One Night with India

This is a true story. This incident happened in train moving from Deoghar (Bihar) to Howrah on 28^th Nov 2009

Date: 28-29^th Nov

Time : 2:30 AM

Place: Sleeper coach of express

As me and my bro-in-law Ravi Da crouched in our sleeper coach seats further, our coach door opened again giving way to freezing winds. As I tried to close it again literally shaking with cold, it was clear that we will not be able to get any sleep tonight.

Earlier, as me and Ranu were returning from her brother’s wedding, we missed our train to Howrah. We had a connecting flight the next morning and luckily Ravi Da had reservation in 3^rd AC in another train. We had to board it anyway. After settling Ranu in ac coach, me and ravi da moved to the next sleeper with side berth next to the doors.

It was freezing outside with temperature probably going below 5⁰C. Wind, accentuated by moving train, was piercing our bodies despite we had three layers of clothing and kept the shoes on.

After two hours, we both knew that it was a futile fight with the freezing cold and we just started chatting to get through the long night ahead.

And suddenly I saw something which I thought could only be seen at Guantanamo prison–a thin, 30 something handcuffed man was nearly completely stripped except the bare minimum and was being pushed from other side of the coach by the policemen. As they brought him to the area near the door I could listen to the happiness in their voice in catching their “Juta Chor”.

I can’t believe it even now that someone can actually survive in that cold with nothing on the body. But my belief was going to take many shocks tonight as the show has just begun.

One policeman pushed him near the sink and opened both the doors. As the crosswinds rushed through, i literally started shaking

The chor by itself shrunk into a blob as his body tried to revolt for its survival. It actually looked as if Kevin Carter’s famous photograph came alive in front of me (link: http://whereinsoever.wordpress.com/2007/03/07/ethical-photography-the-case-of-kevin-carter/)

And this is when policemen decided to "ramp it up" a little bit.

Policeman 1 filled a mug of freezing water from the sink and threatened our Juta Chor –“Saale bolta hai ya daalun”

I really thought the man would die if the water is poured on him…I even thought that he might even prefer jumping from the moving train rather than die from cold.

But to my relief the policeman did not go through the act.

"Don't they have human rights laws against this? " - I asked with a innocence of wide-eyed 6 year old. To which Ravi Da gave a smirk which could probably classify as - "This is India Dude....where have you been all your life? "

As the night passed the policemen continued to press him to confess the crime…they threatened to hit him with the rifle butt. ...abused him....deprived him of a bidi which he found on the floor..

To be fair to the policemen, they gave him tea in the end probably fearing that the guy will die.

Once arriving upon Howrah , they kicked him out of the coach where some other policemen also joined to share the credit of catching the chor.

And all this left me thinking –

Who is the real criminal?

The juta chor ?

The policemen - who have just committed a crime for which they will never get punished?

Me? - Who looked helplessly without uttering a single word?

OR The system which believes in punishment rather than rehabilitation

The Perfect Love Story :)

I am writing this post after a long long time. Well...life is never static and there comes times when one's life takes dramatic turns . As far as my life is concerned , it also took some drastic turns as I got my Masters degree from IIML, lost my Bachleor’s degree to Ranu and got a job at Gurgaon.

Well....it couldn't have gone better. The nerd, gaming freak, shy boy fell into love; the natkhat, simple and complex girl fell into love too....and that too with each other !! The story which started in the Ghasi deptt (the AgFE deptt is affectionately called ghasi at IIT KGP)...culminated unexpectedly at Indore with the shy boy and simple girl getting married !

It was a typical Indian marriage celebrated by 2 different set of cultures and it was an interesting affair. Two sets of relatives watched curiously as the other set performed some esoteric rituals and i performed both of them being acquainted with neither. Then I sat down on mandap with two sets of Pagdis on my head being watched by the whole world as we spent 5 hrs in front of thick incense of what seemed like a jungle of jadi-butis. Now I know why people don’t dare to marry more than once in India.

Moreover you can’t eat too much of more than 100 dishes for the fear of encountering embarrassing moments while you were at the stage or in front of the camera nearly for the 2 days. So you have a nice extravagant party thrown to celebrate your new life where you sit helplessly looking over to people having gastronomical adventures.

Then you have panditji asking me to put different condiments into the fire and asking me to put chadawa notes near idol alternatively. And trust me you don’t want to mess with this guy by putting smaller currency when he is about to get you the social acceptance of your love marriage.

Anyway, after putting kilos of perfectly edible material into the fire , I was asked to take impossible vows of keeping her happy always and some others to the same effect. I wanted to raise my objection or at least do some negotiations with panditji but as it seemed he did not have power of attorney to negotiate on laws written in Vedas. It felt like someone gave you a very nice discount offer and after swiping your credit card you get to see the fine print saying “conditions apply”.

After me saying yes to all unreasonable conditions and she saying yes to more unreasonable, we got happily married.

After few more days of relatives giving you joda dinners and funda on how responsibilities will increase, the feeling of being a husband finally begins to sink in. After this festive mood fades down, a new realization of “You are on your own now. Kids” begins as people tell you to how to “adjust” and “compromise” in life.

And this is the time when you begin to really get to know the person you were dating for last 5 years. You get to know about her Bubble Sort Shopping methodology (Carrying the least cost item till you find something cheaper) and Get-Your-Shoes-off-the-carpet habits when she gets to know about your throw-things-wherever-you-like methodology and your pious opinions about washing and ironing clothes.

But all these small fights make life more interesting which otherwise would have been a very boring love story. You realize that life becomes indeed beautiful when two individuals who are opposite and perfectly complementary to each other get married.

And yes this is indeed my ..Happily ever after.

Encountering the Gini

Hi friends,

This is one story i wrote for our college magazine IIMPulse.

“…and as C.K. Prahlad says fortune really lies at the bottom of the pyramid. If India is to truly become “shining” then inclusive growth is the key…and the key to this key is social equality in our highly fragmented society.

And our B-plan I believe, as the judges would agree, has the potential to bring all round development to socially isolated sections of our country. With this I would like to finish our presentation. Thank you very much”

And as Rajiv who was also my teammate for social B-Plan competition, finished our presentation, we got a huge round of applause from ‘101’ .

We looked like some kind of demi-gods in our shining black suits who had all solutions to human misery residing in their glossy powerpoint presentation. This was only enhanced by Rajiv’s perfect mixture of jargons, anecdotes, quotes and impromptu humour.

“That was quite an ending Rajiv ” – I said admiring his charisma which has left judges mesmerized for 30 mins

“That’s my core competency you know” he replied with a wink

“So what you plan to do with your 10k” I asked him about the prize money

“Nothing man….just some booze and stuff” he said casually

“Hmmmm….achchaa chal fauji chalega?” I asked him realizing I have not eaten since morning

“Chal”

Upon settling down at faujis we called the ubiquitous chotu to take our orders and clean the tables.

‘Haan saab’ the unfamiliar looking chotu asked us

‘Chotu pehle to do garam chai le aa fatafat’ – Rajiv ordered

‘You know Vaibhav I wanted to say more on C.K. Prahlad concept’ he said continuing our discussion on the ppt

‘Really ?’ I exclaimed

‘Ya…in fact I also had some other stuff on social equality also but the time was not enough’

As Rajiv continued his stories of social initiatives which have succeeded, chotu entered with two glasses of tea.

As soon as Rajiv touched the glass he screamed – “ Saale bhen**** bola tha na chai garam laane ko…samajh main nahi aata kya ek baar main”

‘saaary saab abhi le ke aata hun’ chotu managed to utter with his wet eyes while his sister was abused for the nth time in the day

“….ya so I was telling you about other social equality initiatives I had in mind….” Rajiv turned to me again.

But.

I wasn’t listening anymore.