Batak Mian's story must be told

Batak Mian’s story must be told to every Indian. Despite the unfamiliarity of the name, the absence of his story in India’s history, Batak Mian cannot be ignored. One Indian mainstream news paper recently took the pain to digging out and publishing the story of this extra-ordinary Indian, without whom India’s independence might not have been possible.

The story goes back to 1917 British India. Mahatma Gandhi was visiting Bihar’s Champaran district where he started his career India’s politics, supporting the cause of the local indigo planters.

Batak Mian was serving as a cook with a British indigo plantation manager who apparently instructed him to offer Mahatma poisoned milk. Mian disclosed the plot in front of Mahatma and Rajendra Prasad, who became the first President of an independent India later. Result Mahtma’s life saved and the rest is history as we all know.

I understand the story sounds loose and slightly heroic. Even as an objective writer I find despite the folklore involved in glorifying Batak Mia’s role, it’s worth remembering. And at least his grand children shouldn’t earn their wages as daily labourers.
Here is a link to the original story http://www.hindustantimes.com/Family-of-Mahatma-s-saviour-in-dire-straits/H1-Article1-500334.aspx

What went wrong: another life lost

As I reached office today, the colleague next to my cubicle informed me about the sad demise of an ex-colleague.

Shocked we remembered her. She was one of the sweet young women full of life and attitude. One who always puts a smile on her face, genial, helpful and gorgeous.

Her love for life was personified in her blog which was titled She loves life. What went so wrong that she let go the very life she was so passionate about. Prayers her soul rests in peace. Amen....

Why good people suffer?

Last week I was asking myself a question. A question that has stayed with me since my childhood but rises to my conscience on certain occasions leaving me bewildered.
The question is –“Why good people suffer?”
And I know no one has a satisfying answer.
It’s both difficult and dangerous to be good. Being good gives us simplistic happiness, honesty of purpose etc. But it needs courage to remain good.
I have seen people who practice good going to jail, losing in relationship at workplace, money and health wise. Though not all of them, but many of the good suffer. So do many of the bad.
But the problem is both good and bad exist. And the fine things in life come to both of them irrespective of their purpose in life.
Picture this: A teenager like Ruchika who lost her mother as a kid was harassed by a senior police officer and saw her family being harassed for years. While the police officer who has got everything in life does this act and has woman, his wife, to protect him all the way.
How could one justify this situation? Nothing asking from the government or judiciary....asking God if such a situation exists. Then why?
Ruchika never had the option to enjoy life while this old man has lived his life to the fullest. Even if the case progresses against the alleged culprit and he’s convicted punished. How much harm will it do to him?

Ruchika’s story is just a case point there are many such instances where injustice is inflicted upon the good. And we have never found an answer why?

You know you are from Delhi when...

This stuff is sourced from a forward mail.
It's very apt while describing the cultural practices in Delhi. There are few descriptions we may not like but they are mostly true.


You know you are from Delhi when...
1. You drink only on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday to Sunday evenings. And try
not drinking on Tuesday.

2. Treating a friend means - Daaru Shaaru te kabbab shabaab.

3. Even in the most posh colonies, you hear, "Aaloo lelo !!!, Bhindi le lo !!!!
Pyaaz le lo !!!!, Tamatar le lo......"

4. And you hear women asking the vegetable vendor "Bhaiyaa dhaniya hari mirchi
nahi diya!" [Even with Half a kilo Carrot - Dhania & Hari Mirch is expected free
] ;-)

5. A place to meet is Mocha, (CCD), Barista, Hookah.

6. You use the word "setting" or "jugaad" at-least once a day.

7. You have not visited either of - Qutub Minar, Red Fort, Lotus Temple. It is
only for tourists, so Delhiites say.

8. You ride on the cycle rickshaw in NOIDA (more popularly known as NEODA) -
haggle over the price, but still pity rickshaw walla's condition and give him
what he asked.

9. You glare at people who call Gol Guppas as Pani Puri!

10. You always ask the vendor "Bhaiya yeh Gol-Guppe Aate ki hai ya Sooji ke?"
11. Schooling is best is Delhi not because of CBSE, but because you've had
school cancelled thrice due to cold in winters & summer vacations preponed due
to sudden increase heat in Summers and at least two Rainy Day off during
Monsoon.

12. You have been to a wedding at a Mehrauli farmhouse at least once.

13. You understand all important words in Punjabi & punjabi "helping
verbs" like teri m*******, teri b&&&&&&&... oye etc etc. Almost every Delhiite
understands Punjabi to an extent. PUNJABI unites everyone.

14. You call the waiter in the restaurant "boss" or "Pappey" & tack on "yaar"
"bhai" to almost every sentence.

15. You know that Pappay Da Dhaba or Kake Da Hotel has better butter chicken
than Taj. You've at least tried it once! And you see a BMW, a Porsche OR a
Mercedes parked outside it!

16. You describe practically every other person on the planet as "Vella".
('Idle' or Nikamma in Punjabi).

17. You see middle-aged Aunties wearing Gucci shades and holding LV bags having
Gol-Gappas in GK or Bhelpuri in South Ex along with Diet Coke !

18. You call every stranger 'Bhaiyya'.

19. You refer to East Delhi as 'Jamuna Paar'. Recite Nanak dukhiya sab sansar
par sabse dukiya Jamuna Paar.

20. You refer to AIIMS as Medical.

21. Pretty girls as Totta, Maal or Bamb (Punjabi for Bomb).

22. Aashiq mizaz boys as Majnu di Aulad !

23. You dont buy tickets for a music concert or cricket match, but try to use
political contacts... of the deputy secretary of the chief secretary of the
Minister of State for Khadi.

24. You overtake everyone from the wrong side and stare into his/her eyes while
doing so.

25. You have at least two cars and a motorbike at home.

26. And you have fought at least once every month with neighbors over parking...

27. You park your Car and take a Auto-rickshaw to Lajpat Nagar / Rajouri/ Kamla
Nagar/ Karol Bagh. But CP, you don't get parking space easily, yet you go always
in your own vehicle.

28. And then you say apni Kanvense (conveyance) howe na ta badi Kanvinyance
(convenience) hondi hai ji !!!!

29. You've hit 120 kmph at Nelson Mandela Marg and waited for midnight to do it.

30. You have bribed a traffic cop (Mama) at least once, every month.

31. You know that a farmhouse has nothing to do with cattle or farming. It is
luxurious hangout for whole night.

32. You use "contacts" (jugaad) for everything, from getting movie tickets to
restaurant bookings to play-school admissions.

33. You have had Anda parantha outside Vikram hotel and Bun Omlette at Dhaula
Kuan, Kulfi at Karol Bagh, Gol Gappe at India Gate, Dosa at Madras Hotel,
Chana/Kulcha at Scindia House and Chaat at UPSC.

34. Metro rail is your Pride but you travel in your Car.

36. You think EVERY South Indian comes from ' Madras ' and is a Madrasi.

37. You feel indicating which way you are going to turn your vehicle is an
information security leak.

38. You are a good driver coz you are correct in your guess of what the driver
in the front vehicle will do.

39. The only time you went to the Chidiya Ghar (Zoo) was on a school picnic.

40. You expect around 10 FM STATIONS in every city! Woho.!

41. DESPITE all the good and bad........You still Love Delhi...

42. You keep singing ..... Dilli hai Dil Walon ki..... Oye Balle Balle !!!

Noble piracy or guilty pleasure: The case of Ram and Bhagwanji

This morning a friend of mine asked me if I have watched 3 Idiots, the Hindi movie. I said yes on my computer using a pirated DVD borrowed from someone. She was aghast to discover this part of me. “Not you.” Never expected something like this from you, she said. I was rather confused realising how I was unknowingly acknowledging something so unlawful, almost criminal! I’m supposed to be the sensitive, morally responsible, law abiding, patriotic individual. Someone, who’s not even travelled a single day without ticket in the local trains, someone who has never dared to disrupt the discipline in his workplace, school or college, even if no one is watching.

Yet someone like me buys roadside cheap novels photocopied from the licensed book and pirated DVDs without any signs of doing anything wrong.

Is it a systemic problem in India that discounts piracy as something criminal though the law says so? May be? Am I embarrassed? Don’t know, but I have a logical reasoning why piracy is thriving without people noticing the criminal side as if it’s a genetic disorder.

Picture this: Ram Chander Tiwari, the sixth son of landless Pujari somewhere in eastern Uttar Pradesh. Ram is the most brilliant student in the local school but rarely goes to school thanks to the poverty that has forced him to work at the local Halwai, (sweet-meat maker). The sixteen-year-old manages to borrow some book or the other from the Halwai’s lousy son and manages to appear in class ten examinations. Comes out as a topper and easily gets admitted in the best college in Allahabad city. He toils hard even to pay his fees and travel expenses, which is less than 10 US dollars annually. In the meantime Ram’s father dies and three brothers leave for brick kilns and live on their own.

Now Ram has to earn for his family while helping her mother to get her two elder sisters married. Ram does very well again, joins medical and gets a scholarship, most of which he sends home while eating one time and not joining the hostel mess. Ram works as a salesman with a bookshop as well.

Now medical books are expensive. Ram with no money to spend on his food and clothes, goes to the book shop owner Bhagwanji, a generous man. Bhagwanji gets him photocopies of most expensive books and even provides coloured copies whenever they are needed to explain a medical case. So the books which would have cost 20,000 rupees come at 400 rupees, even that is bought by Ram’s friends who share it with him.

Ram struggles for almost a decade becomes a surgeon and later a civil servant. Even now he visits Bhagwanji, who also helped him in providing access to pirated IAS study material.

One morning Bhagwanji gets a heart stroke. Someone informs Ram, then the collector of the district. When Ram reaches the small local hospital he was greeted by the chief secretary of the state. “Sir, How come you are here?” The chief said guy I would not have been what I’m today had Bhagwanji not been there. Slowly in the crowd Ram discovered hoards of civil servants, doctors and scientists making a cue to show their presence to an ailing Bhagwanji.

Bhagwanji did piracy work for a righteous cause. He did the work of Bharat Nirman, which may be rated as good as the total contribution of India’s education ministry.

No doubt he cheated the authors, publishers and breached the law, but he made an underprivileged India reach the power corridors and write policy for the country.
May be we can call it ‘noble piracy’.

Everyone must not have solved the same dignified purpose with their piracy skills in India, but they did their bit to feed, enlighten and entertain an impoverished India.

Millions of Indians with whom money has not been kind also dream to study, wear, eat and entertain themselves. They can't pay the monopolistic giants of food, water, education and entertainment a fee for this.

The stale Dabeli infront of a MacDonald, contaminated flavoured water, pirated books and DVD keeps them abreast of a changing India. The one which they want to become a part of. May this bit of piracy keep help India to tick the unreachable 10 percent plus GDP growth?

This is an age where information is power and facilitator of equality the faster it spreads the better its for the country.

May be I can afford the spend 250 rupees for a three hour show of 3 Idiots, but not many like Ram Chander Tiwari. For me piracy is ‘guilty pleasure,’ for them it’s ‘Bhagwanji’s treasure.’

The decade ends; remembering poppy flowers, ghats, rock pythons and friends

In past few days, I had a sudden consciousness about losing or going past another decade, the third one in my life.

When you think voluntarily, the recollections become vivid, unpredictable and leave you with sighs and mild laughter depending on what situation has appeared from memory lane like calling up a rare video from YouTube.

It comes up in your mind all the time. While preparing a cup of pepper-mint special tea for yourself on a Sunday morning, while jogging inside the small park in your locality, while travelling in a jam-packed Mumbai suburban train or even while chewing a Kalkattia mitha paan from the local cigarette and paan vendor in posh south Mumbai after office hours are over.

The first memory I had was of the undergraduate university days in eastern Uttar Pradesh. My university consisted of large colonial academic structures, a whitewashed small Chapel and vast stretches of green farm land and Orchards spread over 600-acres on the banks of mighty Yamuna River.

The 100 year-old campus was secluded from the crowded Allahabad city, separated by an old dilapidated Naini bridge that officially expired in 1970, but was able to support five-million-strong city populace, hundreds of passenger trains and every logistics carrier on its way from the north down Madhya Pradesh.

The winter months of December 1999 and January 2000 were full of hope and hesitation thanks to the the next century will be India's optimism, world will end fear, Y2K buzz etc. Those were also the months of floriculture practical classes for us. We were given small plots to grow and identify flowers. There was faint love affair with the delicate flowers in an otherwise boring and secluded campus. Three flower patches -- gladiolus, carnation and poppy – were in my kitty.

I loved of all, the bulbous red and pink poppy flowers which belonged to the Papaver genera popularly known as the Oriental or Opium poppy . When I remember how I welcomed this decade and millennium, tossing poppy flowers on windy wintry evenings instantly appear on my mind.

The early years of the decade also remind me of the morning and evening Yoga classes in another University in neighouring city of Benares, the mindless but spiritual wanderings on hundreds of ghats of the 3000-year-old settlement, the occasional association with bhang and regular listening to BBC Radio to improve English pronunciation and soft old Bollywood songs on Vividh Bharti to get a nice sleep.

The long hours spent in the huge lighted central library of the university, where I was the only one reading The Economist, Times and The New Yorker always taunt my present day painful reading adventures on a bean bag in my small sub-urban apartment balcony in Mumbai.


The memory lane also took me to my early days with the Indian Express newspaper in Delhi. The support from the Police, the threat from a builder and the protection from another bigger builder while doing a particular story was interesting.

A year in solitude, when I dared to craft a dream livelihood intervention project in southern Jaharkhand districts, and failed against the system touches me till date. I still remember the early morning trips to impassable villages crossing torrential rivers and rock pythons with a passion to connect with village women and build self-help groups for them.

The passion that forced me to try for cheaper innovations for the villagers.... How aggressively I fought with the local bank employee, when he passed lewd comments against my clients a 27 year-old Oraon tribal woman, whom I called didi, and her 14 year old daughter Chini, when they had approached the bank for a loan to buy a goat to sustain their six member family. There were many haunting moments that come to the memory but I have no words or intention to shock myself or readers.

The later half of the decade showed me journalism of different shades. Investigative, page 3, human, colourful and business. I travelled across many parts of India, exposed to its diversity and unique blending propositions.

Living in two megacities -- Delhi, followed by Mumbai – has been less than fun but an immersing affair. Witnessing the mindless terror acts and being a victim of one left me a changed person, almost like a new born.

The greatest discovery of the decade for me, were friends, who stood by me at all costs involved. That was the most permanent and satisfying discovery precious than hitting crude oil blocks or gold mines or even being nominated for a Nobel.

Idiots sell in India

I am an idiot and following is my analysis on all kinds of idiots that rule India. The grading of the idiots is inspired from Chetan Bhagats's novel 'Five Point Someone'. The grade points are between zero and ten.I'm posting this analysis after my comment on facebook attracted good audience so thought of sharing with blog friends.

"Idiots sell in India never the talented ones.
The zero point no ones become the policymakers.
The one point someones become historysheeters.
The two point someones grab land for SEZs.
The three point someones become kingmakers.
The four point someones become successful filmakers.
The five point someones like Chetan Bhagat become bankers and successful authors. The six point someones like me do facebooking and tweeting to get attention.
The seven point someones teach the nation. The eight point someones protect and build the nation.
The nine point someones treat and cure the nation and the ten point someones take orders from the zeropoint nonones. Cycle completes.

PIS (Post Idiotic Script):The above description is not to be taken seriously, This is for pure fun and fiction similarity with any person's name is purely coincidental.