Letter To Dhani

Dear Dhani,

I don’t know if I have the power over the right to call you ‘Dear’ but I am taking that liberty. I thought zillions of times if I should reach you. Every time the answer to my thoughts was negative yet today, I am defying all those negative thoughts and trying to reach you.

First, I want to thank you for making me what I am today. You made me thinker. You rendered the transition I needed. I traveled the world but eventually had to come back to the same point that is You…I never knew why you….I never knew why I had to fall for you when there were millions other.

You must be thinking that for what on earth, now am I saying all this to you….how come who have played a great role in the shaping of my lonely deserted life. Not all those questions can be answered, if we do not go in the past together and revisit it from a different perspective. I have learnt a great thing that we never notice the life that we live under the shadow of time and destiny. We only live what we see and what we physically feel but let me tell you this today that beyond it there is a real life – a life that holds the meaning and answers to all our questions, which normally our senses could not render.

More than 8 years ago when I first saw you, someone had written my destiny then without my knowledge. You must be thinking, how have I known you 8 years ago? Actually, it was that first semester exam and it was our first paper. Back then in our training days I thought of expressing this fact and many more to you but could not do it. There was a string of coincidences which at every at times made us to stand before each other. There is a whole story, which you might not know, but someday if destiny would bless me, I would tell you everything in detail. Initially I thought destiny had brought us together and we would proceed that way but then world changed upside down and I lost my faith at destiny. I moved on but only after keeping your thought in heart then almost after seven and half years I joined an organization and met someone who knew you, it was a shocking incident for me. I thought why again … now what this almighty wants from me ….what have I left in the middle that I ought to complete, yet.

I do not know what you might feel after reading this but still, I have got so many stories to tell, so many facts to reveal. I cannot see anyone the way I used to see you back then.

Life only changes you once, rest all changes are its versions but the real makeover only happen once. I realized when it happened to me…..I am thankful to you that I had the opportunity to see you, to befriend you, to like you, to LOVE you …..All again I want to thank you for making me what I am today…………..May god bless you.

Yours Only…nothing less but so much to say ……

Image : Courtesy to Google search.

One Fine Day...

One fine day a boy woke up from his sleep. He found it was a bright sunny day, full of happenings and hope so decided to go after the most famous tower of the city. He rushed out from his room and saw mom who was busy with daily household chore, greeted her good morning. She opened the world of love with her arms and he disappeared in them for few moments. Then, he rushed for the room where his dad was sleeping. As he entered, he saw his dad laid on bed with open eyes. He looked at his father and soon father also looked at him. However, father said nothing but called him closer and asked about mom.

Boy answered, “She is busy with household work.” After that, father gave him lesson on life. He told him how to one should lead a good life, how one should learn from his own deeds, how one can love and hate someone, how someone should go for his journey as life is nothing but a journey from birth till death. Boy looked into father’s eyes and it seemed every single word from his mouth left an impression on boy’s mind.

After few hours, mom readied him to step out. He said bye to his mom and Dad and stepped out from home and began walking along with the road. First, he met with few strange faces; he made friendship with them. He spent few hours playing with them and enjoyed the good times. While he played and made new friends, he remembered each and every word of his father’s lesson. At few instances, he fell down while playing, at few instances, he got betrayal from those friends, and finally he understood the fact that not everyone is meant for friendship, there are very few. He gestured at those few and walked ahead towards the tower.

After some distance he met a group of girls playing in at the roadside garden. He approached them and requested to allow him to play with them. Few giggled on him and few welcomed him. After few minutes of playing, he realized that few girls were really sweet. He inclined towards them but soon he realized that not all were so good but there is one with pink cheeks and in white gown meant for him. They both started playing separately but soon boy had to leave her alone due to the urge of seeing the big tower at other end of the city.

After leaving her, he again started walking along the road and soon realized that he was hungry. He looked into his pocket for money, which his father had given him. He rushed for a nearby Pizza shop and bought a pizza that was enough for his appetite. When he put the fist slice in his mouth, it felt so tasty. He ate all the slices but when he ate the last slice, he missed the taste of his mom’s handmade food. He left last slice and rushed out from the shop.

Now, as soon as he walked out from the shop, he saw the tip of that tower. He forgot about the taste of his mom’s handmade food and walked in its direction. Soon he stuck somewhere and asked for a way but no one showed him the right way. He missed his friends whom he had left then missed the white gown girl with pink cheeks and then his parents but the lesson given by his father was still with him. Eventually, he got the way to reach to that tower. He kept on walking until he reached there.

When he reached, he felt so happy and shouted in joy but the commuters looked at him as if he was a mad kid. He wanted to share his joy with his morning friends, his only pink cheek girl friend, his mom, his dad. However, no one was around. He sat down below that tower and looked around, the commuters were gone, the surroundings were empty and the night had fallen. He realized that in the urge of this tower, he lost everything and even this night was not also allowing him to return to his home. He had to wait for the morning if it comes, else he would have to wait here until the end of everything……

Evening of Sorrows...

Evening, somewhere around 7:00, application development environment was down as pre-decided but I was still sitting before the screen of my computer while rubbing my eyes. Office was almost empty only few black heads could be seen here and there. Besides, the counts of green dots on office chat messenger too slumped but one green dot was still on - the coincidence girl. Eyes looked at wristwatch and needles of time felt very slowly.

Soon a sudden surge of thoughts from nowhere filled my mind and heart with past sorrows. Moments rolled into eyes and it seemed eyes had forgotten to wink. Suddenly my cell phone started ringing - it was an SMS. I looked at it, my service provider attempted to sell a new service to me. The dot was still green on chat messenger.

Eventually, I stood up from my cozy chair and rushed towards washroom. As I entered, I observed silence of graveyard there and a giant mirror showed my face to me. It appeared so dull. Eyes seemed lifeless and hope lost in the gust of life. I folded my sleeves and splashed water twice or thrice on face and again looked into it. Few drops of water ran down slowly from eyelashes. I couldn't recognize if they were my tears or water droplets though I felt tepidity on my cheek. Quickly I fetched two-paper towel and rubbed my face with it. When again I looked into mirror from little closer, I felt as if my eyes asked for life which I was not capable of giving to them. I turned around and rushed out from washroom.

While I was on my way to my cubicle, my cell again started ringing; I took it out from pocket and looked at the screen, it was my flat-mate. I picked up the call.

I initiated, “Hey Prabhat...What happen?” he replied, “When are you coming from office?”

I replied, “How many times do I have to tell you that I will reach there around 10:00 PM”

He replied, “I know you daily reach flat around by 10:00 PM but I was just asking as I am done with the vegetables and dough, you just need to come and cook food.”

I replied, “o.k  ...…bye” and I hang up the call.

I had reached my cubicle and while sitting on chair I again looked at the chat messenger, the coincidence girl was still green. Something happened inside me and I opened a folder, which I always avoided. I clicked open the snaps of her and mine, they looked so fresh although they were not years old. I saw few snaps and all of a sudden locked down the computer and walked out from cubicle then floor and finally from building.

Now I standing before her building, I looked around and rushed outside the campus. I arrived at a tapri, and bought a cigarette. While taking puffs I walked towards a nearby dark place and sat down. I smoked slowly as though not wanted to leave that place any sooner. In the darkness of night my vision was captured of those pictures. I couldn't realize when I finished the cigarette. There I wished to disappear in the darkness. After sometime, when I felt an urge to know the time I took out my cellphone, it was 8:30 PM, the time to catch the last bus.

I again reached my building, then floor and finally my cubicle, unlocked the computer and looked at the messenger; the green had now turned into pink. Seeing this I also turned my status to pink, shut down the computer and left the building. While walking towards the Bus stand my feet felt reluctant and a point arrived when I sat down on footpath just to look around and rest a little bit. From there I saw feet which were in hurry to catch the last bus. At last, I also stood up and began walking towards the bus stand. Eventually I boarded the bus, put the radio on in my cell, and began listening to old songs. I grabbed the last seat in a corner with open window. Bus started rolling slowly, wind started slapping gently on my face and with those soothing slaps I lost in dreams.

Image : Courtesy to Google Search.

Why Only Chic Lit....

Disclaimer: I am no big fan of chic Lit.

Chic lit is the new face of Indian English literature.  The whole last decade and the current times belong to it.  It has kicked open the tightly closed literary doors for the new writers and now every other person wants an entry through it to reach the fame. Most novels in this category are stereotyped stories – protagonist hails from the metro city or moved to the metro city in the beginning of the tale then falls in relationships, move back and forth, tangles in them and eventually find the way out and win every lost bit.

Every time I pick a chic-lit (which I normally avoid) I feel bore with the characters and set ups.  Urbanized characters and set ups every time as if the life beyond urban had never existed.  Most novel in this category renders a feel if they have been written with the sole purpose of getting into the Bollywood (Obviously Hollywood wouldn’t give even single shot).  Perhaps, these stories have taken birth from the very big belly of Bollywood based on the fact that every other Indian movie has got more or less the same set up. Lately, I have seen the movie Cocktail and felt it was better to have a cocktail drink than tolerate the torture. I strongly felt that the story would be a best seller if written and published as Chic-lit.

When I read the interviews of such young guns, I always notice one thing that they carry this urge to break into the bollywood, just to have a movie produced based on their very so called best seller.  I believe if that is the ultimate wish, then it’s best to go and become the scriptwriter than novelist. If you want to serve the bollywood, not the literature as a whole then better leave it at those who have faith in serving it than exploiting.

I feel most of these chic-lit authors belong to mills & boons generation. These authors have achieved fame and the time is not far from reach when we have the movies produced solely based on such novels. But, in the gust of it, we shall miss the prolific writers like Saadat Hasan Manto, Premchand, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Rabindranath Tagore, Kushwant Singh, Amrita Pritam, and many more.

Literature is the field which had always been ruled by the aged intellectual minds, but now, it is in the hands of fairly young writers, as I see the bookstores stewing with the titles from them.  However, now, the fate of this very intellectual field is in their hands.  It’s up to them in which direction they would like to drive it.  There are young writers who are still away from the lime light of fame but their work is exemplary, perhaps they couldn’t break into the list of best sellers though their regard in the literary circles is richly glinting.

Humiliated India

Almost two and half years ago, I went to overseas on a work assignment. There on my first weekend I went to enjoy a couple of beers at a bar. While sipping the first beer, someone approached me with a question, “Are you a south Asian?”

“Yes, I am Indian. What about you?” I replied with a smile.

“I am from the United States of America.” He said it proudly with an emphasis on word ‘The’.

It was strange that he carried so much pride for the country he belonged to in the era where world is a global village. Perhaps, he had his own reasons for carrying such pride. Still we hit the conversation and spoke about few things but soon he changed it to sports and directed my attention towards television where a news program was on run and host incessantly talking about the corruption carried out by an Indian minister in common wealth games. I waited for a couple of minutes and left the place with a smile for that American along with half-emptied pint of beer.

That was the first time I really felt ashamed of my country. Then came 2G scam, 3G scam, iron ore scam, Coal scam, defense scam and God knows what not. Every day a new scam was started hitting newspapers. However, those unbearable scams were still bearable until a day came when Pakistani rangers beheaded two brave soldiers of Indian Army. If anything we Indians could now proud about were our brave defense forces but this dirty minded corrupt government of ours played the matter in such a way that that last hope of proud got vanished. Leaders from all across the country came forward, not for revenge but hollow speeches before media. Even our proud Army General said or I must say promised before media for proper action which later turned out a hollow words accompanied by no will or action. I never understood the meaning of ‘Flag Meeting’ which media always talk about whenever anything happens at border. Never seen a solution coming out from those flag meetings, yet it seems whenever our enemy feels bore or dejected they perform some mischief and wait for India’s reaction where obviously our responsible government officials follow the protocol of a flag meeting in which our enemy come and make a wholehearted fun of spineless Indian system and perhaps this way they get relieved from their idleness.

In the years of good economic performance India deluded itself with unrealistic feel of upcoming superpower. Really superpower!! From which angle do we look like a superpower? Get life – we can’t even produce enough basic weaponry for our soldiers and dream for Super Power, we can’t even produce a potent fighter plane without the help of Russia, Israel or France and call ourselves upcoming Super Power, we can’t even manufacture a potent assault rifle (let me inform you INSAS is not a potent assault rifle and on top of it it’s based on the principle of AK-47) for our brave soldiers and think of becoming superpower. Recently UN has declared India the largest arms importer in the world. Should we feel proud? I don’t think so; I think we should look for some shallow water and attempt suicide. Not just because we are the largest importer of arms but also because we don’t even have guts to use them to save the pride of would be Super power.

 

Let’s see the long timeline of would be super power. Starting with 1947, the first Kashmir war in which we lost more than 50% J&K to Pakistan in the form of POK and why, because our potent leaders didn’t have guts to resolve the matter within and instead they decided to take it to UN which instead of providing a permanent solution actually created a never ending diplomatic and defense problem. Then came 1962, the Indo-China war, in which we lost thousands of KMs to China in the form of Aksai Chin and on top of that in 1990s we agreed that Tibet is integral part of China while in return China never agreed that Arunachal Pradesh and eastern Kashmir are integral part of India. However, instead they still claim North East region of India as their territory.  These reasons are enough I guess, else I have a long list of such international events where our shameless, spineless, corrupt, non-violent government of useless illiterate aged leaders almost sold the country. Even the most corrupt governments of this world has always learnt something from their past mistakes when they occurred in case of foreign policies or national security but our government never learnt anything from past blunders, they keep on repeating them as though they want to master them.

Hardly, any other country ever committed the kind of blunders India had and that’s the reason neighboring countries take India for granted. Though, India won all wars with Pakistan and still looks potent to win any future war with Pakistan, but being victor has India got what she deserved? Could we get resolution on Kashmir issue? Could we regain the lost territory to Pakistan? Could we stop them from harboring our state criminals? Could we put an end on cross-border terrorism? The answer to all these and many more questions is plain ‘NO’, we couldn’t reach any strong point. That means, though we won the war but always behaved like a loser and the Pakistan who lost every war but behaved like a victor. I guess it’s the attitude difference, being loser they still have the attitude of victors and being victor India carries attitude of losers. We had a wonderful chance to dictate our terms in 1972, but our honorable government decided not to dictate anything, instead signed Shimla accord and give back the land our soldiers occupied by giving their lives. Government not only betrayed our soldiers but the whole country as they allowed the chance to slip away from their hands which could have brought permanent solution to Kashmir Issue.

India’s weakness towards taking strong decisions is now in open. Every country knows that India doesn’t have the gut to take any strong decision. US airport authorities openly humiliated our former President APJ Abdul kalam by frisking him at New York’s JFK airport and that’s not just a single instance of such kind, there have been so many cases when Indian dignitaries are subjected to be frisked. Even recently a Minister from UP was taken into private for questioning though he carried a diplomatic passport. Every time such incident occur and our foreign minister or embassy high Commissioner lodge a complaint or protest. I mean, apart from a formal apology have India got anything? Could India put a stop to such humiliation? The answer is again Plain ‘NO’.

It seems India lost the meaning of word ‘Honor’ or has simply written off this word from the dictionary. Wait a second, no; India haven’t lost its meaning since people in India give so much importance to honor that to save it they perform the act of killing which is commonly known as honor killing. However, what does happen to such sense of honor when India is humiliated at international level?

Well that’s call for introspection.

The recent example of humiliation is the Chinese incursion in Ladakh’s DBO (Daulat Beg Oldi) sector. It’s been 3 weeks since they entered our land, build tents and set up supply line. With every new day they are getting stronger and our honorable foreign minister Mr. Salam Khurshid wanted to go on a visit to Beijing. Has he lost his mind or what, or has government altogether gone insane. Can’t they understand the meaning of failed flag meetings? Can’t they understand the meaning of Chinese stubbornness on the issue?

On the contrary, government keep on extending a friendly hand for more diplomatic talk which eventually Chinese are going to cut off. Every day government talks about negotiating the matter with Chinese instead of the fact that Chinese are in no mood of doing any talk. Indian media even doesn’t seem to be more interested in the matter somehow. Though, they are reporting the issue on daily basis but not interested in producing a national buzz that would put more pressure on government to take quick and strong action, while international media is altogether watching the deepening crisis silently.

Chinese incursion was an outcome of government’s inability to correctly estimate the moves and motive of China. It goes few years back, when China got complete access to Pakistan’s Gwadar port in Baluchistan province where they could even anchor their naval ships. Gawadar port is strategically very important for China since it gives direct access to Western Countries. Using Karakoram highway China can directly ship goods to Gwadar port. Using this trade route China can save a lot of time and money. While, at the same time they don’t want India to watch them and to serve this purpose they performed the act of incursion and claimed DBO sector their territory. DBO lead to crucial Karakoram pass through which India could overlook the Karakoram highway.

China knows the value of DBO and by sitting there they would serve their national interest but When India will learn to proactively safeguard her national interest and security. When would India free itself from robe of saint and look at the world as it is - a chaotic place. When leaders in government would learn that national interest and national pride is higher than all the selfish desire. The time has come for India to take some strong headed decisions and gets its actions straight else the time is not far away when we would have lost everything. India has already lost so many opportunities and its leaders played a great deal with her pride for their personal interest but now come and stand of one cause – India – else the day is not far away when every Indian would feel ashamed for being Indian.

By Rajveer Singh