Thursday, September 19, 2013

Linear Perspective

“Neither you nor I speak in English, but there are some things that can be said only in English”, I think most of you must have acknowledged this sentence, it has been written by the famous Arvind Adiga in his first book ‘the white tiger’ for which he won 2008 Man Booker Prize, now you could make out easily that I was just reading this book before I have made up mind to write something here. Some days back I was reading Paulo Coelho’s The Zahir and in that this eminent writer has written that to write something one has to craft up his mind to really scribble down the feelings which it has trying to project from sometime, and for it to come in energy one has to read something. So I think the white tiger has become that something for me at this moment. Its 3:29 PM I could see at the bottom of my laptop screen and Ashiqui 2’s song is playing in the background, I could not usually concentrate on something if something is constantly nagging me, but at this moment I am so pumped up that I could not feel any disturbance neither by song nor by the noise of cutting stone(probably they are making Taj Mahal :P) which is coming from outside, my mind chose not to notice it, otherwise it always nags me to notice even the silence of air.
I know it would be little understating myself to say that I was never been a very good student nor I am any prominent personality in the society, but by writing I could reveal my invisible world to the world and compete on equal terms with the visible world of my surroundings, that is to say, materialistic things. Perhaps in this way I get the satisfaction and reason of existence in the society, although it is not the only reason.
Recently I went to Indore to meet my sister, she was married to an army officer 6 years back and after three years of their marriage they have blessed with twins, yes they are male, now most of you must be little relieved and seeing them with respect, huh… our society is full of irreparable mindset. Indore is just another city of India, nothing significant that I can talk about, but when you talk about Indore and Army, then you cannot overlook MHOW (Military Headquarter of War, that’s what it stand for, although there is total lack of unanimity as to how it got named ‘Mhow’), I think every Officer or Junior Officers has once in his professional career must have visited this place, this small town is totally dedicated to Army people, it has Infantry school, Army War College and pretty other Combat training exercise programmes. This place is considered to be peace time for all Officers and their juniors; they can stay with their family in some well suited government quarters provided to them. In their idle time, probably in the night they go to place called ‘Shangri-la’ it’s an open air theatre where they do some kind of discrimination (perhaps positive discrimination as what they call and I really cannot understand, being a student of law I have read this word to some other positive sense) among Officers and Junior Commissioned Officers (JCOs), like we saw it in the movie ‘Swades’ where people of upper class and lower class sit opposite to each other with cinema screen is the dividing line to both. However the discrimination is necessary in Army to maintain the dignity of army officers because they are more educated and trained, government spend more on them and in the battlefield they are going to lead the troops. Coming back to theatre, army officers wives they take more pride to sit on the officer side and feel it to be little more elevated all the time, perhaps that’s what make them to drink more alcohol with elegancy. I always wonder why do we consider army persons the most liberal and indiscriminate class, however I find it little ambiguous, they always call us civilian, sometimes bloody civilian and tend to forget that they also once belong to the civilian class, perhaps their parental home are still the part of so called other class called Civil. Okay, lets not degrade the dignity of Army officers, they protect us a lot in times of national threat and lives in such places where we could not even think of staying for an hour, but it is not always bad to point out something which we forget in the light of shock, surprise, curiosity and even little amusement.
The next day, my brother in law and my sister, they took me to another restaurant ‘the Red Maple’ or ‘Mashal’, it is one of the best restaurant of that area, if I could rate it then it would be 4 starred restaurant, although I don’t know what are the parameters to give these stars to any hotel or restaurant. It has big arch like entrance written with ‘RED MAPLE’ with red neon light, starting with big hall and corridor, on one side it has private air conditioned hall besides that there is one big swimming pool decorated with lights and tress all around it, we went directly to the more deeper side of the restaurant just behind the swimming pool, it has small park for children, then on the sides of the park they have placed the seating arrangement for those who wants to hog in open. The gentry was nice, what else could we expect in restaurant like this, people were dressed nicely, women were more concern about their dresses than their children, sometimes it looks they come here to show their well fitted dress then to eat, probably some hide their failure through their dresses, so that people could mesmerized by their outfit then to their real personality. The majority was of army officers only, however they did not feel elevated there because there were no such thing called officers lounge, except peeping to others as to what they are wearing and how well they are behaving, basic human instinct or more accurately woman instinct. We have ordered chicken dish, that’s the kind of universal fact or formality, if someone is non-vegetarian then he has to order non-vegetarian only otherwise there would not be any use of eating in the restaurant. It was delicious though, I have told my sister that she can cook better than this, she nodded in pride and conformity and replied that she wanted to show this place to me, sisters are always very kind and know their brothers well.
Later we return to our respective place which the government has chosen for us and I started feeling again the part of army life, my sister got to sleep at once, I made tea for myself, and sat to read the novel, “the curious incident of the dog in the night time”, it is very different kind of novel belong to vintage classics series, I have never read something like it before.

Friday, September 6, 2013

the girl who died


(Although I have written this story quite long back, I had even posted it on my Facebook 'notes' but I forgot to share it here. Today I was just going through my Facebook pages and I found it, I don't know exactly what made me to write this story, but I could still recollect the face of that girl who used to sit outside the ‘Cafe Yezdan’ where I always went for having tea in the morning. I always had this habit of giving her change if I ever get back from the newspaper vendor and I could still remember her face overflowing with happiness perhaps that was the reason I always inclined to give her some alms. In the evening when I used to come back from college, I always found her sitting at the entrance of different restaurants and cafes for the want of something which could give her subsistence and I always used to wonder what would be the exact condition of her life and it always made me sad, possibly that miserable feeling might being the reason of writing something which still gives me Goosebumps)

"I saw a girl asking for alms, her Lazarus eyes were begging for some help, help that can give her basic needs of life. But no one understands her basic needs were so little that it can’t even give anyone a comforting thought. In dirty clothes with a thirsty throat, she kept stirring and glancing into the cars, hoping for a little pittance, but none was there to pity her. She never complained for her destiny, nor she ever envied for other people’s life, she only desired for feeling of empathy from others that most of them felt for her. But alone empathy could not enough for her life’s comfort. She grown up running behind the cars, and chasing for her daily hunger, hunger of food, clothes and of people’s eye. She saw people spending bulk of money on their lifestyle which they already have, she saw people taking puff of expensive cigarettes’, and if it was given to her, she could have spent the day or two in that. But she never complained neither her destiny nor her lifestyle. There was a time when her mother used to call her by her name, but that was years ago, after her mother she did not even hear her name from anyone, probably she forgot her name also. She strolled around the streets, unaware of her ragged clothes; people laughed at her after seeing her half naked body. Some were named her as ‘paagal’, some were blamed her as ‘slut’, but none was there to save the chastity of her, although she never complained nor blamed, she thought life is like this only. One day a group of young alcoholic blood drove a car on the pavement of a road, and on the girl who slept with her half empty stomach, she screamed in a sleep, she thought it was a dream, but alas that was reality, her both legs were broken and with that her desire to live in this pitiless world. Till the morning she mourned in pain and help, but how could anyone helped her? Everyone was sleeping in their dream for making their luxurious life more luxurious. She died in the morning, her dead body was laid on the pavement of a road, people gathered to see her body, but none of them even thought of giving her a respective burial, although her body did not complain, nor blamed."