Rainy Roads !

After a long wait finally rains are here. Everything around seems new, clean and so full of life. Colours are showing off at their best. The fragrance of wet earth is enlightening. I can imagine what would be the scene in hills. Numerous small and big water falls, gorges and waterways would be flowing in their full swing. White clouds would be hovering and mystifying the whole surroundings. The noise of rain drops on the leaves creating en thrilling music. What I am doing sitting here in office. I need to be there. I need to be driving my bike on those rainy roads.

Zindgi Aa Rahaaaa Hoon Main..............................!

What A Heart Wants ?

Those thoughts keep coming back every day now and then. Maybe those thoughts have never left me. May be it's deeply rooted in my DNA that keep surfacing with every this n that way.

Years back in around 1990 while I was roaming in Sangla valley of Kinnaur in Himachal along few friends, amid the small village of Sangla I came across a two roomed vocational training centre of Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, an organization dedicated for upliftment of people of tribal areas in India. That centre was providing vocational training to big girls and basic education to small children of near by villages. Only a duo of husband-wife in their late thirties was running the whole show. They both belonged from Bangalore in Karnataka thousands of miles away from that small village of Kinnaur. They both were well educated and had their respective jobs back there and had decided to give six months for the welfare of their country and were deputed here as part of their non-paying duty. Those two rooms were their part of world for those six months.

Those few hours spent with that couple were engraved on my mind forever. With the divine surroundings of Himalayas, flowing of Baspa river, always smiling innocent people, mystic temples and Deities within, yellow harvest dancing in the fields, small houses made of stone and wood are still afresh in my heart. Sitting alone on the bank of Baspa that time I dreamt of settling there forever. I didn't know even after many years that if it was a serious thought or was a temporary attraction of young immature teen aged mind.

But one thing is for sure true, that all of my life till now, mountains fascinates me. It was not only that couple who showed me the way but as above I wrote it is in my blood which is very easily provoked when ever I see mountains. A small house in the hills is what I dream of for my retirement. The hassle basal of daily life, unnecessary competition in business and social life, rat race of earning more and more only to maintain your metro status, watching other people's possession of 'brands' and watching other people watching your possession of 'brands' sicken me. When will this blind circle end ? When I am gonna to be at my place? The place I have always dream of, the place where only peace of mind prevails.

But there is one hidden fear also. The way I wail about this routine life, who can be sure of that I won't get sick of that life too? May be it's only my mind, a confused mind. They say you can not get the depth of some one's mind but here it seem true with my own mind. Or may be it's just only one colour among the millions others contained in my mind. Who knows? But no doubt this colour is what my heart is made of.

'Six Suspects'

To help a friend for a project about how great this nation of Bharat was, is and still can be in future, I was searching for some images about India when I fell into a deep, dark and stinking gorge of a blog about India which contained nothing positive but only filth, sorrow, suffering, poverty, crime, backwardness, uncertainty, insecurities, evils, fears, hate and venom for India. That person titled "Zillion reasons to escape from India" to his/her blog and has totally dedicated his life to magnify every evil of India in his words. Spending very few minutes on those pages literally were like spending that much time in a hell for me. These are the people who can never find a tiny good thing about their country or could lift a finger to rectify a problem but would do their best to bring that weakness in front of the lousy spectators of entire world with the royal bash of orchestration. I don't know what do these people gain from such shameless self exposure but certainly few people do make money out of it and one of them is Mr. Vikas Swarup.

Six Suspects by Vikas Swarup is not very different from his 'very famous' novel Q&A. This Q&A is the same novel which gave a very proud new name to Indians, that is "Slumdog". I agree that every creative writer, poet or artist always tries to bring untouched, unseen and under the current subjects to his or her creativity but according to my knowledge Swarup has written only two novels and both are about the so called pathetic state of India. I think he have learnt the mantra of selling in global market where movies like Lagaan loses the rat race of Oscar and movies like Slumdog Millionaire bags all the awards.

Six Suspects is a twisted story of Jassica Lal murder case where accused is a spoiled son of a wealthy corrupt politician and both father son duo manipulates law accordingly to their will and gain. That son "Vicky Rai" in this story is murdered in the celebration party of his acquittal from this murder and police arrest six persons from the party under suspicion. These six suspects include, a leading Indian actress who is cheated by her cousin, an American who is cheated by an Indian, a tribal who's tribe is cheated by their welfare officer, a retired diplomat who cheated his wife and then is now cheated by his keep, a slumdog youth who was cheated by his luck all his life and finally that corrupt politician who kept cheating innocent people till now and was cheated by his own son in the end. So the whole story is about corruption, deceit and backstabbing which obviously prevail ONLY in India and ONLY things which prevail in India according these kind of writers. Mr. Vikas Swarup is an Indian diplomat in Indian Foreign Services and I think he cannot serve India better than what he has done by his writings to paint Indian picture in front of this globe.

Some very highly educated, open minded, global viewing and let's-face-the-fact attitude people may stand with their views of justifying such 'bold' topics but I would prefer to stay illiterate than to enjoy and applause such indiscriminate oeuvre about my country which is not entirely true.

'Tishay.......that's enough'

It was around a year and four months ago when last time this space was used for 'Tishay'. Since then countless 'huggies' have crossed under his legs. Since then many household items have reached their fate of untimely deaths or have crippled. If Tishay's toys could talk, they must have called him 'Terminator'. Any thing in his hands would be shattered on the floor as if he was a 'F-16, deployed in Iraq' in his previous life. He is not afraid of cockroaches and would hold one in his hand to see the horrific reaction on his mom's face. He loves travelling, we came to know about this nature of his when one Sunday we all were busy attending some guests and later realised that Tishay was missing. First in home then in neighbourhood and finally I had to take out car only to find him in near market sitting on a rickshaw shouting at confused rickshawala to take him on a tour. There are very familiar and stereotyped noises coming out of our house nowadays. Either it is a shattering noise or shouts of 'Tishayyyyyyyyy Enough, Tishu BUS KAR.......... Tishu........... my head is aching, Tishey ...............for God sake" etc etc. Everybody want him to sleep for a while. But he would sleep only after everyone and as if it's not enough, would wake before everyone else.

Tishay have started mumbling full sentences now. He is very curious and wants to explore everything he sees. His smartest teacher is Pogo. He also likes watching Nat Geo with me only to keep blasting, "Papa......... O Ka Ai (Woh Kya Hai .........whats that) ?" He is also getting fond of commercials on TV and tries to repeat after them. His favourite is Airtel's kid saying "Papa ka phone aayaa tha na". Whenever that ad is on TV, within seconds Tishay would emerge from nowhere like a missile from sky. I bet his teachers in playway are much happy to see him off in noon than to receive him in the morning. He loves to draw and his colourful drawings are exhibited free of cost for any visitor on the walls of our home. He also likes guessing pictures on his book of alphabets. The only problem is he would keep pointing his tiny lovely index finger on the picture for you to answer his non-stop 'what is that' questions. Whenever we are tired of a visitor, we would send Tishay to him along his alphabet book. Easy!

Tishay wants to have a doggy now. But as I am reluctant so far, his adventures with doggies of neighbourhood are on. They all are his best friends to play with. Though a head-ache, he is apple of our eye, beat of my heart. Taking him in my lap makes me feel heavenly and I can easily sail off from my worldly worries. But only problem is, like a frog he won't sit peacefully in my lap for long. "Papa............ O Ka Ai" ??

'The 3 Mistakes of My Life'

I heard and vaguely read a lot about Chetan Bhagat some time back when he was emerging as a writer on Indian horizon but simultaneously I kept ignoring those tv clips and news articles as I feel that our media always overreact and get horribly obsessed with any such issues where any Indian effort gets even a little foreigner attention. I am not saying proudly that I admire this habit of mine but I honestly feel that way. And cause of such nasty habit of being prejudice, many times I do miss enjoying some good things. Only cause of this habit till now I haven't seen 'Slumdog Millionaire' (that's another point that right now I am reading another novel 'Six Suspects' by Vikas Swarup, the same author of original novel 'Q & A' of Slumdog Millionaire) even after approvals of some friends. Anyway, we were talking of Chetan Bhagat, and few days ago I saw his novel 'The 3 Mistakes of My Life' in a shelf of the 'latest books' rack of my beloved 'Municipal Library' and got it issued.

I must admit here, though I got a fair idea from prologue that 'Gujarat' is going to be discussed in the novel, the prologue of book was so interesting that I could not help myself finishing the book ASAP even against the periodically repeated stern stares of sleepy eyes of my wife which used to start exactly one hour after each midnight. (If looks could kill - I better get a reading lamp now). Whenever the word 'Gujarat' came in front of my eyes or hits my ears, my both eyebrows shake hands together, my lip line dips downward and a sound of 'chuch chuch' comes out of my mouth automatically. In these seven years, I have gone really sick of these riots. Thanks to our secular media who is not letting this terrible happenings fade off as easily as countless other riots in the history of independent India have died and buried without much fuss.

Now thankfully, this story is not only about riots but also of friendship, passion, business, love and Cricket. And all these five (or six if to add riot) elements are essential ingredients of any average Indian life. Govind, Omi and Ish are best friends who dream like common Indian youths and try to convert those dreams into reality when different events keep changing their lives in different aspects. The main character is Govind who is narrating the story and about the mistakes he made in his life. The momentum of story never halts throughout the novel. As in the last pages riots took over, I am thankful to Chetan that he has not tried to be a preacher about riots even then just like every writer I felt him being storyteller of single side of the coin. The mixture of reality and fiction has made this novel worth reading. The end of the novel reminds me of the end of 'Dil Chahta Hai'.

The result of this novel? I am gonna try the other two (or three may be) books by Chetan Bhagat.

'The Faithful Spy'

'The Faithful Spy' is the debut novel by Alex Berenson, a correspondent by profession. The plot is beautiful, story is holding and contents are touching.

A CIA agent John Wells has penetrated Al-Qaeda network and trying to win trust of Laden and his deputies. In efforts to win trust of higher level of Qaeda, he spend so many years with jihadis in Chechnya, Afghanistan and Pakistan. During these years he genuinely converts to Islam and adopts Islamic rituals, though his mission remains intact. Being a foreigner and of a shady background Taliban didn't trust him completely and being unable to warn of 9/11 and LA bombings, his own agency got wary of him. In the last Taliban sent him to America for a huge terror plan where he is the alone person standing against the mission with both sides not trusting him. "What happens next " question never let a reader put off the book.

As terror has become a part of our life, the incidents in the novel sound so real and not fiction at all, even then Jihadi's die hard attempts to attain chemical, biological and nuclear weapons shock reader with horror waves. The plight of John Wells being a 'Non jihadi Muslim', somewhere reflects the same much debated issue within our society. The self suiting interpretation of Koran by jihadis and fueling the fire by Maulvis didn't let a madrass educated brain & heart sail away from so called Jihad. "We have plenty of fighters, what we need are scientists" a phrase by Laden's deputy in the novel reveals the map of their mentality and a clear and present danger too.

Look-alike Can Kill !

If I had another person in the car, he would have heard my heartbeat without any effort. My heartbeat had taken a vertical flight all of sudden. "Was that her?" I asked none other but myself while staring the reflection in the rear view mirror of the car ahead me.

Image of the driver in mirror of the car ahead my car was very resembling to her. We were driving in the hills and there was not much traffic on the road. The very thought of the possibility of her driving front of me had risen my pulse rate. "Damn it Praney, let her be if she is her. Why you are so bothered?" I tried to agree to my inner voice and tried to calm down. But was that so easy? I was still watching her in the mirror, trying to confirm whether it was her or someone else. But constant curves and her fast driving didn't let me be sure. She was really driving bit fast. I am a cool driver and do not drive rashly but in attempt to stay close of her so I could watch her in the mirror, I accelerated a bit.

"When did she learn driving?" I was calculating all the options of her being her or someone else. "Why not ? Can't she learn driving? It's been so many years and without learning to drive a car one is burden these days." I was arguing within myself. "But what the hell you think are you doing you fool" the inner of myself jerked me strongly. "She dumped you years back and you foolish still fighting for her little glimpse? What difference would that make if that is her or someone else. Let her go to hell damn it" I totally stand by what half of my heart was shouting. I thought of slowing down to my normal speed. But the other half was doing his job silently "Just a look and we shall leave to our directions. What's the harm?"

The lady driving front car was quite like her. She was wearing spectacles like her. Her hair were short like her (as she had in those good times). And the town ahead was her parental town. An elderly lady was sitting besides her on the front passenger seat who could be her mother or mother in law may be. There were strong possibilities of her being her. "Did she see me too?" I was thinking cause I saw her watching me back in mirror. "She did not see you when she should have and when you needed her most, what are you expecting from her now. Don't be a sentimental ass---- and be a man. Let her layoff. Why can't you erase her from your mind even after so many years?" "Fourteen years" I tried to be exact to my self. My half heart was right. In these long fourteen years for countless times I had cursed her in those sleepless nights for what she did to me and then the same time regretted my own words for her. Since then I have managed to put a brave face in front of all. I haven't seen her for over fourteen years. She was enjoying her life (I hope) and I have grown above it too (I hope). I thought I had erased her off my mind and soul. Then why her thoughts still got the power to thrill me or to haunt me if to be specific ? What made me so vulnerable and herself so permanent ? I do not know how many kilometers I drove sailing in these thoughts. That car had sped away since long. I sighed and felt pathetic simultaneously. "Come on buddy, she is gone for good and you should get over it, live your life and throw her thoughts in the waste bin once for all." My mind told me like always. I agreed like always and turned the volume high of car radio.

My breath leaped at the next turn. That car was stopped at a gas station and the driver was stepping out. My all the vows vanished in the air and I was watching her with my jaw dropped. And all sudden everything changed dramatically. She was not her. I drove past them smoothly and my mind was laughing at me. "What the hell man. what a drama it was." Both halves of my heart were silent now. No one knew what to say. I wish car FM was playing "I'll get over you" from Pretty Woman.