Love Sex and Mangoes

It was definitely heart that I felt the pinch at, deep down a strange tingling sensation, like a flutter. The meaning of the phrase – “I love you so much, it hurts” became very clear to me. I was unmistakably in love. When the world outside was shivering in dry, unforgiving Delhi winter, I was warm and cozy by the flame in my heart. A flame that glowed steadily and filled my life with warm and soft light.
There was hardly any time when I was not thinking of her, yet I was not distracted, on the contrary I was sharply in focus and actually quite inspired. The rapturous feeling of contended bliss was more pronounced in the mornings when I woke up to find that my world was still intact and alive like the fresh morning dew on pristine roses.
Nothing beats the energy of youth and the inspiration of love; together they make a potent combination.
Plowing through your years at the IIT can be quite taxing, but here I was cruising through, at least at that time, taking life by its horns.

It’s a pity that I do not remember his real name, but he was affectionately called Laat Sahab. Laat Sahab was a post doctoral student and as research scholars usually are, he was all sagacious and ripe, not just in Applied Mathematics but also in matters of life.
With my other friends I usually had many a night of challenging discussions and hotly contested debates but Laat Sahab, whenever he was around, always elevated the discussion to a whole new level.

“This is the only relationship in which you actually get to choose. All other relatives of yours are decided by fate and you have to live with your siblings, parents or even the ugly uncle. You cannot change any of that, but you can certainly choose whom you are going to spend the rest of your life with. And that my friends, is a decision that you should never let anyone else take for you.” – He said authoritatively waving his index finger. As he said it, I proudly looked around in the room. I was one of the few in our group who was headed in the direction of a love marriage. It was a seal of approval from someone no less than Laat Sahab.

It was hard to find Laat Sahab alone and even harder to find him in a mood where you could get some pearls from him. It was one of those rare moments when I was talking to him all alone and he was lucid, probably enjoying his first cigarette after dinner.

“For us Indians, the phrase ‘love at first sight’ should not be used. It should be ‘love at first opportunity’ “

“What do you mean?” – I asked, puzzled.

“Well, in our society we do not have a free intermixing of sexes, so whenever there is an opportunity of interaction you will find a crush, easily mistaken for love. I have seen ‘lovers’ having an innocuous eye contact one day and the next day the guy would be pining in love and the girl blushing in her dreams”

“I know what you mean; quite often I have seen teenage romances prosper at marriage ceremonies or other occasions, but there sure is true love, right?” – I asked, a little hurt, sensing an insinuation.

He thought for a while, looking at the ceiling as he let out circles of smoke. I had learnt by that time that greater the pause before he said anything, the more colorful the thought.

“Love is like a mango” – He closed his eyes as he said and then paused. His words hung like cloud of smoke in the still air of the room for a while and then he started speaking again, as if catching up with himself.

“A crush is like a raw mango, all innocent and green; you may stand under the tree and admire the freshness and the firmness of it. Most of the time you move on, but occasionally you pluck it. This is like taking the first step, the act of seeking. Then you may start to ripen the mango which requires the right amount of warmth and shade. This is like actually falling in love and working towards a relationship. Getting it to the right level of maturation requires a sense of timing, a few days early and it is still raw, a few days over and it may be overripe. You cannot move too fast or too slow in love, if you wait long enough you may end up smothering the flame for the lack of fuel, a little too fast you may blow it out in your haste. Only when the mango is ripe to the right level with respect to smell, color, texture and taste is when it is consummate. Finding true love may be sheer fate but bringing it to fruition is a work of art” – He opened his eyes with a slight smile.
I smelled a whiff of mangoes even when there were none.

“And where does the arranged mango er… I mean arranged marriage fit in your orchard?”

“Arranged marriage is like mango pickle. A pickle made by your mother and family. They do everything for you, pick the mango, slice and dice it, apply the masala of tradition and oil of culture, keep it in a jar till the right muhurat and only when it is ready, as are the heavens, is it presented to you on the appointed hour, all nicely packaged in a fancy bottle”.

I was still imagining the bride stuck in a bottle like a genie trying to come out, stepping over pieces of mango pickle when he said –

“But make no mistake, pickles last much longer than the fresh mangoes, besides eating mangoes can be messy…pickle is an easy way out”

Several years later in San Francisco

I was talking to Ben and I thought of Laat Sahab and his wisdom when Ben expressed his views on the matters of heart, while we were talking over coffee one evening.

“Love is nothing but a humanized form of the genetic disposition to procreate”

“In other words, you think it is just about sex. I think that is a very narrow view, focusing on just the physical aspects.” – I had heard this argument before and was unwilling to let Ben paint all the beautiful emotions and nuances of romance with a stolid brush of carnal instincts.

“Let me ask you this – before you fall in love with a woman you actually go through the process of liking her, it is like a mental process of approval, only when you approve of her is when you get attracted and then begins the liking process.” – He asked.

“I am not sure if there is a formal process as you describe it, but I know what you are talking about, you definitely get attracted first before anything else begins”

“But you would agree that there are generally agreed upon parameters for beauty that are shared by most men, now I know a lot of it is cultural but I am talking about general traits. Heck, if it wasn’t for this general definition of beauty, there wouldn’t be a Miss Universe or a Miss World contest” – He said.

“At a broad level, yes, there are some characteristics that are commonly possessed by beautiful women in general, what’s your point?” - I asked.

“So let us talk more specifically, good looking facial features, nice smooth skin, fair complexion, well formed firm breasts, slim waist, shapely hips, well proportioned thighs and legs…what else?” – He was counting on fingers as he spoke.

“I agree, not necessarily in that order but yes there are some well established beauty traits, though I would argue that the definition of attractive features in Africa and China would be quiet different from that in Europe or India”

“Sure, but if you leave out the subjective traits like facial structure and racial features like pigment, the more sexual aspects are obviously common across the board. And you know why men like a prominent bosom or a curvaceous behind?” - He continued on answering himself.
“It is all coded in our DNA. Full breasts indicate enough milk holding capacity for your babies, slim waist indicates state of not being pregnant and so available for producing off springs, wide hips tell you that there is enough room to have live births, smooth skin indicates generally healthy, to not only be pregnant but also take care of the babies, nice facial features generally tell you that your off-springs will also look good and so will have a better chance of survival and reproduction. It is all in the genes for women to try to look nice and men to seek them. All the poetry, metaphorical references to love and romance, all the golden evenings spent in thought of your beloved, all the love songs and ballads, all of that is just an intellectual sugar coat over millions of years of evolutionary instinct to replicate. That all there is to it” – As he was talking, he was checking out a blonde as she was paying for her lunch, leaning a little while signing her check.

Minorityism

“You people are living in your cocoons” – Kapil proclaimed
“You must shed your inhibitions and try to merge with the mainstream”

“What does it actually mean? Does it mean I have to change my way of life to get acknowledged as an equal?” – MJ asked.

“Well, first of all no body is treating you badly, there is no discrimination. Well hardly any, right?” – Kapil asked.

“Sure, there is no active discrimination but I can see it in the eyes of people. Some people are prejudiced from the get go but thankfully they are not that many, most however treat us differently” – MJ retorted.

“I know what you are talking about. Look, there are two ways to deal with this, you either become insecure and slide deeper into your shell or you try to get over it. The more you act like the majority the less you will be noticed as an oddity. Sometimes asserting ones identity is a good thing, but you must understand that you are a minority and you have to play by their rules”

“But that is my whole point. Why can’t I be accepted for what I am? So what if I am different? Why do I have to shun my religion, my culture, my way of life, to be accepted as an equal?”

“Now don’t get ahead of yourself. No one is asking you to throw away all your traditions and culture. All I am saying is not to stand out, because if you do then you will be ‘noticed’ and the mere fact that you are noticed changes people’s expressions, which you take to be ‘discrimination in their eyes’ ”

“It is not always that subtle. The other day I was at a grocery store and the clerk greeted the customer in front of me with an ear to ear smile, joked about weather and price of commodities, he even offered to help him out with his bag. Then when my turn came he frowned and gave me a cold shoulder, did not even return my greeting. In fact he started to toss my stuff into the bags with discernible contempt.”

“It happens sometimes. Freak grocery clerks are not the best this society has to offer. You have to forget the bad experiences but remember the good ones. That is the only way to keep things in balance and maintain your sanity.” – Kapil moved his both hands in alternating up-down motion, imitating a balance.

“I am not overly perturbed by things like these. That clerk probably earned a tenth of what I do and that could explain his animosity, my point is that I can change my outward behavior but how can I change the color of my skin, or my accent? I think that is what matters most”

“Yes it does to some extent. But to be one of them you have to start speaking about things that they understand, and I do not mean accent. How many times has it happened that you go out on lunch with your colleagues and you drop out of conversation because you lose the thread?”

“Happens all the time. When they speak amongst themselves they talk about arcane TV shows from the past or games I don’t really follow, how do I keep up?” – MJ nodded as he talked.
“And the other thing is food. I don’t really like the food, even though I eat meat I do not enjoy deli style meats. There is nothing like a chicken curry”

I was silently listening in to the interesting conversation between Kapil and MJ. Kapil was from Punjab and MJ from Andhra, with a difficult name to pronounce even for us, so we went by the acronym MJ. We shared the same apartment complex and had run into each other many a times at the swimming pool and gym. The other thing in common was that we were all from India and were on work visas in US.
Once in a while we got together, like today, over dinner at my place.

“Tell me you guys, how many non-Indian friends do you have?” – I jumped in the middle of their conversation.

“Well, I have several American and Chinese friends” - Kapil smiled

“Acquaintances from work don’t count, you know them because you share the cubicle wall or face them in meetings” – I said.

“Hmmm. Well I do not really have a social circle beyond work and then there are you guys”

“And you MJ?” – I asked.

“Does Pakistani count?”

“No not exactly”

“Then none. What is your point?”

“Nothing, just curious”.

One Lakh Fifty Thousand

Those were the heydays of technology boom, also known as the dot com era. Nasdaq was at its all time highs and new ideas were getting funded at the drop of a hat.
It was circa 1999.
India too felt the reverberations of the boom, perhaps in a more resounding way than even the US. While for US it was another zenith of the cyclical wheel of boom-bust machine, for India it was the first morning after the socialist nuclear winter, a shot of hemoglobin after an era of anemic 5 year plan ideology.
Indian IT industry caught this wave and the first surfers of this were the H1B visa holders, forming a beeline at the several US consulates in India. It was a mad gold rush… or shall I say sand rush?
Anyway, I was one of the several, trying to make hay in the shining sun. Already a lucrative job offer under my belt, I was looking for a backup job driven by my quintessential Indian hoarding mentality.
Luckily my first job was a permanent position in a handsomely paying telecom startup, so for my fallback I was going after just about anything to requite a mental checkbox.
I saw this Ad in the Wednesday’s Ascent and after having called them first, I drove up to this “Software Consultant’s” office for an “interview”. As I was trying to navigate through the crooked by-lanes of Mehrauli slums, I quickly realized that I had made a mistake in responding to this Ad. By then I had already invested 3+ hours in this, including the morning rush hour commute, so I decided to follow through it.

It was a residence-cum-office of a middle aged Sikh gentleman who had setup a body-shopping rig. Mr. Singh was a corpulent thickset person, wearing a buttoned up hand knitted green cardigan and a suit with red tie tucked in his cardigan.
Mr. Singh admitted that he was not technical and so he introduced me to his cohort for a technical interview.
This other gentleman was from Andhra and was probably one of Mr. Singh’s selectee. “All set for a glorious career in the land of opportunity” in the words of Mr. Singh.

He grabbed my resume and ushered me to his office with an air of authority.
I don’t know if it was my IIT background or my bored looks that mellowed him down considerably. He did not ask any “technical” question, all he asked was how many years of experience I had for stuff he nervously read from his checklist – “C? C++? Java? Oracle? HTML?...” and that was it. He then started to talk about what other offers I have, where I want to go in US etc.
Only when I began to get restless and started to look at my watch did he walk out and let Mr. Singh in.
“So I hear you are technically solid” – Mr. Singh said. “You lack experience, but don’t worry you have come to the right place. I have openings in Fortune 500 companies; very soon I can put your career on the fast track”.

“Ahem. OK” – is all I could say.

“So I have an opening with a multinational bank where.....”

“Wait. Did you say bank? Because I am not interested in financial sector” – I interjected.

“No no it is an IT job, you see you will be writing software”

“But it is still a bank, I don’t want to work for a bank”

“You don’t understand you are going to work for us and you are going to write code as you would do anywhere, it doesn’t matter if it is a bank”

“Do you have anything else?”

“Oh don’t worry, I can place you with a credit card company”

My head dropped. Let me get out of here is what I thought – “OK, so what compensation should one expect in that position with my background and experience?”

Mr. Singh smiled then leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head.

“Tell me, what are you getting monthly?”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean what is your monthly salary?”

“Well I make enough, but this is a company in India, what does it have to do with a US job?”

“Just tell me.....OK let us assume 40,000 per month, right? Or say 50,000 per month, round figure?”

“Hmmmm” – I could not think of what to say in the situation.

“What if I give you One Lakh Fifty thousand? (150,000)” – Mr. Singh started twiddling his handlebar moustache with a smirk on his face.....perhaps expecting some reaction from me.

I jumped out of my chair – “Wow! I will take it......Wait you mean 150k USD Right?”

It was Mr. Singh’s turn to look astounded. – “NO NO NO” – he violently shook his head leaving his moustache half twisted.

“No I mean 150,000 Rupees” – He said slowly.

“Ah! So this is a job in India with Rs. 150k per month? Sounds great!”

“NO NO you don’t understand. Not even the President gets that salary. I meant Rs. 150k per month in US”

On the way back from Mehrauli, I found it hard to drive as my eyes were all tearful from the convulsive laughter I was having.

Now every time I see someone with the handlebar moustache and a paunchy disposition, Mr. Singh’s words echo in my ears -
“What if I give you One Lakh Fifty thousand?”

The Grass on the Other Side

A recent BBC study indicated that 81% of Indian youth want to leave the country for greener pastures abroad.
Now that is an alarming statistic, or so it appears if presented outside of the Indian context. One would be lead to believe that there is a serious trouble brewing in India or a serious problem like a famine or an epidemic that people are trying to escape from.
In fact I was surprised to find from the same study that only 50% of Iraqi youth want to emigrate despite the hellish conditions there at the height of insurgency and ethnic conflict.
So what is it that is making the Indian youth look outside when India is purportedly making enormous progress and people are getting richer in absolute terms, not just the “purchasing power parity” dissimulation? As usual there are no simple answers for questions like these. I am sure sociologists, economists, political analysts, technocrats and others would have their own take on this. I have the luxury of being none of the above so I can postulate outside of any framework. I have been fortunate to have come in contact with Indians living all over the world - US, Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia and other lesser known places but I am still to meet an Indian expatriate who does not want to go back, with the possible exception of the “off-shoot” Indians living in Trinidad, Fiji, Mauritius and West Africa of which I know a few who still have ties back home.

I routinely take BART train from Fremont to San Francisco. If you board the train from Fremont or when the train gets near Fremont station on the way back and if you look around you will find that most of the passengers are Indians. In fact Fremont station in the morning hours looks no different from Delhi’s many metro stations, as far as ethnicity goes. What is different though is the fact that people do not talk to each other much. If you find people talking then more often than not they will either be talking on their cell phones or it would be a group of “consultants” fresh from India.
Hard as it was, I was still able to break the ice with a fellow commuter who kept similar times like mine, frequent eye contact led to smiling nods which led to occasional “hello” and brief chit chat. His name was Vivek and he came from Lucknow.
On one such commutes I broke into a conversation with him.

“When did you come to US?”

“Almost 5 years ago” – Vivek replied

“And do you intend to go back?”

“Oh absolutely! No question about that. In fact when we came to US we had not planned to stay on for this long”

“Why?” – I asked

“I am on H1B visa here, on temporary basis, me and my wife’s extended family is all in India. We have no ties to this country except this job that I have. Besides things are changing in India very fast and now there is hardly any difference in saving potential here and back home. It is just a matter of time for us”

“Haven’t you applied for the green card?” – I asked

“Yes we have but that process is a long drawn out, even if we get the green card we may still go back. We belong there.”

“What attracted you to US in the first place?” – Even though I knew what motivations the work visa holders have, I still asked him.

“Oh you know of course, easy money, I mean comparatively. I was earning a decent salary in India, but the money here really flows and if you save enough you will have more than you could ever imagine getting back home”

“Is it still the money that keeps you here?”

He considered for sometime before replying.

“Well, when we first came to states we did not like much here. Everything was different, even the damn light switches were upside down. [chuckled]. But then as time passed we began to like the setting, it kind of grows on to you. Life is so easy here....and then there is respect and freedom, you could go to the post office and be assured that you will not have to wrestle in a line like in India, only to be treated badly by the clerk. Freedom to walk up to the police patrol car in the middle of the night if you are lost on the road and not fear being hassled like in India, even mugged! Buy milk for my kids and not worry about urea in it. It is these countless little things that we know we will miss in India. No it is not just about the money anymore

“But will you still go back?”

“Yes, sure, sometime in not too distant future” – He smiled.


My job has taken me to many places on the globe, last year I had to make several trips all over Europe. On one of those business trips I added a couple weeks of vacation in remaining of the Western Europe. I was not at all surprised to see a lot of Indians in Europe, despite a little more conspicuous racial discrimination, Europe remains the third most attractive destination after Gulf and the US.

US was the first foreign country in which I ever lived outside of India and so my mental image of “foreign” Indians was that of mostly white collared techies driving their Civics, Accords and Camries with occasional Beamers. My first “cultural” shock was the blue collared Indians in Scandinavia, it may have been just a co-incidence but all the janitors I came across in Sweden were from India. A similar pattern is evident in almost all European countries with UK at the forefront.

One thing that Indians like me do whenever they are 50 miles out of their homes is to look for an Indian restaurant. In fact we carried printouts of directions to Indian restaurants in all the cities we visited.
One night we went dining to an Indian restaurant in Amsterdam. It was perhaps a family owned and managed restaurant as the girl that came over to our table to take the order resembled the gentleman at the cash counter. We were still looking at the menu when she approached us

“Wat kan ik u krijgen?”

“I am sorry we do not speak Dutch.” – I said, hoping her to switch to English or Hindi. She smiled and said – “Wait” and went back into the kitchen. Few minutes later another girl, a little older, came to our table who spoke accented English.

It was getting a little late and most of their guests had either left or were on their way out. The man who manned the cash counter walked over to us and pulled a chair from the adjacent table.

“How is the food?”

“Excellent, in fact we were not expecting to find such a nice place here in Amsterdam. Since when do you have this restaurant?”

“For about 20 years now. My father had a restaurant in Punjab and I sort of carried on the tradition here in Holland”.

“And that is when you came to Netherlands?”

“Yes, I first went to UK from India but soon thereafter moved to Holland”

We talked for a long time about his life here in Netherlands and how he is settled in his adopted country, how running an Indian restaurant is a challenge in Netherlands as his groceries come all the way from UK.

“Do you ever plan to go back to India?” – I asked.
I probably touched a chord in him as his expression changed; a strange mix of emotions swept his face.

“Initially I wanted to go back for a long time. In fact I still hope to go back. We could perhaps open an exotic European dining place in Delhi” – He was imagining as he was talking, his face lit up for a second.
“But it will be very difficult transition for us, particularly for my family. My son and one of my daughters were born in Holland, they speak Dutch and there is hardly anything Indian about them, plus we are used to the comforts and lifestyle of this place. I could settle there, but for my family even an occasional visit to India once in 2-3 years is tough. Slowly we are losing touch with India.” – He grimaced.

“What prompted you to emigrate in the first place?”

“In those days life was very difficult in India, there were no jobs. I am an arts graduate but I used to work with my uncle on his farm as I could not get a job. Even people whom I know who had jobs could hardly eke out a living.”

“And now even when things have changed in India, you cannot extricate yourself from your life here, even when you want to?” – I asked.

“Yes, at first we thought of going back when we had enough money to open a nice restaurant in Delhi, then we thought we would go back in 5 years, then it became 10 years and before I knew it I became a non-Indian.... Oh! How much I miss India” – He let out a deep sigh and evaded looking at me perhaps concealing his moist eyes.

Surgeon in Calcutta

Trouble happens when you try to apply your newly acquired knowledge in a real world setting, like when you learn all about table manners of high class social dining from a book and then sitting in a swank upscale restaurant you are suddenly confused about which fork to use for a salad!
On the flipside sometimes you take things too seriously, believing every word you learned, you find yourself with a foot in the mouth situation, or barely escape a catastrophe. The other day in Calcutta I fell in the latter category.

I was still getting used to the rhythms of life in Calcutta though I liked Calcutta from day one. Things were always nice and easy, life moved at a controlled pace.
Buses were full but not as crowded as Delhi. The bus would actually stop for you to get down as compared to Delhi where a blue line could drag you to the next stop if there was another bus tail-gating it, while you had one foot down at a bus stop. The bus conductors here did not lean half out of the window and were not shouting their lungs out calling passengers.

I found the people to be very cultured, mild mannered and decent. It was a cool respite from the ruthless hustle bustle of South Delhi.
However, sometimes I felt like being a bull in the china shop, sometimes patronized my new Calcutta friends about racy stories of Delhi, like how time moves fast in Delhi and how their Calcutta is charming but I could not imagine spending my lifetime in these languid settings.
The other thing I sincerely tried to do was to pickup the local language, indeed I learnt a few sentences and could speak my way through daily chores without switching to Hindi, but that was after a while I had stayed there.

Once I hailed a taxi, the driver was a Sikh.

“Sardarji tussi Rabindra Sarobar jachchi?” – I asked, biting my tongue as I finished my sentence.

He frowned at my strange mixture of Punjabi and Bengali.

“Baithiye” he said “Lagta hai aap Dilli se hain” (Please get in. You must be from Delhi)


One day I was in a taxi going somewhere when right outside the Calcutta medical college someone waved the taxi. I had learnt by now that people can share the taxi and divide the fare. The man jumped into the front seat and taxi moved on. After about half an hour the man signaled the driver to stop and started to walk away.

In an instant I craned my neck out of the window.

“Excuse me sir, you forgot to pay your part of the fare”

The man turned back looked at me curiously and said – “Ask your driver”

I did not understand, I stepped out and asked my driver to demand money from him.

The driver appeared uncomfortable, he said – “Let it go Sahib, he is a Saarjan”.

I recalled he got on in front of the hospital, so he must be a surgeon.

I was now genuinely enraged. – “Well he may be, how does it matter to me?” then I turned towards that man and said – “You must pay up your share, it’s the law”.

He approached me in measured steps and in a cold voice said – “You are telling me about the law? Do you want to settle this at the police station?”

I blew my lid. “Ah! So you find out that there is someone from outside who does not speak Bengali and you think you can push them around? You do not know who I am mister. Let us go to the office of superintendent of police and settle it there. Surgeon you may be, but you do not know me” – I waved him to get in the car.

I saw the expression of that man change, he was thinking fast, and then he looked at his watch. I knew it was an evasive gesture. Then he narrowed his eyes as if considering the situation.
Slowly he withdrew and pulled out his wallet, handed a 20 Rs note to the driver and walked away very fast.
The driver looked at me in disbelief.
And though relieved that the impasse was over I was still very confused about the pre-eminent position surgeons hold in Bengali culture.

Later that night I related the incident to Doctor Tripathi, my friend, who was also my host in Calcutta at that time.
At first he shook his head for a long time not believing what I was telling him, then later when I mimicked the whole incident again, even vocalizing the “Saarjan” with emphasis on “aa” sound did something click with him.

“You lucky son of a gun, he was a sergeant! That explains everything” - He was now laughing.

“Sergeant? What is that?”

“Oh! Sergeant is a police officer, like an inspector, you do not have that rank in Delhi. If you had gone to the police station with him they could have roughed you up, finding out you were a mere student acting smart”.

I circled my lips as if to whistle but just let out a deep breath without any sound.

What Does it Really Take?

While boarding Air India flight from Delhi to LA there was the usual confusion and commotion that is almost always seen on a typical Indian airport. However, what was striking was that there were a large number of Airport Authority, CISF and Air India people loitering around, overseeing that commotion, each brandishing their flashy badges but completely oblivious to the fact that prior to boarding people had made 3-4 informal lines, without any seat number or seating order.
Someone from Air India announced that they would now start boarding and everyone just flowed towards the gate, flocking the single gate in utter disorder.
No attempt was made to ask for any seating area ordering or seat number. Imagine about four hundred confused people clamoring in a small area, peeping over each others shoulders and tripping over hand baggage.
What was even more confounding was they were checking the boarding passes and passports just before boarding no less than three times! And this after you had already cleared the security.
Perhaps the densest part was that there was one person checking the boarding pass at the entrance of the tunnel leading up to aircraft and then there was another person at the aircraft gate!
After having waded through a staff of at least twenty people, it took a lot of time for passengers to settle in the aircraft as there were people shoving their luggage while a whole file waited anxiously behind them.
Anyway, after a delay of almost an hour the plane reached Frankfurt for a brief stopover and refueling. There the waiting area was "manned" by just one woman!
When we began to re-board the plane she authoritatively asked everyone to come by seat numbers and announced seat numbers in order. Neat lines were formed and everyone got in a fourth of a time. Suddenly it appeared that the plane had so much fewer passengers!

The March of Time

It is beginning to get dark early now and cool breeze brings the temperature tumbling down each evening. September is nearing its end but the days are still holding on to their warmth. It actually gets warmer in September than August or July in this part of the world, it is like summer trying to put its best act before it is consumed by winter, like a last flickering act of a dying candle...
It is not just the rhythmic patterns of seasonal change that I do not notice, it is also the coming of going of each day that I pay little attention to.
It is true that there is always something to look forward to, a coming Friday for example is always a welcome occurrence, but in general it is easy to lose track of time. And before you know it, you cross a milestone.
Age 35 is one such milestone which I recently crossed and it dawned upon me that no matter what I do or do not do, the time marches on. Not that I am missing anything in life or not that there are things that I have not done which I have suddenly realized I should have done.
It is just the constancy of contentedness which bothers me once in a while. It is the want of the unknown or perhaps the realization of the limitation the passage of time makes you learn.
When I was very young I was recklessly insensitive to any physical limitation that one could have. I remember we used to stay up all night to study for the exam the next morning even when it was not necessary...and now I begin to panic when the side-clock nears midnight. The prospect of a long day of meetings without proper sleep is daunting.
When you are young you believe that life is simple and you are just too good for the world. And that world is mostly filled with hackneyed, you will get what you want and nothing bad could ever happen to you. It is only with years that you brush off your naiveté and your voice deepens with thoughtful pauses. Sometimes I wonder if it is mature consideration before speaking or scrambling for words that manifests in an “ahem”....
Just yesterday I ran into Ben again. After having seen ups and downs of managing a number of small to middle sized high tech companies for over 30 years, he has now, as I say, “grown the wings of an angel”. Wise and seasoned, he is now providing much needed startup capital for bleeding edge tech companies.
I am not looking for any capital and he was not particularly interested in what I am doing at this time...regular jobs seldom interest him. So we talked about other random stuff. Some usual some unusual things, some patterns in technology and politics, lack of newsworthiness of news channels and, yes, even weather.

Just while we were parting he casually said, drinking the last dregs of decaf cappuccino from his cup - “So what do you want to do when you grow up?”.

I gulped. Then considered...waited...thought...then casually shrugged - “There are a few things I am considering, lets see what happens”. It was as if the answer was frozen somewhere inside me and as it thawed I felt so light again.
He must have caught a gleam in my eyes, he smiled and gave me an approving nod.

Two Days in Guwahati

When I was told by my boss that I have to go to Guwahati for a couple of days on a business trip, I got quite perturbed.
Guwahati is the largest city of Assam and had been at the center of separatist/extremist movement for quite sometime.
It is strange that when you are not particularly involved or interested in a certain thing you hear less and less about it. My knowledge of Assam turmoil was limited to occasional reference to it in the DD news before I could change the channel or an unintended glance at a news item when I was a little slow in jumping from front-page to sports-page in the newspaper.
In a nutshell all I knew was that there is a state of Assam in the Indian Union and that Rajiv Gandhi orchestrated a ceremonious Assam accord and ushered in peace with an equally young student leader, but lately things are again headed south when new militant groups have emerged. I had also heard of some tribal internecine conflict, but maybe it was Mizoram or some other state somewhere in the remote north east.

Ever since I came to know of my impending business visit, either there was a spurt of unpleasant activity in Assam or my highly filtered senses got acutely aware of the events there and began to pick up signals pertaining to it. Whatever it was, the picture was gloomier than I had imagined and I began to get increasingly uncomfortable.
If it was any consolation, I could talk my way to get an airline conveyance from Delhi to Guwahati. Those days in India, air travel was a luxury, either the rich or high government officials got to travel by air. I fell in the third category - Fortuitous.

All my fantasies about cancellation of the visit remained fantasies and I found myself flying with a colleague, Jatin, parallel to the mighty Himalayas and into the state of Assam.
I was kind of relieved to find that Guwahati was not very different from most of the other Indian cities. The turmoil that I had heard about was at least not visible on the surface.
However, the first signs of what lay beneath became apparent when our jeep reached the government guest house atop a hillock through a serpentine road. The road had pickets set up by the paramilitary forces at a number of places and their presence only increased as we got closer to the guest house.
On all its four sides the building had paramilitary entrenchments and on the front gate was a huge picket with sandbags, camouflage mesh and soldiers with machine guns.
It was strangely eerie but also gave a secure feeling at the same time.
The guest house was a colonial bungalow built in late nineteenth century with high thatched roof, columns, and pediments. It even retained the warm colonial yellow on the exterior.
To some extent it is the building that influences the behavior of its residents and so I was not surprised to walk into an establishment that still held on to its colonial charm, in fact I sort of expected it.
After having ushered to our rooms we were greeted with freshly brewed aromatic darjeeling tea served in exquisite china and silver in library cum lounge.
The library was all teak and mahogany with worn out wooden floor and smoothened walls with the passage of more than a century. It was clear that the place had seen better times. Now the bookshelves were largely empty with some odd cardboard cartons egregiously stacked; a white ceiling fan stuck out like a sore thumb, hung from the ceiling clumsily tied with an aluminum wire to the wooden beam, it was one of those modern looking fans designed for a modern setting, here it looked like a contaminant in an archaeological site. It also looked remarkably small in that imposing room, small not just in size but also in its overall appearance. The paneled walls still had a number of trophies neatly arranged and there even were some old oil paintings.
The staff was very courteous, smartly dressed in whites and very efficient. I felt a little embarrassed dressed in a pair of jeans for our “high tea”.

The business meeting next day went pretty smoothly. The people here were not rushed at all, unlike Delhi, where you are running most of the time. Lunch is usually followed by a siesta and only after a couple of hours of lunch does the work start again. Our contact person was a "Bihari" and had his own misgivings about the natives. Most of his theories about the locals were amusing, but some were just preposterous. I started out asking about the reason why things are pronounced differently in the local language – So for example there is a place called “Chandmari” and anybody would pronounce the “Ch” with the sound as in “Check”, but for some unknown reason it was pronounced “Sandmari” with a “s” in the local language, well unknown to me but our Bihari associate had a "physio-linguistic" explanation –

“It is because these people chew tobacco a lot”.

I raised an eyebrow trying to make a connection. He took that as a cue for further explanation –

“Well you see, if you have tobacco under your tongue then you don’t want to lift it that often. ‘Ch’ needs some effort, these people are too lazy, they just go with ‘S’ sound.”

While he was explaining this earnestly, he nonchalantly fished a sachet of “gutkha” (scented tobacco) from his pocket and devoured it in one smooth movement.
Our Bihari associate also doubled up as the guide in the evening when we went out for a quick city tour. There wasn’t enough time to cover all the major attractions so we went to an ancient temple on a hilltop.

The Kamakhya temple is one of the oldest and most sacred in Assam. The current structure was built (or rebuilt) by a local king in 1665, but there are references to it in the famous Allahabad inscription (~335 AD). It is believed that when Sati, the wife of lord Shiva committed suicide after she and her husband was insulted by her father, Shiva spread her remains over a large part of the country. Each of these locations came to be known as “peethas”. Kamakhya temple stands on one of those “peetha” where her uterus fell. There is a small water pool in the sanctum sanctorum of the temple which has the symbolic uterus covered in a red cloth. It is said that the water in the pool turns red on a certain day of the year symbolizing the menstruating Sati.

The native Assamese are very likable people, easy going and very friendly, however, some people I met could not disguise a cringe when they learnt that I am from Delhi. Some asked me strange questions about some minister in Delhi, about his policies and decisions with respect to Assam, of which I had no clue.
Sensing this veiled animosity I quickly paraphrased my answer to add that I am originally from a city in UP.
I was tempted to say that a majority of people in Delhi know almost nothing about Assam and those who do know don’t care too much, but I held back.
I found rather amusing the way people casually used the phrase "Waise koi problem nahi hai" (Otherwise there is no problem) during the conversation.
So they would tell about killings that happened a few days ago and that travel at night was risky, but then they would add “Waise koi problem nahi hai”. They would advice against going to the neighboring state of Meghalaya because of trouble there and just a few days back some outsiders were hacked to death but then would casually add “Waise koi problem nahi hai”.

Back at the guest house after the evening tea I felt relaxed and at ease. I was warming up to the place and was actually beginning to enjoy the idyllic setting, cool weather and the laid back environment.
There was one strange thing though, the people were not forthcoming in answering questions about the insurgency, they were either reserved because of the “Delhi factor” or they were scared talking openly about it, I didn’t know for sure.

It was around 2am, at first I tried to dream it off but then woke up with a start to a loud banging sound on the roof. I came out of my room and saw Jatin who had also woken up, in his pajamas. He looked visibly shaken and was squinting; he looked very different without his glasses.
We assumed it was a rebel attack on the guest house. Tentatively we decided to ask the paramilitary guard outsides about what was going on.

“It is the monkeys” the officer said with a wry smile, a little irritated as we had bothered him.

I could hardly sleep after all that excitement.
In the morning there was some unusual activity in the guest house. On asking around, to my horror we found that one of the soldiers was found dead in the morning, shot in the chest. My heart skipped a beat.
We wanted to know all about it but the conversation was in Assamese. All I understood was that the officers are investigating and it looked like a suicide. I wanted to help by letting them know about the monkey episode at night but they were not interested. Nobody I talked to knew about the soldier, who he was or where he came from, nobody had even heard the gunshot, which was strange as it was a very quiet place.

We had to check-out of the guest house by the afternoon as our flight was around 4pm, but we had a short meeting before that, so we proceeded to the office.

“You must leave now or you could get stuck here” Bihari told us the minute we entered his office.
“It is the raising day of the insurgents and they have called for a state-wide strike”

We were told by the few people who had turned up for work that day that these things are usually accompanied by some clashes with the military and police, resulting in a curfew, sometimes for days.
I was surprised that no body had mentioned about it yesterday or the day before.
I had still not recovered from the shock of the death of the soldier back at the guest house, this sudden turn of events made me queasy.

“You could get a police escort if you want to the airport, but I would advise you to take a taxi. You see, the police and military vehicles are their primary targets” - Bihari said carefully maneuvering his lower jaw to hold back the gutkha he had just popped.

A few minutes later we were sitting in an auto-rickshaw headed to the airport. (as Bihari advised us to be low key and not take a car-taxi)

“Where are you going to Sahib?” asked the auto driver.

“Well…umm...going to a city in UP” I kept the Delhi reference out.

“Good for you, this place may get violent today, you see the chief minister is a tout of Delhi. These people are screwing Assam”.

“So what do the insurgents actually want?” I couldn’t help ask again.

The auto driver considered. Then said - “I do not know for sure as I am not one of them, but we care about Assamese pride. We do not want to be remote controlled from Delhi. This used to be beautiful place and now the clashes with Indian military are destroying it.”

“But I still don’t understand what the problem is. This is like any other Indian state, I don’t think there is any more poverty here than in other places, so if government is neglecting its duty it is equally neglecting the whole country” – I pressed on even while Jatin eyed me through his thick glasses.

“I don’t know, I think people in Delhi have all the money and power. We are very peaceful people. But you don’t think too much of this situation, today there may be some shootings here and there in the city but…..Waise koi problem nahin hai”

Back home in Delhi I scanned through all the newspapers and listened to the news both on TV and radio but there was no mention of the turmoil there. Nothing!

Kar Sevaks

My Dad had come to the railway station to see me off, something that he would do for a long time until I would leave for United States several years later.
That day was my first long train journey alone. I was going to Calcutta, fresh out of college just a few months back.
He was obviously very concerned about me. I know he had quickly glanced around in the compartment to see who the other people were, he had made me check the money and the ticket many times and he had ensured that my suitcase was securely tethered to the seat.
When the train was signaled he stepped out and came around to the window.

“Do not leave your luggage unattended, always ask someone to look after it, even when the train is moving”

“OK” - I said.

“When you buy something through the window and do not have exact change, first ask the vendor to return the change and then give the money”

“I see” - Later I would realize that to be an accepted practice as some people posing as vendors had run away at some places with a 20 Rupee note when someone bought a tea worth one rupee.

“And do not accept any food from strangers”

“I know” - I was beginning to get embarrassed. I could see that the man on the opposite seat was finding this conversation amusing.

Finally the train began to squeak ahead and slowly gathered speed. Dad had this other habit of walking with the train waving his hand. I always get nervous when people do that because usually the platform has many obstacles and it is easy to trip over something.
I was a little anxious too, about this long journey and all, but at this time I felt relieved as train moved out of the dark and putrescent railway station into fresh air of the country side.
I pulled out one of the many books I had brought for this journey. I have always found reading while sitting at the train window very enjoyable. Thoughts flow uninterrupted and sometimes jump off the pages in seemingly unconnected spontaneity.

Little did I realize at that time when my mind was alternating between writings of EM Forester and a fast changing landscape outside the train window, that a storm was brewing on the Indian political scene which would trigger a chain of tumultuous events, forever changing the course of Indian history of the future.
It was December 1, 1992 that day.


Yaad Ali, the man sitting on the opposite seat to me, was a Muslim. He was accompanied by three other gentlemen, all attired in a similar dress of white Bengali kurta and pajamas with a netted Muslim topi. They were all from Calcutta and were headed back after spending 40 days of Tabligh in parts of UP. Tabligh is a missionary revival movement originally started in Deoband, India, and went on to become a worldwide movement.
However, it never captured the imagination of mainstream Muslims in India, partly because of its strict puritanical teachings and intolerance towards the very popular Sufi sect and partly because of its dogmatic beliefs and strict codes about almost every aspect of life and religion. It also made huge demands on its followers. The 40 day journey at your own expense seeking religious education and living tough life away from your family is not for someone who has to work hard in the day to feed a family.
Yaad Ali was a watchmaker by profession and had saved for almost 3 years to take this journey. Though he said we felt invigorated and purified after this journey, he was extremely happy to go back to his family. He spoke broken Hindi with a heavy Bengali accent.
I broke into a conversation with him asking him about Calcutta and his life in Tabligh. It was always the mention of Calcutta that brought a beaming smile on his face as he raced ahead of the train in his mind to Dharamtala.

“What is the best way to reach IIM from 53 Chowringhee?” - I asked

“Take the metro from Dharamtala, get down at Tollygunge and take the bus towards Alipore. You can take the taxi too if you like but make sure that you share with others. ”

“Share it?” - I frowned.

“Oh yes, in Calcutta you can hire a taxi but it is not exclusively yours, anyone can hail an occupied taxi, they would get in and they would pay the fare for the distance they traveled divided by the occupants of the taxi”

“Interesting. Very convenient too, is it because of the communist legacy of sharing or just a Calcutta custom?” - I asked.

“Ami Jaani Na ” (I don't know). Yaad Ali was deliberately skirting any political discussion.

“So what kind of watches do you mend?”

“All mechanical kinds, I can even mend an old Rolex. I do not know enough about the new digital variety though, there is a kid in my shop who can replace batteries and fix minor stuff, but basically you throw them away after a year or so. They are pathetic. On the other hand you see this beauty” - He jingled his Omega watch with a thick golden chain.

“I have had this for last 15 years and never has it given any trouble, all it needs is occasional cleaning” - he said.

“It is probably because you are an expert watchmaker” - I said.

He blushed and giggled.
He and all his colleagues had a rosary each in their hands which they were shuffling constantly. By afternoon they had taken turns in offering namaz (muslim prayer) in the train and read from religious books they carried.
Almost everyone in the compartment had lunch, some bought from the train pantry and some like me had brought food from home.
Yaad Ali offered me some barfi ( kind of sweetmeat) which he had brought.
Dad's forewarning about accepting food from strangers echoed in my mind, but he was hardly a stranger anymore and besides it would be impolite to refuse. The barfi was a little dry but agreeable.

“You see, one thing that I really missed out of my hometown is sweets” - He said nibbling away at a small piece he held.
“This one is OK, but wait till you taste Shondesh or Roshogollah and yes of course do not miss Mishti Doi” - He began to imagine again as his smile broadened.

“So tell me about your 40 day tabligh, did you convert anyone to Islam?” – I asked

“Oh no it is not about converting others to Islam, it is about strengthening the belief of believers. It is about showing Muslims the right path”

“But isn’t this back-to-basics ideology breeding intolerance amongst Muslims?”

“We are re-iterating the path that God showed and reminding the faithful of their duty towards Islam” - He again skirted the controversial question.

“You are propagating one interpretation and at the same time banishing all others. What do you think of Sufism?”- I insisted.

“They are heretic people, I think it is no different than idolatry” – He was now opening up.

“But isn’t it true that most of the Muslims in India today are converts from other religion just because of Sufi teachings of tolerance and acceptance of diversity?”

“I don’t think that is true, these people are singing and dancing in their dargahs (place of worship of Sufis), while we are adhering to the true Islam” – He was beginning to wave his hands now.

I soon realized that I was now scraping the peripheries of Yaad Ali’s erudition. I decided to let him have the last word and not unsettle him any further. Slowly I wandered back to my book, leaving his remarks uncontested.
Yaad Ali was passed the prayer mat and he began his evening prayer.


Hours flew by and the train reached Lucknow the capital of UP. Just as the train pulled in I heard loud chants of “Jai Shri Ram”.
The railway platform was abuzz with activity, there was an unusual rush of people mostly kar-sevaks headed towards the town of Ayodhya to tear down a 16th century mosque known as the Babri mosque, named after the first Mughal emperor Babur.
It is widely believed that Babur’s commander Mir Baqi constructed this mosque. Unfortunately there are not enough historical records to verify this, based upon an inscription that bears Babur’s name it can be safely assumed that Babur, if not constructed then at least renovated it around 1528 AD. The architectural style of the mosque however resembled more with the Sultanate period mosques predating the Mughals.

I feared that the kar-sevaks would now mob the train and throw out ticketed passengers. I was surprised to find out that they were much disciplined, in fact they had formed small groups per bogey (car) and only those groups boarded our train. Even then our compartment filled up like a Bombay local train.

I was surprised again to find out these kar-sevaks were from Andhra Pradesh. Traditionally South India is not seen as a constituency for the fundamentalist Hindu organizations, yet evidently the burgeoning Hindu nationalist sentiment was making inroads into the South.
Soon the train began to jolt ahead and people began to settle on the seats somehow. On my berth were seated about eight people. Next to me was a young kar sevak named Manoj.
Manoj was a graduate student from a suburb of Warangal, “Set out to correct the wrongs of history” in his own words.

“This is my first visit to UP, in fact my first to North”

“So how is the sentiment amongst kar-sevaks this time?” – I asked.

“We are confident that this time we will destroy the mosque. This will be the first act of the resurgent Hindu”.

“What about the police protection to the mosque? Last time the attempt was repulsed”.

“It is different this time. We have a BJP led government in UP and besides we are lakhs (hundreds of thousand) of kar-sevaks this time”

“Have you considered the fallout if what you say indeed happens?”

“It is unfortunate that it has to be settled this way. The Hindu parties offered to move the mosque to a separate location if Muslims agreed to handover the site to us. They had this chance to atone the sins of their ancestors”

“You really believe this? You are talking about events that happened almost 500 years ago! Now THAT is a long time, don’t you think so?”

“Sure but the lost glory of Hinduism is just beginning to get restored”

“But the matter is pending in Supreme Court, how can Muslims, even if they want to, handover the site to Hindus?”

“The courts cannot decide matters of faith, so we have to take the matters in our own hands”

I glanced at Yaad Ali, he and his colleagues were ill at ease with this new company. They were trying to listen in to the all the different conversations but they were giving the impression of being detached from them; this was perhaps their defense mechanism of not attracting too much attention. They were however quite conspicuous in their Muslim attire.

Manoj and others were called by someone, who was presumably their leader in our bogey, as the train was passing through a small town.
As if responding to an invisible composer the entire group started shouting slogans in unison. In fact their chants were synchronized across all the bogies and were loud enough to drown the roll of rails.
As the train moved ahead they settled back to whatever they were doing. This pattern would repeat a few more times before the train would reach Ayodhya.

Manoj slowly came back to his seat. He was suppressing a grin, almost as if feeling awkward from this act, as other people watched him.
I know this feeling, some people, particularly men, feel embarrassed singing alone or even in groups. I have myself kept quiet when people around me were singing “Happy Birthday to you” at a birthday party or students singing the national anthem in the school assembly. Singing is not the best form of expression for me. I think Manoj also fell in the same category.
I let some moments pass to let him regain his composure.

“Do you have any Muslim acquaintances?” – I asked.

“Yes a few, I had a friend in school, then there are a few in our local cricket club, but we do not mix that much now”

“Don’t you think that this Mandir movement is actually doing more harm in widening the gulf between the communities than any good? Hindu consciousness is neither easily repressed nor easily aroused, you would probably succeed in instigating a riot but how do you foresee this would restore the glory of Hindus and India?”

He thought for a long time then said something, fragments of which I had heard others say but not with this clarity.

“This is a core issue that has unified Hindus like never before. If you see just a few years ago there was nothing common between the Hindu of South and North. If we are united we will be strong and we will wake up from our centuries of slumber. Hindus have since eternity been a docile people. This issue has made them aggressors for a change”

“And you are comfortable being an aggressor?”

“For a change yes. Strictly between you and me, I know the stories of Muslim appeasement and special civil laws are just a load of crap. These people are as poor and deprived as any one in India, perhaps more than others because of their own backwardness. In any social revolution there has to be a scapegoat and there has to be an aggression. To our benefit the Muslims in past have committed numerous atrocities giving us enough reasons”

“But they were foreign invaders who did that, most of the Muslims in India today are converts from Hinduism, what do you say to that?” – I asked.

“This is what surprises me most, if they were Hindus at one time then they should help us in restoring our cultural identity by undoing the injustices by their own hands, rather than protecting the icons of oppression”

“Muslims perceive your acts as oppression as does the rest of the world. Do you think any civilization can really attain glory by persecuting its own citizens?”

“Yes and no, in a way we alone are not responsible for this turmoil. The current movement is fueled by Muslim intransigence. They make an issue out of everything, but this time it is to our benefit. To rise high, a kite needs a draft of wind against it. They are providing ghee to the fire”

“And you really believe that this has nothing to do with vote politics?”

“There is some element of that. If Hindus are united we will have our own government and we will re-write the constitution, we will correct the history and its errors”.

“You do not like the secular nature of India?” – I asked

“Well, it is not secular but pseudo-secular, Congress has pampered Muslims for votes”

“But you just said it was all just a perception and then you are doing the same thing, aren’t you?”

He smiled.

To keep themselves engaged a small group of kar-sevaks in our compartment started antakshri, a game of singing based on bollywood movie songs. The compartment was divided into two group and a hotly contested game of antakshri ensued. Almost every one excluding Yaad Ali and his party joined one or the other group. There were locals singing in Hindi and there were these kar-sevaks singing in Telugu.
Of course no one could win because there was no referee who knew both the languages!
It was kind of silly but amusing. After almost an hour of stalemate the leader of kar-sevaks opened a cardboard box and started distributing sweets in the compartment.
They even offered Yaad Ali and his colleagues.

After the kar-sevaks had disembarked at Ayodhya the environment in the compartment settled back to its slow pace, almost as if exhausted after an adrenaline rush.

Yaad Ali was folding his prayer mat when I asked him.

“So what do you think of this Kar-Seva?”

“I think it is serious this time, but I still have faith that things will be fine. But it is all our fault” – He said.

“You mean Muslims?”

“Yes. The Muslims have strayed from their path. If Muslims are strong in their convictions then no one can harm us. We have to go back to our roots to find strength.”

“But wouldn’t that fuel fundamentalism?”

“Going back to our religion. That is all we have now” – He closed his eyes and started shuffling his rosary, indicating his disinterest in any further discussion.

That was almost 14 years ago. The fact that Babri Mosque was subsequently demolished, followed by a systematic pogrom starting in Ayodhya, became just a detail in extremely violent Indian milieu. I had read stories of how the kar-sevaks after the demolition of the mosque had gone on a rampage in the town of Ayodhya killing and destroying the extremely small Muslim community there, but at that time the whole of India was engulfed in a communal conflagration and there was no time for any detail. Thousands of innocent people died in a matter of days, men women and children.
In fact this kind of violent rioting is not uncommon in India, people live in apparent harmony and peace and then almost suddenly like a volcanic eruption they are at each others throat. There are almost always stories of “outsiders” carrying out these heinous acts which lead to even more heinous reprisals at some other place.
And this cycle of belligerence-killing-revenge continues like an unending karma-chakra.

I forgot all about the experiences in the train that day and the horror that followed the fallout of December 6, until I came across a report filed by Shikha Trivedy (an award winning journalist), which I just happened to read a few days back. This was a fairly long piece that she had written right after the Ayodhya incidents. She was in Ayodhya and had interviewed both Hindus and Muslims survivors just weeks into the aftermath. It was a heart rending article of human bestiality, systematic abuse, complicity of police and heroic acts by Hindu neighbors protecting their Muslim friends. In all a familiar pattern of communal riot in India. Until I came across this paragraph -

Beechu, who owns a cycle shop, was literally snatched from the jaws of death by two of his Hindu neighbours, Sarju Yadav and Subhash who tied a Bajrang Dal band on his head and passed him off as a kar sevak. "It was very difficult," says Yadav, "because the men who came here did not speak any Hindi, only Telugu. I somehow managed to convince them in the little English I know. "

My heart skipped a beat.
I still vaguely remember Manoj’s face and it was not a face of a murderer. Sure he had radical ideas but I cannot imagine him as a killer.
I fervently hope and pray that he had nothing to do with it.
But now I can only take solace in the fact that I would never know one way or the other.

~nk