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.

Memoirs of a lost world

There was no truck visible on the road for over an hour. The office staffs knew what had happened! They were aged clerks who had come all the way to the check post, 11 pm at night and 30 km from city, to issue the receipts of Motor Vehicle Tax collection.

The Officer in Charge of the local Police Station was sitting on the front on his jeep, obviously disrespectfully to the ADM, smoking like ‘Rajnikant’.

Someone murmured, ‘Sir, police has passed the message about the raid to the trucks and dhaba owners along the road’

‘I know’, Amit replied in disgust and asked everyone to get back on the vehicles, ‘We will move ahead of the check post to the state border’ he said.

Everyone understood that the decision was to go to the place where the ### check posts had been blown away in bomb blasts a few months back and Naxals often attacked the Government vehicles.

After a few kilometers, the trucks started becoming visible, locked and parked on two sides of the road. The drivers would be having their late night entertainment in the neighbouring villages, as the official quest to reach the revenue target continued. Soon the Sal forest area started along the road. Here, there was no truck, no habitation, no light, only dense forests on two sides and sounds of crickets.

‘This area cannot have mobile telephone network’, Amit thought.

One of the jeeps was stopped in the middle of the road to block the passage. All the other vehicles were parked along the side, all lights off.

Soon lights of mobile vehicles appeared from a distance. They gradually came closer until the first Truck stopped slowly next to the jeep with over 8-10 trucks behind it; late night they invariably travel in convoys. The driver was trying to stare in the dark to see if it was an accident. The whole team, of babus and amins and the police men collected from the District Head quarter surrounded the trucks. The truck drivers tried to assess, who those people could be. Whether their convoy had more men or the unexpected raiders outnumbered them.

‘Police, Police’, one of the Babus shouted to inform that it was ‘Government’.
The Motor Vehicle Inspectors started confiscating the documents so they could be checked at the check post. A simple, may be not legal, way to get the documents inspected as legally they never stop at the check post. They just fly off. One of the drivers refused to surrender the documents and bolted the door from inside. It was obvious that he would incur a fine above 50 thousand or he wouldn’t contest like that.

‘Desi tactics’ were adopted, the glass window was broken with a stone and the driver pulled out after unlocking the door. He came out reluctantly, raising a ‘humkara’ or a war cry. That meant a call to the other drivers to come out armed.

‘Teri *&^ $$ ’, almost everyone in the team responded with a louder shout. People knew that it was no more a Motor Vehicle inspection. It was a war and one had to fight to survive.

The talwaar that the driver was carrying was snatched, many people held him and he was bashed immediately and overpowered to send the message right.

The trucks behind were still in confusion due to the darkness of the forest, as to what was happening. It meant that the trucks’ continued to come on the road and their column was building up. The Government team hurriedly moved ahead confiscating the documents of as many trucks as possible.

After sometime Amit turned back, he realized that the lights of the first truck which was stopped appeared really far off now.

No more risk. His team was getting scattered in ones and twos on each of the trucks. They were certainly less in number now.

There was immediate call in local language to fall back with whatever documents they had collected. It served the purpose as the trucks were from North India and they couldn’t understand the local language. People started returning back with the documents collected. The driver of the first truck was made to sit in the police jeep just as a ‘ransom’, so that the other trucks also follow.

Each vehicle was asked to count every head they had come with. One doesn’t want a dead body of a Government employee to be recovered from the forest next day.

Gradually, the forests reduced. The only risk left now was once the vehicles cross the region of hundreds of trucks parked en route to the check post. What if they stopped Government vehicles? Trucks on long routes are invariably armed.

Hooters of all the vehicles were turned on along with the Red Lights for whichever vehicle had it to give an impression that it was the convoy of Defense Minister of Mars.

Slowly that area was also crossed with confused onlookers contemplating whether to attack Government vehicles or to allow them to go. The hooter of three- four vehicles is loud enough to create suspicion in anyone’s mind. They had no clue that the clerks from the Collectorate were sitting in the vehicles.

Raid got over. All vehicles were back. Head count was done once again. Everyone was back.

The OC of the PS was still sitting on the front of his jeep. He looked utterly shocked.

Now even ‘his’ own men were not under his control. The Sepoys were hugging each other. They were enthralled, damn excited, shivering in the cold as they shook hands with the clerks and car drivers. For some time, there was no line department there was only one victorious army and the tension was refusing to die.

The drivers of the vehicles with documents just confiscated had started to come and were depositing fines. Someone had started preparing tea in one corner of the ‘official and authorized’ checkpost.

Total revenue collection was Rs 6 lakhs plus for that raid.

To count 50!

I’ve come so far this year, 47 mails till yesterday, despite many of the mails which were posted at some point of time having been removed for various reasons.

Somehow, an idea struck that why should I not try to reach the half century. Though time is less for 3 more mails, it is worth a trail and why not? This being 1 of them.

The past year 2008 was not an ordinary year to almost everyone who was here in this small world of ours.

We saw the world order changing, quite a bit, with over weighted systems cracking down under their own weight. We saw traditions in Finance and Business overwhelmed by the tide of time, after more than a generation had gone by believing that the world stood on those pillars.

There was fear, there was anger, there was disgust, and there was hatred while there were also some rays of hope for some of us. And amidst all this chaos- which forcefully dissected our lives and left an impression that will last for years, if not till the time we live- there were we trying to protect some space for ourselves.

In this year of turmoil, as individuals, we were- or atleast I was- trying to pull the threads of our lives in one place and put the particles of dust in place, to be, the islands that we are supposed to be.

I wish and hope that in the New Year, our world moves for a better tomorrow. Hope there is clarity in our minds, hope the fear in our mind does not force us to hit at the hand that comes ahead to help us. May God bless us.

3 decades later

In the week just gone, he had completed his third trial to get across the main gate of his house by climbing its top to go out and buy a kite. Second trial was a grand success while the first and third were disasters. From the top he had landed heads down and bled badly.

That day the small kid was standing next to the entrance door of his house as he waved to his friends. It was the month of December, year 1978, and he was to join the school of his elder brother from next day.

His mother was very happy; the news of admission of the kid in a reputed school had just been communicated by his dad. His elder brother always stood first in his class in same school. That had paved the way for the admission of the younger sibling; otherwise, admission during the mid session in a convent school is impossible!

‘They admit children older than 4 years only during the regular session itself, so I had to …………’, his father was expressing hesitatingly.

But that had been happening in all the schools they had tried for admission, so it was understood. This urgency had come up only recently as the mother of the child had been appointed a lecturer in the university and had to join immediately.

They knew that the kid was a bit (just a bit) naughty and if both parents worked in university, leaving him alone at home, it could mean more problems. So the admission meant a safe home for the kid.

But the first day in school for the kid was not so good. The Aaya had taken him to the first seat in the class; he was so small for the size of other kids in the class. But other kids are possessive of their belongings, all the fronts seats were occupied for six months now. He had been driven away from the first seats to second row, from there to third and finally to the last row of three empty seats.

He had walked to a see-saw, designed like a boat, on the side of the class and wept nonstop.

That was clear cheating. He always had cried when bhaiya and didi went to school on their rickshaws. He wanted to accompany them on the rickshaw. But bhaiya had dropped him here, at the door of this class and disappeared!!!!!!!!!!

‘Bhaiyaaaaaa…….’, he cried; the more he thought of his elder brother, the more inconsolable he was. Where is his brother? Why are they not sitting together when he had come all the way with his brother? It seemed, his brother had left him there forever and forgotten him forever.

He wanted to go back to home. But the Aaya was trying to get him off the see-saw and get him back to his seat. Everyone in the class was laughing.

For some time everyone croaked something behind the teacher, he didn’t know what? He had again burst into tears and everyone had again laughed at him.

Finally the class of the smallest kids in the school had got over.

The second day in the school was better, there was a PT class and the class had gone to a playground. Each kid knew his place in the queue as they walked holding the shoulder of the kid in front. Since the last kid did not like a smaller kid to hold him from the back, he declined to forego his coveted last position in the row.

So be it! Be it! He had walked all alone as a jealous class had watched him.

As the teacher missed him all together, while the class was made to sit in one place in circles, he played around the entire field. He played with bigger boys and girls of other classes, who were allowed to play on their own. What was even better his brother was there with all his friends. And as usual, slightly elder girls started behaving grand-motherly to the young kid.

‘Ye bhi apni class mein first aata hai kya?’ and ‘Ye khata kya hai?’ were two memorable questions.

But that half an hour was too short and the classes had fallen in their queues to start for their classrooms leaving the smallest kid decked at the highest slide in the ground (and sadly being noticed by his teacher also).

He was asked to slowly slide down, then there was ‘Chooha bhaag billi aayyi’ played between the kid and the class teacher which the teacher lost and so she finally resorted to violence. As the chooha was being mauled by an angry cat, he had happily bitten her arm to escape her claws.

It seems all the young teachers are fascinated by bandits and dacoits, even that class teacher was! She had proclaimed that the kid would ‘Bada hoke Daaku banega’.

Leaders are born!!!! They are never made!!!. That day an undisputed leader was discovered by Class Nursery D of St. Francis Convent School, Wazirpura Agra. People look forward to their leaders; for all the schooling years to follow his class looked backwards, towards the last seat of the class, with respect and reverence.

That day his ‘bhaiya’ had been called back from his class to get his younger brother back to the Nursery class, since the teacher and staff had failed to lure him back into the trap. Bhaiya had borrowed money from his two friends to buy two candies for his younger brother.

Next day parents were summoned. They had simply lied that their son was not spoilt and that he would not become a ‘Daaku’.

The story almost ends here. The records that got the kid admission in school never changed. He became a Daaku, almost! But, he would never have become what he could, had he not been asked to compete with bigger kids and better them. There is joy hidden in the biggest pains in life, you only need to have an eye to search for it.