Mudde Ki Baat

A lot has gone wrong over the past few days. The brave girl fought till her last breath, but lost today. The citizens took to the streets in between, and were fighting the good fight…and that part gave me hope, sitting in a far flung place, disgusted by our meek laws and a very indifferent government.
The best part about this agitation was that it was spontaneous, without anybody leading the protest. Angry people from all walks of life had come together to kick the system out of this inaction. Braving the cold, braving the water cannons and the brutal lathicharge.
For a moment it seemed that we had cornered the government. They tried to calm us with their condolence speeches, the “theek hai” debacle was the end to it. They desperately tried to malign the movement by blaming the death of a policeman on the agitators, but brave Pauline and Yogendra Tomar spoiled this tactic of putting this protest on the backfoot.
And then it fizzled away…the implementation of Article 144 notwithstanding.
What went wrong? We lost focus. It is what people like Digvijay Singh have become too scarily good at…make an outrageously obnoxious statement and take the limelight away from the ‘mudda’.
This ‘dented and painted’ statement was a very calculated one…it seems an irresponsible one, but it did the trick. People were outraged, and there was a widespread condemnation of the statement everywhere…intellectuals ripped Mukherjee Jr’s insolence to shreds on their blogs, and we shared it on Facebook and retweeted on Twitter, and in the process, lost sight of the issue. Suddenly we were gunning for the bad seed, and the government breathed easy after a tense week…and Mr. Mukherjee takes criticism quite well, evidently.
Being angry is a good thing, but we need to direct our anger in the right direction to achieve any results. The powers that be, will throw distractions at us (this is after all the same party which invented mass scale protests in the country, and must be knowing a thing or two about handling them). The trick is to not to lose focus…the villains have still not been punished for their crime.

Inspired by real events

“Sir, joint toh aap phookoge hi…”

It had been quite a while since he was among those familiar faces from the college. The college fest last year, when he was quite miserable because he had no batchmates in the city, was still quite vivid in his memory. Internship in the same hospital where you have regularly gone as an undergraduate was never the most sought after place to be in, but for some reasons, he was there.

And melancholy was his best friend those days. He would see his juniors attending their clinics, sitting in the canteen, smoking cigarettes under the banyan tree, while having their coffee, talking, laughing and trying to shake themselves off from the hangover of another impromptu late night party, the previous night. They would smile at him, he would talk to them, tell them about some interesting new medical development, or just a lame gossip about some resident or a professor. But it didn’t feel the same…a few months ago, he used to be standing at this exact place with that white lab coat, with his friends and used to feel strong, protected…invincible. But during that time he just got an occasional call from his friends who were doing their internships from hospitals all across India, and the talk too got quite mechanical after a while, there was nothing new to tell, they were all going through the same back breaking schedule everywhere…even the most prodigious of shammers. He would smile at the thought, and lie down on his bed and go to sleep.

The major rotations of Medicine, Surgery, Obs & Gynae and Paediatrics were over after a few months, and since evening rounds were not much of an issue with the present rotation, he spent most of his time in his room, watching movies on his laptop.

It had been quite a while since he had entered the Boys’ Hostel again. The place was still as lively as ever, loud music blasting from every other room, guys playing cricket with a tennis ball in the parking lots, people sitting in their balconies calling out their friends in the other balconies or buildings. He was happy that he decided to get out of his room that day. He knew the room he wanted to go to. In his four and a half years as a student, he had spent a lot of time on almost every floor in the hostel, and there were more than 40 floors for students in the hostel, 49 to be precise. “I’m a veteran”, he thought to himself and smiled.

The room was exactly the way it was the last time he was there, dark, full of smoke, the only source of light was the laptop screen, and people were watching a movie. This was the happiest he had been in a long-long time…comfortable. He took a seat on the mattress placed on the floor. Somebody offered him a joint and he happily accepted it.

This was it. He had been missing this.

After a few drags he made himself more comfortable,  setting the pillows,  the night started.

The next day he woke up on that same mattress. Packed food was kept on the table, but no one had opened it. Others had woken up and were rolling a joint. He got up, sat down and waited for his turn as the joint was being passed around. He had to reach the hospital shortly, so he excused himself and returned to his room.

He was unusually happy that day, for he knew he had something to look forward to now. His juniors had come for the cilinics and were sitting under the same banyan tree, like everyday, but they were good friends now rather than acquaintances. By lunchtime, he had decided that this could be done more often.

A few months had passed since that day, his internship was about to end, and the college fest was around the corner. His batchmates had made quite elaborate plans of coming back to the college after the completion of their internship, during the fest, but unfortunately the fest had started a few days earlier. He did not want to go, primarily because he was disappointed by the absence of his batchmates at this time, and also because the college authorities had played spoilsport and had sucked the fun out of the whole affair by imposing a lot of unnecessary rules.

He, however, picked himself up on the last day of the fest. There was a rumour that the last social will be a sunrise social, and although he knew better, he decided to give it a shot, besides he had invited a few friends from outside the college for the evening.

The entire evening was exactly as he had expected…disappointing! The hostel warden had pulled out the plug on the party at 11 o’ clock. His friends left soon after, and he walked towards the Insti, annoyed. The Insti was a canteen near the boys’ hostel, and of significant importance. It opened at around 7 o’ clock in the evening, and did its business till 2-3 o’ clock in the morning. It was tailor-made to suit the needs of students. They could have a bite late at night during one of the ubiquitous parties in the hostel and also served the purpose when people got down to serious late night studies during exams.

So, it was here when he met his juniors again. They were getting a few items packed. There was obviously a party underway, somewhere in the hostel. He joined them, and they started walking towards 1 ground…the most secluded place in the entire hostel. It was so out of the way, that even the warden’s sleuths did not go there regularly, and he reminded himself that this was the only floor in the entire hostel, where he had not got high. He entered the first room on the floor. Loud music greeted them as usual. Around 8-10 people were sitting there, a few from every present batch in the college. He did not want to interact with these people as he hardly knew them…so he took a chair in the corner and sat down. Joints started to get passed around, somebody started playing Pink Floyd on the laptop, and after a while he started talking to the person next to him. It seemed as if a long time had passed since they were talking, he looked at his watch, half past three.

He got up the next morning, everybody else was asleep. He had to go to the hospital, so he walked out of the room without making any noise.

This was actually the last time he sat down with them. The new batch were about to start their internship, and they were to go to different hospitals all across the country.

“Sir, aap aa rahe ho na?”, the caller asked. It had been more than a year since he had sat with them. A lot had changed since then. He was no more the same apprehensive intern who had doubts over his abilities. This used to be his greatest fear and he had also talked about it with his friends for more than one occasion, that despite all his knowledge about medicine, he might not be cut out to become a doctor. What will he do if an emergency comes to him, where he is all alone and there is nobody to guide him? What if he is a failure? These doubts he now knew were not well founded. The past year had been an acid test. He had to tackle almost every conceivable emergency at his station and he did not fail to deliver. Infact, he had quite a reputation among his new colleagues, and although he was quite busy, there were times when he yearned to go back to the hostel, in that same dark room, and toke up. But the people at his station did not share his interest, and smoking alone was hardly as much fun.

“Janta aa rahi hai apni-apni jagah se.”, the voice on the other side of the phone continued.

“Hmmm, theek hai.”, he replied and ended the call.

Going to Chandigarh on that huge plane from the quite valleys of Kashmir was always a welcome change. He had always liked places with a lot of people. He also enjoyed the ride, the aeroplane was older than he was. One could see the numerous makeshift repairs done inside, it shuddered like a truck on a broken road, and the engines roared deafeningly…quite a thing to travel in.

He got out of the airport, and headed towards the gate. A car was relentlessly honking its horn behind him. He turned around to see ‘the caller’ in the driver’s seat and there was another man sitting next to him, wearing sunglasses and looking down. He got inside the car, and there he recognised him. He had seen him after about 2 years, and he was looking back at him from the front seat, smiling, and holding a joint in his hand as if they had done this every single day of their lives together, asking the most rhetorical of questions.

The ‘Lakshya’ casualty

‘Lakshya’ is an awesome movie…we all know that, but this movie has a very special place in my life. And I know that almost anyone that I know, who has watched this movie, has atleast once thought about wearing the Olive Green. I remember that it had released when I had given my interview at AFMC and I was hoping to get in. I was just killing my time at home after all the entrance exams and was expecting my results.
The first time that I saw this movie, I was overwhelmed by emotions and this patriotic surge and I just wanted to get in the army and annihilate Pakistan, like Sunny Deol. A few weeks later I was in AFMC, in the middle of a crisis named ‘Fachcha Term’ and barely managing five rounds of the football ground.
We sneaked out of the college one day to watch this movie. I still remember Sanjay Rawal crying while watching it and the rest of us were trying to hide from our seniors who were sitting two rows behind us. We had bunked the compulsory evening games to get there and after the show we were desperately trying to mingle with the crowd (Imagine six dudes of varying sizes, shapes and colours, with bald skulls and those penguin suits trying to blend in a crowd of 20-30 odd people. Yes, this movie was not quite popular at that time.)
But the incident that prompted me to write this note, took place a few months ago. I was crossing the Brahmaputra river in a brand new ferry, on its maiden voyage, to get to Arunachal for an assignment. The entire transit takes 2 hours and so you look around to find someone to talk to. There was an officer fortunately and we started talking. It turned out that Lakshya was his favourite movie too, and it had a huge impact on his decision to join the fauj.
“Sir atleast 30 baar toh dekh chuka hoon main ye movie”, he said, intently scraping the mud off his boots as he was talking, “Saat saal ho gaye mujhe Lakshya pehli baar dekhe hue ko par ek baat mujhe kuchh mahine pehle hi dhyaan mein aayi.”
“Kya?”, I asked.
“Jab Hrithik Roshan IMA jaane ki soch raha hota hai, toh ek ladki usko bolti hai ki “Army ke uniform mein boys kitne smart lagte hain na?” Wo fauj mein aa jaata hai, par wo ladki dobara poori movie mein phir kabhi nahin phatakti..”
And I thought to myself, that this was either one of the most brilliant displays of straight faced humour or..well, the guy just had a point.

‘deserve’ ko hindi mein kya kehte hain?

Last night Rao, Chancho and I were sitting at Gill sir’s place when as usual a thought crossed my mind…again!

What is the hindi word for ‘deserve’?

And I know my hindi is pretty good, but I did not know the word…I asked the other 3…no answer.

Things got pretty desperate and so I asked the one person I know, would know…and again…no answer (Mittal abhi bhi time hai).

So, it got me thinking, does hindi have a word for ‘deserve’? I do not know…but it brought a thing to light for that moment…our culture is so much dependent upon luck…fate…destiny or plain and simple ‘bhaagya’…that we do not give our own actions much credit, because in our culture we believe everything is pre planned from the moment we are born. The stellar alignment at the time of birth determines what a person will do in his life…maybe there is no word in hindi for ‘deserve’, but if you have the answer, please do let me know.

 

Another thing happened last night, you see I am working in the Obs & Gynae department these days in the hospital and yesterday was one of those wretched days where you just need one tiny little incident to make you feel like smashing someone’s face in.

I was in a bad mood when Chaddu sent me a SMS at around 1:30-2:00 in the morning…and after  that we were texting, just hurling abuse at each other for around 2 hours…strangely the whole thing was quite therapeutic.

And you know, all you need during these times are friends, and no matter what they do…you look forward to face the next day because you know you have these friends to fall back upon.

Cheers to friendship!

Today, I was just sitting in my office,bored,doing nothing,when i just remembered something.This happened a few years ago, in Shimla.
On our way back from tuitions one day, I asked Obaid to come along to Kaali Baari Mandir, and he refused.
The reply is still quite vivid. He said, “I do not want to bow down to a statue that somebody else made. I will bow down in front of a tree, I can bow down to a dog, because God has made it.”

So it brings me to the present debate that is going on inside my head, it is not related to the story, but still it has some connection…I think.

You see, I am staying at Mandir Block, CH in Udhampur, and though I usually do not get disturbed by the bhajans that they play in the mandir, just across the road, my friends complain a lot.

Again, getting back to the topic, I see the pujari staying inside or around the mandir, studying Ramayana, Geeta, a little stroll here and there, conversations with the regulars everyday.

But effectively, has his life evolved? Has he learnt something new that is worthwhile? Or for that matter,has reading those books, brought him any closer to God than me?

I am all for reading those books, they are awesome books…but reading them just for the sake of it?

And then, have we been sent here by God, to the Earth, just to remember him all the time, or are we here to actually do something good, worthwhile. Will we not find God if we set out to make a difference and then achieve it?

What about those who live a life of celibacy, thinking they are doing a service to their religions…don’t they get a clue? Why would have God taken so much pain to create us in the first place then?

I am a believer, a firm one at that (I should have said this much earlier). There are many incidents that have happened in my life, that I cannot explain without the concept of divine intervention…and  I am grateful for every second of my life, but I do not believe that God wants to be in our conscious mind always…that would be too human, i mean, expecting gratitude for well…everything.

I believe he has sent us to be good to each other, find God in each other by doing little good things for each other.

I believe, and I am no christian, in fact I do not believe in any religion…just God, that “Love thy Neighbour” just about sums it all up.

God does not expect us to do great things, its a bonus if we do! But it is this basic philosophy that should govern our lives.

What else would please the big ball of light upstairs, than to see us not hating, hurting or killing His creations, instead loving, caring and respecting everything and everyone?