Madness!!

2 July, 2012

Is India becoming a mad, crazy country!!
CRPF jawans can be massacred and blown to bits by Maoists/naxals and no body sheds a tear but the moment there is a counter insurgency operation and a few Maoists are killed, activists like Agnivesh, etc and some scum politicians start crying murder and call the operation a fake encounter, blah, blah, blah !!!
It is this psyche of the Indians that has led to a policy paralysis in the country wherein good officers are now scared to lift their pens and sign on important policy papers/files for fear of allegations of corruption, etc.
I guess now even our soldiers and para miltary forces will be scared to lift their guns to fire on the naxals, Maoists, terrorists and the enemies of the state for fear of allegations of fake encounter.
Total madness !!!

Bade Baba's Haj.

15 October, 2011

An anecdote relating to the Haj...

This was around the late 60s or very early 70s, but I remember this one pretty well.

Our family carpenter- a tall, bent old man with a flowing, soft white beard & a white skull cap, known to the world as 'Bade Mian' but to us kids as 'Bade Baba' came over to the house looking sad and elated at the same time.

When asked why, he said that he'd decided to go on the Haj to 'Arab' (as they called Saudi Arabia then)  by ship and while he was elated at that prospect; he was sad as it may take him over a year to come back, if at all, as he was old and the journey difficult.

He said he'd come to say his goodbyes to us and if he did not return, we should consider that as his 'aakhri salaam' (last greeting/goodbye)

I remember my father asking him if he required any money, etc, and my mother forcing him to have some tea & bread (double roti) before he left. I remember myself hugging him and crying and begging him not to go to these places called Mecca and Medina in 'Arab' if it entailed his never coming back.

He just smiled, patted me on my head and gave a ' Gulli' (the worse half of the Danda) which he had specially made for me and left, saying,
" Dua kariyega. Inshallah, phir milenge agar zinda rahe toh" (Pray for me, we shall meet again if I live, god willing)

He came back about a year and a half later but was never the same man again. His back had bent further and his complexion had darkened. He had grown thinner and there was this tiredness in his eyes. He was not the same jolly old man whom we had lovingly called Bade baba all our lives but more a man who was now waiting to meet his maker and rest in peace forever.

He died about a year later.

I was too young to understand then what had happened to him, but now as I look back, I feel that maybe it was the arduous journey by ship and walking in the hot desert which had exhausted him and literally sapped him of all his energy.

Or maybe, it was the fact that he'd experienced God and life held no meaning for him after that.

I will never know.

But I will always remember Bade baba and his Haj.

Can anyone show me the light at the end of the tunnel ??

Though not a pessimist, cynic (at least, not yet) or a doomsayer(god forbid), I sometimes despair at the condition of the NCR. Dug up roads, traffic mismanagement, long snarls,virtually no parking spaces, a fine Metro network already down on it's knees due to overcrowding, abysmal lack of manners,civic sense & good behaviour of the public. With over 5000 people reaching Delhi from other states in search of a livelihood and over 1000 vehicles being added on the roads just in Delhi, we are soon reaching a 'bursting at the seams' situation here.

But does anyone care?

I long for the 'long drives' we used to go for (even till the late nineties). People of my generation will understand the joy of 'hanging out at Jumbo Point watching jetliners fly over our heads and the wide open spaces of the capital, vis-a-vis other metros in India, we used to brag & feel proud about. Alas!

The economic upturn has bought in more money and a most inappropriate & misplaced bravado for many misguided souls who think money is a cure for everything. They break traffic rules with impunity (and teach the little child sitting next to them the same set of rules & ethics), drive drunken, pick up fights & misbehave on the roads at the slightest pretexts and provocation, etc.

And what to talk of the uneducated? Spitting on the roads and peeing in public is 'normal' for these pathetic excuses for mankind! Sigh!

Yesterday, a friend had posted a positive piece on the RTE and I agreed with him wholeheartedly but I sometimes wonder whether that's going to be enough.

Who will teach people good manners and civic sense? Surely, a lot needs to be done! I talk about the NCR because this is where I stay but I am sure this is a universal problem all over the country. Is this 'disorder' going to be the new order of the day? Will we witness 'Pedestrian traffic jams' in the near future or is there any hope?

Did someone say, "wait till the CWG are over"?

I don't know.....I really don't know!

Can anyone show me the light at the end of the tunnel?