Sukhjit Singh's Blog, page 8

His Master's Voice

 

A dog’s master died. The dead master’s brother played his recorded voice on a gramophone. The dog sat attentively listening to ‘His Master’s Voice.’

We have all seen the HMV logo. And the dog on that logo. Nipper, the HMV logo dog, like dog’s in general, was loyal to his master. Even a dead master.

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Delhi-Haryana Singhu border.

Having fired at will for a long time, the tear gas guns are silent, the shooters taking a brake (possibly sitting to enjoy langar being served by the farmers, replenishing the energy that will be needed later for ‘bal prayog’ on the same farmers).

Having braved the shower of tear gas shells, the farmers are regrouping – washing faces, coughing and clearing their systems of the gas, checking on their elderly comrades.

In the lull that the break provided a few elderly farmers walk upto the barricades where the police stands. One of them waves the green flag and points at the police officer to listen to him. A media person pushes his microphone in front of his face.

“We are here to put forward our concerns in a peaceful manner. We are not here to quarrel with anyone and make trouble. First it was Haryana police that made trouble and now it is Delhi Police who are making trouble. Why are you troubling us? We just want to go to Delhi and raise our voice. Are we not citizens of this country?”

A senior police officer walks towards him, with a handheld speaker.

“We cannot allow you to enter Delhi. Don’t you know there is Covid in Delhi?”

The farmer replies – “If you want, we will sit at six feet distance, if you say we will wear masks, but we will go to Delhi.”

A second farmer steps forward. “What is the strength of the police behind you? No covid to gather thousands of police force?”

First farmer – “Bihar election can have rallies with lacs. No covid there?”

Police officer – “All protocol was followed in Bihar.”

First farmer – “I don’t think so.”

Police officer – “Your thinking doesn’t matter.”

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 Your thinking doesn’t matter. Your voice doesn’t matter. You don’t matter.

My master’s thinking matters. My master’s voice matters. My master matters.

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A little while later, the same police officer is talking to a reporter – “Sir, the farmers say they will breach these barricades, they will go forward, they will enter Delhi. Will you continue to stop them?”

Police officer – “See, we are the law enforcing agency. We are not here to entertain whims and fancies of people. We are here to enforce the law.”

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Dear elderly farmer, what he means to say is that he (and his Dil-ki-Police) is here to enforce the law as his master sees fit. Remember how they rushed into the university one evening and thrashed those students? Or how they stood next to their master’s buddies when they instigated riots and then went ahead and found tens of students and activists guilty of conspiracy for those same riots? What he means to say is that he only entertains whims and fancies of his master. Just like one of their master knows ‘entire political science’ the one Dil-ki-Police reports to knows ‘entire law.’

Dear elderly farmer, it is the lacs standing behind you that are holding His Master’s Voice back. Else they would have lathi charged and picked the likes of you in no time.

Dear elderly farmer, most likely you haven’t seen a gramophone, what with staying busy converting rough terrains into fertile lands and feeding the country. You obviously don’t know Nipper. He listens to His Master’s Voice. Nipper was a dog. You know dogs - they are loyal.

#FarmersProtest

#SpeakUpForFarmers

VARUN & NAVDEEP

In Hindu mythology, Varun, is the ruler of the sky and the upholder of cosmic and moral law, is guardian of the west and is particularly associated with oceans and waters.

We know another Varun these days. According to DRDO – ‘Varun, Vehicle Mounted Water Cannon System, provides an effective, non-lethal means for dispersal of violent mobs.’ Note the word ‘violent’ in the definition. The crowds in Delhi during Nirbhaya protests come to mind. And the farmers today.

Navdeep - The soft-spoken son of a farmer, who turned the jets of today’s Varun off last night. And then he took a leap. A leap of faith. A leap for generations. Navdeep – New lamp. New Light. New flame.

Of all Hindu deities, Varun is the judgemental god, providing justice and punishment to everyone. His noose tightens and the sinners plead.

The Varun of myth stood for the weak, against the tyrants. The Varun’s of today stand with their jets facing the weak. It is up to the Navdeeps of today to carry forward the light.

Sinners beware. The noose is coming.

 

 

TERRORISM & 26/11

BREAKING NEWS! PM Modi says India can never forget 26/11 Mumbai terror attack.

Oxford English Dictionary defines terrorism as - A system of terror; Government by intimidation; A policy intended to strike with terror those against whom it is adopted; the employment of methods of intimidation; the fact of terrorizing or condition of being terrorized.Sweet!First install barricades, throw in large stones, huge concrete blocks – tied with large chains, put barbed wires on the barricades, throw a large pile of mud behind the barricades, park trucks and other large vehicles on bridges to block the paths.Then when they come closer – start with water canons (it helps that it is freezing cold and they have already spent a night on the roads), and follow it up with tear gas (oh it dearly helps… what with the elderly, especially all those Matas in their 80s and 90s… we love them in Bhartavarsh… the Maas and Matas).What? They still keep coming! Why we have the police in riot gear, backed by all sorts of other forces. Bal Prayog! Ah.. that’s but a way we ensure our citizens stay obedient.Didn’t work?The DC and SP get the press together. We have video recording of who all broke the barricades, we have seen who were violent. Appropriate action against will be taken against them. What did you say? Ah! the state is never violent. What? Canons and tear gas?Even the threats didn’t strike ‘terror’ in their determination to march on?The state smiles.How far can they go? The same set-up awaits ten kms down the road.We will break them. One by one.What? It is 26/11?Yes, India stands united against all forms of terror.

Genies Don't Wait

The twelve-inch black and white Onida was switched on and volume kept to a minimum as everyone else slept. The TV will not be switched on this early in the morning too often in its decades’ long existence. Dipak Patel bowls the first over and Srikanth being himself holes out for a duck. Ten years old, he had never owned a bat till then (other than the cloth washing bat ‘thaapi’ that his mother had) nor he will own one later, but after the 1992 cricket world cup spirit of Imran Khan called him and he announced that he wanted to be a cricketer.

The parent’s day at school is over and he says bye to his mother at the gate. She walks the half kilometer to DC chowk, saving five rupees that the rickshaw would have charged. As she limps to her bus, he puts the ten rupee note she had just given him in his pocket and runs to his hostel dorm where boys are busy going through the goodies’ parents have left behind for them. One of them has a lot of fancy chocolates. ‘My uncle in merchant navy got these for me. He earns lacs every month.’ When school principal asked him what he wanted to do, he announced proudly, ‘I want to make a lot of money.’ Although he never set foot on one, at that time merchant navy ships called him.

Three years at Mumbai office were over. HR asked him where he wanted his next posting. ‘Some place like Brazil or Caribbeans,’ he joked a wish. Five years later as he submitted his resignation, having been to more countries than his wish but never Brazil or Caribbeans, his then boss looked at him questioningly. As a longing, of soil, of words, called him, he answered, ‘I want to go home.’

A few days back, as he lay in his bed, on the threshold of sleep, (and on the threshold of the fifth decade of his life), he heard her voice.

‘Your three wishes.’

He knew the voice that called. He didn’t know the answer.

‘I need to think,’ he said.

‘Genies don’t wait,’ the voice said.

In the dreams that followed he was a young boy chasing dreams.

Bunga. Burj. Watchtower.

Bunga. Burj. Watchtower.

Ramgharia Bunga twins still stand watch, the last of many Bungas constructed to protect Darbar Sahib (Golden Temple) Amritsar. Before the tanks marched in, in that dystopian year of 1984, and ushered in an era of darkness in Punjab’s history, it was the sentinels on these two watchtowers who let the courts of the then ‘saint’ of Punjab run unchecked and invited that darkness into a place of light. The duty of the sentinels was to watch and protect the sanctity of the sanctum sanctorum, but they became the eyes of the ‘saint’, they became his watchtowers.

A few days after the tanks had left and public allowed back in the complex, many eager eyes climbed the top of the three storey bungas, for a panoramic view of the rubble left behind, for a panoramic view of the fruits of the darkness that the sentinels had let in, and for a panoramic view of the embers that burned in that darkness and will continue for over a decade.

Bunga. Burj. Watchtower.

The Parliament and the Supreme Court are the twin watchtowers to protect our ‘tryst with destiny’ and guide the India of the 26thJanuary 1950. And as the ‘saint’ of ‘New India’ holds his court, the sentinels manning these bungas have started following in the footsteps of those atop the Ramgharia twins nearly four decades back. They are fast becoming his watchtowers. And as these sentinels look away, new bungas of this ‘New India’ arise – near Sardar Sarovar Dam, near Saryu, in reclaimed bit of Arabian Sea near Mumbai and many more, and the 15th of August slowly inches towards 5th of August.

These twin watchtowers must stand up and be counted or become part of the rubble that will be left behind when the proverbial tanks roll in. They must keep the light of the 26th January of 1950, or there will not be an era of darkness, there will only be darkness.

BEST WEED EVER

Times Now studio, PrimeTime, Navika in a green sari avatar, stands next to the life size display and reads what is allegedly Rhea’s WhatsApp chat. Not read, shouts.

‘Dude Bhubaneshwar is the scene.’

The ticker at the bottom is in overdrive. ‘RHEA DRUG DOSSIER EXPLODES’ ‘(Hashtag)IndiaForRheaArrest.’

Next slide appears. She continues… ‘Best weed ever’

Rahul ShivShankar (RSS) eggs her on. She takes decibels and drama a notch higher.

‘She knows it all, she says it’s the best weed ever.’

Dear Navika, no matter what the truth and reality of SSR case is, Rhea doesn’t know it all. Whatever weed she allegedly tried isn’t even close to the best.

What you, RSS, Rahul, Arnab, Sudhir, and most of your other TRP competitors take before you head to your primetime and superprimetime tamashas beats every other variety. That is the best of the lot.

Freedom Sale

We sit sipping from our morning glass of warm water.

“Freedom sale.” She reads aloud as an ad pops up on her phone.

I pause my reading of the op-ed on the Supreme Court Bhushan Contempt case and look up.

“Ye Freedom abhi khatam nahi huyi kya?” she asks.

Sometimes the questions and their answers word themselves.

“Dheere dheere ho rahi hai.”

 

The thought lingers. Clings. Grows.

Amazon freedom sale. Everything from A to Z.

The freedom sale is thoroughly planned.

It is planned to be a thorough job.

Of containment zones and age advisories

“Mummy, Dadu and I are going out. I am taking my bike.”

It has rained whole day and the weather is pleasant outside. It took a lot of pleading but Dadu has agreed to leave his news and take him outside.

“No Rohan, you cannot go outside,” Mummy tells him as she pours milk into simmering tea.

“Why mumma?” He has completed his homework and he will not let mummy talk him out of his one hour of fun.

“Rohan, there were two corona positive cases in the next block yesterday. As per the rules in UP an area of 500meter radius becomes a containment zone. Now we cannot go outside till atleast two weeks assuming no new cases are found.”

“Dadu said we could go.” As water rushes to his eyes he runs to his Dadu. Mummy sims the stove and follows him.

A priest of the mandir and 14 security personnel were found covid positive around the mandir complex.

Mummy mutes the news and looks at Rohan clinging to his Dadu.

“Papa ji, now our area is a containment zone and we cannot step out for two weeks at least.”

Rohan cries louder and digs deeper into the sofa and his Dadu.

“Also, papa ji you know the government advisory, children and seniors above 65 years should not go out.”

“Bahu, what is the age of Modi?”

Somewhat confused she looks at him as he takes the remote and changes the channel.

“Rohan, let’s watch cartoons.”

2014 - an important year for noses

My father learned a bit from a vaid, a bit from a doctor and many bits with experience. One of the questions he would ask every patient, as he held their wrists feeling for a pulse, was ‘bahar theek aunda’?

In rustic Punjabi bahar jana means ‘passing motion.’ In my childhood we went outside to defecate and so did the generations before us, so bahar jana, literally going outside, was how the act itself was addressed as.

To him and many ‘doctors’ of his generation, among other things, the quality, quantity, frequency, effort involved, etc. of what human body excreted helped determine what might be wrong with the body. So, they asked ‘bahar theek aunda’, ‘are motions ok’?

‘Doctor sahab’ has retired now after nearly half a century of practice. But many of his old timers still come to ask for ‘taapharan,’ a concoction he prepared which cleansed the body unlike any other laxative one can find on market today. Taap-haran, Fever cleanser. In their words, half a glass of it made them feel as light as a feather (after a few rounds to you know where).

Mother cow eats in her trough in a farmer’s care. The brahmin picks the gift and gives a fresh coat to his courtyard. Mother cow scavenges in the garbage of the city dwellers. The brahmin makes a nose at her and what she excretes on the roads.

A veterinary doctor checks the condition of mother cow’s excreta to diagnose what ails her.

Till 2014, we had many an expert critic, many an expert doctor, who smelt the stink that Mother India lived through. Every moment of their existence they diagnosed what was wrong with her and they prescribed and shouted the solutions every which way.

Since 2014 many well-meaning noses have lost the ability.

Mother India still awaits taapharan.

Of prayers and wishes...

It is a comfortable sofa and he has his feet up on the center table. As the movie finishes, he switches the channel to news.

“In this video you can see the police beating the farmers who were protesting their evacuation from the plot. The farmer couple consumed pesticide and are now battling for their life in the civil hospital.”

He changes to another news channel.

“Amitabh Bachchan and Abhishek have tested positive for Covid. They have mild symptoms and have been admitted to a top hospital in Mumbai.”

He opens his twitter account and posts.

“Get well soon Big B. Our prayers and wishes are with you.”