Saket Suryesh's Blog, page 18

The Making of Indian Intellectual and Intolerance Debate

“And today, with a computer, everybody is an intellectual. So I don’t think it has anything to do with someone’s profession or with someone’s social class. According to me, an intellectual is anyone who is creatively producing new knowledge. A peasant who understands that a new kind of graft can produce a new species of apples has at that moment produced an intellectual activity. Whereas the professor of philosophy who all his life repeats the same lecture on Heidegger doesn’t amount to an intellectual. Critical creativity—criticizing what we are doing or inventing better ways of doing it—is the only mark of the intellectual function .”- Umberto Eco
There is much debate on intellectuals today in India. Many of them are troubled by what they call as shrinking space of dissent. The fact remains that while in the earlier days they were relegated to the unimportant pages of local newspapers, now they are celebrity in Television news where they rant about ‘Good, old days’ and curse the government of the day at the top of their voice, and they complain in a shrill, although articulate voice, exquisite words, even though at times repetitive. Sagarika Ghose, high-priestess of faux-secularism, recently wrote a blog on ToI (Target: Intellectuals—Governments that target intellectuals aredemonstrating the weakness of their own argument ), in the title of which she used the term Intellectual twice.
In the body of the blog, she attacks Ms. Meenakshi Lekhi and Ms. Kirron Kher, two of the BJP Parliamentarians for blaming intellectuals for selective outrage. The fiery women parliamentarians, successfully pointed out to the political design of the protests by the intellectuals as the all the façade of award returning promptly died out, with the closure of Bihar election. My quarrel is not that. My quarrel is how Ms. Ghose safely assumes that those articulate one’s opposing the government are intellectuals and those who are supporting are not. By that logic, neither Ms. Lekhi, nor Ms. Kher, nor Mr. MJ Akbar qualify to be an intellectual being on the right to the center of the ideology, even when he is a noted thinker and writer of global repute. The way things stand now, if you are a thinker and your logic supports the government, you cannot be an intellectual. This set me in search of who qualifies to be an intellectual. I needed to search for the same as for some myriad reason, Ms. Ghose and Mr. Guha (Ramchandra Guha, noted Historian) considers the government which stifled the press during emergency, which is responsible for banning 30 out of the 31 books banned in India, which came out with 66A to ban internet dissent, and Press reforms to regulate media, was a custodian of liberty and intellectuals, and believes that the current one targets the intellectuals who are abusing, cursing the government from all avenues, be it television channels, be it foreign newspapers, with impunity. Who are those intellectuals who the government holds animus towards and who qualifies to be termed as intellectuals that are currently aggrieved? Why the people who are on the digital media or social networking sites and who do not believe that these intellectuals are actually aggrieved, on factual premise, are termed, in derogatory sense, even if they are as articulate, as experienced of the real world and real-politic as the journalists and historians. Why do they not qualify as intellectuals?
Sagarika Ghose in the blog where she blames the current government of attacking the intellectuals and begins the post by obliquely compares a democratically elected government, which awkwardly tries to firefights a cleverly crafted campaign on ‘intolerance’ so weak on facts that if it were to be left hanging, it would collapse under its own weight, with Nazis, Stalinist Russia and even Khmer Rouge. She in some way sides with ‘Intellectuals’ as one of them. She is of course, from enviable educational background, with education in History. But do all history graduates quality as intellectuals?
She doesn’t begin her article by facts, but by conclusion, and then proceed to facts. This is an erroneous way of propositioning the point of view. However, there is a logic to it. In today’s environment of information avalanches flooding our days, it a smart technique. A lazy, or hurried reader, doesn’t sift the article through for substantiation. Any marketer will tell you, this is the way to leave the words, even if unsubstantiated, lingering in your mind. A quick reader remembers the beginning of the article. Umberto Eco says that repetition of what others have said before is not intellectual exercise. Sagarika quotes Ramchandra Guha (again a historian, not a sociologist, or social scientist) that this is the most anti-intellectual government India has ever seen. It is odd for a historian to have forgotten blank newspapers during emergency and people being jailed absurdly, or a tweet alluding to corruption of a congressman resulting in a common man from Chennai being jailed under 66A brought in by Congress. As per Ramchandra Guha, this government exceeds the intolerance of those governments. She quickly accepts P Chidambaram’s apology for banning Satanic Verses, which was more as acceptance of mistake, which came after 27 years, only after they lost the power. Then she proceeds to put the responsibility of protecting Rushdie on current government, not that Rushdie has expressed any worries, nor there is any news of ‘Hindu’ hoodlums threatening the noted author. She very swiftly leaves the argument in between, not calling for un-banning of the Rushdie book since she knows that it would outrage those hoodlums who aren’t so awkward in their retort.
It appears that what we consider as intellectuals in today’s Indian context is not the intellectual which fits Umberto Eco’s definition, rather he is the one who has good English, who had the privilege of elite education, and who, above all, has access to the traditional media in terms of using it as a platform for any idea he might have, without having the necessity to substantiate it. More outrageous the idea, the better it is, for it results more sales. That could probably explain why Sagarika Ghose could narrate even Chennai flood victims with reference to their religion. She expresses her concerns on Wendy Doniger’s security if and ever she wanted to visit India, however, not for once refers to the plight of Tasleema Nusreen. She is very careful about the people she feels outraged about and in turn, want to outrage.
Historian Ramchandra Guha, holding a long grudge against Modi and RSS, on his part wrote his latest in Indian Express on 10th of December, 2015 (Dr. Ramchandra Guha's Article on Mohan Bhagwat's statement on Dr. Ambedkar) The object of article is to oppose what he calls appropriation of legacy of maker of Indian constitution, Dr. B R Ambedkar. He seems to be comfortable with Congress appropriating the legacy of Dr. Ambedkar, while recently we found a dalit leader, holding slippers to the young congress scion. As a historian, he quotes from the past where RSS had opposed Dr. Ambedkar bitterly. He however, ignores the advice of a disenchanted Dr. Ambedkar to Dalits to be wary of Congress. An intellectual speaks from a high pulpit, and must not misuse the vantage point he has. Some may dig deep to find Dr. Ambedkar’s unhappy relation with the Congress for instance, Article 370, which he was totally against, but which most intellectuals will safely ignore. His discomfort with his own role as congressman is understandable given that any thinking man (intellectual) would find difficulty with any organization demanding complete subordination to the collective. Dr. Guha in his article quotes, behold, himself to substantiate his point that RSS before independence opposed Dr. Ambedkar. While that is quite a weak substantiation, it glosses over the fact, that it speaks much about the strength of an idea that today RSS endorses Ambedkar. So while RSS decides to reinvent itself, Mr. Guha rather would want to stay stuck in its historical prejudices. He wants RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat if he wants to take a view of Dr. Ambedkar different from RSS founders to denounce the founders of RSS. By the same logic, would he want the current day congress to denounce Mrs. Indira Gandhi when they regret emergency, or Rajiv Gandhi as they apologize for 1984? Why would an intellectual like Mr. Guha want the history to decide the future? Didn’t Umberto Eco say that intellectual must be creative and thereby welcome new changes?
I have delved inadvertently into getting into wrong side of people with established credential, unfortunately driven by, what I call a bad mix of brinkmanship and political leaning of a mugwump. There are others like Pankaj Mishra who wrote brilliant books writing articles in foreign journals saying people were being killed in India for their faith, their opinion, without any substantiation. A man killed by goons is their fig leaf of fact, around which the whole propaganda is woven, notwithstanding that that one man’s kin get at least four time the standard compensation by the state, which failed to protect him (not the central government which these writers so hate that some wanted to walk naked in the eventuality of this political party coming to power, before election). I come back to what I began with and why I cannot consider a historian, a journalist or a painter as an intellectual, just as I would not consider an electrical engineer as one. I do not have anything against intellectual. I am for sure not bitter as Jean Paul Sartre who said “ The intellectual is someone who meddles in what does not concern him. ” Naom Chomsky expanded it further, mincing no words, as he wrote, “ The intellectuals are specialists in defamation, they are basically political commissars, and they are ideological administrators, the most threatened by dissent.” (Qualifier- Neither myself nor Mr. Chomsky have affiliation to BJP or RSS). Paul Johnson wrote “ The desire to impose them (their ideas) on others that is the deadly sin of the intellectuals ”, something we saw during Bangalore LitFest. They will talk about poor and poverty in the safe confines of their luxurious existence. Nietzsche is even more scathing, when he write, with which I end this post, and as always most profound as he writes about those who proclaim themselves as intellectuals, and driven by their interest and lethargy to pursue the hard truth (some, I believe began as true seeker of truth but turned lazy later) gang up to muzzle the simplistic voices. He writes
When I lay asleep, then did a sheep eat at the ivy-wreath on my head,—it ate, and said thereby: "Zarathustra is no longer a scholar."
It said this, and went away clumsily and proudly...
A scholar am I still to the children, and also to the thistles and red poppies. Innocent are they, even in their wickedness.
But to the sheep I am no longer a scholar: so willeth my lot-blessings upon it!

For this is the truth: I have departed from the house of the scholars, and the door have I also slammed behind me.

Too long did my soul sit hungry at their table: not like them have I got the knack of investigating, as the knack of nut-cracking.
Freedom do I love, and the air over fresh soil; rather would I sleep on ox-skins than on their honours and dignities.

I am too hot and scorched with mine own thought: often is it ready to take away my breath. Then have I to go into the open air, and away from all dusty rooms.

But they sit cool in the cool shade: they want in everything to be merely spectators, and they avoid sitting where the sun burneth on the steps.

Like those who stand in the street and gape at the passers-by: thus do they also wait, and gape at the thoughts which others have thought. .......... .........


When they give themselves out as wise, then do their petty sayings and truths chill me: in their wisdom there is often an odour as if it came from the swamp; and verily, I have even heard the frog croak in it!
Clever are they—they have dexterous fingers: what doth my simplicity pretend to beside their multiplicity! All threading and knitting and weaving do their fingers understand: thus do they make the hose of the spirit!
(My apologies for too long a post. During the writing of this, I thought about why we have most of the intellectuals in left, and lesser in the Right? that will be my next post)

Pray for Paris

“We live in a superficial, media-driven culture that often seems uncomfortable with true depths of feelings. It seems as if our culture has become increasingly intolerant of acute sorrow, that intense mental anguish and deep remorse which may be defined as grief. We want to meditate such sorrows away.” – Edward Hirsch.
Friday, 13thof November, 2015, a sad, severe attack in Paris, at Bataclan concert hall and State Stadium claimed promptly by ISIS caused the death of 129 people and many more injured. As the details emerged, the gruesomeness of the attack became known about how armed gunmen fired at innocent victims, young and old, without discretion. The parallels to 26/11 in Mumbai are uncanny, which left 260 dead. The perfunctory sadness shifted quickly to justifications, with something as silly as Hijab ban by noted Indian jurist and a journalist linking it to US action in Iraq. While both could be reason, they cannot be justification.
We quickly moved into the phase where Edward Hirschmentioned – we want to meditate such sorrows away. This is sad. Worse than the contention why we in India should worry about it, which is exactly what west said when attacks happened in India. We cannot be parochial about loss of human lives, loss of human values and about human grief. The Guardian feared that this will give impetus to far right in French politics. The fact that from where The Guardian views the world, any position is Far Right, is immaterial. Sadder than the urgency with which we move to analyze the political or economic fall-out of the huge loss of human life.
It is criminal to consider Paris as any other city. It could be my hidden writer which thinks of Paris this way. Paris is a city of aspiration, of hope, of soul. Paris doesn’t inhabit the lesser world infected with its religious divisions and political astuteness. Paris has never followed the common wisdom and has therefore, not only been able to give us the legal system, but also the concept of Secularism. Paris in its outlook and fervor, escapes its political leadership, its spirit soars above the national polity. It levitates over the world in its own stratosphere of free and refined spirit. I have never been to Paris. I am also not a Geo-political expert. Someone threw it at me on Twitter, who himself is a software developer. I loved Paris from what I read about Napoleon, the rise and fall of French revolution, the birth of secularism and the writing school of Ernest Hemingway. It is, as the title of Hemingway’s Paris memoirs suggest, A Moveable Feast, a celebration which travels with you, wherever you go. This is the city where he wrote his truest sentences.
It is not a moment to indulge in seeking comeuppance or an oft-quoted term-Whataboutery, an attempt to contextualize the sad event. It is however not a time to laugh at, reason or reconcile with such buffoonery. It is this city which led the separation of church and state, which celebrated independent thoughts, individual dreams, and independent humane spirit of art, music, literature and all that is fine about human existence. It represents an idea, a spirit. Actor playing Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius says in the Ridley Scott Movie Gladiator: There was a dream that was Rome. I can only whisper of it now. Anything more than a whisper and the dream vanishes. It's so... fragile. The true glory of Rome is in a very fragile idea. Imagine a place devoted to the rights of the citizen. Where every free man has a voice. That was the dream... And I fear it will not survive the winter. Let's just whisper here, you and I.
I could also quote the same at this moment for Paris. Let us Pray for Paris, and let’s just whisper here, you and I. I am not expert, I have not even been to Paris, but I love the Idea that Paris represents. I stand with Paris as we cannot let that idea be cowed down to political mechanizations and the brute fanaticism. Ernest Hemingway wrote about Paris in The Moveable Feast , which I will share  in conclusion as it makes me imagine the great city under attack which I have never seen, and it gives me hope for the future. He writes,
“With so many trees in the city, you could see the spring coming each day until a night of warm wind would bring it suddenly in one morning. Sometimes the heavy cold rains would beat it back so that it would seem that it would never come and that you were losing a season of your life. This was the only truly sad time in Paris because it was unnatural. You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry night. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen….In those days, though, the spring always came finally; but it was frightening that it had nearly failed.” 

The Power of Prose - My Choice of Quotes from Classics.

Literature helps us interpret and understand life. It helps us tolerate the aspects of life which escapes our understanding. There are words which refuse to be fossilized. There are timeless words which breathes even when buried under the dark layers of earth. That’s what we call classic, which in terms of relevance and wisdom stays untouched, unmoved, unblemished by the cruel winds of time. You sit down with them, slowly move the dust on the surface and a shining, tranquil, splendid emerald appears like a crystal ball holding all the answers to the myriad questions life throws at you. Today, we often do not have time and patience to read these classics unless you are a writer trying to learn the craft or a rare reader of refined interest. Accepted, it isn’t easy love to live with, for these words need much more than fleeting flirtation to spell out their meaning to you.
They need deep dedication, a profound passion and as Nietzsche would say, “one has to be willing to wash his feet and hands before sitting down to read such words.” They are glorious, majestic yet shy words. They need a lot of cajoling to open up, quite like the serious men who wrote them. They are playful as a child once they open and reassure us about life even in their sadness. These words are too shy, too proud, too taciturn to come knocking over your shoulders. They will sit in quiet dignity on your bookshelves waiting for you to pick them up. But when you are overwhelmed by life, they will leap towards you like a gasp of quick wind and grant you a rare breath of life. They come in many forms- floating between sparse, straight sentences on one side and vivacious, voluptuous words on the other, with masters like Hemingway one side and Joseph Conrad on the other end, sitting watchful, ancient as majestic knights
Still, we mustn’t lose out to the majestic words from the classics which have wings to help our souls soar above the squalor of daily lives like an eagle. Even when they dive deep into dark abysses, trust me, it is merely to gain a trajectory to scale higher. Recently I had read a lovely collection of quotes from some great books on Social media which made my day, as it did for many others. It was a glorious collection, but there were some misses which I felt could be added. I am hereby supplementing it from my own readings and it will lighten up someone’s day.
 
 
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: I heard a light sigh, and then my heart stood still, stopped dead short by an exulting and terrible cry, by the cry of inconceivable triumph and of unspeakable pain. ‘I knew it – I was sure!... She knew. She was sure. I heard her weeping; she had hidden her face in her hands. It seemed to me that the house would collapse before I could escape, that the heavens would fall upon my head. But nothing happened. The heavens do not fall for such trifle. Would they have fallen, I wonder, if I had rendered Kurtz that justice which was his Due? Hadn’t he said he wanted only justice? But I couldn’t. I could not tell her. It would have been too dark altogether.
The Ghost Writer by Philip Roth: We work in the dark-we do what we can-we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our art. The rest is the madness of Art.
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak: Where was Rudy’s comfort? Who was there to soothe him when life’s rug was snatched from under his sleeping feet? There was only me. And I am not too great at that sort of comforting thing, especially when my hands are cold and the bed is warm…I saw him hip-deep in some icy water chasing a book, and I saw a boy lying in the bed, imagining how a kiss would taste from his glorious next-door neighbor. He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It’s his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry.
"There was an itchy lung for a last cigarette, and an immense magnetic pull towards the basement, for the girl who was his daughter and was writing a book down there that he hoped to read one day.
Liesel. His soul whispered it as I carried him.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: Self-abandoned, relaxed, and effortless, I seemed to have laid me down in the dried up bed of a great river; I heard a flood loosened in remote mountains, and felt the torrent come: to rise I had no will, to flee I had no strength. I lay faint, longing to be dead.
Death in Venice by Thomas Mann : Nothing gladdens a writer more than a thought that can become pure feeling and a feeling that can become pure thought. Just such a pulsating thought, just such a precise feeling was then in the possession and service of the solitary traveler: nature trembles with bliss when the mind bows in homage to beauty. He suddenly desired to write.
Love in The Time of Cholera by Marquez: Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.
The Summing Up by Somerset Maugham: God is not so reasonable. He craves so urgently to be believed in that you might think He needed your belief in order to reassure himself of his own existence. …I cannot believe in a God who has neither humor nor common sense.
The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald: It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again.
Her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened-then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch our arms farther..And one fine morning- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
The Beautiful and The Damned by Scott Fitzgerald: Close together on the porch they would wait for the moon to stream across the silver acres of farmland, jump a thick wood and tumble waves of radiance at their feet.
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury: Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die….It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched you into something that’s like you after you take your hands away.
Orlando by Virginia Wolfe: The sky is like the veils which a thousand Madonnas have let fall from their hair; and the grass fleets and darkens like a flight of girls fleeing the embraces of hairy satyrs from enchanted woods.
The man looks at the world full in face, as if it were made for his uses and fashioned to his liking. The woman takes a sidelong glance at it, full of subtlety, even of suspicion.
The Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway: You belong to me and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil.
When the cold rain kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person has died for no reason.
Notes from The Underground by Dostoevsky: She did not want me to go away without knowing that she, too, was honestly and genuinely loved; that she, too, was addressed respectfully.
I do not respect myself. Can a man of perception respect himself at all?
The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky: Those innocent eyes slit my soul up like a razor.
Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky: Pain and Suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart.
The Insulted and the Humiliated by Dostoevsky: She shed no tears, did not answer my questions, and quivered like a leaf on a tree when she heard Alyosha’s ringing voice; she glowed like a sunset and flew to meet him;
I often weep perhaps. I’m not ashamed to own it, just as I’m not ashamed to own that I once loved my child more than anything on earth.
As it got darker my room seemed to grow larger and larger as though walls were retreating.
I miss out here some lovely prose which comes to my mind like The Razor's Edge of Maugham, Lord Jim of Joseph Conrad and some more, from contemporary literature, but maybe next time. Feel free to share your own favorites.

The Writer as Conscience Keeper

Art without purpose is nothing but debauchery. Every piece of good literature should serve one of the two purpose- soothe the senses, clarify the social questions. As of now, in India, we consider writer returning the awards to a government which they do not like as a sign of something of an act of bravery. The fact remains that anything can only be returned to the one who has given it in the first place, the Akademy was constituted as autonomous body, probably has missed out the notice of eminent writers. Also if intent was to embarrass a government, they also missed out on the right target, which should be the government which failed in protecting the citizen, the government which holds law and order responsibility. 
But then author as conscience keeper of the society is misuse of the authority a writer has over words. Since I,as a writer, have a right over print space, I declare that I am an enlightened being, more sensitive, more rebellious than ordinary mortals. 
Writing doesn't make you conscience keeper of the nation, it sometimes merely makes you opinion builder, a suave peddler of prejudices. What makes you a true social light is whether you have the guts to fight war like Hemingway, to bleed like Fitzgerald, to challenge like Dinkar, to laugh at hypocrisy like Harishankar Parsai, to build your house on slopes of Vesuvius like Nietzsche. A writer or an artist should have the courage to fight against the forces which are impossible to fight. It is almost homeopathic protest, without risk of side effects which authors are undertaking. Why protest state for murders neither perpetrated by, nor condoned by the state? If the malaise is with society, why not fight it there? Why not do a protest with less press and more potency? Just read 'Submission' by Michel Houellebecq last week. Courage is what stands out, just as the word Negros used in The Great Gatsby, the writer uses the word Muslims. He doesn't hide the word, isn't scared of penning his fears. He treads the lines where the individual touches the society, and does it adroitly without apology. It is book deserving full review which I'll do next week. In the meantime, we should ponder, if we have people who live as fully and as deeply to be entitled to not only write about it rather to self claim the right over lives and thoughts of those who can't write well. Do we as writer have courage to live, which is the only thing that entitles us to write and take position.  

Holy Cow!! Indian Media and the Reporting of Riots

A man walks into metro station, shoot himself. The story is a footnote on some inside pages of the newspaper. Even if someone reads it, it is security lapse which stands out. The dead doesn’t evoke attention, let alone sympathy. Without personalization, it is a lame news.
I am not a journalist. I am not even a student of journalism in proper sense. If I go by the wise words by Anne Lamott, and analyze the reports, the intent and interest of the journalist stands open for scrutiny. A murder in Dadri, sad as it is, outcome of rumor or fact, is reported way differently from the way, the gory murder of a reporter in same state or killing of a soldier in same state is reported. Annie Lamott tells us that we need to be presented with the actors in a story with human perspective, that what they were as human beings, beyond a statistics or a name.
We know the man murdered in Dadri was doing errands for the village, a soft-spoken man, who, with hard work did well to place his kids in life. One of his Sons is in the Airforce, an important point. For instance, with OROP and multitude of voices supporting soldiers on Social media, story gains interest with some soldiering brought into picture. Therefore, an unfortunate car accident is a prime time story, operative word being the victim as a war veteran. Rhetoric rise so high in the skies that the truth is barely visible. A perfect piece of journalism, and there is no dispute with it, except that the same perfect journalism is so selective that it seems biased. Why nobody wrote that Tuktuki woke up every morning, dreading her walk to the school through the roads, full of potholes in the middle of monsoons? That would have helped readers, miles away, look her as a little child that she is and empathize with her, worry about her.
What do we know about the soldier who was killed in Meerut? How many kins he had? What occupation his father pursued? Which school he studied from, under what conditions? So a serving soldier is reduced to mere crime statistics. One is always tempted to compete on numbers, 300 dead in Mumbai vs. 12 in Malegaon, which is an erroneous argument. The value of a human life is much beyond the statistical number it adds to. So I take the soldier from Meerut and put him here as contrast.
I don’t question the findings. I question the positions powerful people take. Politicians have their motives, whether it’s the one who makes televised visit to the place, claims the man was killed because of his religion, a trouble which one could totally have avoided if police has given 12 minutes to his infamous brother. He doesn’t even pretend to be bothered about loss of human life unless it belongs to his religion. That is the reason, he wasn’t there in Meerut or Kolkata to stand by a little girl, but he is there at Dadri, hailed as a great Muslim voice.
My trouble is with journalists, the opinion makers. The way debates are done, Op-eds are written indicates that either journalists are not having enough time to take what can be termed as considered view or are lazy to do the study to take an objective position. I will put forth some points in the backdrop of the current case.
There was no mass Hindu uprising, violent or otherwise urging people to rise and kill beef-eaters. There was no religious sanction from some Hindu high priest for the killing, not even from low priest like the Maulvi offering bounty on the head of Danish Cartoonist. Rowdy elements got together to kill the poor man. They are the same anti socials who would laugh at a Pandit and his dhoti and given a chance, would steam and smuggle old temple idols for profit. I don’t go with the investigative culture minister, who speaks with authority, and claims that there was no planning for the murder. Well, Mr. Minister, the man could not have accidentally come in the way of blows by the rowdies, and killed himself. No Sir, the man could not have been so dumb, in spite of being a Muslim. The minister has no business on commenting on the legalities of the case. His job is to ensure independent probe and offer comfort to the grieving family which is in pain (well, actually it is Home minister's job, though comforting the aggrieved family could be his job as MP of the area). The media projects this as if it has something to do with the religion, although they denounce the very idea, almost as an after-thought, towards the end of the program. Religion is a very dangerous device in the hands of unsteady minds. It takes a mind well-steeped in logic to dabble into religions without endangering the civilization. Let us not use religion so lightly.  Political mud-slinging is disgusting. BJP stands up as a defender of Hindus and Owaisi jumps in a defender of faith. The awkward efforts are on to somehow implicate the prime minister of the day. People demand comments from the PM. Sad as it might be, it is death of one person, of whatever religion, and PM has to comment on it. Well, expectation is not entirely unfounded when the PM is tweeting birthday wishes. But the game is not about the expectation, game is deeper and devilish. When law and order is state subject, why bring in the center and leave the state smiling obnoxiously, with its long nose upturned in derision at the disgust of the common people. In debates, media almost seem siding with the state government- the prime culprit in cornering the center. AAP, of course has jumped into it. Commenting on every national and international affairs has suddenly become important thing for this CM of a glorified municipality of Delhi, odd that the same man evaded questions on national and foreign policy when he was a candidate for national elections. Now, he is suddenly much aware of everything and of all the CMs of India, you can count on him to comment on anything where the PM is even fleetingly implied as implicated. That enhances and uplifts Kejriwal's stature and equals him with the PM as an opponent.  If all fails, attempts made to somehow link killing to Beef-ban and thereby implicate the center. Well, as much as BJP might want to take credit of (which actually they ought not), Beef ban is already there in all states but for five, BJP or no BJP. It was not enforced in UP post the formation of new government at the center. Even in J&K , Beef ban has been there since long, since the times of Dogra rulers. Media ought to introspect when they project Beef ban as a litmus test for democracy. Since when the killing of a mute animal become the sign of freedom of expression. Being insensitive to the plight of animals being slaughtered to serve the slavery of the tongue is the vortex of confused idealism. Same people who cry hoarse daring hindutva-brigade claiming to have eaten beef, go about and feed stray dogs in public places, feeling angelic as if white wings had suddenly grown around their beautiful shoulders. Do we want to say that since BJP government came, and since they imposed beef-ban, these loonies became protector of law, the village Batmans without appropriate dress and the car and went to kill people who had anything to do with beef? There is stringent anti-drugs law, when did we hear of someone killing a drug dealer in Punjab. Actions of criminals cannot define the actions of a state.
I would only submit that we as readers must not be carried away. Newspapers trade in tragedies. We find survival in hope as individuals. Therefore hope we must. And when the dailies tell us we are all doomed, let us take it with a pinch of salt and if they insist, noisily, throw your hands up in despair, exhale and whisper, “Holy cow” and walk away. That is important for our sanity as an individual and as a society. Religion is too deep and too sacred to be made the subject of primetime debate and to be left in the hands of ill-educated fanatics.

Some Unanswered Questions of Aylan Kurdi

Picture: Reuters “Where was Rudy’s Comfort? Who was there to soothe him as life’s rug was snatched from under his sleeping feet?...He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It is his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cries.” – (Markus Zusak “The Book Thief”)
Here is Death, as the Narrator speaking about the death of fourteen year old, Rudy Steiner. Some souls weigh heavy even on death’s conscience. A dying child’s soul is like that.
In a world of 24 hours news and the information oscillating between insensitive and insane, some pictures hang about on our collective conscience. The hang like gray clouds hovering over our minds, tormenting our hearts, haunting our souls. The Book Thief (above) was written about the World War II. We would want to believe that the world has move far ahead in this time. Some events pull us up from our obnoxious slumber, wrench our heart and hits our head with hammer heavy enough to crush into powder the whole behemoth of mankind.  These pictures, these events tell us that we haven’t progressed, a primitive, feral, unwavering funeral pyre keeps burning in the middle of the Earth which threatens to engulf us.
What does a three-year dreams about? I always wonder about it. I used to ask my daughter when she was three year old. She would always tell me that she dreamt about Pink Giraffe who came to play with her in dreams. Same dream, same Giraffe, morning after morning, sometimes additional characters like a blue elephant or a yellow rabbit. A three-year old’s dreams are full of colors and imaginations and ah..hope.
When I first looked at the now-viral picture of Aylan Kurdi, on the beach, in his red Tees and blue jeans, I was hit by this thought- What would little Aylan be dreaming a day before, or the day before that? Did he also dream of Pink Giraffes like any other three years old?
He rests there, his face downwards on the sand, his head turned sideways as if he has put his ears to the ground. It seem as if he had heard the heavy steps of death walking to him, as the sea had sung him a lullaby  in whispers which he has strained his ears to listen to and put him to an eternal. Some people indicate that why people did not raise, the world did not rise in anger when kids were killed in India or other places. Some gloat about the absurdity of the claim about the religion of peace, a veneer which peels off every day.
I find the sadness too profound, a grief too sacred in that picture. It is a child, who like any other kid of three would have dreamt of Pink Giraffe, would have trusted his adults to offer him a world in which to nourish his hopes. We have failed him. Our religion has failed him. Our politics has failed him. He would have looked up and watched all those older adults, hoping they would protect him, they would offer him a world which will have space for him. The adults in the meantime went about bombing Palmyra.  
Death is not a competitive plank. A child’s death definitely not. It is not a political argument. I cannot stop grieving for a dead child of your religion since you did not grieve mine. We cannot be by-standers any more. It has gone beyond drama-driven media- focused, assassinations and bombing of the cultural heritage. The quest for oil, imaginary WMDs, crusade for democracy, balancing the global balance and a pre-delivery of Nobel prize is beside the point, as is pretense of non-alignment which served no one in the past and fools no one in the present. These are all big questions for big intellectuals to ponder upon. My limited point is to find answer to the little child in front of whose face buried in the beaches, we stand naked, failed global society. We may debate endlessly in the rights to practice religion freely and about the exact point of violence when religion ceases to become religion and stops speaking to God, of whatever faith He might belong. In the middle of all those intellectual debate, the death of Aiylan Kurdi tells us that we are back in those primitive days, unfortunately, now we have not only fire with us, we also have guns, mortars and the nuclear weapons.  

The 3 year old dead child, hears the waves, the cruel, heartless waves hitting their heads on the heartless shores of Turkey as the world calculates the cost of waging a full-blown war against the face of an ancient feral fury rising in middle-east using the weapons left with them ostensibly to save the world and promote democracy, and amid all this chaos, in face of callous silence asks the question- Where did all the Pink Giraffe go? Why these grown up people did not save them? What is with those black flags and white faces? What are they shouting hoarse about? Why the water doesn’t keep me afloat? Why the water gets into my eyes and ears and nose? Why my father doesn’t pull me out? He always did when I would dip myself in the bathing tub. Where are these waves taking me? Which shores? Do they have fanatics on that shore like the ones we are running away from? Why did Papa allow these fanatics grow so strong in his country? Is it God's will? Why God hates Pink Giraffes and Blue elephants? What kind of God it is?
His voice dissolves in the salty waters but the questions of a dying child hang like noose around the collective conscience of global intellect. I feel ashamed in front of you, Aylan Kurdi, ashamed of the world that I had to offer you. I feel ashamed that we, as a world, left the hand of your father who desperately tried to hold you into it, who you trusted to protect your dreams. I wade through the hollowness of the terms like global leaders, most powerful nations- grand sounding hollow words, which could not afford to protect your life and others like you. I have no answer for complex economic cost of supporting a refugee (nor do I know the expense of creating a refugee), the biggest question which I am helplessly horrified about not having answer for is the question death posed in the novel I began this post with- who was there to soothe him when life's rug was pulled from under his drowning feet?  I am sorry for not having enough land to rest your little feet.

Metro On A Morning

Getty ImagesSteel Capsule
Like a bullet
In search of some heart,
some flesh to 
inflict a magnificent wound.

Carrying in its womb
Captives of the cubicles.
Tall, Grotesque buildings
Silent, watchful and unfeeling,
Like gestapos,
Unsmiling, glassy faces, 
Cold and Smooth, on which
Humanity cannot find feet
ever. 

We walk, fellow passengers,
Like prisoners of our chosen fate.
We don't look at one another
when we do, accidentally
we don't smile,
pretending to be 
the part of metallic enclosure
which holds us. 

The station,
a solemn, bored voice 
speaks at us,
like a curse thrown in our direction,
Phase III Metro Station,
and we take out our beings

A husband, a wife,
a father, a mother,
we take our being in our sweaty palms
sweat, threatening to melt away
the lines of destiny
ready to barter it 
for a number, a card
which is our identity.

Another day of 
captivity to our cubicles awaits,
A remorseless day,
explodes with rare reticence, 
no word, no voices,
keyboard clicks,
and the pawns and kings
Dance,
To the depressing 
rhythm of Drudgery.

Each king is a pawn 
and each Pawn a king
At one level
and Another.
The Nimble noises
of people talking on phone,
Assuring urgent arrivals
and urgent surrender of self,
The rumbling of train
splicing through the soul.

(c) Saket Suryesh, 2015

Patriotism on Social Media- Independence Day Thoughts

Patriotism is the flavor of the day. Social media is fun place- an amazing place to be a patriot. The time found between visits to Cafe Coffee Day and a well-stocked fridge with supply of beer on a dry day, a strong, eloquent vocabulary makes a good post on Independence Day. 

The ease of endorsement has made everything much commonplace as well. Many times I post a blog and in a split-second, I get a favorite. It is obvious that the post has not been read. I do not mind it much. It expands the reach of the post. Getting followers on a platform like Twitter is some kind of crazy algorithm and we have experts called SEO experts and Social Media Experts who understand that. But for a person to begin believing himself, or herself beyond what one is really stupid. 
There is a Twitter celebrity, who at first tweet of opposition, retorts with 'Moron'. His arguments begins and ends with the word. Insult is his chosen form of debate and his followers bend down in musical symphony, awed by the tantrums of the enfant terrible. We are moving swiftly into a society which has neither the patience nor the maturity to enter into a deliberation or a debate. 
Then there are others who are enamored by patriotism as they know it. Patriotism to them is people fighting war at the borders, the blood flowing, men wreathing under pain, brave men, men like God, men beyond other lesser mortals. There eloquence, their love for uniformed soldier is much like Raina Petkoff's search for Sergius Saranoff, when what we truly have are soldiers like Captain Bluntschuli of "Arms and The Man" of George Barnard Shaw. I trust, that book must be made a mandatory reading for the young men and women. Sergius Saranoff is a lofty imaginary soldier, flawed at heart, Captt. Bluntschli is the representative of real men who man the army, irrespective of the flags they fight for. 
The deification of the soldier is the biggest disservice we do to the soldiers. We look at them as toys to please our idea of patriotism. They are not. They are men and women like us. They have similar glories and similar failings wrapped into their personas. They are ordinary people tasked with extraordinary responsibilities. It is flawed to believe otherwise. This flawed imagination of a soldier as a solitary warrior, who welcomes death leads to our lack of consideration of a soldier's life. He, at the lower levels ends of being a fodder of political designs and at a higher levels, die a lonely death offering leverage to his political masters. Indira Gandhi gets the glory of the soldiers dying at the border and Sam Manekshaw's bold strategy. In the end, Congress heaps glory over itself for winning 1971 war and the old Field Marshal dies his death, attended not even by the Defense Minister. 
All Rights: Mine
My Father: 1971Soldiers are much like us, living a life much difficult than us. They have their families. They are not romantic, lonely warriors of the myths. They are real people, who need to send Money orders back home to old parents. They are real people whose kids are uprooted every other year, parents whose hearts know that their kids will never have the friends of common childhood to see them through the life. Fauzi kids are outgoing, but do they have a choice otherwise. They need to be, when every year, you have new friends, new teachers. They are husbands who would also want to go watch movies in cozy PVR's of the world with their wives and families, but who instead end up watching movie through the rains in open air theater of Hasimara, bad prints, old, timed movies, two days of the week, repeat shows in the evening. His family will go out for shopping to nearest market an hour away by bus, with rationed hours- once a week. They have dreams like every one, feelings like everyone else and they put their lives on line for people like you and me. 
They do not live in stories. They are much alive. They watch in desperation, tied by discipline when the country which they are protecting is thrown under an emergency to please a mother-son duo. The disappointed soldier will then write a little poem and hide it in his trunk. The poem's heading will read, "I am a chained soldier of an independent nation". He is chained not only to the rules, but also to the glorious image we build for him, while we fool him into fighting for us. We never rise up asking for a role in lawmaking for kin of a soldier, but well, we will ask for a parliamentary nomination for the wife of a terrorist and make a movie on the sister of a terrorist. They are living people who watch helplessly as the lands back home to which they dream every night of retiring to, surrendering the false aura of extraordinary, gets split and distributed among siblings back home. He fights, watches over the fences as his land, gets slipped like water through the palms every passing day and as he approaches the time when he will be forced to retire, right in the prime of his employ-ability. Out of favors, he will be thrown back to the dusty lanes of his world, the world from where he came from. Initial welcome fades away as people back home had already written him off to a grand glory. Suspicion and fears creep in- Will he want his share in the inheritance. Everyone will go about his job, and this man in thirties is sitting at home, searching for his place in a hostile world. 
Ladies with lavish words, a soldier is much beyond the understanding of your years and your words. He is a human being. He takes care of you when he can. The nation needs to rise to take care of him, when he is no longer your best fighting machine. He needs you love more than your adulation. That is what OROP is all about. It is less about money, it is about the acceptance of a retired soldier into the society. It is therefore not about timelines. Soldiers at protest are not like bank employees closing the banks as a strike demanding the pay-rise every now and then. We get hurt when they do and we respond with alacrity. A retired soldier, does not impact our lives and we cynically look at them, in the knowledge that a serving one will never protest and a non-serving one will never matter.  While the PM has done his bit by reaffirming his commitment to OROP. Also correct is the fact that if something could not happen for 60 years, a committed government seeking couple of years should be acceptable. What is not acceptable is the manner in which Delhi Police acted, and that Government did nothing to distance itself from the way Police acted. They could have apologized, admonished the police for high-handedness. It is not absurd to claim that all uniforms are not equal. I have seen in Jammu, one side of the road, Police guarding the civilians and another army guarding Army habitation. The police guards, sitting on the chair, shirts out, buttons opened- the other side, properly uniformed, straight, stern and ready. There is a difference. It ought to be respected. 
We then post a glorious thought on twitter and amid kudos, post another patronizing tweet chiding soldiers to not lose their decency. We will not tell the politicians to not to lose their decency. They are still relevant, a retired soldier is not. We change the profile picture with a tricolor and claim our piece in the world of patriots. Wishing you all a happy Independence day and  requesting a thought for our soldiers, a real thought, non-patronizing, non-glorifying thought of soldiers as our brothers, guarding our fences. They are not unthinking, unfeeling numbers. Let us tell government that we can suffer a little on trade with the neighboring country, but we cannot talk to people who behead our soldiers, that is betrayal. 

My perspective on a Soldier's Thought through a Story written on StoryStar, The Death of A Soldier , Now posted on my Blog as well ( Blog Link of the Story )

The Death of a Soldier- By Saket Suryesh

Courtesy : Marta Moran Bishop- Authro and Poet

The Sun was bright, but its bright, white light, under which the rugged Earth shone, like youth in its prime, carried no warmth of love. The chill which seeped through the spine, overpowered the mild struggle, almost half heartedly put up by the splendid rays, landing on the arrogantly and audaciously rising mountain.
Lance Naik Narender Singh looked out of the window of his barrack. The view was lovely, with only two things obstructing a complete surrender of human mind to the surreal beauty outside-Fierce, unnerving cold and the constant fear. The mountain spread before the eyes, like an enormous giant, with arms spread wide, the blues of the far, merging into to greens spread below them. He had tried to explain what he viewed outside his window, many times earlier to Titali, his wife, in the village back home. She had never been beyond the dusty lanes of the small village, in the hinterlands of the country, about two hundred kilometers from the capital. She would hear him describe those bald mountains, in awe, with her large eyes, listening, with the intensity of a voracious reader trying to drink all the experience put in inadequate words. She would hear his narrative in silence, with the edge of her Saree held between her teeth, hiding almost half her beautiful face. He felt at times, she did not believed any word he said, but merely loved to hear him speak. This was a very different world here. He was a citizen of two different worlds, both separated so much from one another, that only men, who had their lives divided between the two worlds, acted as sole bridges connecting the two worlds. When he was back at home during the strictly rationed times, he was taken aback by the cynicism which flew with the dusty winds in those lanes back home.
He loved those days back home in spite of the overall sense of despair among the people, fed with frequent dosage of news about corruption at the highest levels, running into such large numbers that his limited education found difficult to comprehend or even fathom. He was a man there, with a history, and family. Here he was a number in the battalion. He and all his colleagues, soldiers of the last frontier in the north of the country, were brothers, with no history, no roots. Nostalgia has a certain beauty inherent within it, as we view the past, having moved farther than it, it looks calm, beautiful and even inviting, irrespective of the ugliness we ourselves had been witness to, when those epochs of life passed us by. Narender too remembered the past which had the innocent and playful baths in the tube wells in the farms, the counting of trains, sitting by the railway lines counting the trains and the annual village fest of color and jubilation and magic, with a lot of fondness. But that past carried the scars which went too deep into his conscience to escape acknowledgement. The poverty, plain food or mere hint of what passed by that term; the wily money lender who somehow got most of the land in the villages, rendering rest of the villagers to being landless laborers. The lecherous son of the old village land lord or zamindar, who had around the time of abolition of privy purse, wiping off all special rights of the royal gentry, swiftly moved into a different role with change of garb from royal frills to khadi, thereby continuing the brutal and singular control over all the village resources completed the script and screenplay of a typical village. Narender, on his part took the lessons on civil science in the school and political sciences in the district college around twenty kilometers a bit too seriously when he reported illegal stone mining being carried out by the landlord politician, still reverently addressed as Raja Sahib or the king by the servile poor of the village to the local police, threatening the river flow close to the village. As the police brought his soaring idealism to a crashing drop on the stony perch of cynical realism, as the group of village louts bayed for his blood. Titali, his young wife, whose absolute love for him bordered on deep sense of respect and adulation, in part because of the thick college books which she found her husband reading and in part on account of his unyielding commitment to the right and the just. The world moved fast those days, and his letter of selection to Indian Army reached around those days, as a kind of divine answer to silent prayers of his worried, troubled father. Unknown to him, his father had gone and met Raja Sahib assuring him that Narender was to be sent away to join the army and the mild village revolt was to fly away in no time, thus securing safety for his Son. The farewell was rushed, and Titali, watched her love of life disappear in the dusty horizon as his tall frame walked off without a glance backwards, with a tin box in black in one hand and a bed roll in the other. The unbearable pain gave way to a sudden sense of pride of being wife of the worthy son of the country, as tears rolled through the corner of her Saree held in her lips, silencing a struggling wail. She watched helplessly with mixed emotions which left her in total emotional disarray, as various feelings floated like clouds on the sky.
He was sent away, and in spite of the initial annoyance at being sent off in the middle of a righteous struggle, he soon came to enjoy it. The discipline sought was strict with no room for exception, but it was a truly different world in which he found admission. It was a world very difficult to define for those who have not seen it. It was not a class-less society, the classes were there, prominent and well defined. There were officers who lived on the other side of the road from their billets, with those stretches of beautiful residences and those lovely manicured gardens, in a different world. Those in those heavenly homes were to be obeyed with obedience, complete and reverential, by those on his side of road. It was like back in the village, but the similarity ended right there. The obedience here, unlike back in the village was not servile, it derived its legitimacy not from some divine ordinance, but from a necessity which determined their existence. Those who commanded where not ordained to be rulers by birth or divine ordnance; they were bound by the discipline no less strict than that of those they commanded. They were not borne into commanding; they had earned it and were governed by the rules of discipline and honor which were as stringent as they were for them. There was an order in life which they had never seen before in life, and all that was asked of them stood the test of pure logic and very soon posted to the border duty, he was to learn, that those rules were the thin threads on which there were to depend on for their dear lives.
He had his worries, having heard the stories of melting toes in unbearable, never-ending winters, days dawning without any hope of sun. When he went home, the worry was there, peeping through outwardly brave posturing of everyone.
His father avoided looking into his eyes, as he offered unsolicited solace, stating it was just a job as any other, and soldiers on front do not always end up dead in tricolor, and when on rare occasions they do, it is a matter of honor, not of sorrow.
The Titali's deep, dark eyes were floating lamps in a tranquil pond, full with tears. She served him food on the roof, and then sat there looking at his broad shoulders, strong arms, defined well after a tough round of training. He was no longer a common villager that she had married to; there was a certain refinement in his being, which made him an almost gentleman, or what she imagined a gentleman to be in her mind, with clear idea of right and wrong. She was not much educated but knew with clear sense that what constituted a gentleman was the least amount grey patches of thought, a gentleman always stood in bright sun, with the world around him clearly split into the patches of black and white. His decisions were definite, without self-doubt, his evaluations were vivid and clear, just like her husband's.
She looked at him having his food, as a lump rose through her neck.
As if on a cue, Narender looked up, paused and almost like reading her thoughts, said" I am not going for ever. It is not a barbaric world to which I go. It is much more civilized than the thoughtless indignity that we see here in village, even on the other side of the border. "
" If it is such, why everyone doesn't go to army. Why can't you farm here like others? "She said and almost immediately regretted. There was no land to farm anymore; there was no other way, at least none for a life with dignity. The conversation froze for a while like a mist suddenly fallen between the two of them. Narender ate in silence. Truth sometimes kills the conversation. They both soaked in the bright light of brutal truth on that dark night. They lay watching the stars on the moonless night on the roof, as Narender described the uniformly structured life in the army, and promised to take Titali with him, to the new world, once back into peace posting after couple of years on the border.She slept like a child on his arm, as he ran his fingers through her hairs and contemplated the life ahead of him.
The sudden and urgent knock, with a voice, crisp and quick, shouting 'breakfast' on the door broke his reverie. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, reached out to the table, painted dull, blue to grab his wallet. He opened the wallet and looked at the picture of Titali in side. He thought of her and smiled. The struggle of supremacy between the sun and the cold reached an ineffectual agreement, Sun was spread out bright, with no impact on the chill in the air. The day was up, and can no longer be wished away.  He got up, stretched himself out, grabbed the thick white mug and porcelain plate and walked out.
He was easily able to locate Devesh in the mess, even in the sea of olives which spread before him. That was the visibly happiest table in the mess, with other soldiers listening with occasional cheers, his tales from the village back home. His story had no ends and moved swiftly between fact and fiction. He was not married and was able to ward off initial homesickness of a young lad, with a hand of friendship from Narender, when he met him as a solemn young man on the initial day of training.
As they trained along, they grew fonder of each other, writhing in pain after a grueling day in battle training and laughing in happy abandon after drink in the mess. After the training they landed in the field posting in the Uri sector of Kashmir, on the edge of the country and stood with their guns as days passed by.
" Oye Aashiq, aa jaa, bhai (Oh lover boy, come here) " shouted he, waving towards Narender.
The sincerity of Narender's love sneaked through his tough structure and controlled demeanor and was known to most men in his battalion.
Narender walked to Devesh, ran his fingers through back of his head and sat down, holding his white mug with hot tea, in both his palms.
The bugle played and as if suddenly charged, they got up and rushed out. The rush of soldiers came to halt in the ground, as they fell in line. The national anthem was played, and tricolor flapped on the pole, with pride. Those were the moments when individual in those soldiers leapt out to be a part of something bigger, something almost religious.
The prompt assembly ended with another bugle sound. They had half an hour to collect their rucksacks and go on the patrol. They were to walk from one post to other, watching through binoculars for anything alarming, on the other side of electric fence.
Though the shelling happened through the night and responded to, nothing was alarming. It was business as usual.
" Ninety one soldiers dead this year, was on news last night on the Radio " said Devesh, “ guess that included Harbans, martyred last month and Ashraf who died with him. "
“ For those back home, it's just number without any names to it. " Mumbled Narender, as if talking to himself.
It was heavy and too serious a thought for Devesh to contemplate.
They walked in silence for a while.
They halted and then looked through the binoculars to a known post on the other side, and waved.
The man on the other side stood still.
They knew each other, and shared a common fate. That of being a pawn to a plan which was beyond their comprehension. Theirs was not to think, theirs was to live to the best of their usefulness and kill to the best of their capability.
“ He didn't wave back, seems upset " Devesh remarked.
" Maybe, didn't get leave to go back home. " The loneliness, home-sickness, the constant paranoia did take its toll and men on either side of the divide knew that.
" Narender bhai, can I ask a question? "
Narender paused, took out his water bottle, had a sip, looked at Devesh and smiled indulgently. He knew, Devesh will ask anyways, he was not the kind to suffer the suspense, and he did.
" Doesn't you feel stupid sometime that while we stand guard here, our leaders throw chairs at one another. We save ten thousand rupees from twenty we get each month and they do scam with money we cannot even imagine. They won't even leave our earlier chief alone, because he fought against corruption. Are we standing guard to protect them?"
“ Are we ?" The question was returned with deftness of a badminton player.
“ No, but then what are guarding ?"
“ It is something bigger than the government, the symbols, the land, and the people. It's a bit of all these, but it is bigger than all of them. "
Narender would always amuse him with his words, they were not words of a soldier, or a villager, but they would always comfort him.Narender answered, but explanation he rendered fell short for his own comprehension. He looked at Devesh, who looked free of worrying questions for the moment.
He watched him with affection, and then his eyes fell on a metal thing on the earth right where Devesh was to step.
" Watch out " he shouted through his breath and pulled him back.
In such cold, sweat broke off the forehead of the younger soldier as he spoke in a whisper," it's a land mine"
" It wasn't there yesterday. "
The sight of the man on the other side of fence came back to them, as Narender lifted the communication set to report back, other arm taut on the gun.
Something moved in the bush, and before he could speak on the Comm-set, six men with faces covered emerged. They were not untrained terrorist, they moved on Devesh in pattern, like trained hunter dogs, not like unruly pack of wolves. They were regulars from the other side.
They didn't fire, that would attract attention, attacked with sabres. Devesh buckled, blood oozing, as he caught hold of one of the attackers by neck. The kill was quick.
A knife cut through the flesh of the arm holding the gun and a sword cut through the left shoulder blade which held the comm-set.
Narender was not scared, he had contemplated this moment many times in his thoughts and woke up in sweat. But today, he felt calm, without fear, proud and little angry as he let the gun drop and with a last surge of strength pulled out the battle knife from the side of his belt and ran it through flesh of the one who gave him the cut on the arm holding the gun. The guy next to him panicked and the sword moved. H could see it coming to his face, but there was neither time nor strength to move. For a second he couldn't believe it, it was street fight. Then a thought came to him, Ninety two, ninety three...and then Titali's face floated before him and then there was no thought, no pain, no light, nothing.
He saw his body buckle down and land on the ground with a thud. He watched his own body, blood dripping down the arm, and then upwards, no head. He was dead, and there was nothing above the shoulders. He tried to cry, but there was no voice, he saw the six running off, one of them bleeding and pulled to the other side, and one, the large one in the front with beards with a heavy bag in his hand with blood dripping. He could make out what was in there; these animals, he wanted to vomit, if only he could.
There were sounds of boots running, coming closer. Must have caught something on the Comm-sets. Some firing began from the other side, to cover those running away to their territory and to slow those approaching. It continued from sides, rhythmic points and counter-points. His comrades arrived, for a larger nation back home, they might be ninety two, ninety three, for them, they were slain brothers.
They approached the bodies to pick them up, and then stood silent in horror. The firing ceased, they rescue team looked up to the other side, the man at the post on the other side, who did not wave, sat down. Headless corpses were picked, and taken to the base. Eyes of fellow soldiers were with tears, most palms folded, tight with visible anger. The commanding officer came, looked at the bodies, slowly he ran fingers through the dress, the military insignia on the shoulder, where the body ended. Narender watched the moment of gloom, as he wanted to rush and embrace the father figure. And he thought of his father back home, who sent him to army to save his life.
Death followed him there. He escaped a brawl death and got a soldier's death. It was a death with honor. It was not for his love, his land, not even for his ideals, it was for those back home. He thought of kids going school, buses full of people, festivals, and the crowd out on the streets few days back to protest against the political corruption. Then he thought, why was he still around.
Titali did not cry when the soldier spoke to her, she was numb. She wanted to believe she had received it in error, she knew the truth lay in the crumpled paper. Narender saw his father raising both his arms towards the sky, there was no sound, as if a wail without a voice floated towards the Gods.
They sat in silence, joined in a shared grief, Titali inside the house, and her father in law on the broken cot outside in the courtyard. The soldier who brought the news, sat silent, with deep remorse, knowing full well that he could have been in the casket and a slight sense of guilt as to why he wasn't there. Slowly people gathered, and sat in silence. The news broke on the television; OB vans started reaching the small hamlet, like animals on a pry. Raja Sahib noticed this and came to offer condolence to his father. Last time he had come to the house, was with intent to kill him.
The minster, people said, announced in the television that the peace process will go on, and cricket match with the neighboring country will continue. He smiled between the announcements to this effect. He knew that a fortnight back citizen of the country poured on the streets, outraged at the gang rape and subsequent death of a girl, but he thought, there was not a possibility of a repeat of the same. He briefed his bosses. Everything was under control, there were no Christmas holidays for people to get outraged on the streets, no NGOs for the soldiers, who did not vote anyways, so business as usual would be the best policy and media can always be advised, strongly, to report with restraint.
But then the scene burst out, the news could not be contained, and anger was too large to be ignored. The PM announced that with beheading, it cannot be business as usual. Oblivious to all this, Narender sat in front of Titali, as she sat there, three days without word, without any thing that could constitute a sign of life. The minister, the same with unbroken smile, came and gave a cheque to Titali, which slipped through her fingers.
He did not feel hungry, tired, anything. The time for the last rites came; Titali was brought to his body. It was to be the last farewell. She asked for the tricolor in which the body was draped to be opened. Villagers and officials surrounding the body were alarmed. The death of martyr's wife will make bad headline. But Titali insisted. Worried officers approached Narender's father, who refused to intervene between husband and wife, and Narender, for the first time regretted having not been able to muster the courage to embrace his father after he grew up. He saw his father in his white dhoti was slightly bent with old age and grief, but at that moment he felt among all men there, he stood tallest. The tricolor was lifted and there was a space where his face earlier existed. His father glanced and then turned away abruptly nit having found the face with large eyes which he had since Narender was borne. Titali, walked slowly, looked at the hollow. But she stayed, unmoved, her palms moved slowly to where once head was, so full of wavy hairs. Then her fingers moved over the hollow, as if tracing the eyes, the nose. She remembered those calm eyes, which when looked into hers, would build a bridge between the two souls in love. She could still see that, no one can take away that head, those eyes through which love smiled. And then she smiled, fleetingly, before breaking down into tears with a loud wail, as she slid down to the ground. Up came her arms and with a sudden fury came down on earth, breaking all the glass bangles. She gave him his face back with a love which he had always known, as Narender walked backwards, and slowly as if made up of desert sand, started fading in the air.
This story was published on StoryStar . 

A Virtual World of Words

I am many things. I run, I write, I work. But out of all the dimensions of my life, it is writing I love the most. It is not only because my writing is the only part of me which will survive. It is because when I write, I put out a part of me on the paper. I am asked many times why I write in a peculiar way, with a certain sense of gloom hovering over it. It is because that is the way I think. It is the same with most writers and poets. We write, we breathe, we live. We die with every word we write and in those word, we sense the deepest sense of life. Writing is not easy. Literacy is far, far different from writing. Though, we do mix the two often. A strong vocabulary, a panache for words, the knowledge of some secret formula, lighter words, student life, young love. Writing is all that and more. Writing isn’t an alchemist’s magic formula, it is the agony of a heart which knows little and feels more.
That heart, the thumping sense of our being thunders in the silent nights, laden with solitude. Writing requires one to dig deep into the flesh of that beating monster which houses the soul. No, it does not thump so hard for other people. They do not dig that deep into those dark contours of heart which house our deepest fears and over which shines on the reflected splendor of our most sacred hopes.
This makes writing a very private and lonely affair. True, there will be book launches and speeches but the writer will long to get away from the intrusion of the crowd into his private world of penury. He lies there, alone. Solitude is the hallmark of a writer. Though there are some trend, some mechanization, some assembly line approach being proposed these days. They call it collaborative writing. I wonder if there is any such thing.
It is this looming solitude, sometimes rapturously happy, at times maddeningly maudlin, but always private, always one man against the world around him. When we write, we try to find out and understand the relationship of that one man with the world around him, and the failings and victories emerging of that relationship. We need therefore kindred souls to hold hands to. We need people who are as alien to the rest of the world around us as we are. We look around to embrace the people who are the conscience-keepers of the world. We are not the people who can be satisfied with the why, we are the people who will ask why not?
Rarely does social media responds to the call of such people. We are born with a rich vocabulary. With every heartless strike, one word dies. Poets are the people who guard, and nurse those dying words, being murdered every hour of the day. We offer our heads in place of words, we bleed for the words we save. We save them for the world so that world remains comprehensible to the people who are not willing to pay the price of the words without which we all will be lost. WH Auden captured this beautifully when he wrote, “Language is the mother, not the handmaiden, of thought; words will tell you things you never thought or felt before.”  Poets bleed for people around. “A poet is an unhappy being whose heart is torn by secret sufferings, but whose lips are so strangely formed that when the sighs and the cries escape them, they sound like beautiful music. People crowd around the poet and say to him: "Sing for us soon again;" that is as much to say, "May new sufferings torment your soul.” Contends Soren Kierkegaard. Poetry keeps the poet alive, and some times, kills him.

We need to reach out, support. Social media has been hailed as a marketing platform. But I do not know how true it might be. When poets and authors mingle with others suffering with the same agony, who will read? It is, I suppose, to keep the sanity, while some books sell on their own. We look at fellow writers, and encouraged by the fellowship of our agonies, write some more. There are some platforms, which I tried. On Google Plus, I tried multiple communities like Poetry etc. It wasn’t very encouraging. They were strict regulated communities. For instance, when I posted two poems in a day in one of the community, I was chided- only one poem in a week. What was that? Did google tell them to reduce the content? It pity those communities and suggest rather stay alone then be a part of such rigidly policed community. We need communities which touch our souls with the lightness of a loving feather. We don't need chains and a rule-book.

But then there are some really great which I will surely recommend, like Poet’s Dream . As a poet, I feel so much at home there, I feel like inviting fellow community members for lunch. No, I don’t care if they read my book or not, but they are kind fellow poets and they love words. Then twitter is also a very conducive platform for doodle. A lonely doodle survives well and may grow up to become a nice poem, decent and delicate with encouraging Retweets. It is a world of shared hope, shared sadness and a love for words. It is not a dead poets’ society. It is an Alive poet’s society. Writing is not an easy art. We don’t write because words come to us easily. It is not abundance of words which makes us write. It is the shortage of words, it is the search of one right word. And when a fellow poet gets his word write, we all dance in happiness. As I wrote in my poem, The Word-Catcher, (From Rescued Poems ) At The sound of a blessed word
We dance amidst the sound of cheers,
We are the word-catchers
To keep writing in the face of sneers.