Not all is bad....

We complain about our "system" so much. We say that corruption has eaten into the core of every government institution in India, hindering their proper functioning. We say that there is no work culture in state agencies, riddled with partisanism as they are. We all know about the "sarkaari karmachari", who arrives at office at 11, has tea, gossips, then sits at his desk at 12, then goes for lunch at 1, dozes through the afternoon, then asks for a bribe to sign a document submitted to him in the morning, and goes home at 4. We all dread the police that, come Pujas, go out hunting for helmet-less bikers, stopping them and asking them to pay a hundred rupees if they don't want trouble. We all know about the TTEs in trains, and how forking out fifty bucks saves a man caught smoking from being officially booked and paying the hefty fine of two hundred and fifty Rupees.

My experience of the past few days have compelled me to think a bit differently.

While on my way to college the other day, I saw a lady trying to cross a busy road with her baby on one hand and a heavy bag in the other. Then I noticed a policeman approaching the lady. He went up to her, took the bag from the lady's hand, and escorted her across the road, stopping on-coming traffic in one direction at the busy junction. Once across, he signaled for the traffic to resume plying, and went about his business. I was part of the way which was not stopped, but I couldn't help but look back at what was happening. It felt good.

Last Thursday, I had a bank demand draft to make, on which depended my getting an application attested, on which depended my sending the application by post. And my getting the demand draft made depended on whether or not my friend got hers made, because the one she already had, had a few mistakes in it, and I couldn't make mine until I knew if the corrections had been made on hers. My friend rang me at about 12-55 in the afternoon, telling me that the mistakes in her draft had been caused by the Indian Overseas Bank itself (from where she'd got her draft) and that, on asking them about it, they admitted their error and promptly had it corrected, rather than asking her to get a new draft made. Well, I had been waiting for her call at the local State Bank of India branch. The moment I got the call, I filled up the form and went up
to the counter. Now lunchtime at the bank had started at one, yet here I was, standing behind two others at the draft-counter, five minutes past the stroke of one. I had little hope of getting the draft made before the second half, in which case there was no way I could send my application by registered post the same day. To my pleasant amazement, the lady at the counter accepted the forms from the three of us even while she was munching away at a piece of cake, stamped the forms and sent them for approval at the next counter. Within fifteen minutes I had the draft in my hands. I thought of Ma, who had told me that getting the draft made would take at least a half hour, so make sure I made it to the bank with enough time to get it done, because once lunch-hour started, then my draft, if in processing, would get stuck till the second half.

I drove home, entered my friend's and mine draft numbers in the respective application forms' soft copies, took a print out of each, then ran off to college to get them attested by our Registrar. The whole process of getting the application forms attested took all of two minutes, which included submitting them to the academic section for the stamps, getting them back, going over to Registrar sir's office, and him putting his signature on them.

By the time I had gathered the rest of the documents, put them in the envelopes, written the address on them and sealed them, it was twenty past three. My mother called me again, asking me when I would come home. I told her that I had yet to go to the post office to send the envelopes by registered post. Immediately, Ma said, "Are you dreaming? You won't get any work done at the post office after 3, and by the time you reach most people will have gone home. Do the posting tomorrow, come home now." But I had other ideas. I had been having incredible luck since morning that day, and I decided to push it a bit further.

Off I ran to the post office. When I entered, I saw all of two people outside the counters, and the first thought that came to mind was that Ma had been right, I should have listened to her. If there were only two people outside the 15-odd counters, there would be fewer behind them. However, as I approached the first counter, I saw a man behind it. He was in charge of the stamps-counter. I asked him whether or not articles for registered posting were being accepted any more for the day. He told me to go to counter number 10. To counter 10 I went, and found myself behind one of the two people I had mentioned that were outside of the counters. The official at the table asked for the envelopes, I forwarded them to him, he weighed them on the electronic weigh-scale, stamped them, stuck a computerised receipt on them , and gave me the counterfoil. My envelopes had been accepted for registry. My counterfoil bore a time-stamp of 3:42 p.m.

I am not saying that the first paragraph does not hold anymore. It does, and very much so. But something, somewhere, has slightly changed. And changed for the better. State-run banks, facing fierce competition from private banks, have improved their efficiency and performance. The postal system, if only for sheer survival, has brushed off some of its infamous lethargy,
and the police are actually doing some good work for a change. The Asansol Railway Station, which used to be a dirty, congested place by day and a shanty at best at night, has now become a picturesque, well-lit railway station. The jam-packed, overflowing parking lots have been spaced out and pushed back a hundred yards. There is a dedicated car parking lot where cars are
neatly arranged over a spacious area, as opposed to the place being congested with randomly parked vehicles. Sulabh complexes have come up in erstwhile stinking public toilets. The Asansol Bus Stand has been constructed in an orderly fashion, platforms, public announcement system, rest room, hotel et al, and it does not encroach on the busy Grand Trunk Road any more, causing traffic snarls even in the not-so-peak hours. The G.T. Road itself has been re-laid with excellent materials, making it a one way and reducing the congestion of traffic. The disorganised, filthy hawker's stalls all along the G.T. Road have been relocated to a dedicated market constructed for them. In their place have come up three-storied well-built market buildings, giving more scope for the buzzing economy of the hub of commerce that is Asansol to flourish. Traffic signals are followed and seldom broken, buses are not allowed to stop anywhere in the middle of the road, the pavements have been relaid with concrete, and the drainage system has improved.

My faith in government has been renewed. I believe we have a responsibility to take the good work forward by wearing the helmets, not littering the streets and following traffic signals and parking rules. I believe that there is still a lot of work to be done, and we can collectively do it.

Nothing

A day spent doing nothing. I am often left with a strong feeling of non-accomplishment at the end of a day. A feeling of having done nothing, accomplished nothing, read nothing. No constructive work, no deed to speak of. A full 24 hours have passed, and it's almost as though I've just stood at one place, watching the wheel roll past me. I've done nothing about it. I haven't ridden it, haven't even climbed up on it or made the effort to; I haven't even tried to push the wheel on its way. A nothingness, a void at the end of the day. Nothing has changed from yesterday. 

Yet I've done all my daily chores. I got up on time, got ready, went to college, came back, slept, watched some television, played a few small computer games, read a few lines of a detective story, had my dinner... and what? What did I do? When I ask myself that question at the end of the day, I am left with an answer that matches my mood, my feelings and my state of mind: nothing. 

The simplicity of it terrifies me. Because nothingness is the void, the unknown. I fear the unknown. A listlessness that inspires a morbid fear of dying from stagnation. Added to that is the time factor: if time appeared to have stopped, and me having done nothing, then probably the guilt wouldn't be there. But here I'm painfully aware of a day and a night having whizzed by, each hour screaming "MEANINGLESS!" at me. 

This is when studies start appealing. If anything, they're a sure shot answer to giving shape to shapeless minutes. They're an excuse to keep your mind occupied, rather than let it spend the whole time trying to figure out how to spend the time. Knowledge gained is a deed accomplished. That void starts to lift. The darkness inside starts to fill with distant rays of light. A hope tingles, purpose is found again. You start clawing your way out of the tangle you're in. The jungle suddenly appears friendly; the mountain, not so forbidding after all. 

Test

Why is it that as exams draw close one's inclination to study wanes out more and more, and because one is not studying, one's panic increases. It's a vicious circle. You don't feel like studying, so you're not studying; because you're not studying, you're panicky; more you panic, more you don't feel like studying; more you don't study, the more you feel that you SHOULD study, and that makes you even more panicky...and on and on and on it goes, until suddenly the exams are right on top of you, and you're caught in no man's land. 

You sit for the class tests, when you feel that you should spend this time studying at home making up for the semesters which are around the corner. But even as you think so, you feel that even if you'd stayed at home, you wouldn't've studied anyway, so what the heck. Yet, sit for the class tests you must, and you're not prepared for them, because you've been trying (unsuccessfully) to prepare for the big exam at large, and not for the class test in particular. So you toil through the agonizingly slow duration of the class test. You write a few uncertain lines of an answer to a particular part of a particular question. Then you lift your pen off the paper in order to ponder over what could be witten next without sounding outrageously off the mark. You read what you have written. You re-read it. Then you read it again. No, nothing suggests itself, no logical sequence of sentences dawns on your mind, nor any hope-inspiring insertions. You stare and stare at the question paper, you try to glare an answer out of the printed questions, but they're stubbornly and determinedly set against you, they won't suggest a hint, they won't budge, they're stones mocking back at you. 

Suddenly you realise that you've not written a word for a long time, and that has attracted the gaze of the invigilator on you. Hurriedly you bend down on your largely vacant answer sheet, and busy yourself in appearing busy writing, as though some bulb has suddenly lit up in all its glory in your mind, and you're trying to spread some of its glow on your answer sheet. After scribbling (or pretending to scribble) a few incoherent words, you look up to see if the invigilator has shifted her attention to some other hapless friend of yours. If she has, you take a sneak peek at your closest neighbour's paper, in the hope that his paper would provide the words of deliverance you so desparately need, only to find that same action reciprocated by your neighbour to you. However if the examiner hasn't taken her glance away from you, you have to resist the temptation to keep staring at her beautiful face and quickly transfer your gaze to the ceiling, pen in mouth, crease on forehead, contemplating in all sobriety what you've just written; then, with a meant-for-examiner-to-see shake of your head, you go about making corrections and lessening the glow on your recently lit answer script. 

The examiner finally looks elsewhere, and you try once again to glean some lines of rescue from your surroundings, immediate or otherwise. You  look over people's shoulders, ask them what's the answer to that or this, psst psst your friend two benches across from you, but are only met with shrugs, countenances as helpless as yours, and "I don't know"s. The one or  two that are scribbling away at full steam don't have the time to look up, let alone act as saviours.

Philosophy dawns on you. Old phrases of 'all (read most) sailing in the same boat' and 'sufferers in a commmon cause' come back to you. You feel smug that you belong to the majority. You don't want to be a part of that inhuman little group who study all year, come prepared for every test, and ask for and fill page after extra page, while you can't fill one half of a sheet of the four you're initially provided with. ('After all,' you wonder, 'don't they have some feeling for us mortals?') You write your name very nicely and carefully on your answer sheet, copy a question or two word to word to fill up the remaining half of the sheet you've written your miserable incomplete answer on, color up the o's and underline the technical and important sounding words on the question paper. You stop staring at the letters on your question paper and start counting them. 299 in total. 299 printed characters. That's some feat. 

All of a sudden you realise that it's been some time since you checked the time. You look at your watch, and voila!, time's almost up! You look around, and are relieved to find similar faces of elation all around you. The writomachines are still scribbling away, racing against time to complete the paper. You wish wickedly that may none of them finish in time. The examiner declares it's time, and you feel a sadistic satisfaction watching her snatching away the answer scripts from under the pens of some of the i-have-more-to-writes begging her to give them an extra minute. You self-righteously think that they've been provided enough time, and the examiner is correct in taking away their answer scripts. 

You come out of the hall, and find one of your friends boasting to another, "D'ya know, I have attempted 4 marks out of the twenty in that test!" The other says, "Pooh! Pooh! I've attempted two and a half, and half of that is guesswork!" You catch up with them, and say, "Okay, which of you two geniuses can tell me how many printed characters were there in the question paper?" Silence. Both your friends have been taken off guard by this extraordinary talent, and are speechless. After an eloquent pause, you enlighten them: "Two-ninetynine!" You're greeted with 'wow's and pats on the back. You head home gloating in an unprecedented sense of accomplishent.

State of Affairs

An 11 year old girl was set on fire in Jaipur. She was told not to wear lipstick by some neighbouring person whom she called ‘uncle’. She defied him, put on lipstick on Friday. The uncle, in a fit of rage, allegedly molested her and then poured kerosene on her and set her on fire. All because she had defied him, and put on lipstick. The girl suffered 90% burns.

A seventeen year old girl in Madhya Pradesh was set on fire by two local goons. She had earlier complained that these two were harassing her. They took their revenge. They forced themselves into her house when she was alone, and set her on fire.

Mr N. D. Tiwari calls Ujjwala Sharma an unchaste woman. He says he was her paramour. Because Ujjwala Sharma had an illicit lover when she was married, that makes her unchaste. And the fact that Mr Tiwari was in love (nay, lust, I would say) with a married woman, the fact that he carried on his affair knowing that Ujjwala Sharma was married, tells us what a pure character he is. If he is so sure that Rohit Sharma is not his biological son, why does he refuse to submit to a DNA test? Is he afraid that the cat will be let out of the basket? Does it not occur to him that by refusing to undergo the test, he is putting himself in a perilous position in the public’s eyes? Doesn’t it occur to him that many will ask, Why not undergo the test? Mr Narain Dutt Tiwari is a four-time chief minister.

Mr Monserrate says that his son is innocent. That his son never sexually harassed the girl he is alleged to have. That his son is being made the victim of a political conspiracy. Then he dares the Goa police to prove that his son is guilty. The police say that they have sufficient evidence to book his son. He knows that. Yet he dares the police to prove that his son is guilty. What is he thinking? Possibly, “The police have got proof so what? I’m a politician, therefore I’ve got, or I will have better proof!” Yet his son is nowhere to be seen. The police have issued a look-out notice in Mr Monserrate’s son’s name. But mind, his son is innocent. And then, part of the concluding lines of his interaction with a Times Now reporter:

Reporter: Finally, Mr Monserrate, where is your son?
Mr Monserrate: He is here.
Reporter: What do I make of that? Is he in the house?
Mr Monserrate: He is very much here. Make what you like of it. He is very much here.

Mamata Banerjee is very concerned about the 2000 odd farmers whose land was allegedly taken forcefully by the West Bengal government. She wants their land returned, never mind that a major part of that land is now un-arable. Oh, and the 11,000 others who had willingly given their land for the factory, and who have been left without land or livelihood after the NANO project was pulled out, are no concern of hers. Apparently.

Be careful if you are going to Mumbai, and are not a Marathi. You might we walking down the road and suddenly find yourself being clobbered by goons claiming to be Raj Thakre’s followers. So what if you had only come to Mumbai to take a competitive exam? This is Maharashtra. Biharis, North Indians have no right to be here. Period.


What kind of world are we living in? Whom are we choosing as our representatives? Are we going back to barbarism?

Post Script: I recently returned home from Haridwar to Asansol by train. My family and I were in a second class sleeper coach. We had, as our co-passengers a group of people, the males among whom were talking actively about some apparently local political issue. I may be wrong, but they seemed to be associated with local politics, albeit to what extent, I can’t say. In the evening the train stopped at Lucknow station. One of the men got down with some bananas. Standing on the platform, he peeled one, and threw the skin of the banana right next to him, on the platform. And then another. The group got down at Kiul station in Bihar, the next morning.

Reply to Mr Ratan Tata's open later.

To, Mr Ratan Tata

Through: The Editor, The Telegraph.

20/10/2008.

Dear Mr Tata,

The NANO project being pulled out of West Bengal was a painful affair for us. We wanted to see West Bengal take a giant leap in its economic growth and place itself in the country's industrial roadmap with the coming of the NANO project. We understand that the decision to pull out the NANO from our state did not come easy for the Tata Motors management. We understand that Tata Motors wanted to stay, and only pulled out with reluctance.

We Bengalis generally start conversations with some statement about the weather: "Oh, it's so hot!" is a very common conversation starter. These days, the standard refrain between people has become: "NANO tahole gelo!" (The NANO was pulled out, after all!). I don't know about the so called "unwilling farmers", but the larger section of the people of West Bengal were appalled at the way Mamata Banerjee and her supporters opposed the Tata Motors plant at Singur. She was agitating for agitation's sake. She was not ready to listen to reason. She was not ready to negotiate. Street politics, threats and violence appeared to be the doctrine of her party, which she
followed religiously.

We do not support this kind of agitation. What little respect we had for her as a leader of opposition, we have lost. She did not feel the nerve of the people of West Bengal. We wanted the plant to come up. West Bengal had received a cold shoulder from industrialists for long. The present State Government is trying to change that. We wanted to see that change happen, and we hoped the NANO project would be the pioneer of that change. That's not to say that we are bidding goodbye to agriculture. But we realise that agriculture alone will not lead to future prosperity. Industry, which brings with it economic growth and employment, education and infrastructure, and an upliftment of living standards, in harmony with agriculture, is the path to future prosperity of West Bengal.
We had hoped the NANO plant would be the harbinger of such a future.

When I say "we", I include in this many of my friends who I know are of the same view as I, and also many, many others who I'm sure will be able to identify themselves with what I have written in this letter.

We support the present Government of Mr Budhdhadeb Bhattarjee's attempt "to build a prosperous state with the rule of law, modern infrastructure and industrial growth, supporting a harmonious investment in the agricultural sector". We hope that the TATAs have not lost all of the tremendous faith they showed in West Bengal when they invested here. We hope that they will invest again in future, and we, the citizens of West Bengal, will take the responsibility to
carry the state forward, via the path of industrialisation, and, simultaneously, harmonious agricultural growth. Without losing focus from agriculture.

Yours sincerely,

Arunava Chatterjee.
4th year, Computer Science and Engineering,

Some Engineering College (Name withheld for potential personal safety reasons.)

Of Captains and Spirit

In cricket, they say, if you're batting first, then however bad your innings may have gone, if you end it on a good note, then the momentum tends to carry over into the next innings, and you tend to bowl with the same reinvigorated spirit with which you concluded your first innings. And the reverse tends to happen with the opposition.. the downward slope in spirit tends to spill over into their batting. I remember a match between India and Zimbabwe, when India, batting first, had made 252 runs in 49 overs. The last four balls of the last over, Zaheer Khan clubbed Henry Olonga for four sixes. India ended up with 276 in fifty overs. They won the match.

Last night,Punjab Kings XI were 157 at the end of nineteen overs. The potential target seemed gettable to me for the Kolkata Knight Riders. Piyush Chawla hit 21 off the last over of Ishant Sharma of Kolkata Knight Riders. They won the match by nine runs.

Somehow, I don't like the Captain Sourav Ganguly that I see now. He's changed a bit, and for the worse. He is refusing to walk off the pitch after the umpire has given him out, he is picking up quarrels unnecessarily with his counterpart on the field, he's very publicly reprimanding a bowler for getting hit for a six, and then missing the next ball hit to him conceding a boundary, and he hasn't learned anything from his past mistakes... he keeps coming out to the field, gives the fielders at the slips some catching practice, and very irresponsibly departs. The ages old habit of nicking the ball still persists. True, this time he perished trying to hit, but it was still an unnecessary shot to play.

The eleventh hour hitting of David Hussey and Wridhdhiman Saha did bring some hope to heart, but somehow, deep inside, there was a tiny voice telling me that perhaps Dada does not deserve to win this match after all. There was talk of the various teams consisting of motley groups of players having to gel together to perform well... Yuvraj's team, after a few hiccups, appear to have managed that, whereas you don't see that team spirit pervading the KRRs on the field.Their fielding is sloppy, they're not keen to take the quick second run, and their captain is not helping matters. He is not leading by example. The first match, Brendon Mccullum "went bazooka", the second match, they scraped through on a second grade Eden Gardens pitch, and thereafter the matches have been disasters.

But you've got to give the devil his due. Even in defeat, Dada is dignified as ever. He is a straight talker, and the post-match presentation ceremony proved as much. He pointed out in precise and clear terms exactly what has been going wrong and what can be done to set the wrong right. You get the feeling that there is the tiger roaring within him, waiting to bounce back. That he's a fighter through and through. That the moment he gets up the next morning, he'll put his nose down and go about the task of lifting his team.Here's wishing Dada and his team the very best of luck, and hoping they the next game and the ones following.

Looking Out the Window

I got up in a public bus the other day, and found it packed. Packed in the sense, no one was standing, but there was no sitting space either: there was a passenger to every seat. But then I noticed that towards the front of the bus, there was this one seat by the aisle that was vacant. It was one of a two-seater; the seat by the window was occupied by a man. Down the length of the bus, the aisle divided the two seaters into two categories, the left side was reserved for ladies, and the right side was for gents. I sat down, noticing a large woman sitting opposite to me, across the aisle. I say "large", because that was indeed what she was: five feet nine inches tall, and with a girth of nearly two and a half feet at the waist (by my estimates, which often turn out to be wrong in the negative side), and quite young too. I looked out of the window, thinking: "size does matter!!" and feeling the emotional equivalent of this smiley: [;)]. The lady in question was talking on her cell, and I faintly remember her saying something like: "Oh I'm so sorry! It seems you'll get up from the stoppage after the one I get down at…"

I was looking out of the window, thinking about the ill effects of obesity, and how I would never become fat, when I heard someone say: "Please, have my seat!" Someone must be offering a seat to an old person, I thought. And then the oddity struck: it was a woman's voice. I turned my attention to the inside of the bus, and gaped. Miss Large was offering her seat to an old man who had just boarded the bus. The next stoppage was half a kilometer away and there was no way she would be able to sit until someone got down.

I looked out of the window again, ashamed and embarrassed. This was the first time in my life I saw a woman offer her seat to some old person. And an old man at that! I had seen from experience and observation that, women were so pampered with courtesy that they themselves seldom showed any semblance of it themselves. Case in point is this incident: I had never, I repeat, never, seen a young lady offer her seat to any old man or woman before. Cases of men getting up to offer their seats to some old or incapacitated person are frequent; but this was a first of its kind. And here I was making fun of the lady, I reproached myself.

I stole an admiring glance at Miss Courteous, and found her talking on the cell phone again, probably to the same person that she'd been talking to earlier, for she concluded with: "Yeah, I'll be just getting down at the next stoppage…. I'll tell him, yes…Good bye!" I heaved a sigh of thankfulness. At least, she would not have to stand for too long! The bus gradually slowed down. Miss Broadminded made to go, and even as she was gathering the straps of her vanity bag on to her shoulders and adjusting her hair, she told the old man: "A lady will get up in the next stoppage (which was a minute away). I've told her you're sitting here. Please leave the seat to her when she boards the bus. This is a ladies' seat." And she got down. The man stared blankly at her when she spoke; then got up immediately. I rose to offer him my seat, but he waved his hand and said in a tone that pre-empted any persuasion: "I'd prefer to stand."

I sat down and looked out of the window.