Bhajans Ooh Lala…

“This time we are planning to visit an old age home and we would be spending the whole evening with elderly people, are you interested?”, my wife inquired from me.  She was informing about the programme to be organised by their ladies association.

“But what social cause would be served by this?” I regretted after asking this question.

“How can you be so insensitive to elder citizens of our society and don't forget that you too are getting older very rapidly”, she informed me as a matter of fact.

IRSLA, Mumbai Chapter has been taking up many programmes of social cause and some of which were related with burning social issues and our participation in such issues was also a reminder that we have already stopped thinking in terms of the general welfare of the society and maybe to some extent we have lost touch with realities.  However in the instant case while agreeing to attend the Bhajan Sandhya, I was also thinking that in the fast pace of life we have forgotten to remember the God too and it was an opportunity to redeem ourselves in the eyes of the gods.

As per the schedule I reached the place with my family which was not a faraway from our residence and which was very appropriately named as “Manav Seva Sangh”.  The function was arranged in a large hall which could easily accommodate more than 200 people and I found that it was also having dutifully decorated stage indicating that some celebrity was expected to perform there.  On enquiry I was intimated that Kavita Powdwal was expected to grace the occasion and it would be she who would sing all the bhajans that evening for senior citizens. 

But before the function was formally inaugurated I thought of exploring the place and I found that it was sort of high end old age home from Indian standards.  The whole area was fully air-conditioned and it was maintained swanky clean.  It appeared that hotel type rooms were meant for elderly people with all the modern facilities.  Neatly dressed people were everywhere to assist and things appear to be managed very meticulously with corporate like precision and sincerity.  But still it was an old age home and somehow for the visitor in me the atmosphere seemed not to be very relaxed like any normal home.  One of the volunteer help fully informed that the present days when children are working overseas and many of them have emigrated leaving their parents behind, creation of more such homes is the idea time of which has come.  I was informed that some of the residents have been overseas with their children for some time and in some cases for some years but the found it too difficult to live in alien places with alien people.  Money has not been any problem to them but it was the company in search of which they were staying there.

I could see that there was arrangement of in-house cooking laundry and very amazingly a place for worshipping for largely Hindu elderly residents.  It was informed that the puja and bhajan consisted of large part of the day for residents.  I thought of inquiring about other aspects of this place but suddenly there was some excitement in the corridor and I was informed that the singer for the evening had arrived with her co-artists.  All the people were requested to occupy chairs in the hall.  Then I realised that the formalities have already begun when IRSLA, the organisation was being introduced and its good work in the area of social welfare was also being explained.  The concern for elderly members of society was expressed and responsibility of all of us to make their lives comfortable was re-emphasised and then the cultural programme started.

Kavita Powdwal has a very sweet voice and she started with old devotional melodies which we used to listen very often in our childhood days and in no time the audience was enthralled and mesmerised by her rendition.  Suddenly I heard her speaking over microphone that she had come to the place not just to sing but to dance with the elderly residents and she would see to it that everyone present there should be on their feet that evening.

On being persuaded by her and enthused by her beautiful singing, almost each one of us were on feet and each one of us was dancing and it was such an emotional feeling to see the elderly citizens all smiling and largely happiness seemed to be flowing in the form of blessing emanating from smiles and happiness of the dancing and singing elderly people around.  Suddenly it appeared that we all are amongst a big family and the place look like a big Indian family celebration where everyone seemed to be happy and cheerful.  It was a sight to behold when there appeared to be people from all three generations celebrating together and it was nothing but the happiness around.  I was wondering whether it was tokenism on our part or on the part of the residents for whom it was a day for meeting outside people who were not a part of their day-to-day world.

Suddenly I heard an announcement from the stage when Kavita Powdwal announced that she would be singing the bhajans on demand.  If anyone wishes to listen specific bhajan then he or she could make a request to her and she would sing that specific bhajan.  It was the time when spirits were high and many people requested for many of their favourite bhajans and Kavita sang their requests very beautifully.  Suddenly I found her a speaking our microphone,

“Any more specific bhajan, if you wish to listen today, it is all your evening and all your wishes would be fulfilled today”, this was again once in lifetime offer for the spellbound audience and people requested for some of the bhajans which were really very old and even I never heard or knew whether they really existed.  However, Kavita has been gracious enough to sing almost all the bhajans requested that evening by elder citizens.

“Anyone left, any more request please”, she announced again and she was still ready to oblige.

“I want to listen “ ooh lala… ooh lala… Song”, I saw a smiling person, who appeared to be in his eighties, standing and making his request to Kavita.

I could sense the sudden silence thereafter as it was almost unimaginable that someone was requesting for a Bollywood raunchy hit song in the evening meant for bhajans.

“Well, I will sing that Song when I come here next time”, Kavita handled the request very sensibly.

“Any more bhajan you would like to listen, this is going to be the last bhajan for the evening”, I heard her repeating over the microphone.

The programme continued till late in evening and it was followed by a sumptuous dinner.  But while returning back to home I was still thinking of the request to listen the “ooh lala… Song” by the elderly resident that evening.  I was wondering whether our society also seemed to have created the stereotype for our elderly members as if they had to spend their time only in bhajan and worshipping as if they don't have any worldly desires like other younger people in the society.  Maybe this stereotype has been created because of the economic reasons when we start considering that elderly people are well past their productive years and by spending their time in his religious things they could reach to their salvation as per our great Indian tradition and for this purpose one has to the get rid of their all worldly attachments and desires. 

If we think rationally and do not confuse ourselves with philosophy then there seems to be no need to make any effort for that elusive salvation rather very conscious efforts are needed to be made for the materialistic and emotional comforts of our elderly members.  With the advancement of medical and other facilities, people are relatively healthier even in their advance years of age and particularly with mechanisation and surge in the services as part of the GDP one is not required to be physically present to do all the work.  This is otherwise a great opportunity rather anything like problem.

There can't be any retirement age for the person doing accounts keeping or a person dealing with the interpretation of law; similarly for a teacher or a writer the concept of retirement age seems to have been created artificially.  To be very truthful in my personal opinion and experience I have seen the experience in these kind of areas are far more valuable and which could be utilised as guiding force for the younger generations.  With the new economic development, requirement of such experienced personnel have grown manifold and time has come for all of us to start thinking of in terms of practical aspects rather then in terms of stereotypes created by our society.  Otherwise also the concept of salvation, known as “Sanyas” in our society, has always been a concept available only in the books for the consumption of the Indian society and nobody has ever given this any serious thought in any era.  There is a beautiful observation on this issue by Subroto Bagchi in his book “Go Kiss the World”, where he says that one should actually never retire rather one should only cut down his engagements in the old age. 

Somehow I felt very cheerful thereafter to think that the desire of our elderly people are still there to listen and enjoy “ooh Lala… Song” rather than to listen bhajans, despite being older than rest of us.

My dear friend Suresh says, "Dil to Bachcha hai jee"...Amen

THE TAJMAHAL OF SEEMANDHRA

The name of the place, Machilipatnam, has always been a subject of curiosity for me because the word Machili, the fish, is pure Hindi word and even after spending around six years in Andhra Pradesh, I never heard anyone calling a fish Machili rather in Deccani speaking areas of Hyderabad they used to call it only Machchhi.  Similarly while reading William Dalrymple's book “White Mughals” I came across several references of the place Machilipatnam and it appeared that this place was not only a major port in the 16th to 19th century but also it was a place where all the major European powers established their business centres called factories.  Somehow it was intriguing for me to learn that there have been British, French, Dutch, Portuguese and Danish settlements here in the various periods of time.  In fact Dalrymple describes the route from Hyderabad to Machilipatnam in the great detail which used to be not only a major trade route but also this was the major port even during British period for the areas under control of Nizams of Hyderabad.  I was told about existence of an old fort of British period but I never knew about this British Love story through any source all along.

During the last bye-election I got an assignment in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh.  Vijaywada being the major city of the district and having connectivity by plane, I was advised by the district administration to stay at Vijaywada itself despite Machilipatnam being the district headquarters.  But somehow my mind was still there in Machilipatnam and I requested the District Collector to make arrangements for my stay in Machilipatnam itself.  The young district collector was kind enough to make a proper arrangement for my stay in Machilipatnam but to my surprise he also instructed a retired Deputy Collector, who knew about the city and its history very well, to be in touch with me and also to show the places in Machilipatnam in its historical perspective.

The retired Deputy Collector, Mr Mohammed Silar, turned out to be not only a very knowledgeable person about the place but also he was a part-time historian who had worked very hard to preserve the remaining legacy of the place.  He was not only aware of the history of the place but also he had been able to correlate the present of Machilipatnam with its glorious and prosperous past.  But that narration would be for some other time. During the city tour on 16th of August 2013, Mr. Silar first took me to the old fort situated on the seaside of the city which is still known as Bandar (Port) Fort and while coming back he showed me the road which used to be a bridge connecting the main city to the fort. After entering into the city he brought me to a non-descript church within the city limits. 

In first impression it looked to me a dilapidated church surrounded moss and tall grass and within its boundary it seemed as if being crowded by graves and tombstones of various sizes and colours which had virtually taken over the area around the church in the course of time.  My liaison officer, Mr. Paul, informed me that graves of both of his parents are here in the same premises. It never looked anyway unusual till he showed me Graves of Charles Noble, who founded the Noble High School for boys and also that of Sharkey who established first School of girls’ way back in 19th century and also that of the family who first converted to the Christianity, Yadamma and her family.  Certainly it appeared as if history is unfolding before my eyes as the tombs were telling the stories of the individuals who shaped the history of the place in the past centuries, but that too is not the story for today.

Author at the stairs of St. Mary’s Church with Mr. Silar and the Pastor

By that time Pastor came out of the church and invited us to see the church from inside.  It did not look any spectacular rather it looked much neglected as walls appeared to be moss eaten and damp, also the benches inside the church required repair and whole church was in dire need of fresh coat of painting.  It looked to me every inch of the place which has been deserted and forgotten by its patron years back. The pastor suddenly indicated towards a grave inside the church which was again not very surprising till he described that whose grave it was and how the church came into existence.

Then he started narrating this story of the two ill-fated lovers. Way back in early nineteenth century around 1790s and 1819 when a Major-General called John Pater commandeered the British forces at Bandar Fort in Machilipatnam on the eastern coast of Andhra Pradesh. Not much information is available about the officer, his age or antecedents but what is known that the officer happened to meet Arabella, daughter of his subordinate, Captain Robinson. Apparently it was love at first sight for both and both the General and Arabella longed to get married, but…

But Arabella’s father, a Catholic, would not agree to their marriage. Because they say that Pater was a Protestant; and secondly he was already married and had left a legally married wife behind him in England. Therefore, the intended marriage between the General and Arabella was an anathema in the sight of the Church as well as the law of the land. But that did not seem to have deterred the lovers for long and it turned out that Arabella defied her father and started living with Peters openly. This is indeed quite surprising because it was unthinkable in those times even for the English society. It was known as a big scandal in Machilipatnam since such events were never known or heard in the Indian cultural setting.

But it appears that tragedy struck immediately thereafter when on November 6, 1809, malaria claimed Arabella’s life. An inconsolable Pater sought to bury her in the traditional wedding gown at the St. John’s Church in the fort and for this the General  went to the Anglican priest of  the church of St. John’s, with a view to bury Arabella in the cemetery attached to the church. But the Anglican priest refused to give the burial space. Thereafter the General turned to the Goan priest, who was ministering to the little Roman community in the Fort, for her burial. The Roman priest also declined on the grounds that they were living in sin. As such the General was filled with great disappointment and had no other way except to bury her in a private ground in the outskirts of Machilipatnam with military honours, sans prayers and priest.

That was not the end of their love. Pater had the body of Arabella, embalmed in the bridal attire. Encased in a glass box, it was lowered into a grave. Every day, twice, Pater would have a look at his beloved. Pater then decided to build a church his own in the name of Arabella in defiance of the clergy. It was for that he bought 12.5 acres of land at Anandapuram and later, in 1815, the church in memory of Arabella came up after he raised the money by selling away his London property. He spent Rs 18,000 a fortune in those days a fortune and personally built a church over the mobile tomb in defiance of the clergy. He erected an engraved slab stone describing Arabella as a very dear friend as the marriage was never solemnised or recognised by the church nor the burial place was recognised as a sanctified place. Pater then got a transfer to Madras. He handed over the church to the East India Company, but visited it every month. But he himself did not survive for long and some say it could be because of the disappointment. He lost his life at Madras in 1819 and might be thereafter the church felt guilty and in the same year it agreed to sanctify the building as a proper church and started daily services in it. Peters was commemorated in Madras by naming a park and road after his name. In 1819, public worship was allowed at the church. Later, in 1842, Bishop of Madras, Rev George Trevor Spencer, dedicated it and named it St. Mary’s.

I was informed about another twist in the story about this church that once a mishap occurred when an old caretaker accidentally handled the wooden pigeon on the wall which used to be for pulling the glass case containing embalmed body of Arabella from the grave by Pater and Arabella’s glass case sprang up and the poor old fellow was said to have died instantly in fright...so, the collector ordered it to be closed permanently.

I stood simply mesmerised there while listening to this story but when I started reading the engravings on the tomb stone which appeared me to be ultimate reflection of undying love of Pater and Arabella transcending through centuries.

This Monument

Sacred to the Memory of

ARABELLA ROBINSON

Daughter of Captain William Robinson

Of the Honourable Companys Military Service

Who died on the 6^th November 1809

was erected by her Ever

grateful and Affectionate Friend

Major General John Pater 

Looking back in time it appears to be a love story directly from the Bollywood movies but intensity of true affection and attachment in real life might have never happened anywhere on this scale. Long live love story of Arabella and Pater and long live this real Tajmahal on the eastern Indian coast. At the end I would like to quote the pastor who gave me final piece of wisdom while I was leaving that if people can’t come to church then the church has to come to the people. Amen… 

x

THE VOTE TO DISLIKE

The last Thursday, on 24 April 2014 it was the Election Day for us in Mumbai. Mumbai has a dubious distinction to be among the places showing historically the least voting percentage. They say that the extended weekend is far more important for any Mumbaikar than going out to vote. Many say that it is below the dignity of the affluent people of this place to stand in a queue like common hoi-polloi. This year, there has been several drive to motivate people of this place to come out of their comfortable homes and to discharge their national duty of voting, after all this is the way one can contribute in nation building by a strengthening democracy. To exercise the right to choose a person of your choice, that is available to each citizen of this country, which is something very unique for this largest democracy on earth as this luxury is still not available to citizens of many countries. The drive exhorting people to come out and to vote has been everywhere; in newspapers, television and on the Internet and to some extent it seemed to be successful also which reflected in the increase of the voting percentage by almost 10 points, best so far after our independence. Still there was a joke on social media that number of selfies was far more than the actual votes cast in Mumbai. Jokes apart this poll created a special confusion and dilemma for me and many of the voters in North Central constituency of Mumbai.

The sitting two-term MP is the daughter of the superstar of yesterdays who used to represent this constituency and after his death the throne was passed on to his daughter because his son was facing many criminal charges and who is presently in jail. This was little contradictory also because the residence of the supremo of the opposition party also falls within this constituency and this parliamentary seat is considered to be a strong bastion of the party at the centre. They say that only contribution she had made previously in relation to public welfare was that she had accompanied her late father during one of his padyatras. Otherwise she looked me to be very socially challenged and lacking all the skills required for a leader. The stony face always looked lacking any expression and her communication skills seem to me to be limited to murmuring some sentences before television cameras. All along during the run-up for the election I was confused whether she is the person whom I should vote for?

The second contestant, from another National party, was another daughter of a slain senior leader of the party and whose previous act of public service was of losing an assembly election. The person, who was rejected even for assembly election was found suitable for the parliamentary election. There was news that the party was finding it very difficult to find a suitable candidate for the seat to fight against the sitting MP. They were searching for some star but finally settled for this sister of a clown. I was wondering whether I should vote for the person who has nothing to do with welfare of common man. I could not attend to any of her road-shows but before the TV cameras she hardly looked inspiring enough to be given any vote.

The only colourful election office I could see nearby was of the party which is in power in one north Indian state and which has shown its presence in this part of the country because of its so-called secular credentials. Only reason for fame for this boy is that he is the son of one sitting MLA of the same party and in this state both the party and the person is same. This boy also has an additional experience of losing an assembly seat vacated by his father besides marrying a former bollywood star. They say that he is true reflection of an enterprising person from the north who has made it big by selling leather footwear in Mumbai (Another one made it big by selling vegetables and was former minister and the state party chief). The father has a reputation of being loose cannon and many a time by simply opening his mouth he has created many avoidable controversies, the quality that is not expected from anyone working in the space of public service. From the cut-outs, placed near his election office, he appeared to me to be dumb and somehow he appeared to be posing for photos shoots for publicity of movies; maybe because of being married to a bollywood star. In TV interviews he claimed to be one youth icon but he appeared to me to be a clown not worthy of getting my vote.

A week before the actual voting day, we in family started to discuss as to whom should we vote for? We were very sincere for carrying out our national duty to choose what is best for the country but simultaneously we were very confused to see is the options available to us. I was still under pressure from several advertisements and the drive by the Election Commission to vote for the best person. Then suddenly I thought that their educational qualifications could be some indicator and then I did some search over the Internet. I found that the daughter of the late actor was a simple graduate from some college but the remaining two were not having any degree at all, basically illiterate and perfectly fit for running the country. I was already under profound confusion to learn all three were possessing properties worth hundreds of crores, what was driving me crazy that the two ladies in the contest looked very masculine to me and the boy looked very effeminate. My effort to reach that any decision was causing severe headache to me and then I realised that nobody votes in this country on any parameters to choose the best person; we are all guided by our own prejudices and merit of the candidate is the least of our priority while selecting our representatives. Even if we go by some parameters then we don’t have suitable options available to carry out our national duty honestly.

Then I thought that there is one sure shot way to reach at the decision; I thought that I would vote for one whom I dislike the least among these three. Suddenly everything looked very clear and there was no confusion. Even the decision of voting I arrived at, looked very reasonable to me. My wife reminded me as to whether I am ignoring pressing national issues like nation-building, our economic development, our youth, technological developments, revival of the economy and above all the wave of change? Somehow I had only one reason while voting that the candidate whom I disliked the least here in North Central constituency in Mumbai is the person of my choice for getting my vote. Whom did you vote for and what were your parameters for voting?

A House of Cards

This morning I thought for going for a walk after a very long time. I simply came out of my house before it could go for another round of nap and in the process I left my purse and mobile behind. Not a big deal after all I was not going for shopping. But while I was starting my bike to go to the nearby play ground I realised that my driving licence has been left in the purse at my home. Suddenly, I started thinking then that I didn't have even my identity cards and then I realised that I had already started feeling uncomfortable. In this mega city I am an unknown person a person without identity, only because I don’t have any identity card.

While walking I was having multiple worries. If the traffic police asks for the driving licence on the next corner, if suddenly something goes wrong and I land up in hospital. I hardly know anybody around, nobody knows me in this big-city. Having left my purse behind I have no identity and simultaneously I have no means to make any kind of payments, no cash and no cards even I can’t make a call. I was feeling even more uncomfortable now; one card allows me to ride my bike another permits me to drive the car, here is my quarterly railway pass which permits me to board the local train every day to my office. There is another identity card which permits me to enter into my office still it is better than those cards people wear around their neck in most of the offices nowadays and this is very common in all the ministries. There are multiple debit and credit cards to confuse our financial life in addition to the PAN Card and the TAN Card. There are other health check cards and not to forget cards from each of the shops where you keep making purchases and your purchase points keep getting accumulated. Then I started thinking of the Club card, Gym card, Health Card issued by hospitals, my own CGHS card, Railway pre-paid card, Airlines preferred customer card, voter’s identity card, Aadhar card, Pre-paid and post paid mobile cards, Pink Card, Yellow Card, Red Card, Green Card, Poverty Card, Ration Card and there are now Gold, Silver and Platinum Cards to measure as to how rich you are and as to how big your status is? It is simply a never ending stream of cards in our life.

I was wondering who is using whom; whether we are using these cards for our own comfort or this system is using various cards to regulate us humans. It had become now a real nightmare both to manage these cards and also to manage life without these cards. In any developed system; consolidation and convergence of information of stake holders is the requirement of the day. But, what is happening that this world has become very complex with so many cards floating around to make our life even far more complex. This system of issuing cards, at the drop of the hat, is certainly is not human centric rather these cards are being issued for the benefit of a particular system used by us humans; this is the system centric.

It is high time now to think for only one card having all the details of a particular person which could be used to update the database of the particular system that the person is using. Similarly now the technology has improved to the extent that even the card carried by the person could store the updated new information and may be our lives could be simpler without these hundreds of cards. But if that single card is lost then what; let our system be built around us human beings where his or her presence itself replaces the requirements of all the cards. Are we ready for it?

Cool Breeze from the North-East

In the wake of the recent attack and the unfortunate death of a young boy from Arunachal Pradesh in Delhi, the raciest attitude of people in North India is again in news. But I believe that there is nothing new so far the attitude of people of north Indian cities towards people from African countries and people having different racial features particularly towards those coming from hill areas and from north-east in particular is concerned. During my stay of three years in Delhi, somehow the feeling of being unsafe was always there and fact is that Delhi has never been a woman friendly city. Above all language spoken on its streets is as rough as its extreme weather conditions. Years of misrule in many northern states have forced youths from these areas to migrate to Delhi in search of both education and livelihood. This has resulted in evolution of rent culture in many areas of Delhi where main source of income of large number of house owners is rent only and a whole economy of such areas is dependent upon these migrated people from other states.

          Because of this lots of jobs have been created in and around Delhi in both goods and services sector. In this situation locals should have not only been thankful to the people from other states but they should treat these migrating people with respect rather than showing any contempt or misbehaving in any manner. I have had opportunity to see many Bihari students living in hellish conditions in many parts of Delhi still paying exorbitantly to the local house owners only in anticipation that they would be able to make it big in the alien place because situation was even bad in back their home states.

          I was wondering as to whether the present Delhi government is not playing cahoots with locals, particularly local traders, in opposing the FDI in retail. Apparently in their sub-conscious mind, they are aware that many jobs created in this sector would be cornered by these English-speaking smart and polished youths from the North East. This is not very uncommon to see youths from North-Eastern region working in malls, departmental stores and shops in various parts of Delhi and around it. Also the kinds of expertise required for working in service sectors like call centers and retails, these youths are best suited again for the same reasons. We need to learnt lessons from this unfortunate incident and this country needs to take some concrete steps with clear objective to integrate our youths from the North- East in the mainstream.

          This thought process has pulled me back to my college days in BCE Patna where many of my friends were from North-East and I have vivid recollections of the time spent with them. The carefree birds from the hilly region were more than a gush of fresh air for all of us who had spent all our times in the same state. Many of them were much ahead of time when their respective lives were only in the present tense. Those students were very fond of western dress, western music and western movies. I can’t deny the fact that I had seen all initial Jackie Chan’s and Stallone’s action movies with them only. I sincerely think in hindsight that I could have imbibed the attitude of being careless towards studies also from them which otherwise was of not use subsequently in life and maybe I could have at least enjoyed my days in the Engineering college the way they did.

I can recall vividly one shivaratri day when I was in final year. My very good friend Sanna from Manipur came to my room with grim look and requested me to come to his room reflecting as if there was something very very serious. When I entered into his room I was surprised to find around twenty of them, all from North East and from first year to final year were present in the room and some of them were sitting on floor and many were sitting on the bed. Front part of the room was vacated by shifting beds and there was a small statue of Shiva-Parvati on the floor. Everyone was staring me very expectantly.

Sanna requested me pour the milk, stored in a small vessel, on the statue apparently to perform the puja and to start the shivaratri celebrations. I was not only surprised but also I was thinking why me? But I had to comply and I folded my hands and offered my obeisance while muttering some mantra praising the Lord and then poured the milk on the statue.

Suddenly it was commotion all over and everybody was chanting “Har Har Mahadev” and “Jai Jai Shiv Shambho” and in a flash couple of packets of marijuana was produced and in a swift action and it was cut, rubbed and again very swiftly mixed with little tobacco and transferred to emptied cigarettes. By the time I could recollect as to what was happening around, the room was full of sweet smoke. Many of them came to me and wished me a “Happy Mahashivaratri” as well.

          I can still recall that it was examination time and I was intending to go back to my studies in my room but I could not resist enquiring from him.

“Hey Sanna, I am still Puzzled as to why did you call me for their puja”, somehow I was still sniffing the smoke.

He was smiling and he put his hands across my shoulders and told sheepishly.

“We have to at least be honest with the god and after a lot of discussions we could not think of anyone else but you who was yet to be thoroughly corrupted”, I was just listening to him while he was smiling crookedly. 

         I just could not make out as to whether he was complimenting or just was being sarcastic while going back to my room. In hindsight I could think of only the smiling faces and innocent souls with whom I developed so much of intimacy and which helped me in developing my very different outlook towards the world and towards the life. I can still listen my dear friend Taka speaking to me. 

“I am not little worried about it” pronouncing all its “Ts” as pronounced in “Teeth” when he discovered that he could secure only 2 marks out of 15 in mathematics terminal paper in the second year.

My dear friends from North East! I am so thankful to you all for teaching me the lesson of not being worried about anything in life.                                             

My Encounters with the Lord of Mumbai…

Last night Lord Ganesha left thousands of homes in Mumbai on his journey towards the sea only to come back next year.  Like last several years my son had gone crazy from morning itself by just thinking about the evening procession in which our local Lord, Khernagarcha Raja, would start his journey. 

Khernagarcha Raja

I can still recall the year 2006, when my son, just of three years, suddenly started yelling that he is really enjoying his life on this earth; while sitting on my shoulder in a similar procession.  The magic of lord has been overwhelming for both of us and this year he participated in street dance in the procession and also says that from next year he would be participating full-fledged in the Ganpati celebrations.

After coming back from the procession of the immersion of the Lord, I'm still feeling the haze and the thrill and my eye gets repeatedly moist by just thinking of the spirit and the happiness Lord has brought to all his devotees.  It is true that Lord comes in each home as a member and while bidding farewell the celebration is for the happy feeling he brought to each of the homes. While pessimists could always think of the inflation, current account deficit, costs of onions and so many other negative things, but tonight was the celebration of hope and whatever good things we have in our lives.  Also it occurred to me, while being in the procession, that it is a true celebration of youth.  Somehow while being there I always felt as if a celebrations of such this massive scale reflected the channelisation of energy of youth and above all the freedom; the freedom from all kinds of bondages.

Thousands of youths, both boys and girls, dancing on the beats of drums, were fully disciplined.  While colours and gulal were flying, crackers were bursting and sparkles of light  were exploding in air, the trance caused by the music and the drum beats was overpowering and many a time while being a part of the procession it occurred to me as if I was ready to bet my life just to enjoy this small moment.  This brings me to another proposition which I keep telling very proudly that Mumbai is the best city in the country for its ladies and girls.  This place has got respect for the female members of our society and it cares for the privacy and individualism of each of its residents.  In the procession tonight I asked my wife specifically to record the dance of girls from our area which would truly reflect the spirit of celebration and also the happiness Lord brought to the city this year like all previous years.

 Celebration Part-I

 Celebration Part-II

Another thing which has been mesmerising me right from the beginning that for being happy in this place one need to just celebrate the life and for this one does not need lots of money rather one has just to come down to street.  Secondly, there is nothing like tomorrow, it is just a hypothesis and celebration is only for tonight; after all they say that no one can take money out of Mumbai.  Are you joining the celebrations?

Bogey of Great Institutions…

Mr Bhar, one of our esteemed retired colleagues from our services, has been an interesting person during his days in the service.  A jovial and easygoing person and he was friend of each one of us right from the junior level to senior level.  His stories and wits always carried a sense of curiosity for all of us and usually lunch session with him always brought a lingering happy feeling.  Years have since passed and I was told that he has settled in Mumbai itself after selling his paternal properties in Patna and also that his children are also working in Mumbai.  I too liked his company, his stories, not only because he was very friendly to all of us younger lot but also because he hailed from my native state of Bihar and above all he was also an alumni of the Science College, Patna my own alma mater.

He was otherwise a very satisfied and fulfilled individual but one pain he grudgingly expressed occasionally that another boy of his own class from the Science College, Patna, who was in the class of Chemistry Honours, which used to be considered for low rankers in those days, got a better rank in the Civil Services Examinations some 40 years ago despite him being in the superior and prestigious Physics Honours class in the same year in the college.  It so happened that the boy from the Chemistry Honours class ended up to be the Chairman of one of the Revenue Boards while he being recruited in Group ‘B’ services in the same department, could retire only in the rank of Director to the Government of India.  I don't intend to tell the stories about Mr Bhar, but I always felt in his company that there was a sense of pride in him being the alumni of the Science College, Patna and a disdain and contempt for all those who never had the opportunity to be in such a great institution.  One of the esteemed retired Chief Commissioners, Mr Tripathi used to say that we live in the comparative world which keeps you unhappy most of the time but sometimes it keeps you happy also by just thinking that Physics Honours is far better than the Chemistry Honours and you are superior to many others. But today I write to tell about something else which is intriguing me from very long time that is about my own time in the Science College, Patna.

It had been my aspiration, like lakhs of other students who appeared for the Secondary School Examination of 1982, conducted by the Bihar School Examination Board, to get admission in Science College, Patna.  The Board had changed from Pre-University and the Matriculation system only a year back and very blissfully we had old question papers for only one year to take cue from.  Somehow after getting a very good percentage in the examination I got admitted to Patna Science College and our classes started around this time of the year in the middle of the September some 31 years ago.  Coming from an organised system of my school, the college appeared to be some sort of animal farm where each of class was having more than hundred students and very ironically each of them were toppers  of the schools from different parts of the then combined the state of Bihar.

The classes used to be depressingly boring and all the teachers, all of them, were dead uninspiring, lousy and were lacking in all kinds of social skills.  Most of them appeared me to be losers and I don't remember having spoken to anyone of them during years of my stay in the college.  Recently I was speaking to one of my classmates, an engineer in railways, while remembering our days in the Science College, bitterness was still very perceptible because the teachers were simply unconcerned for the life and future of their students.  For these crooks, taking a lecture was just a pastime and a job to be done.  Most of them used to come into class with written notes and used to simply copy on blackboard before a sleeping class.  I still remember my time on the banks of the River Ganges after bunking classes specifically that of mathematics.

It was an opportunity for the institution to mould lives of so many children of 16 or 17 years of age, coming from the rural backgrounds, mostly from the villages and almost hundred percent of them were from Hindi medium schools.  But what these teachers did only to confuse them and all of them were left to themselves to search their own paths in their respective lives.  For doing these things no one required any institution however great it is known to be.  The culture of coaching institutions had just started and the mode of teaching was just copying something on the blackboard and the students were supposed to copy from there.  They used to prepare notes and memorise them for writing in examinations which used to be primarily descriptive in nature.  There was no concept of career counselling, in fact there was no communication between teachers and the students.  May be I'm expecting too much in the hindsight but there was no interface of any kind which could be thought in terms of future planning for those hapless students.  It was such a depressing feeling to run from class to class for the whole day and coming back to hostel in evening with even disappointing feeling of having learnt nothing.  In initial couple of months many of us were on the verge of nervous breakdown. I still remember poor Satish who started crying one day after coming from the class and was on verge of going insane only because he was unable to follow anything there. He went home as per advice of we friends and because he could spend little time away from the great institution he gained confidence. Satish works in Delhi nowadays; we keep meeting and he often says that he could sail through only on the strength of his contempt for the system and the institution.

The atmosphere in the hostel used to be even more agonising and being in the company of toppers was just a depressing feeling as almost all of them were spending time only on their study tables with books of Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics.  No one used to play any game and occasionally going to watch movies was the only thing which used to break the monotony of life but that also used to be considered as sin. They used to discuss about the Engineering and Medical Entrance tests but most of them used to be worried to clear the hurdle of passing the Intermediate examination itself. I still remember nobody had any clue those days of what to be done even for these entrance tests. It was very clear that the days of these kinds of colleges and their so called prestige were numbered and it was not very long when the coaching institutes not only proliferated but they obliterated not only the prestige but also the existence altogether of these useless behemoths which were simply not in sync with the requirements of time like dodos.

It was not that the city life was boring those days, Patna still used to be the cultural hub and during almost all the festivals, luminaries from various fields used to come to Patna to perform and without any dispute Patna used to be very large hearted host for all such cultural functions, maybe because explosion of TV culture was yet to happen.  At one hand the city used to be bubbling with the cultural activities, on the other hand the Patna Science College always looked like a place of mourning.  Looking back in time somehow reminds me that almost all of the students were lacking social skills and even after spending years in the Science College they were not able to come out of their inherent inhibitions. In hindsight I have no hesitation in accepting that in those years in Science College, I didn't learn anything worthwhile but to discard some of the good habits I had acquired during my school days.  I stopped going to library in search of good books and I almost forgot to read literature and poetry.  The syllabus prescribed and the books recommended had no relationship and reading those books written by foreign writers were a permanent pain in the neck.  I don't have any good memories of my days in Science College, Patna.

Couple of years back I had an opportunity to visit the hostel where I used to stay and somehow I could still feel the same dampness and disappointment in the air and possibly it was still lacking the spirit of learning even after passage of three decades.  Somehow the dread of being in a labour camp was still lingering and it was not before I ran out of patience and came running out of its boundary. The nostalgia has turned into nightmare. The hostel looked equally disgusting even after three decades and the indifference, which was the hallmark of this place, was still looming large.  Still I believe that this place used to be an animal farm or a stable which was somehow converted as hostel naming it after one of the great Indian mathematicians but the spirit of the animal farm was still lingering there.

I simply don't wish to remember any of the teachers from the Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics classes which causes nausea even after several decades, most of them used to wear the same cloths which they wore during their own college days and almost all of them suffered from speech impairment and to me they appeared to be parrots in human body.  Those were the days when your performance used to be measured by just only by your capacity to reproduce the best answers but the most unfortunate feeling still refuses to go away that of helplessness of the young boys who were left to fend themselves to search their own path in life and the indifference on the part of the teachers added to their woes.  I still remember that many of the children of these teachers were as confused as the rest of us.

Recently I read a book on Patna, written by Amitava Kumar, “A Matter of Rats” and it appears that the writer has seen the same Patna which I saw in my growing years and very ironically I could find that he had mentioned the same characters which truly used to reflect the true spirit of Patna.

http://www.amitavakumar.com

Jagdish Narayan Chaubey has been a hindi professor those days and most of the time he was very concerned with the young children sitting in his class and I can still recall his words which reflected that somehow he had sensed the spirit of an animal farm therein as he used to say that each of the students were horses of Aswamedh who have been sent from different parts of the state and the young Bhrigu Nandan Tripathi, who always used to quote Dusyant Kumar those days. Nobody used to miss these classes which used to reprieve from the heavy doses of science. I found that Amitava Kumar is still referring to Muniba Shami, Indibar Mukherjee, Sushma Mishra and not to forget Dr. Shaileshwar Sati Prasad. It brought tears to my eyes when I was reading about them as the English department of the college was better equipped than most of the regular Post Graduate Colleges and universities those days. They used to publish literary articles even those days and the cultural seminars used to be very popular because of large participation. On the other hand, the constipated faces of the teachers from the science section used to bring only doom and none of them had ever published any paper in their whole life and hardly there was any culture of conducting and attending any seminar. Some of them always looked as if they were suffering from tuberculosis.

Looking back in time I don’t have one good thing to remember which I learnt in the college, that great prestigious Science College, Patna.  Somehow I survived the onslaught because of my own learning in the school from the old-fashioned teachers who were kind enough to teach us the ways and made us robust enough to face the vagaries of life.  Looking back in time one thing I can say with all responsibility that whatever I am today and possibly all of them, who used to be with me in those turbulent years, had been able to achieve despite the Science College, very certainly not because of the Science College, Patna. At best it could be considered to be a place to stay in Patna at nominal rate and for getting subsidised food in its hostel mess and nothing more than that. 

Further the incompetence, aloofness, callousness and indifference of teachers and the administration of such so called prestigious institutions coupled with remaining oblivious of changing requirements of the education system have been the basic reasons because of which various coaching institutes have flourished. I am very happy to see that nowadays many of the IRS probationers have never been to colleges, let alone these decorative prestigious institutions as they have got their education and degrees through correspondence courses and their entry into the civil services had been through the coaching institutes. I really don't know whether it would be proper to say but I can't help to observe that the coaching institutes have now shown these great institutions the place what they always deserved and very strangely I feel very happy about it.  

This has been the burden on my head for decades and I always wanted to throw this bogey and most certainly I'm not as proud as Mr Bhar used to be for his days in Science College, Patna.  I believe that the story of greatness of other similar prestigious colleges would have not been any different and many of such stories are required to be told with honesty. There is another bogey of the Engineering College, another great and prestigious institution, which I would try to get rid of in by next blog post.