. He once took me into his godown, a few hundred metres away, tucked away unnoticeably in the large gullys of Paharganj. I distinctly noticed a rugged map of undivided India hanging over the godown wall.


He missed his home though he was at home. He missed India.


2005. The eve of Diwali. Terrorists strike at the heart of the capital, with three bomb blasts occurring at three distinct and crowded markets in the capital. As ever, dozens of common men bear the main impact. It is that time of the year when cold starts setting in over Delhi and North Indian plains. A week after the blasts, I went to Vikramjeet’s shop to buy a few winter clothes. It was not odd to find Vikramjeet’s son managing the shop.


Until I noticed a portrait of Vikramjeet hanging on the wall, with a diya lit underneath.


His son started sobbing on seeing my countenance. "It happened that day. There was no polythene cover in the shop to pack goods. He went to a nearby shop to buy covers. Hardly half a kilometre. We couldn’t identify the body. "


I bought a red coloured sweater that time.


2007. Navratri. I forced myself to make a visit there. I found Vikramjeet’s widow, sitting at the entrance of the shop. With a visage, as if she had pardoned the entire world for whatever happened. Behind the dull and cheerless decorations, a speaker kept chanting those verses of Guru Gobind Singh,
" Eeshwar Allah tere naam
Mandir Masjid tere dhaam"


I still have that red coloured sweater, but I haven’t used it yet.

MONSOONS

Of all the seasons, she particularly had a liking for the monsoons.

As she sat there, looking to the world through the open elegance of her windows, she realized how time virtually flew. The light drizzle came with the message- Gods’ first tears of the season was coming down.

The first rain was always special. The appetite of the dead, dry soil would be quenched by those little life-giving drops of water. The fragrance accompanying the first rains, all those zoological phylae getting active, those ‘sweet’ hummings of the odd little cricket- all added a particular charm to the debutant.

Her mind rewound. It was twenty odd years ago. She used to dash out of her home when rains came by. Her mother used to chase her. She remembered her commitment to protect her colourful umbrella from getting wet. And by the time her mother caught up with her, she used to be happily drenched.

Happily!

As time travelled faster than she did, those ‘qualities’ disappeared. Childhood pranks!

“ Nirmala ! ! Nirmala….. ”

She was stirred back to reality by repeated calls from her mother. Slowly, taking a deep breath, she moved to the verandah.

As she reached the verandah, she saw her mother rubbing her little daughter’s head with the tip of her sari. She saw, her daughter was all wet.

As she unpacked her daughter’s school bag, she saw a dry little umbrella.

From the corner of her eyes, Nirmala saw her mother fighting off her tears……

A GLORIOUS OBLIVION

As anyone else, he never relished the damp, cold prison air.



But he was not anyone else. A solitary prisoner in the most heavily fortified section of the prison, he was waiting for his oblivion. The narrow shaft of light, pouring in from the dull incandescent lamp of the jail warden’s room was contrary to the state of his mind. He had lost the last ray of hope long ago. His clemency petition had long been negated by His Excellency the Governor.
Through the darkness of the night, the clock struck 12 beats. 12 melancholic beats. From his battered trouser, he took out the crumb of paper which possibly was his last possession for the past two days. He crossed it one more time. 5 more hours. To oblivion. Till justice is served. Five more hours till he was hanged, five more hours until he was free for ever from the shackles of law.



Official homicide, or in more refined terms, capital punishment, added an extra dimension to death, he felt. As he sat there, he was surprised that being a graduate degree holder in English Literature, he was unable to find the right word to represent the state he was in. Shock?? Nostalgia?? Agony?? Didn’t matter anyways. A deluge of memories gushed through him – right from a noble childhood, a turbulent teens, a frustrated middle age and a college life marred by drugs. But through it all, the image of the shining smile of his wife and the cherished moments they spent together pierced his heart with a penchant so strong that he felt like tearing his chest out. As he sat there, he was sure that she would be, at this very moment, running around to submit the clemency petition to His Excellency the President himself. But he was sure that nothing would work out. All the more because he deserved this.



The mood of the prison was aptly depicted by the dead silence of the night, regularly hindered by the ticking of the century-old Gothic clock. It felt as if the clock was doing a countdown by itself as to the moment when the world would be made a better place by reducing the overwhelming number of criminals by an insignificant unity. With a deep sigh, he recollected his pledge a few days ago, to spend his final moments in this world with composure. The swarm of thoughts swirling inside his head was interrupted by the chime of the clock, as one more hour of his life ebbed away. The startling noise finally destroyed whatever resistance he had and he broke down, sobbing like a child. Even the walls seemed to mock at him, as it reflected back his wails in endless echoes that loosened him further, till he lay back exhausted and drawn-out.



At last, he made himself to get up. He made his way to the solitary wash basin at the corner of his cell. As he immersed his damp face in a handful of frigid water, he suddenly felt better. As if that was not enough, he paused to look into the mirror above the wash basin. Though nothing was visible because of darkness, in his mind he suddenly had an idea. He sensed a glint of certainty enter his blood shot eyes. A solemn moment passed before he simply rammed his fist onto the dirty mirror.



He felt a sense of detached calm as he spent the next few hours, recounting the few happy and the many painful memories that marked his life. At last, he heard the shuffle of footsteps upon the corridor, which he knew to the executioners – a sound his ears were straining to pickup for quite some time. And then with a state of calmness that surprised even him, he picked a fragment of the broken mirror and slashed his wrist deeply with it. Even as he watched the blood gushing out in a torrent, the door opened. The sight of the smiling face of his wife and the pardon in her hands was the last thing that he saw before the darkness of death engulfed him.

THE TRYST WITH MEDICINES

She sighed.

The royale entrance of the hospital did not appeal to her. Neither was it intended to. The image was so embedded in her mind that she had ceased to appreciate it.

Token number thirteen. She glared at the face of the receptionist who retaliated with a face so expressionless that she felt all the more miserable. She knew, it would at least be an hour’s wait. She moved towards the doctor’s chamber and took a seat outside it.

The routine sight disgusted her. Patients, of all sorts, with all sorts of physical troubles and anxious relatives, were present. She pictured herself as a sand particle in this mighty seashore. She opened her small handbag and took out a neat file. As she scanned through the contents of the file, her mind was scanning through her life, faster.

She was THIRTEEN when she came to know about her mother’s vocation. An extra dancer. The kind those in film industry better called extras. Or, as her mother herslf put it-“just junior to a junior artiste.”

By the time she passed her Plus TWO, she was under pressure to take up a career in film industry. Her mother had said, ”You are beautiful, have a decent shape. With my contacts, I’ll manage to get you into some dance scene. With your panache, if you get spotted by some producer, you might eventually end up as a sister or college mate of some heroine. You may even take your career to greater heights.” Her mother’s doctrine was-if a doctor’s child can be a doctor, then so should cine artistes’ children. The bitter truth was that her mother could not afford the expenditure for graduation.

But she was adamant. She fasted for two days, received beatings and at last, was allowed to pursue graduation. She could ‘only manage’ Bio-Chemistry as no other option was available. She really did not want to know how her mother managed to earn money. She did not want to probe how else she managed to earn money when there were no film assignments.

It did not take her long to realize that she had very little aptitude for her subject. But to her advantage was the fact that her communication skills were pretty good. Her English teacher was the first one to spot it and he nurtured it as efficiently as he could.

As soon as she completed her graduation, she got a job as a teacher in a kindergarten school. Though her salary was meagre, she was happy. Because, firstly she enjoyed the company of tiny tots throughout the day. And more importantly, it gave her a reason for staying out of home for bulk of the day. Her home was the place she least wished to be-because her mother always kept on nagging her for the ‘mistake’ she committed by going for graduation.

But the scenario was soon to be transformed. Her mother soon fell ill. And her mother’s medical bills forced her to fend for alternatives. One evening her mother called her up ”One of my childhood friends was married to a small scale businessman. It was only recently I came to know that after years of hard work, he right now is the head of a vast business empire based in Hyderabad. I will give you a letter. Go and meet her. She is sure to help us out.”

With tears she bid good bye to her school children. She was packed off to Hyderabad. The ‘old man’ in his late fifties met her in his Suite at his Hotel and was satisfied. She was recruited and put under sophisticated training; How to look pleasant, talk pleasant, impress top notch people, lure them to her company, make them hooked to her company. The emphasis was on Quality, Quality at a premium. She started making a good income. Her monthly cheque back to home was fat; good enough to buy medicines and usher in prosperity to their life. Immediately after her initiation and training, she was sent to Bangalore. After utilizing her services for about a year, she was sent to her native place.

Her mother was too happy to see her daughter; the happiness seemed to be more associated with her earning potential, than to do with parental love.

She visited her old school. Her children had grown up tall. Many of them remembered her and swarmed her around. They brought tears in her eyes. She badly wanted to be back in the school; she hated her profession. But it was now too late. There was no scope of turning back. There was no scope of the luxuries she and her mother were now enjoying,with the paltry monthly pay at school.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“God has cursed me to do what I don’t like to. I hate medicines; but he has made me to live with them now” she thought, staring at her file.

“Token Number Thirteen” – announced the attendant. She shook herself and looked at her token.

“It is your turn, Madam. Go in and see the Doctor” – called out the attendant.

With a big sigh , the Lady Medical Representative of Cipla Pharmaceuticals Company, Hyderabad, gripped her Product Catalog file to her chest, picked up her brief case containing samples and entered into the Doctor’s cabin to lure him with her well-trained presentation skills on the merits of her company’s formulations and make him prescribe her company’s high quality medicines.

Logically Illogical

"Someone who thinks logically is a nice contradiction to this world". I guess not many people can comprehend the innate meaning of these lines, written behind a famous matchbox, better than me because for long, I have suffered for using my neurons more than others or than what is required. Funny laws govern this world and those who think a lot, usually succumb instead of enjoying their intellectual peculiarity.

Logic is the extent to which something can be explained or attributed a reason for its existence. Effectively what it does is it gives us a platform to handle the basic ideas and queries. Had it not been for logic, we would definitely have to think a lot more. It helps us make assumptions and also, generalize things. We crave for things to be logical and consider them ominous if they are otherwise. Logic is a cover that we place upon ourselves to protect us from our worst fears (or happiness, for that matter!!!).

But if one goes into larger dimensions, omitting minor details, one would be surprised to realize the absurdity inherent in our ambiance. Everything, without exception, is illogical. You can always find an argument that can contradict the present state of things. It’s everywhere, be it our social, personal or professional fraternity.

We talk to those whom we don't like. We get what we don't deserve (and vice versa). We are misunderstood when we have best intentions. We are chastised for what we are remotely related to or sparsely believe in. We laugh when we want to cry and hug when we want to slap. We do what we don't like and then say that we could have done better. We see a girl, fall in love and within six months, she becomes the most important person of our life. Do you think it is logical?

Logic is an arrogant subset of a very humble illogic. It, at best, is a footnote and in no case, the complete epic. Being logical is a curse, not boon. It’s like offering yourselves to be chained inside a closed room when you know that beautiful sceneries are waiting outside for your appreciation.

Logic filters thoughts, which is the greatest crime on earth. Logic is neither absolute nor is it infinite. It has limitations, ifs and buts and an impulse to control. It is not free, spontaneous or vigorous. It lacks energy and happiness. It is cold and dead.

On the other hand, illogic is everything what logic is not. It is to accept, to coexist, to love, to inspire, to depress, to react, to marry(!!), to command, to express and to think. (Let us end it here because I can still write a lot more of them)

To be successful in life, we need to be illogical. "Rules are made to be broken". Nothing logical succeeds for long (like India's foreign policy). Every now and then, we face situations when we have to choose between a logical thing and an ‘odd’ option. Though deep within, we want to take our chances and do some experimentation, we usually end up with the former.

I (you too can) have observed that if you can play with this teddy bear called 'logic', this world is just the right playhouse for you. Every successful person has made his own way in his own way and it is only his defiance to accept the 'logical' that he made it to the pinnacle where he is presently standing.

On the contrary, if we accept 'logic' among our decision variables, we would be doomed in the banality of our existence. Logic is not an identity. It’s a burden. Illogic is the mother's lap. Logic is living in Patel hostel, double seated and super deluxe!

Illogic is what, Shrimad Bhagwad Gita tries to teach us. "Karmarev adhikaraste ma falesu kadachan | ma karm phal heturbhuma te sangostvakarmari". You have only the right to action (i.e the karma). The return ('phal') is not under your control. How much logic can you find in this philosophy?

Logic is stopping us from what we are actually capable of doing. In the corporate world, so much emphasis is given on the out of box thinking. Look at Steve Jobs, Nintendo or even the open source phenomenon. Illogic is the absolute truth. It’s omnipotent and omnipresent.

Everyday we should practice to be more and more illogical in our routine life. We should laugh when not needed to and talk when we don't want to. We should behave in eccentric ways. We should do things in ways that cannot be explained. We should avoid taking logical decisions, at least for things of minor importance. We should stop searching reasons behind things and do them just because we want to!

Though I have still not practiced this 'illogic' meditation (but I will someday), I am sure, if done properly, it can help us to free ourselves from the chains of logic and we would have a more rationale attitude towards our life. I believe that once our minds transcends the limits of logic and stop questioning the 'illogical', we would be as much a God as a human can be and would achieve what we call in the Hindu culture as 'Moksha' or salvation.