Racism in Indian Media

Media, in India is often touted as the guardian angel of democratic principles. Since Edmund Burke, the “fourth estate” has been regarded as something that checks and if need be, re-balances the division of power(s). I would credit the media to, more often than not, be doing an exemplary role in acting as a controlling factor that prevents the executive and legislature from going significantly against the wishes of the majority of people, criticizing the state in situations where it crosses some unwritten thresholds. However having said that the media is not perfect, nor should I expect it to be.

I have always been skeptical about the role of media in India. This is not to downsize the role they have played in what India has grown to be today, this is in no way to malign the toil, hardwork, bravery and integrity of some of the most talented men and women who have braved the odds to bring us news about the positive and negative happenings to our television screens, newspapers or the internet portals. In many cases, the media has played a crucial role in swinging public opinion, the most recent example that comes to my mind is that of the highlight of India Against Corruption movement in the earlier part of this decade. However, they do, sometimes, tend to go south. A penchant for increased TRPs or overtaking a competitor, news is often sensationalized and misquoted. There are instances where I have read news items which have got their facts wrong and a lot of media houses lack the grace to publish an admission of error or a letter of apology. Quoting “unnamed or undisclosed sources”, for many, seems to have become a way to stuff their personal or organizational opinions and ideologies as news event than news analyses.

However I write this piece to ponder upon my thoughts that media in India is getting especially negligent about news from North Eastern states of India. I’d go a step to cal it the racist attitude of the mainstream media in India. Yes, I know I am entitled to a criticism that this is more of a issue of regionalism, but I think I’d rather call it racism. Why? Because the media often quotes this term. Not against itself, but against us, the citizens of India.

I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that we, the people are racist. Okay, my definition of the term racism is strictly not according to how Wikipedia defines it. Most people of India are biased against the people from their own region of birth, against the people who do not share their mother tongue or their cultural background. I am from a state in Southern India who had the luck to go for my undergraduate degree in a college in the Hindi heartland in North India. I faced issues, mostly miniscule and negligible but issues they indeed were, where I was typecast into a stereotypical South Indian and judged, analyzed more based on that than who I was. I am certain that there would be many North Indians who would have faced the same issues in Southern India. That I think is quite understandable (and if you ask me, made for a lot of instances for me and my friends from across India to sit around tables and cafeterias and share a laugh!) and as long as it does not cause significant physical or mental agony, it should be something that is taken as the natural fabric that comes with a country as diverse as ours. However sometimes, incidents happen that do cross the unwritten barriers of physical or mental agony and cannot be ignored. That happens mostly with people from the North Eastern parts of India.

Yes, people who natively belong to states in North East, are most often, from a different race as the rest of India. And incidents happen when they are targeted for their race or ethnicity in other parts of India. Atrocious incidents have happened in Indian cities of Bengaluru, Mumbai, New Delhi etc, with increasing frequency. Whenever such instances happen, the media highlights the issue. There are endless debates and editorial pieces condemning the attacks. But amidst the din and charade that accompanies the debates and the glorified condemnations, you, I and the presenters miss one point – that the media themselves are racist.

The incident that prompted me to write this piece, to title this piece as it is, was the coverage of floods that ravaged the North Eastern states of India last month. And the stark contrast to the way the media covered the floods in Jammu and Kashmir this year and the floods in Uttarakhand towards the middle of last year. Almost all national media competed stiffly (and I would add, commendably) in covering the floods that occurred in Jammu and Kashmir, the impact, the severity, the rescue and relief and a host of other related aspects. A lot of them telecast their prime news reports from ground in Kashmir. But no media house (at least among the ones I follow) showed the same fervor and arduousness when covering the floods that ravaged in Assam and Meghalaya the very same month. When the waters started receding from Jammu and Kashmir, water levels started rising somewhere far east in the country, mainly in the states of Assam and Meghalaya. Surprisingly, the cyber world seems to be no less culpable. Wikpedia, which is the venerated encyclopedia of anything and everything, has no page related to the floods in North Eastern India. The page of List of 2014 disasters in India is conspicuous by the absence of North East floods. Normally I wouldn't have placed this arbitration against the media because it is quite understandable the amount of coverage their editorial boards decide to give various incidents. But this time, I think it went too far. Someone like me, who regularly surfs multiple media websites daily for news updates, came to know of the floods in Assam almost a full three days after they first reportedly happened. And if I consider myself an averagely avid news junkie, I can be uncomfortably reasonably sure that this news did not reach a significant households in India outside of the affected region. The media which is reputed in conducting periodic autopsies of the symbolic and on-the-ground acts of the new Union Cabinet, covered the visit of Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi to Jammu and Kashmir with true importance it deserved. However, the news item about Mr. Tarun Gogoi’s criticism that Mr. Narendra Modi did not visit the flood hit regions in the North East (which I think is quite matter-of-fact) gained only scant coverage in the media. Why, media? When you declare the majority of Indians as being biased against people from the North East, did you give a thought to look inside your own house to see if everything was well?

To me, it seems absolutely pointless that there needs to be some sort of communique from People’s Republic of China for Arunachal Pradesh to get a mention in the mainstream news media. It is pointless to talk about Manipur when and only when there is some news around Irom Sharmila. As long as the news media maintain this lackadaisical attitude, the citizens from other parts of India will continue to remain unaware and alienated from that part of their own country. And when a part of your citizenry do not get their fair share of exposure from the mainstream media, they are right to be felt ostracized and alienated. As much as “we” do not make “them” feel a part of the same country by all those dastardly acts, these kind of acts from the media would no doubt make “them” feel less integrated into the fabric of India. The blame certainly does lie with the citizens of other parts in the country, but some of the buck stops right in front of the media houses in India. 

Disaster Management in India

October 12 is the date of my birth. So by the standards propounded by the bourgeois and elites worldwide, I am supposed to celebrate it in a pomp and spectacular way, at least on a personal note. However, this year and the last, two of the hardest disasters India has faced in her recent past have chosen to hit the land on that very (in)auspicious day – Cyclone Phailin in 2013 and Cyclone Hudhud in 2014. Both of them, categorized by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) as “Very Severe Cyclonic Storm” as they made landfall along the Coromandel coastline in south-eastern India.

India is a densely populated country and thus, any natural (or man-made) disaster is, bound to impact several thousands of people by simple arithmetic logic. More so in case of cyclones because their direct zone of impact generally tends to span tens of kilometers into hinterland. Yet what stands out impressive, if I may be permitted to use the word, is the casualty figures. Fewer than 50 people were reported dead in the state of Odisha due to Cyclone Phailin, of which more than half was a result of floods which were a result of the cyclone. The number of deaths caused by Cyclone Hudhud has also been significantly low so far, it stands at 41. Of these 38 were in the state of Andhra Pradesh, which was where Cyclone Hudhud made landfall and 3 were in the neighboring state of Odisha.

The lessons for this success started in the failure that accompanied the Super Cyclone which hit Odisha in 1999. Official figures put the death toll in that cyclone to be around 10,000.It seems that the governments of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh learnt, in a bitter way, about what could go wrong in that instance. It is a combination of that which resulted in better preparedness of the state government machinery, plus the advancements in climatic monitoring technologies and smooth co-ordination of the multitude of bodies like the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and the Indian armed forces. For over a week before Cyclone Hudhud struck the eastern coast of India, IMD started putting out bulletins related to the various aspects of the impending storm – the movement, the speeds and other related information. The IMD, which had issued warning of the 1999 Super Cyclone only about 24 hours prior to it making the landfall, started issuing detailed and accurate warning about Hudhud five days before Cyclone Hudhud struck. And this data was used very productively by governments of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh in pre-emptively relocating populace from the impact zone. The preparedness was phenomenal, and commendable. The prompt predictions from IMD ensured that Odisha administration shifted over 9,00,000 people to safer places before Cyclone Phailin hit the Indian coast. The figure was over 7,00,000 in the state of Andhra Pradesh in case of Cyclone Hudhud this year.

While it is agonizing that it took a super cyclone which cost the lives of over 10,000 people and crores of rupees in terms of economic losses for us to learn the lesson for better preparedness and better disaster management system, the gratifying part is indeed the fact that the lessons have certainly been imbibed. We are much more used to sedentary responses from state governments and their general reluctance to imbibe lessons from the past and inculcate a healthy way of preparedness, the government and bureaucratic machineries of governments of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, along with agencies such as IMD and NDRF have shown us a bright spot indeed worthy of emulation. The other federations in India and the union government itself must take a leaf out of these incidents and replicate it across the country. In a country like India, natural disasters consistently wreak great havoc and it is incumbent upon us to learn the lessons from what happened yesterday so that if the same things happen tomorrow, the impact will be much lesser. The recent floods in Jammu Kashmir, floods in North Eastern states in India, 2013 Uttarakhand Floods and several other incidents in recent and distant past point to a dismal fact, that our levels of preparedness is often caught short. True, quite often it is not possible to predict natural disasters. But disaster is something we need to be prepared for. Every ounce of extra preparedness can make the difference in the life or lives of an individual or a family, a humongous price that justifies the extra preparedness. We now have a rock solid example of how Andhra Pradesh and Odisha did it, clinically. Maybe we should take some time and imbibe that.

In our natural tendency to criticize governments for what they more often than not fail to do, let us warm ourselves to congratulate the governments and the personnel involved for all the efforts they put in to minimize the impact in terms of casualties these cyclonic storms had. The kudos goes to every single known and unknown individual who did their two cents for the country, from that unknown electricity lineman who struggled to restore electricity in some remote colony or village, to those secretaries, ministers and other functionaries of the governments who oversaw the planning and implementation before and after the disaster. Kudos, my fellow countrymen.

Afterthought: For anyone interested in the naming convention of (past and future) cyclonic storms around the northern Indian Ocean, this document provides an interesting insight into the naming convention, so to speak.

Ice Bucket Challenge

It was a day of light showers when I hopped on to a bus that would’ve taken me homeward. There were a group of guys sitting in a section of seats in front of me. All of them seemed to have one of those latest smartphones and needless to say, their attention was riveted on those four or five inches of backlit screens. Possibly due to lack of awareness of propriety that spanned beyond those phone screens, their conversations were loud enough for me to overhear.

“Hey, look at this. Akshay Kumar just took the Ice Bucket Challenge. Hold on, I am sending you the YouTube link.” Said Person A.

“Oh yea, I saw that, someone shared it on my Facebook timeline. He looked cool, didn’t he. He certainly seemed to have a ton of people throwing buckets of ice on him.” Replied Person B.

“Who challenged Akshay Kumar?” Person C was curious.

“I don’t know. I saw Riteish Deshmukh, Abhishek Bachchan and Mandira Bedi’s videos yesterday. I don’t remember the person who challenged Akshay.” Person D chimmed in.

“The ALC Ice Bucket Challenge has gone viral hasn’t it?” asked Person A.

“Oh true. How many people have taken it. Last week I was seeing videos of Harrison Ford, Jennifer Lopez, Steven Spielberg take the ALC challenege.” supported Person B.

“Wait, hold on. Is it the ALC bucket challenge? Wasn’t it something else?” queried Person C

“I think it is ACC. Or maybe was it ACL?” Person D opened up more possibilities.

“Whatever it is, it is funny to see celebrities downing ice buckets like crazy. I love it when those female actors do it, you know. Mandira Bedi, Sunny Leone, Katy Perry, Kaley Cuoco…. You know these damsels make ice bucket challenge real hot.” Person E came out of his silence to add another dimension to the conversation.

“Gwyneth Paltrow as well dude. Did you see her ice bucket challenge? She posted a video of her doing it with a bikini.” Person C chimed in.

“Shut up dude. Respect the cause for this celebration.” Person B silenced Person C.

“I forget what the actual name was. I saw it even today morning in Sonakshi Sinha’s Twitter handle. She had tweeted about it.” Person A was scratching his said.

“You know the funny thing with Sonakshi Sinha, no one challenged her. But still she took it upon herself.” Person B was anecdotal.

“The initials, I think it represents the company that came up with the idea. Think of it, they come up with such an idea, they promote it, and suddenly it looks ‘cool’ to dump a bucket of ice over your head and post the video on Facebook.” Person C shared his wisdom.

“Is it? It is amazing that these marketing people come up with such amazing ideas. Such a ‘cool’ idea of publicizing one’s own products dude.” Person E was not be silenced this time.

“Well, they are paid to do that. And they are paid heavily to do just that my sir.” Person C was supportive.

“No no, I don’t think that’s some company. If that were the case why would people like Bill Gates, Zuckerberg and Bazooka guys do that? Why would they promote some other company than theirs?” Person A was looking at it rationally.

“Bazooka? Who’s Bazooka?” Person B couldn’t recognize.

“You order so much from Amazon, you don’t know the founder of Amazon? That’s Bazooka” Person A retorted with a guffaw.

“It isn’t ACL guys. I googled it, that is Ambuja Cements. Obviously, they have got nothing to do with it.” Person C said without taking his eyes off his phone screen.

“Okay, let me look for ice bucket challenge on Google.” Person A was busy switching windows on his phone to bring up the browser.

“Got it, it is ALS. Ah, they have a big Wikipedia page. Who will read through whatever that is? It doesn’t seem a company because I don’t see a logo in their Wiki page.” Person D emerged triumphant.

“Hey you know what? How about we do this ice bucket thing over the weekend?” Person E suddenly had a brainwave.

“Yea, that’s right. You anyways don’t take bath over the weekend, so it would be certainly beneficial to your flat mates at least..!” Time for a potshot.

“Am not joking. Let’s each do it, make some funny video and put it on Facebook.” Person E ignored the potshot part of the previous commentator.

“What he said makes sense. I’ve not been posting anything on my Facebook wall for a while. If we can make this video funny, I’ll end up getting some ‘cool’ likes.” Person B was supportive.

“Plus let us challenge some girls from office as well. Who knows, they might also do it. Would be fun to watch.” Person C chipped in with an idea.

“We definitely should challenge Person X. He’s a darn coward but his posts in Facebook gives the impression that he is the coolest dude in town. Let’s challenge him, I bet he’ll piss in his pants than take the ice bucket challenge.” Person A was in a vengeful mood.

“Totally agree. I’ve always wanted to expose him, he irritates me posting all those fancy photos and statuses on Facebook.” Person B exhorted.

The automated announcement filtered through the bus’ speakers indicating my stop had reached. I picked up my bag and alighted from my bus and walked away, pretty sure of what was going to appear on the Facebook timelines of these unknown fellow travelers over the next few days.

For the curious, you can read more about Ice Bucket Challenge, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis a.k.a ALS, and ALS Association in the respective links.

The Shortcut to Vigilantism

We, in India, have been brought up with news of celebrities. Well, celebrities would not be the perfect word, because it is not all positive imagery that is propagandized. Quite a lot of our idols we worship (or hate) to a great extent, have been contributed by the entertainment industry, sports (read cricket), religion and politics to name a handful. Their actions (and inactions) are followed almost religiously, and they are appropriately covered by the media in India. Their good samaritanism is generally lauded widely and propagated to be emulated, and any slight leaning to “the perceived other side” are retorted by means ranging from simple criticism to undignified vandalism.

A recent item in the news created that much furore in the country was the news about the abysmal levels of attendance of Sachin Tendulkar and Rekha in Rajya Sabha, the Upper House of the Parliament of India. This led to lots of debates and statements in the print and electronic media and everyone was suddenly taking the same side, which, in itself, was a rare feat. I too mentally joined the noise and din created by the likes of Mr. Arnab Goswami and his counterparts across the various channels as they dissected the issue from all angles and concluded a very predictable judgment. The print and electronic media in the country unilaterally passed the judgment that Tendulkar and Rekha were on the wrong side, and urged them to respond in a positive way and make themselves more present in the floor of the sanctum sanctorum of the Indian democracy. In the comments posted below the links mentioned above, the public were quite scathing in their condemnation, some of the comments were quite insensitive in my opinion.

All was well, we got an issue, we reacted sharply, a reaction that most of us, including this author, found quite logical and justified. The sun rose again the following day, the media shifted its focus to more contemporary news items which continuously kept emanating. It was more than a week after that I got myself thinking about this piece of news. The more I thought about the more I realized that we had only scratched the surface of the issue. The celebrity-ness of this news item ensured that the problem was mentioned and . But the very same celebrity-ness ensured that the solution proclaimed was skin deep, and none close to sustainable.

There was this article in Dawn, by Mr. Abbas Nasir, a former editor with the daily. All credit to the author who penned down a piece that almost completely mimicked my thought, quoting an incident of Mr. Rahman Malik, a former minister in the Federal Government of Pakistan, being thrown out of a PIA flight by irate passengers. The news item received attention in India as well, with Mr. Arnab Goswami choosing to vent his fury at the VVIP culture, in the wake of this incident. But Mr. Nasir delicately puts forth one very pertinent question in his article, before we passed the judgment, did we care to cross check the facts of the incident? Did any of the news media or the people who reacted to the incident, was able to base their opinion on conclusive proof rather than piecemeal, unsubstantiated versions of the incident? The author in that article, makes an exhortative call for refraining from judgment before verifying the facts from both sides of the involved parties, and not coming to a lopsided verdict based on the past character of the person(s) involved. And that fault, lies as much with media as with the people. Why do I say so?

The public, here, is at fault because of the lack of civic sense. Mr. Nasir makes this very case in a subtle example he references in his piece. I reside in the United States, and I completely understand when he makes a case of an ambulance stuck in a traffic jam. I have seen it here that even when there is hardly any room to wiggle, but people generally tend to make an attempt at shifting their vehicles, whatever little they can, to ensure a smooth passage for an ambulance or an emergency vehicle. Contrast this to the case in India, where I have seen that people, tend to be a lot more reluctant to attempt to do that. In fact, I have seen people use ambulances as shields to make their way through a difficult traffic situation. They tend to tailgate behind ambulances because there is a lot more possibility of an ambulance making way through a traffic jam and they try to use that to their advantage. To add to that example, littering on streets is quite low in the United States even though I do not know of any severe penalties associated with it (even if there were, not every street and junction can be manned by police personnel to effectively enforce it) whereas in India, we take it as our birthright to litter wherever we feel convenient. These are two very simple examples that come to my mind when I contrast the civic sense in societies of India and the United States. And in my opinion, it is an extension of this civic sense (or lack thereof) that seems to cause the original problem I started to address in this article.

The lack of civic sense to a great extent, has made us place a great deal of importance to my rights of free speech and opinion over the rights of dignity of others (including celebrities). Celebrities are often convenient targets of our ire and wrath, and we often do not give a second thought to shooting from the hip in those cases. Which might result in two problems – one, we might cause ill-repute to someone who might not even have been guilty at this and two, we might end up overlooking a bigger issue because of the names of people involved. In the case of Sachin Tendulkar and Rekha, by passing a unilateral verdict , albeit the fact that it is correct and substantiated by facts (unlike the PIA incident), we missed out on the second problem I alluded to.

To give an insight into what I refer to here, I went to the website of PRS India, an independent research institute which has a lot of facts about the MPs in India and did a bit of digging. I retrieved some astounding figures from their website. According to their data, Mr. Rahul Gandhi, the Vice President of Congress, asked no questions during his tenure as MP in the 15^th Lok Sabha compared to a national average of 300 questions per MP. His attendance in the house was 43%. If you thought that was low, I saw some more mind boggling statistics, there are some inconsistencies because of incomplete data but the pointers are sufficient for this discussion:

• Mr. M. K. Alagiri, former Union Minister and son of Mr. K. Karunanidhi of DMK, attended less than 10% of parliament sessions after he quit as minister of Union Cabinet under Dr. Manmohan Singh in March 2013. No participation in debates, and no questions asked in the period from March 2013 to February 2014.
• Mr. K Chandrasekhara Rao, present Chief Minister of the State of Telangana, has an attendance of 13% over the course of 15^th Lok Sabha. No questions raised on floor of the house.
• The late Mr. Baliram Kashyap, who passed away in March 2011, seems to have recorded an abysmal rate of attendance in between May 2009 and March 2011 as evident from the session wise break up of his attendance. No participation in debates and zero questions raised.
• Ms. Vijaya Shanti, a former movie actress, shows up in the Lok Sabha 14% of the time. No participation in debates and zero questions raised.
• Mr. Shibu Soren, former Chief Minister of the state of Jharkhand, attended the Lok Sabha 23% of the time. Again, no participation in debates and zero questions raised.

This is, by no means, an exhaustive list. I do not disagree to the spirit espoused by S. Pushpavanam in his article in The Hindu, which claims that members should not be judged by their attendance in Parliament, but even the author in that, must agree to the limited justice you provide to the people who elected you by being present in the House less than one out of five working days. Even if it is low, there is a threshold of attendance beneath which it seems apparent to me that no positive work can be done. I would not expect someone like Sachin Tendulkar or Rekha to champion the cause of people in their constituency to a high degree but I certainly would expect each and every one in the list above (and potentially many more) to attend to their regular duties in Parliament because that is the understanding with which people voted for them. Because for the people I mentioned above (and for a lot of others), politics is a full time occupation.

There was another broader issue which was hidden behind the façade. And this was the historical case of celebrities nominated to the Rajya Sabha. This article in The Times of India gives a lot of insight about  the performance of people of non political eminence in the Rajya Sabha. With a lot of respect to all the people mentioned in the article, it would have been beneficial for our democracy if this incident had indeed triggered a debate of the larger picture of persons of eminence on Rajya Sabha, with facts to back it up one way or the other. The article points out to the fact that the celebrated singer Lata Mangeshkar and legendary filmmaker Mrinal Sen, who were nominated members of Rajya Sabha, had dismal attendance records. It also points out cases where there have been people with impressive attendance records as well. Which naturally triggers the question, does the nomination of people of eminence from multiple sections of civil society, have a constructive or negative effect on the system of legislature in this country? I am not trying to pass a judgment here either for or against the cause, I am trying to make a case for a healthy debate (which never happened) on the sidelines of the original issue that was raised.

In the din and clamor (glamour?) of Sachin Tendulkar and Rekha giving Rajya Sabha sessions a miss big time, we the civic society lost to focus on the big picture, which is how they stack up against some of the full time politicians this country has produced. And the bigger cause of nominating persons of eminence from multiple fields into the high echelons of legislative bodies in India. When the original issue came up, it would have been a good time to look at the two issues mentioned above as well, as lending completeness to the problem at hand, but slogging the celebrities is often an easy solution to a lot of debates. We, the people, missed a chance, and the media too was reluctant to probe much deeper underneath the skin. Shouldn’t we be having a healthy culture of rapping ourselves on our knuckles in such circumstances?

Mumbai Mail

Chhatrapati Sivaji Terminus is the busiest station of India. At any given instant of time, any part of the day, the station is flocked with people and thus, never short on activity. People from all walks of life – from the mighty company executive to homeless peddlers for whom the domes served as a roof atop their heads, always amalgamated with the station. For some, this might mark the beginning of a journey, maybe an anxious or an enthusiastic omen, for some others, it is signals a terminus, the end of a pleasant or an unpleasant voyage. It was in the middle of this hubbub of activity that I found myself a few minutes after the sun set on the famed Mumbai skyline.

I had a train to catch. The outbound Mumbai Mail to Chennai which would be departing in an hour and a half. And I had two three tier Air Conditioned coach tickets with me. I picked up a coffee from a stall. I moved towards the center of the station where there were a group of chairs for waiting, perched atop one of them and started the agonizing wait. The station in all its grandeur, never failed to capture my imagination. I watched as railway network put people on the move. There were laughter of joy, sighs of relief, and tears of painful farewell. The station, as would be the case with most stations on the railway network, was a cornucopia of emotions. My mind was not focused. I realized that I should be feeling tense, but I was surprisingly calm. I had seen in movies that during such moments, your mind wades through a mélange of moments that happened all through your life – the good ones, the bad ones and the ugly ones. But there was nothing of that sort puttering through my mind, it was empty. The group of girls sitting near her were chattering non-stop about the latest Salman Khan movie. She longed for serenity, some peace. Mumbai was a tough place to find peace, and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus was the last place one could hope to find serenity. Finally the chatter reached such a point that she could no longer take it. She picked up her bag and moved, in measured paces, towards the main entrance of the station. There was always a swarm of people pushing into the station every minute, and it was where she hoped to catch a glimpse of Sooraj.

As she waited, she was fidgeting with her mobile. For the past two hours she had been calling him, but there had been no response. She had messaged him multiple times, to call her back but there was neither the call back she had been waiting for nor a message indicating that he wasn’t in a position to. She finished three coffees one after another, and kept waiting. She waited for him in the busy railway station for more than an hour. Inside she was debating if she should simple walk away and board the train. She had the ticket, after all. And he didn’t know the details of which compartment they were reserved in. She had to take care of everything, from start to end because he was not in a position to. As if on cue, the announcement came, “Passengers, your kind attention! Train No. so-and-so Mumbai Chennai Mail from Mumbai CST to Chennai Central will depart from Platform No. 6 at two-three-one-five hours.” This was followed by announcements in Hindi and Marathi. She looked at her watch, and then her mobile. No messages. The train, if on schedule, was due to depart in twenty minutes.

She had to make a decision. She could not go back. She carefully stared at the net batch of incoming crowd pushing and shoving to get inside the station. No, Sooraj wasn’t there. She turned around and started walking in the direction of Platform No. 6. The decision had been made. There was going to be no more waiting for him.

She boarded the Mumbai Mail, located her berth, placed her bags and settled in. After the tumultuous past couple of hours, the silence around her seemed eery. She moved to the door. Maybe she was hoping if he did manage to come at this last minute, that he could still find her. The engine blew its horn, signaling the intent to commence the journey. The guard flashed the green light. And slowly but steadily, the lights of Chhatrapati Sivaji Terminus was moving against the direction she was going. She was still at the door and her coach had almost reached the end of the station when her mobile phone signaled a message received, “My wife came back today. She is still not willing to divorce me, we fought over it again today. I couldn’t get out of the house. Let’s make a plan for another day when she will be away at her parents’ place. Come to Marine Drive tomorrow evening, we’ll decide.”

Without a second thought, she instantly replied, “I waited for you, you didn’t turn up. You cheated me, you are cheating your wife as well. Don’t wait for me, I am going where the Mumbai Mail takes me. Goodbye.” She sent the message and switched her mobile off. Tomorrow was going to be a fresh day, a fresh start.