Sukhjit Singh's Blog, page 9

Bail. No Bail.

Sahab, all I did was provide voter lists, trucks to bring men to the city, and shared my grief and anguish at the murder of our beloved PM with them. What do they mean by instigating a pogrom?

Police – thumbs up.

Judge: BAIL.

Your Honor, I teach tribal history at a national university.

Police – threat to national security.                                           

Judge – No Bail.

Sahab, all I did was travel around our great country and deliver a speech (or few). What do they mean by leading a demolition?

Police – thumbs up.

Judge: BAIL.

Your Honor, we asked to end curfews on women in hostels. No more cages.

Police – corrupting minds. Dangerous.

Judge – No BAIL.

Sahab, what do they mean I was drunk and drove over a sidewalk? I know what Being Human means.

Police – thumbs up (& tears of joy).

Judge: BAIL

Your Honor, we were managing a communications group related to a peaceful protest.

Police – provoking minds. Dangerous.

Judge – No BAIL.

PS - a friend says be grateful, 'No Bail' is better than an encounter.

Vikas aur Chowkidaar

Many chowkidaars have been looking for and looking after Vikas.

Some for sixty years.

Some for six years.

Some for six days.

Decades long search brought the first group to the gates of Vikas. Now they guard the swanky commercial complexes and premier high-rises, prime symbols of Vikas. They guard it from what is outside those gates, from what they saw on their journey here, and what they have left behind from where they came, the un-Vikas, which needs to be hidden behind walls when we say Namaste to those who don’t know how to say it.

The second group found it six years back and they have been guarding it with their souls. Each day they trade a part of their soul in its protection. Some at 8pm, some at 9pm, some at 10pm; for an hour or two, every day they guard Vikas at their respective primetime, super-primetime, ultimate-super-duper primetime. They guard it against the external forces – the Chinese, the Pakistanis, sometime even the Nepalis, but more than that they guard it against the internal evil – the tukde-tukde gang, the choor-choor gang, and many other such gangs.

The third group have been on duty ever since the freedom-at-midnight. Vikas isn’t their prime concern. It hasn’t been for long. It became their concern only six days ago – when it came in their way and ambushed them.

Epilogue - A temple. A chowkidar. Vikas.

A hundred words. A million stories.

She is done with the morning’s cooking and cleaning.“Listen, you take the rest of the month off. We will let you know when to start again.”Madam hands over her March salary. It’s March 15.
She stands outside the apartment door.“Take this. We will let you know when it is safe to start work.”Madam places half of her April salary on the floor for her to pick up. It’s May 5.
A remote village. A crumbling two rooms house.She blows into the chulha, into the poverty and hunger she had once left behind.It’s June 15.

A chaiwallah who delivers!

This chaiwallah has served the best tea I have had over last twenty years.
Every journey at New Delhi railway station starts with a stop at his corner. A corner that somehow gives a semblance of peace and organization in this place, the Paharganj side entrance, that is otherwise a cacophony of loud noises and chaos.
If you can walk a few hundred meters while carrying your luggage, it is best to get down from the cab in front of the railway reservation center, the public urinals on the right – yes that’s it - about fifty meters before the traffic lights that greet you at gate #1 of the station. The short walk is anyways faster than the crawl of traffic and it allows a compulsive tea drinker like me a chance at the best cup Delhi has to offer.
He sits atop a stool, layered with cushions, with a large pot of tea brewing in front of him. The gas stove and the stool are placed over a large wooden bench, about two feet above the ground level. There are layers of bricks and tiles between the board and the stove. On his right is an even larger pot full of milk, the cover of the pot partially pushed back for easy access. Plastic jars containing sugar, tea leaves, and cardamom are on his left on the bench. A knife lies on a pile of ginger next to the jars.
He adjusts the flame as the tea rises to a boil, his face a picture of concentration. He grabs two large tea strainers, one placed atop the other, assembled like a double strainer, and stirs tea in a quick circular motion, stopping for a moment at the center of the pan and bringing the strainers out vertically with a trail of tea falling through the strainers as his arm reaches upwards. Then with an expert flick at the edge of the pan, with the strainers turned upside down, he deposits the contents of the strainer back in the pan into the boiling tea. He adjusts the flame again and starts the dance of the strainers again.
While he works on brewing that perfect work of art, the connoisseurs gather around. They extend their notes and coins towards him, mostly tens, and with his free left hand he places them in the box sitting between his legs, occasionally returning the change as required, and keep adding a disposable paper cup to the tray for each of the ten rupees. He stops collecting notes and coins once he has the tray full – about twenty cups.
When he is happy with what the boil of tea tells him, he reduces the flame to minimum and starts pouring. Almost in the sequence they deposited the money, the hands pick their cups and step back. The last drops from the pan fill the last of the cups in the tray.
The system works.
And before the last cup leaves the tray, he is busy pouring water into the pan and creating his art all over again.
I stand there watching him for a while. He does not speak much. He gives an instruction to a chotu every now and then, other than that he is focused on creating joyful of cups. Twenty or so at a time.
With my cup of joy in one hand, I walk across the road, competing with rickshaws, autos, cars, taxis, and keeping my luggage secure from the visible hands of coolies, who want me to hand my bag to them, and from the invisible hands, who want me to relieve me of the bags.They have scanning machines now at the entrance. No choice but to feed the bags to the x-ray machine. I walk through the body scanner, which has not worked forever, with my cup.
The train is on the platform. I walk in the direction of my compartment.
At the door I wait. There are a few sips of joy still left in the cup.

Dashboard of Stories

It started with the business card of Bada Seth, the day he lost a car, a crore and a company - I taped it to the dashboard not to lose it; bill from the lunch with Kristy Madam was more for bragging; and by the day Irani Babu's bahu delivered his second grandson in the backseat amidst the mayhem of Mumbai monsoon's traffic and the hospital parking attendant handed me the stub, it was a habit.

(a one line story, written July 19)

Change

Autumn is here - in the garden where we walked and in my heart.


(a one line story, written July 2019).

Honor Kills

"I killed him."

She was crying. He was crying. He hugged his mother, hiding his face deep in her embrace. She was in a shock herself to offer any further comfort to him.

Thoughts of last 24 hours’ events were like a storm in his head. It was a dark storm. No lightening. No thunder. Only clouds and dusty winds. The gentle touch of his mother, her fragrance in his breaths kept him from breaking apart in the storm. He wished he could be a little child in her arms, and she could hide him with her dupatta, shield him with her love, protect him with her care. But the loss was hers’ too. She was breaking apart as well. Maybe his presence in her embrace was a glue for her as well. Yet, the tears in her eyes and the pain in her cries was tearing at the seams of her soul. Her husband lay in front of her eyes.
Only yesterday afternoon Kulbir and his father were sitting here for lunch together.“Papa ji, I am going to Noor Mahal for the annual mela.”“Which kalakar is coming?”“Shinda Sardool.”“He is good. Take our Safari. But come back on time.” 
Santokh Singh took out a bunch of one hundred rupee notes from the side pocket of his kurta and pushed into Kulbir’s hands.
Santokh Singh, sarpanch of Deenpur village, had carried forward the family legacy. Yard by yard he had increased family’s land holdings, brick by brick built a grand kothi, hundred by hundred established a strong money lending business, and a kind act by a kind act built a strong reputation in the area. He and his family were now well to do, and well respected and having held his grandson in his hands last year well content with God’s kindness. He paid forward the kindness by going out of his way to help anyone and everyone in need.
His elder son Kulbir didn’t look after work with the kind of sincerity he had hoped for. But he was still young Santokh Singh thought. A few inches above six feet, muscular build, curled moustaches, neatly trimmed beard, smartly tied turban, blue-green eyes, fair skin, chiseled features, he was his eye’s cynosure. He ignored his son’s odd misadventure. But Kulbir’s drinking and more importantly the company he kept worried him.
Kulbir took the Safari and along with his group of friends headed to Noor Mahal. It was an hour’s drive from the village. Every summer Punjab witnesses hundreds of melas. Each village, each town, each city has a dargah of some peer, some saint, some guru. Each with their own respective legends. Each with their own powers to offer boons. And over time people have started celebrating a day every year at these dargahs. An annual Mela.
Now a days the highlight of each mela is the kalakar. Plans are made all year around, and collections arranged by volunteers to get the best possible kalakar jodi. Noor Mahal mela always attracts large crowds and Shinda Sardool is a famous kalakar.
Kulbir and his friends stopped at a theka on the way. He bought drinks and tandoori chicken for everyone. “Yaar Kulbir, are we going to Delhi next month?” Gora asked. “Haven’t spoken with Papa ji yet. But he won’t say no. We will get the money.” Kulbir was generous with his money and many in this group of friends took advantage of that. They had few rounds of drinks before they got on way again. By the time they reached the mela it was late afternoon. Opening acts – folk singers, religious singers, bhands and their comic acts were over. Shinda Sardool was at his second or third song.
“The female associate of Shinda has changed. At Mand Mela last year his wife accompanied him. Such beauty. Such body.” Harnek observed as they made their way through the crowd.
“With the way drunks crowd around singers at every mela Shinda did right to keep his wife away.” Debu laughed at the memory of his own acts a few weeks ago at the Shirki Shaw mela.
The group of friends went straight for front rows. They were regulars at all the melasin the area and the other regulars greeted them. Soon the race of throwing currency notes over the singing lady started. Kulbir always reached home with empty pockets after every mela. Drinking and dancing continued till the program ended.
A local friend invited them over to his house. They spent a few hours there and by the time they started back it was dark. Harnek was driving Safari now.
On the outskirts of Sultanpur Lodhi, a small sleepy town, about 8 kms from Deenpur, a migrant colony had come up on one side of the road. Raa community moved from town to town doing odd bits of work. The men folks worked as ironsmiths and tinsmiths. Women tended to their goats and chicken and did odd manual jobs.
“These Raa women are crafted like heroines,” Harnek said.“Such smooth skin, such neat figures, and always teasing. They are made for drinking. Our women pale in front of them.” Debu agreed.“Just yesterday I spoke with one. She was asking five hundred. Five hundred sali raa rand!” Debu added.“Are you sure? No matter what we say, I have heard Raa women don’t prostitute. She must have been someone else.” Gora stayed sober the longest in this group. He drank slowly but he drank the longest.“I know these rands. Don’t tell me otherwise. They all are. Just look at how deep their kurtis are and they never wear chunnis.” Debu protested violently.A girl stepped onto the road from the fields opposite to the colony. “I will prove it to you. You just stop the car now.” Debu shouted.He was out of the car in an instant and holding the girls arm shouted. “How much?” The girl panicked. “Maayi” her shout for help came out a whisper. Madness drove Debu. Others egged him on. “Kyun not agreeing to your offer?” Harnek teased. “He doesn’t know how to make an offer” Kulbir added. This infuriated Debu. He dragged the girl along, opened the rear door of Safari and pulled her inside. “Chalo.”
Kulbir woke up at the pump room in his fields. His father was there. He looked around. And bit by bit last night’s events came back.“Clean up at the pump. We need to get home. Your mother is worried.”“Where are the others and the…” he couldn’t bring himself to say ‘girl’.“Your uncle took the car. Others as well. Girl is back at the colony. There will be panchayat and police hearing this afternoon.”
There was no corner in his house that could offer him solace. He lay in his room. Door locked from inside. For years this feeling had haunted him that one day he will lead himself to an early and ugly death. He always pictured it be a painful death – killed in a fight with a knife slicing his face before finding his neck, an accidental fire from his pistol in his groins, crashing his car into a tree outside their home while no one was around, his Enfield slipping on a wet road and a truck running over his body. That he will not lead himself to death but to an absolute ruin was beyond his imagination. He lay in his bed and pictured the ruins around. His mother and wife were not able to look at his face. Once home, his father had not been able to say a word, not even a word of reproach in the hours since. And his children – they looked scared. They knew something had happened. And that something had taken their words away. Not a sound came from the ruins around him.
The hour of panchayat arrived. There was a knock on his door. Opening the door seemed the most difficult act of his life. He dragged himself, one heavy step followed by an even heavier one to the door. As the door swung open, he looked into his father’s eyes. And he saw the shame in those proud eyes. That last look will haunt him for the rest of his life. His father raised his hand and opened his mouth to say something. The words didn’t come. The hand went to his heart, clutched the shirt and skin around it, the mouth closed, face turned into a picture of agony and he collapsed to ground.
All hell broke loose. 

The house that was silent since morning broke into a horror of shrieks. His uncle came running from next door. He picked his brother and felt for his pulse. “Bring the car,” he shouted at his son who was running towards him.
Santokh Singh was dead before they could get him into the car.


(a short story, written July 2019)

Happy New Year

He shooed the dog away, but Sheru kept coming back. He made a mental note to get rid of Sheru for good. It was a chilly night. His footpath bed behind the nightclub barely kept him warm.
Three. Two. One. Happy New Year.
The loud cheers woke him up.
He pulled Sheru inside the blanket.
(a short story, written Jan 2020)

Working with women… men will still be men. Specially oilfield ones!

The first time I wrote about a female working with SLB, the article made it to INM Masala Pipeline. Lakshmi enjoyed a very short lived (one day type short!) celebrity status in Kakinada. The last time I wrote an article on women in SLB (this time for CAGazzette), it was vetoed down by the boss (although I still maintain that the article was harmless, mostly). And the women in SLB have presented me another chance (if I can shrug the laziness for a while and keep the words harmless). So, amid the rofo, pipeline, market share, CRM crashes and all sorts of target crises, here I go…
It was still my early days with SLB and the Kakinada base was still the kind where containers were offices when Satish Pai visited. As goes with any VIP visit a round table was called. When it was time for questions one of the ‘true’ oilfield men asked a question, which most present there failed to understand. The person who asked had few decades on rigs, the person to whom the question was asked had few decades with oilfield as well. They understood each other. ‘Why is SLB recruiting field personnel who have only one hand?’ was the question asked by the oilfield gentleman. Satish Pai smiled.
Early 2006 and it was my first SLB training and as the instructor walked into the classroom at ELC that morning his first comments were (with a lot of Latin American accent!) – ‘Great, no girls! Now I can teach you guys without having to watch my words!’ More than anything the rig hands, the oilfield men, fear watching their words. Women make them do so (not all but most oilfield women, some just join the other club!).
Two years after the first training at ELC, I walked into another classroom at SLB training school (at KTC this time) and that was an all boys class as well. With a difference. The instructor and tutor were both ladies. Synergies of gender diversity were beginning to show up. The tutor was from somewhere in Russian region and was as hot as her red Porsche! Thankfully she sat at the back of the class! (and we all could pay attention to what was happening in front).
During this training at KTC, one Friday evening we had our class event. The planning was done by our course instructor. We went and watched a baseball game (out of 6 students there were 3 Americans!), then dinner of pizzas while throwing balls at some gaming alley and the night ended with a trip to a ‘gentlemen’s club’! None of the male instructors had been this generous! At the club we stood in queue and presented our IDs to the security manager. As my turn came the security manager asked me to remove my scarf. No scarves allowed inside. Club rule! I tried reasoning with them, sir this is not a scarf, sir look at my passport photo, it comes with the same thing which by the way is a turban, sir we keep our heads covered, sir… sir… The fellow was strict like some rig safety officer, just won’t budge. Realising that I was to miss on the opportunity of one dollar lap dances and much more, heartbroken I readied myself to say good byes to the others. But our course instructor won’t give up as yet. She went to talk to the security guy and having understood the root cause (various gangs have scarves as their identifications, each with a different color and the clubs had seen gang violence, hence the rule) she came up with a solution. If I wore a baseball cap all the time I was inside the club, the security will be ok. Since I was wearing an under-turban, patka, baseball cap solution worked! So there I was, finally permitted to live my one dollar American dream. Thanks to a female in SLB. Now that is ‘how synergy is created in a gender diverse work force’!
We did few jobs in Gujarat in 2007. For first five odd jobs it was an all male crew. Since the land jobs are a better option to send trainees for field exposure, one of the jobs our FSM sent a female trainee with us. She helped a bit with the work, but more than that the rig crew helped a lot! When we returned for the next job one and all from the rig floor asked ‘didn’t she come?’ They remember SLB crew members names (when they are female crew members) and in the process they remember SLB. Brand recognition!  Synergies of a diverse workforce! There are a lot of advantages of a diverse (I mean gender diverse) workforce on a rig. Don’t believe me? Ask our current completions FSM if she wasn’t woken up in the middle of her sleep by the other SLB crew members (males!) for making a call to the crane operator to move some load!
Who says men don’t like gossip? We do! At least the kind which involves females. We don’t really care much about the male only gossip (at least in India!). And will there be any SLB/work gossip if there are no female colleagues? Only one gender workforce won’t give us scandals… and without scandals no gossip. Talk about synergies!
It may nigh be impossible for a male admin of any segment to get a car out of Rana (gender diversity I tell you… it works). If it was a male only workforce will SLB’s very own Amitabha Chatterjee write his novel? Where will we men find our muse while working in oilfield? And if we didn’t have the female mannequin at Mahape reception (dear Suraksha) won’t it be such a dreary place (no matter how hard Rajput ji tries to smile at the visitors!)? And the danger of a male only workforce might have been - no safety mannequin; or even worse a male mannequin!. Who would want a ‘Mr Surakshit’? Suraksha works better.
The client seminar is about to start. Hotel staff has arranged the conference hall very well and all looks good (to my eyes!). In walks Azra. ‘I asked for red roses to be placed on the tables’. The hotel staff runs around and lo behold, we have red roses on tables. Benefits… always benefits of gender diverse point of views.
Client engineers (at Baku) while signing my FTLs would go through every line, check every supporting document and ask all sorts of questions. Getting a ticket signed there was a rather time consuming affair. One month I had some other work and our admin went to get the tickets signed, I was worried about the answers to the questions. There were no questions! Tickets signed in minimal possible time!
We had few new recruits in the office over last few weeks under field exposure program. First came a male recruit. Our FSM was in a training the first few days of the week. We got his orientation done and then just let him be with some small work here and there. FSM wasn’t disturbed. Next week came a female recruit. Our FSM was sick on Monday. But within first few hour five guys called/texted her about the presence of a ‘good looking’ FE. Communication does improve with gender diversity.
A natural extension of gender diversity in an organisation like SLB is dual careers. Now here are some definite synergies (more so for individuals involved). It is time of a downturn in the activity. There will be some people who would find themselves without a job. Dual careers… very rarely in that list.
As part of Well Services team in Perth I found myself sitting in a female dominated team (guys were busy hammering iron in Karratha!). Ops manager, EIC, sales manager, two DESCs, admin and two female FEs. There were two or three of us males. That was a time when both n+1 and n+2 were females for me and you get reasonably good SLP3 ratings and comments I tell you. But that is not the synergy I found the best. There was an SPE dinner. There were free entry passes with the boss. These were couple only entry passes (may be because they had a dance floor!). And for once I did not struggle to find a date! One just need to look… tons of synergies friends!When we put on coveralls.. all is covered so to say. Male, female.. all is blue in SLB world. The physical activity, the long hours, the grease and grime, safety glasses, hard hats, gloves, boots the unforgivable oilfield work ethic may hide all the differences. But once the showers are done and hair let loose… the diversity does bring in new fragrances, such a blessing when surrounded by sweaty human beings (essentially sweaty men!).
We are professionals when we are at SLB. But even the professionals when washed clean of their work do prefer the presence of fairer sex. It may be a point of view… but if you think about it this point of view has a female in focus!  Professionals or not, oilfield or not, us men.. well we will be men.
Things have changed (and are moving in positive direction with every passing day) in terms of how most of oilfield men (especially real old hands) view ladies in covies at a rig floor. Listening to the question that day at Kakinada, Satish Pai smiled. And as only a person with sufficient wisdom for his position could answer, he did. I do not remember his words but the gist was – ‘There are women now in almost all kind of jobs and doing all these jobs as good as anyone. They are already in Oilfield and in SLB. We are just going to push and increase the numbers. The world, especially oilfield world, is changing in terms of gender diversity.’
Jokes apart, things have certainly changed in oilfield over last few decades as far as gender diversity is concerned. And how!
(written for a company magazine, edition dedicated to gender diversity in oilfield, March 2012, Mumbai)

Saadat Hasan Manto

Saadat Hasan Manto (1912-55) was the leading Urdu short-story writer of the twentieth century. He was born on 11 May 1912 at Samrala in Punjab's Ludhiana district. Educated at Aligarh, he worked for All India Radio during World War II and was a successful screenwriter in Bombaybefore moving to Pakistanafter partition. In a literary, journalistic, radio scripting and film-writing career spread over more than two decades, he produced around 250 stories, scores of plays and a large number of essays. He wrote over a dozen films, including Eight Days, Chal Chal Re Naujawan and Mirza Ghalib. The last one was shot after Manto moved to Pakistanin January 1948. During his controversial two-decade career, Manto published twenty-two collections of stories, seven collections of radio plays, three collections of essays, and a novel.MANTO is among the Urdu writers who have portrayed the horrors of Partition in a stark manner. His first story, Tamasha was, however, inspired by the massacre of Jallianwala Bagh. After that he wrote plays, radio talks and essays besides short stories. His portrayal of human failings touches the reader for its honesty and truthfulness.
Innumerable novels, short stories and poems have been written on the unbelievable violence that took place with the Partition of the country in 1947. More than a million innocent men, women and children: Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs were massacred in cold blood. From the literature produced on the subject, without doubt, the most powerful were the writings of Saadat Hasan Manto in Urdu. His one short story Toba Tek Singh describes the beginnings of the tragedy and the lunatic heights reached (Manto was for a while a patient in the Lahore mental asylum).
Saadat Hasan Manto is generally considered the greatest short story writer of the Urdu language, centered on the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent. Manto is known for being part of Urdu literature’s Progressive Writers Movement. Manto touched the hearts of many with his convincing and utterly original portrayal of human fallibility. He died several months short of his 43rd birthday in January 1955 in Lahore.