Rebuilding the structures

There was a new arrival in their Colony and also in their team. But he was irritating at times. He could never stop comparing Amit with some Sikandara from his previous place, Nai Ki Mandi.

He plays Cricket like you, so also foot ball, and also Badminton………. And also ……..

These issues need to get sorted out fast. A match got fixed and the teams clashed. Sikandara was valiant on the football field but he lost as a leader. He was the only good player in his team and they got slaughtered in no time.

His team got added to the list of the defeated teams that included boys from the refugee Colony, the teams next to the big field (which were perennial competitors to get the central pitch of the field), team from the back rows in the colony, team from the double storey quarters and so on.

One of the team was difficult to beat. They lived close to the police lines; they played as reserves to the training policemen and had bigger boys on their roll. That football match was played over 90 % in Amit’s half. The Center forward was playing in the defence, just to stop that flood gate to open on their goal post. They ran and ran like dogs in the first half and were down 1-2. The second half would have been a massacre.

But there were two saving graces. First, two teams had only one watch, and the person from Amit’s team who had the watch was also the extra player they had, so he was made the unwilling referee. Second, the opponent’s 10 men were in Amit’s half- each realizing an opportunity to become a hero by shooting into the goal. Even 10 men in Amit’s team were defending the goal, the eleventh standing in front of the rival goal- too tired to run back to defend his goal post.

OK that should be an off-side, but if the referee is yours and too busy in your half- the match moves on. In a span of three to four minutes, the football was kicked full blooded from the defending side to the other side and twice, the dead man kicked the ball and beat the goalie both times.

The referee was smart and soon blew the final whistle. The loosing team kept complaining that the second half was too short but who cares, the match was won. The winning team kept lying all over the field, too happy and too exhausted to walk back.

Growing boys, atleast some of them, are like warriors. They want to increase their territory, their area of dominance. When the leader of the other area gets beaten, the whole team surrenders. If their best can’t fight they can’t even stand.

But that was a different age when boys got worried, if they read that Bruce Lee had strong muscles when he was 12 and wondered if 14 years is too late to be not that strong. So they doubled their pushups.

Though some people grow up planning to be all conquering emperors, their teachers would blandly disagree, “His bother getting into IIT is fine. But him!!!! Hmmm………….Every child is different!!!”

But accidents occur in life. Amit never realized how he got the third rank in School in Board- a decent recognition. He changed his school as he did not take registration fee and then everything changed.

But, that desire to expand the dominance keeps burning. People may get into the civil services, just with the belief that they would fight everything wrong and change the systems. They could take a strange job in a B-School, believing they would build a new corporate empire where their friends could join them.

But time teaches the futility of the desire to grow beyond reach. It takes time to realize that it is not their fault if they couldn’t make an empire; this is a different age, a different time. No more when 14 years old were taken as kings- for a 5,000 strong city town to become part of history- because they were the best or atleast good.

But the lost years do teach a lot. The value of a vacation spent with parents in hill station during the summer vacations, which never came back in mighty offices and positions. And the immeasurable wealth of being close together as a family during the festivals; of having someone next to you when you are unwell, sad, lonely or disheartened. One gets to start loathing the fights fought all alone, for things no more important.

And then having already walked a long way on that road one could feel it just worthwhile to search for a true friend and nothing else; someone who could be close in every moment of life. One who could plan a track for the next summers, someone who could discuss the rhyme of the next lines in the poem, or prepare a new album of the stamps and coins collected over years, or prepare a cup of hot coffee on a winter evening as they watch the lights in the city from the balcony while the light music plays, or maybe even help focus the star correctly in the telescope.

For no money can buy joy as much, no conquest could be as powerful. Only experience tells what to fight for and what to let go; and when the horizon of action tries to touch the sky and when it tries to fit in a small home.

A Long One but Blame it on the Rains

Wonder if someone questions you about the merit of the decision to pursue a course in a B School. Will you feel hurt? Terribly disappointed to hear it from ‘that’ person and decide to change the course itself.

Blame it on emotions or that particular rainy afternoon. Some people get too emotional about small things. No wonder that ends up changing their life quite a bit- because outcomes of Rainy days are never known. But for good or for bad- rains are special.

As a kid I remember reaching the school on a rainy day with barely 5-6 of my classmates present. It was such a sad feeling, the school was not declared closed on the rainy day. I remember, I had ran out of the rear gate of our school, bluffing Peter who used to guard it, shouting “Mera Tiffin rikshe pe rah gaya! Mera Tiffin rikshe pe rah gaya!” As if I was going to get my Tiffin back.

‘Hurrah!’ Full six hours of roaming around the streets in a torn raincoat, which prevents your identification and creating one of the most relished days of your life.

Some people have this travelling bug in their horoscope, some say ‘Chakra on the feet’. Mine is such.

I remember having once accompanied my elder brother to ‘Nai ki Mandi’, to buy some vegetables. I was about two years old and still a liberated soul. This area of Agra is the first (and the worst) to get affected in communal riots. We had to buy vegetables from shops right at the entrance of the market and the reward was a kite we had bought from the adjoining shop.

As true and responsible siblings would do, I was warned never to go beyond in that market.

Everything had been fine until one day, ‘Nitu Ki Dadi’ saw me, may be a two and a quarter year old- all on his own- buying kite from the “Ustaad Patang Wala” - a kite shop in the most interior and dreaded area of that market. One would need to cross numerous crowded crossings and innumerable lanes to reach there, over two and a half kilometers from home.

While the old lady had kindly ‘escorted’ a ‘small’ kid ‘safely’ to his home, what could a weeping mom say? I used to take permission to buy kite from the shop in front of our house :). At that point of time Mom used to co-author text books for Agra University with Papa, giving good opportunity to me to escape her attention.

Her getting the job of a lecturer in the university and the follow up admission of mine in the School had occurred as a chain of events soon after.

In the kindergarten, when I was still amongst the shorter kids, I remember having taken a ‘knife’ to the school to impress the girl who sat next that I was also a grown up. As not expected, the young lady had informed the teacher about it. ‘Bechara Romeo pita to koi baat nahin’, the teacher had also confiscated the knife.

It could only be recovered after the teacher realized that this student of hers will not let her go back home after the school was over without taking his knife back. That knife, forever used as a paper cutter by Papa, still occupies its respectable place on dad’s reading table.

Moral of the story is- This event had also occurred on a rainy day :)

It was class one when I had run away from the school on the rainy day. And why from school alone?

In those days, during the rainy season with the falling of first drop of rain from the heavens, the city electricity would go off creating a black out (Generators and Invertors were not common then).

As ‘wise’ the elder kids normally are, in our family too, they had managed to let the lit candle fall on the newly purchased dining table, got an edge of the table burnt and merrily blamed it on me.

In the follow up of events a class one kid was rescued by his father far off from the house on a pitch dark rainy night, surrounded by a lot of angry street dogs, as he was leaving that house ‘forever’ for being wrongly blamed for damaging the table.

I wonder what could have happened had not Papa heard a lot of barking dogs that night from one direction and rightly thought I could be with my best buddies.

In class first, I had scored a “perfect zero” in “Recitation” in the first term exam. The second term recitation exam was even better; the nun was naming one poem after the other if I knew how to recite those.

Recite those??? I had never heard of those. And then the poor teacher had asked if I remembered any poem on earth. I had responded happily that I had learnt one of the poems from the first term because during the first term examination she had told me that she would make me recite the same poem again in the half yearly exams.

With the combined effort of the teacher and the pupil, the poem was completed and the student was given 6 marks out of 10.

Teachers are magicians; they can draw rabbits out of hats. Atleast I was never sure if I would come first in the class or flunk in half a dozen of subjects. Ok, you got it ......... I was ever so inconsistent.

But first time I had hit the Jackpot was in Class Two, first term exam and I had got second rank in the class.

I was the only one in the class who was collecting his report card himself and had to wait till the time my parents came from college and pick me up, so I had luxury of time to ‘flaunt’ my achievement to every newcomer. And that too happened to be a rainy day, so in a way I was trapped in the school.

The boy who had come first had committed a tactical blunder of sitting next to one Mr Aziz (who was bossing around there), by far the richest person in the class, and also the most ancient sculpture of class II. The Mom of the first ranker was also there and was more than keen to welcome every mother that entered the class and enquire how well her child had performed.

In the situation so generated and the cocktail that thus got prepared, every mom and her child that entered would run away from that boisterous lady. All the duty bound moms would desperately look for some ‘bright’ student who could help their child, so that she could get them to shake hands and seek atonement.

In the unfolding events someone conducted massive recruitments in his ‘TEAM’ and by the end of which half of the team of Mr Aziz had been shifted to a new team. And all this was taking place ‘officially’ under the supervision of the mothers of the new recruits.

No doubt the recruitment was about 50% of the class size. Mr Aziz was phenomenally rich; he used all imported stationary and was known for his generosity, he could organize large Ice cream treats. Obviously, the fairer sex did not shift loyalties.

All big things in life happen on rainy days. The team formed that day was to rock the school for the years to come.

Memoirs of a lost world

It is raining heavily here.

Had it been in Agra and 10 years back, in such conditions in the Hindu calender month of 'Shravan' or 'Saawan' we would travel to Mathura, some beautiful song playing in the car, to see some of the temples, to roam around in those “Kunj Galis”, to eat some of the best prepared milk sweets along with the Samosas, then to get geared to start for Vrindavan, visit the temples there, have lunch under some tree, watch monkeys play around you, the elder ones waiting patiently for their share of food while the impatient younger ones unable to resist the aroma would sit on your lap and eat from your hand, they are gods and we would all love that, then couple of people would prefer to lie down under the tree for a nap while some would prefer the car seats, papa would walk down some alley to meet some of his old friend, one need not walk more than a few steps to reach the destination in a 2 sq km town, two kids- one boy wearing a loose knickers and un-tucked shirt and one girl wearing a frock with the torn lower frill touching the ground- will run down the road from that house holding a tray each with glasses of lemon water, they would communicate in a threatening tone how upset their grandmother/ mother is that you are sitting in a temple complex and not in their drawing room, by then papa would come with his friend, his face telling all that he has been given a nice scolding by his bhabhi, his friend would explain that he would not get his dinner if we would not go to his house, we would all talk and happily walk to his home, we would happily observe papa being scolded by his bhabhi like a small boy ‘lallu bahut bada ho gaya hai jo ghar nahin aayega’ and see him stand with his head held down, you know after your grandparents were not there the distant bhabhis had taken care of your then small papa as mother, and part of the ritual of a Vrindavan visit is that papa wants to get scolded by his senior friends because he knows the value of having elders to scold you, because they will not always be there, and these visits and getting scolded are counter intuitive and are also meant to assure the elder people that we are there and they need not worry, that the small orphan boy whom they helped grow up has his children grown up and they have got into the biggest jobs of this country, all the hard work of the friends and seniors has paid rich dividend, the dog in the house would have done all the tricks by then to flatter you, rolling on the ground, trying to catch his tail and running away with one of the shoes just to tell you that he is happy that you are there and he wants to play with you, grown up dogs are very similar to grown up men, they are very much like boys, they will never grow up and would always be like the best pal they were as a pup, he would take you to meet his best friend- the old cow standing in one corner of that house and she has a beautiful name too, then two three or four families would walk towards the ‘Banke Bihari Ji’ wishing every one along the road ‘Radhe Radhe’ and in the next hour or so everyone would be lost with Krishna in one of the most awakened temple, then the shopping spree would start, from the latest framed pictures from ISKON of the child Krishna or the Radha Krishna, of the smallest pocket copy of Hanuman Chalisa, or a new publication from Motilal Banarasi das on palmistry, and after the farewell we would start back, and time permitting one could stop at some old bawdi, or at the Siva temple remains on the back of Yamuna or at Sikandra- Akbar’s Mausoleum, you would pray that the railway crossing should be down and the car gets to stop at the road side pakori shop there- this shop is more than two hundred year shop with no brick structure, just a small shop on the road side which prepares what could be the cleanest, freshest and purest pakori- just amazing , and finally we would be back home, each excited by his day’s purchases and they never disappointed.

I wonder how much I have lost in last ten years, the insecurity and hard work that one generation puts in earning an honest living transmits to the next one. We went for making what was the most easily earned thing on earth- MONEY. What we seemed to have lost in the bargain are much more valuable- more difficult to find and acquire- true friends, true relationships, trust, faith, honesty, time and values- on which a happy life could easily be build.

There could be no balancing act, atleast I failed: ‘Kabhi kisi ko mukkammal jahaan nahin milta’.
Or as I always tell myself, I can take a lot of U-turns successfully and make up for the lost. One day, I will be back in my own world.

Nomads on the Road- 3

I just completed another tour covering a couple of states.

I had to spend a night at the Mumbai Airport because of a late night flight reaching from Bangalore and early morning connecting flight to Nagpur. This airport is less clumsy now than it was a few years ago when I had missed my flight from Mumbai to Ahmadabad. But every visit to Mumbai is special, because it reminds me of the good old IIT days and one of my most memorable stay in any one city in India.

I wish I could write about some of the old memories about Mumbai, from the Year 1996, when I had come from IIT Delhi as a summer trainee for duration of three months. The Mumbai rains and the football matches in the Hostel Lawns (mud fields flooded with water) are still fresh in the memory. And so is the ORKAY mill, once a rival to Reliance and which was possibly in the last year of its existence when I had received my training there.

The thoughts of the first job offer that I had received, during the last days of my training, still create a sensation. Obviously the job was not from ORKAY that it should be so memorable to me but it was on behalf of some BHAI in Dubai. Now, if that sounds interesting, the real story would be even more interesting. For years I have been thinking to write it sometime, but have desisted for the fear of few people believing it.

Bombay or Mumbai, is the place one has to be- to succeed in life. Though I am not so gung ho about working in Mumbai now, a small win in the west this time means I could be travelling to Maharashtra more often.

And as the horoscope says that it is the time to see the results of the efforts of past few months, so shall one wait and see.

Nomads on the Road- 2

It is a small world and a big one too.

Last time when I had come to Bihar that was in 1999 and when our team of probationers from LBSNAA had arrived, we were welcomed by a huge contingent of helpers, care takers, guides and Nazirs.

This time around, it was different. As I parted with the other team members, who were to go back after a presentation- I had to search for a hotel for accommodation. Being economical in these times is not a compulsion but definitely a better idea. And if one has to go to the next lane, hiring a taxi is not the best idea.

The age old rickshaws, which took me to school right from half a year in nursery till a quarter of class seventh- when I shifted to bicycling- looked so curious and attractive with all that stuff of providing some easy earning to a poor man.

This long gap of time, since then, only occurred when I sat on the rickshaw. The relative size of that vehicle was still the same in my mind for all these years; something where two rows of kids were seated facing each other- one on the seat and the other on the wooden plank and had luxurious space to fight, play, scream and pass years of innocence and joy.

This time around when the knees touched the rickshaw pullers seat, the reality of time struck and shattered the fixed images of the past. But it was beautiful and I tried to hire that conveyance as often as I could.

Then a visit to Ranchi followed. I could not agree more to it now what was told by my senior; this job is extremely entrepreneurial (unlike the highly glamorous image associated with it).

After having worked till late night to prepare some documents, I had to get some 600 plus prints taken in colour and B/W, get 4 hard copies bound and seal the docs and had to submit them before the prescribed time. At every stage and having done each step, I had to explore a new market and had very little time before submission of docs.

And then the hotel staff gave ugly looks when I asked for a taxi. Small cities still don’t have a large enough demand for such ‘luxuries’ and so business doesn’t develop around that. On a summer afternoon, it became a torture to search for an auto or taxi and all the efforts seemed to be going down the drain.

I had to go to an office which was clearly out of the main town and considered as ‘very far’ by the local definition. While it was certain that I would be delayed on a shared Tempo, I asked the driver of one of the tempos which had just completed one way of its circuit, if I could hire his full auto for my own use. After the customary bargain on the rates, which either side does for the fun they derive out of it and hardly for the value, the deal was made.

The Tempo became the Ferrari and the driver became its chauffer, clearing pleased with the deal he had just completed and he started racing the vehicle on the narrow Ranchi roads against the private cars. It raced and crossed the stands with the regular commuters waving to stop the vehicle and the driver determined to tell everyone around, ‘People this is a Ferrari’.

Finally the document got submitted on time and then those feelings of relief; almost tons of load off the head!! After a couple of days of stay in Ranchi, I started for Kolkata; making it six stations in six days.

Do I like this? Definitely I don’t mind this. For a Gemini, travel means the ether in excited state- the way they are, the way they prefer it.

But for certain I look forward to the shift to Gurgaon now. Last time, I had to start before the search for a house could begin. But being close to Delhi, I need badly, and I look forward to it. After all, it is a small world to travel around, but it is still a big world and one wants to be close to his roots at some point of time.

A Pilgrimage

It is over a month since I got this break to jot down something for this blog, even though I have been checking some of my favourite blogs without fail and cursing myself for my nonstop hopping schedule.
So what I did all this while is something I definitely want to write. The First stop, the non official one! Just ran away from office one Saturday (office anyway was off), took the bus to Tirupati and then called someone.
“Boss, I will be in your jurisdiction, if you can help organize the Darshan of the Lord, God Bless- even otherwise I am going ahead”, I said.
And then the things did fell in place- the Grandeur of the Laal batti :-) , chauffeur driven car and orderlies to welcome you is mesmerizing. I do miss it for sure, but that is part of life. I believe I am not doing too badly either.
Once I reached the temple and the security area for documentation, the video of the pilgrims being rushed in the main shrine- in fraction of seconds- was intimidating.
“Lord! they say one reaches here only if you want him to. Let me have a glance of yours”, I prayed, I begged.
Once the paper work was done I started and reached closer to the main shrine through some vacant corridors. No Dhakka Mukki and I escaped Police Lathi too (Seriously, now I fear that the most).
Then I waited in the neighbouring Rang Mandap for the morning Pooja to get over. The mandap was built by Ranganath Yadav Nayak (of Mysore kingdom probably) to my surprise. The beautiful Golden Sheshanaag was right there in front of me and then I was asked to come to the main temple.
It was a humbling experience! as I was the only person in the sanctum sanctorum, besides the high priests and even they asked me to sit next to the statue of the lord. For so many moments I sat there stunned and wondering if I was really that lucky and where were the thousands of VIPs at those moments that visit the temple.
I tried to capture every minute details of the statue in my memory forever. Then shivering I came out and the journey down the hill began. I thanked my friend for the visit and he explained that he had to arrange so many visits each day and it was my good luck if I had a pleasant visit.
The office staffs were still staring at me in disbelief (scared possibly, as even I was) for they had been doing this duty for ages and rarely had anyone been in the temple alone for so long as they said.
I think and rethink and want to believe the best; may be the Lord had stopped the flow of other pilgrims while I was there.

Hope is the word

Year 2009 is already 14 days old, and the New Year seem to be not much different from the last. I would say that the mayhem continues, if it was the year of the Finance and Real Estate (Debacle) last year than 2009 seems to be touching other sectors as well already.
Messy people in power are trying to brush aside their major failures on international front by creating internal fiasco as well.
But still hope is always the best bet.
Today, Sun moved from the Sagittarius to Capricorn (according to the Indian horoscope), so let’s believe that could help. Happy ‘Makarsankranti’ as well; hope we all enjoyed flying kites today, if there was not much else to do. Happy Pongal! Happy Lohri! See, there are so many reasons to be ‘happy’ on a single day in India.
Looking beyond the smaller boundaries- may be Obama would do something, when he enters his office, that could help the world economy.
Whatever or whatever else! Hope, for the good to come next, should be there. So, blogging should continue :) and wishing a belated Happy New Year to all. Happy watching ‘Gajini’ or whichever the latest movie is released.