A Tale of two Brothers

Prologue: Big “B” Vs small “b”

It is movies who made Amitabh Bachchan a God. His portrayals of the “ones” who fight against injustice, a dare devil who fears no one and stands for truth almost lured us to believe that he is “the one” himself. I wonder how delusional we are to believe what ever is portrayed on celluloid is the truth. After all he is simply an actor and a really good one who in real life is far fetched from his portrayals.
His pleaded apology to MNS on Jaya’s remark about speaking in Hindi does not come as a shock to me. I never expected anyone from movie industry to have real guts, but what shocked me was the urgency he showed in apologizing to MNS. I used to think he is a man of beliefs and he will certainly stand for what is right, but the way whole family stooped low showed me I was certainly deluded. His recent praise for Shiv Sena chief just after Shah Rukh incident affirms his low character. He is a man of weak conscience who is simply wiggling his tail to show his loyalty to his mean master. Next time he portrays a man, who stands up for what he believes in, my respect for him as an actor will grow infinitely.
Actors should not be confused with real life heroes. They are on screen because they can elude us in believing what they are portraying. So it is wrong to have high expectations from the actors, but the thing is, people believe in them and they affect our thinking. Unless we can distinguish between their personal characters from screen character, we may always be in for shock.

Chapter One: A Tale of two Brothers
Under the guidance of Balasaheb Thackeray, both brothers (cousins) Raj Thackeray and Uddhav Thackeray learnt hooliganism. Unluckily nephew Raj learned it better than son Uddhav. To fill the void of thrown both brothers started a feud whose heat common men in Maharashtra is feeling now.
It was or is never a fight for Marathi Manus well being. It has always been a fight for identity. After Raj separated from Sena (formed MNS), brought and executed the ideology of Sena, better than Sena. He was more aggressive in creating hatred for north Indians, posing as only well wisher of Marathi Manus and resorting to street violence for publicity. These were the ideology of Sena and now Sena does not know how to win hearts of hardcore Marathi Manus (who thinks Maharashtra is for Marathi’s only). If you dig deep into politics, you will find these regional parties usually do not have a genuine political agenda. Due to such restricted presence in country these parties do not have a national issue to fight election with and so they have to resort to small state issues or create issues out of nothing. Without any prominent issue in sight MNS and Sena has created a boogie issue of Marathi Manus. Both parties know that they can not win the election but if they can prove their loyalty to Maharashtra, probably they would be able to capture a small section of vote with certainty. To overshadow each others loyalty to Marathi Manus both party have indulge in various stupid acts; beating north Indians, violence against news channel, bad mouthing about Sachin,  Anil Ambani, Sahrukh Khan, Aamir Khan, slapping legislate for taking oath in Hindi and many more. Whole idea of creating a difference between north Indians and Marathi hurts the basic sentiments of being Indian, which provides you freedom to move and live freely inside India. The loss of Sena in election has fuelled this hooliganism that was dormant before election. How long this will go, no body knows especially with such rubbish political system.

Chapter Two: The Sena way
No party in Maharashtra can say that they are not practicing “Sena Way”. MNS only enriched the legacy of Sena while BJP is equally guilty of keeping a blind eye on the whole issue. Though never actively supporting the hooliganism, BJP always participated as a bystander. Only after defeat in recent election, BJP for the first time is speaking against its15 year old ally.
Congress always known for serving hot & cold at the same time, (Telangana issue; first proposing and then backing off) never showed real initiative to curb the problem. Always assuring to take action when matter is hot and then coldly shelving the issue, has so far worked for the Congress. In recent times creating buzz by giving taxi permits only to Marathi’s, it stooped the level of Sena. Earlier before election, Congress suddenly felt the dire need to erect statue of Shivaji at the cost of dying farmers in Vidrbha to prove its Marathi loyalty.
Everyone in Thackeray family is Marathi first and then Indian, my fault; everyone in Thackeray family is neither Marathi nor Indians.

Epilogue: Never ending story
It is shocking to see how long it takes our Prime minister or President to acknowledge the problem and do something about it. When somebody will say, it is enough and stops this nonsense. When somebody will bring these hooligans to their sense or we will keep quite and hope that these people will get tired and finally stop themselves.

Bihar Flood Work # Final Part

One thing that impressed me most during the flood period was the selfless volunteer work localities were doing to help flood victims. For initial 10 days when Government and NGO support was still far away, flood victims only survived because local residents came forward to help them in every way possible. Relief work started the same day water breached its boundary, the same day when every empty space in our island town was getting filled and it was spontaneous. Help came in mere form of asking victims their story, local women reaching camps with cooked food and feeding one or two families at a time, simple act of drawing electric lines to these camps from their home so that victims do not loose their sight in those dark days, medical representatives visiting camps until proper medical facility was established or donating generously towards relief. They helped because they felt it was right thing to do and they knew with little extra water it could have been their fate too. Do not think negative of me but in the world where I see people using others as stepping stone and cranking up iPod sound on beggars plea, it was too beautiful to see abundance of humanity.

Evening of 1st Day:
Our group was pumped up after 1st day of work. All the support of community and satisfaction of doing something worth doing was encouraging us to continue further (we worked almost for 40 days). In the evening meeting we decided our work will be more inclined towards infants.
That night my mother asked me how was my day and in reply I smiled but she sensed worry in that. She asked why I was worried and I told her that, there were lots of things to do and I do not know how we were going to do it. Fund was scarce too. She told me that I can not help everyone and I can do only my part. I should not worry too much and take one day at a time. And I repeated her in my mind, one day at a time.

2nd Day:
Aid was scarce so we could not afford to loose the opportunity of collecting 3 boxes of biscuits. I had made clear to the group that any kind of help should be appreciated and this was the time to set example. House of food inspector was 10 Km away. Early morning I and 2 other guys from the group rode to his house to collect the boxes. He was little surprised and impressed to see our promptness and enthusiasm. He gave us 4 boxes instead and carried one box on his bike. That is how we found our 9th member :).
That was not all surprise that morning, when we came back with 4 boxes of biscuits, 3 new friends were waiting to join our group. And so list kept on increasing till day 4 when we had our final 16th member. That day some of us went for collecting aids again in the colony while some of us started distributing biscuits and milk (made from milk powder) among children in the camps.

Our financial worries were over once I contacted Gour to arrange help from IIT. Gour and his colleagues did an excellent work in collecting funds and sending it to us as required. I am extremely grateful to IIT community for their trust and generous contribution. After publication in BBC some people from other countries also approached me for aid but I channeled them to aid me through IIT. Thank you all for contributing.   

A general Aastha day:
Someone in the group suggested we should give our group a name and so we became “Aastha”. A general Aastha day would start early 6:30 AM in the morning. Everybody knew what they were supposed to do. Some would go for marketing, some would go for collection of aid and rest of us will go to the camps distributing aids. We started with one camp but later with growing strength we started covering 5 nearby camps. Apart from biscuits and milk, we started distributing chuda - gud, medicines, tooth paste, plastic sheets, mosquito coil, candles and later on soaps. We would talk to local doctors to come and visit camps. Doctors would give us bleaching powder to spread in the habitat area to keep it healthy. Apart from IIT, we would contact other NGO to come and help us at the camp.

Government and NGO help started around 10th day. After that it was a lot easier for volunteers like us as they did very good job. You could see “Roaming medical vehicle” from Gujarat everywhere. NGO and Government managed camps everywhere. Military personnel rescued people from interior regions.  Later we would also deep in the flooded regions with our help on military boats. It was scary and satisfying at the same time. Guys from IIT also came during their vacation and did a very good job in deep interiors of flooded region.

A day would end with evening meeting around 8 PM. We would review our progress and decide what to do next. After hard days work, we would share some laughter and develop friendship which still connects us.

I had to stop as I had to join Rio Tinto. But in the end I was satisfied like a donkey in the grass field and tanned like umbrella in Rihana’s music video.

The feeling of helping others is a bliss in its own league. For me it turned out to be more than satisfaction of helping others. I made new friends, whom I had seen many time walking on colony streets but never bothered to talk. I was mere one among thousands who helped voluntarily and did not care for name or praise. Each one of them deserves the same praise and recognition I got. I have to thank many as without their help I could not have done even a small fraction of what I managed to do. Thank you all: my Aastha members, everyone who helped in generating fund at IIT, everyone who helped us with aids, everyone who encouraged us and Praveen's mother who will make us tea everyday in the evening.

It is our society and everybody needs to chip in. Humanity does not need to rise only at the brink of devastation; it should be more common than it is.

Bihar Flood Work # Part 1

Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be that great generation. - Nelson Mandela

It was summer of 2008 and I was waiting for my visa approval after graduation. If you can remember, that year it rained heavily in north India and Kosi barrage failed to save life of many thousand and all together nearly 2.3 million people became homeless. Worst affected districts in Bihar were Supaul, Araria, Saharsa, Madhepura and Purnea. Everything submerged in water, people were left with no option but to leave everything behind and save themselves and walk a road to nowhere. The water which only took 3 days to fill these districts, later took nearly 6 months to recede and for those 6 months, fortunate ones who were able to save their life had no shelter and no food.

I was in Saharsa (my hometown) at that time and all of it was happening in front of me. Saharsa district was fully submerged except few patches of lands and Saharsa town was luckily one of those islands.  We did not need to see television for what was happening, it was happening right in front of us. Thousand of people from submerged areas very quickly populated every bit of available space in the town. Every school, railway station, parks, hospitals and roadside was occupied with people who had either lost their family of property to the flood.

It was second day of the flood and NGOs & Government help was still far away. The plight of flood victims were unthinkable, they did not have anything to sleep on or anything to eat as most of them were empty handed. In the late evening I was waking with my friend Praveen in one of these parks, and we could only hear were cries of babies and tears running down the cheeks of those who understood how bad their luck was. I went back home and told my mother tomorrow I want to go door to door in the colony and collect whatever I can to help the people living in nearby park. My father was skeptical that people would help me in my cause but my mother was more than encouraging but warned me not to stress too much as I was still recovering from my appendix operation. Next day I called Praveen, who arrived with few bags and that’s how it all started.

First Day:
I asked my mother to be the first one to donate. She gave me nearly 2 kg of rice, half kg of daal and made my father donate Rs 100. I and Praveen went to every door in our colony and requested to donate anything from old clothes to money. I was surprised and overwhelmed with the kindness people were showing. We collected everything old clothes, bora, plastic sheets, grains, cooked food, money, medicines, candles and even mosquito coils. In the mean time some of Praveen’s friend also joined the cause and now we were almost group of 6 people. Few people started cooking whatever we had collected. Two of us started distributing plastic sheets and bora for families with small kids so that they do not have to sleep on the floor. We collected nearly Rs 2000 and we were not sure what to do with the money. There were lots of things to do and so we wanted to spend it wisely. While serving food a lady came to me in tears and asked me that could we arrange some milk for her 6 months old daughter as she can not eat the food? I abruptly asked her why can not she give mothers milk to baby. She started crying and told me that she can not produce milk. I was feeling so humiliated and ashamed of my question. I asked Praveen if can arrange some milk for her daughter.
Few people from colony came by to encourage us. Few told us to come next day to collect some more items. Some just came by to talk to people. One of them was food inspector and he was really impressed with us. He told us he can give us 3 big biscuit cartoon box only if we can collect.
That evening all six of us sat together and decided we need to do something for baby food. Adults could go to Government stall (total 4 at that time in the city) and eat khichdi but nobody was thinking about infants at that time. We needed lots of milk powder and biscuits. We knew it was not going to be one day job.

I would write second part very soon. A lot happened in coming days and I have to thank a lot of people for their support.
Anand

CWG: A Story to be Told

“The 2010 Commonwealth Games are going to be the best commonwealth game ever.” tweeted Shashi Tharoor.  Two minutes later he tweeted again, “Going to take a nap.” One of his follower @LalitModi tweeted back, “No body gives a F what do you do now.  So if you want to sleep just sleep, do not tweet about every f***ing crap.”

Well it seems nowadays nobody really cares about his tweets anymore. There was a time when parliament session used to start with Tharoor’s tweet. 

With 10 days remaining to premiere pilot episode of CWG soap opera, it has already been hit by generating so much noise around the world. Every passing minutes brings new twist and turn, more dirt and thriller to great saga of 2010 Commonwealth game which might give headache to writers of Balaji Productions. What makes a good Indian soap opera? “Dirt, more dirt and a lot of dirt”, said one of the leading TRP analysts, “and Kalmadi has been given 48 hours to clean all of it.” When asked will CWG commence, his answer was, “Oh Yes! Hero always wins no matter how low his odds are.”

To add CWG woes, now elite Bollywood section; Shilpa Shetty, Arjun Rampal, Mahesh Bhatt, Aftab Shivdasani and Fardeen Khan has slammed CWG fiasco and called it blot on India’s reputation. 

CWG Games Village filthy, uninhabitable: Hooper

Leading 2010 Commonwealth Games sponsor Indian Railways has assured athletes that there won’t be any cleanliness issue with their rooms and toilets. As a contingency step, a train will run every morning from village to Agra station where athletes can get fresh on Railway tracks in traditional Indian ways with symbol of love Taj Mahal in the backdrop.

Answering one of the questions at press conference, Sheela Dikshit said, “I really do not understand why people are making such a fuss? Who really watches CWG. Don’t you get it? They are so boring that games are telecasted without advertisement. Only families of the athletes watch it, even who keep swapping between games and their favorite sitcoms."

Bridge and ceiling collapses

While government agencies blamed early monsoon for bridge collapse (government report says bridge was made to sustain one heavy rainfall which was supposed to happen in late October), internal investigation suggests bridge wasn’t designed to carry any weight in the first place. Engineer who designed the bridge and rest of the village buildings forgot to think that somebody will use it. It is a typical nerd syndrome, suggested report.

CBI reports suggests that bridge collapse is not all bad news as it has generated a scare among terrorist outfits who wanted to infiltrate village during CWG. Terrorist organizations are finding it hard to find volunteers. Allegedly, even suicide bombers refused to come forward saying that, at least in their case they know when they will trigger the button. Report warned that terrorists may launch airborne attack armed with garden blowers.

“If you ask me personally what I think, I still think it is going to be the best game ever. I can see it in Kalmadi’s eyes and his eyes never lies.” commented Sheela Dikshit.

If you did not get any of the above jokes, you will certainly get this one:  Delhi has world-class CWG facilities: Kalmadi

And we say they are Racist

Recent attack on Indians in Australia certainly baffled the whole India and matter was blown so out of proportion that I was puffing answering calls about my well being. Media daily conducting interviews and writing articles about Australia being racist and busy collecting proof for it, seemed like madness India media is famous for. What happened in Sydney and Melbourne can not be justified by saying anything, it was a criminal act, whether was racial in nature or not is a debatable issue. Some of them might have racial content in it, but all of them, certainly not. Why every attack on Indians has to be racial in nature; it could simply be a case of wrong timing and wrong place. Neither a mugger waiting in dark has any intention to mug somebody with racial intent nor a group of drunk youth who just want to bash somebody because they are high. Indians might have been easy target because of their weak physique and humble nature; so would be any hooligan’s preferable choice. I will discuss the issue in later posts but first let us talk about our own backyard.

Why to bother about racial discrimination in India when we have variety of discrimination to pick up from. It hurts me when somebody says me that you can not work in Mumbai because you are Bihari. It hurts me when my mother asks me the caste of my friend, so that she can use separate cutlery kept for my dalit friends. It hurts most when I see old poor men told to sit on the floor in a general compartment (railway train) even when there is enough space for him on the birth. With everybody judging everybody it feels like living under a scanner and worst part is you can see hatred for yourself in their eye and you can do nothing about it. Rich in India treat poor as trash, higher caste despise lower caste, Assamese hate Hindi speaking, Biharis are not allowed to work in Maharashtra, every dark child has nick name Kallu, English speaking population snobs non English speaking; with lot more to list, who cares about racial discrimination. I do not have to give any example to you to visualize any of these situations, otherwise you have been blind enough to realize. Discriminate of any kind should be intolerable. We claim that attacks on Indians in Australia are racial in nature, but what about murder and rape of foreign tourists in India. I believe most of us will say they are not racial in nature; because we are brown and only whites are racial. What if these cases are no different then what happened in Melbourne and Sydney.

Issue of racism in Australia is not new. Ugly text messages, comments and postures relating to Aboriginals, Muslims, Jews, Indians and refugees are little common then other countries, so Australia is racist. But one has to understand that Australia is a relatively new country and started as penal colony. Its culture has never been so polite and sledging has always been integral part of Australian sports. With their huge physique they look daunting and solving matter with brutal force is in their nature. It is still in the process of building its reputation as multicultural society. Rules against racism are very strict but it will take time to change the mindset of whole country. By opening the door of immigration it is trying to build an image of multicultural society. Just like any other country Australia has some problem but I am happy that here people do not judge me for my caste, economic condition or my education status. I do not have to worry that people are judging me or at least they do not show it.

Cleared BARC

Today I saw the result and luckily, I have cleared the interview stage too.

This summer # Launceston to Kolkata

Guess, what I was doing when I was not surfing? I had lots of expectations from my last trip to India. It was an eventful summer.

Early morning my journey started from Launceston. Plan was to fly to Melbourne and then to India via Singapore. I always feel comfortable as long as I can feel solid ground below my feet, or in other words, I am a little afraid of flying. Even when I am up in the air, I feel more comfortable when plane is flying over ground than when it flies over water bodies. I know it does not make any difference at that height, but still I can not help it.

There are few things I like about airports. You get to see people from different country, tourists squeezed between heavy backpacks, rave of emotions at arrival & departure and off course free internet to pass time. Few things will always elude my comprehension though. I never understood what pleasure do people get in pushing 7 Kg trolley, for carrying their 0.8 kg laptop? Why people rush to toilet immediately after pilot switches off seat belt sign? Why even sophisticated people would grin to air hostess to get another sachet of cheap peanuts? But hey, who am I to judge?

Usually I love to listen to my iPod to pass time, but this time I had to study Thermodynamics for BARC examination. After 11 long hours of study, flight finally reached Kolkata. It was almost midnight and I was feeling tired. At immigration, officer asked me that why I have not written Quarter no. in my address. I felt a strong urge to ask him that “Is he going to send me Christmas card?” But, instead I quietly wrote my Quarter no. Mother, Neelu Didi and Jeeja Ji were waiting at arrival to receive me. After that, whole night we kept talking about Australia and India.

Susheel, Neelu didi’s son is live wire in the family. Mama (uncle) do this, mama do that, mama come and play with me or in nutshell I had a year exercise in three days. Once, Neelu didi asked him to check whether I was awake or slept. He came to me, sprinkled cold water on my face to wake me up and then said back to his mother that mama is awake now. My mother told him not to disturb me in revising the notes. He said to her that he only wants to study with me and after that you can guess what would have happened. None of us studied.

After BARC examination, we (I, mother, Neelu didi, Jija Ji and Susheel) went to Dkchineshwar Kali temple on Ganga shore and for a drive around town (Victoria memorial, Science city etc.). I am very thankful to Neelu Didi’s family for great hospitality and lovely tour of the city.

One good thing about returning to India after a gap is you can instantly realize things are changing rapidly in India. Two changes which stand out of the rest are visual development in Bihar and increased fashion awareness. One thing which really struck me was sunglasses; it is becoming new fashion among youngsters. Now we are one step away from becoming perfect Gandhi’s monkey (sunglasses for eyes and iPod for ears).  With big burger from McDonald in our mouth, we will be just perfect. Shopping Malls and supermarket are becoming new trend in urban society. Mall is a good place to hang out for love birds and see things which one could have bought if they had that kind of money. I always feel like outsider when I am in a mall. When I see elderly women walking in t-shirts, feeling uncomfortable, and just trying to keep up with the new trend or people digging their way through pile of clothes for finding cheap ones, makes me think are we trying too hard to be acceptable in modern society or society has lost its tenacity to accept people for who they are? I will give you an example. I still use my Nokia 1100 mobile. So many have commented that I should upgrade and it does not suit me. As long as it does the job, I am not going to throw it away just because someone thinks it is outdated. Mobile started to become popular almost 6 years ago and since then so many models have become outdated. In the beginning it was necessity but now it is more of status symbol of how modern you are.

Kolkata is among four largest cities in India and has an international airport but city did not turn out as I had expected. City was congested, dirty and unmaintained just like its international airport. Condition of famous “City Tram” was nothing like in the stories I had heard from my mother about her visit to city in her childhood. Staying with Neelu didi confirmed my fear, why I do not want to work in big cities. They hardly interacted with their neighbors. Neelu didi used to take Shusheel to City Park every Sunday so that he can play freely. For rest he the week he has no place to be himself. He is like a dolphin in a bath tub. I want to live in a place where in the evening I can put couple of chairs in front lawn and see kids playing on the street while talking to my neighbors.

May be I am outdated and unable keep up with the modern changing society OR may be I want to hang on things which makes me happy and defines me.