A decade of botched dreams, yet off a dreamy reality!

Do I dream big? Well, I do! I sometimes dream too big for my own comfort. The last decade (2010 - 2019) was all about dreams. I had had big dreams fall terribly short, yet I had always got up dreaming bigger!

Ten years ago as a fearless young boy, I had quit quite a high paying job in the glitter of the IT hub with a promise of a career in Europe to work in the remotest jungles of a terror hit Assam. It was one of those decisions which I will think twice before taking it now. The fearlessness of the youth I presume! But never once do I regret. For I took a wild decision hearing a voice within, and life has never been the same again.

Then another of those wild dreams!  Did I listen to that inner voice again? They have a tendency to send me on these wild goose chases.  A decision which led me to meet incredible people; an obvious life-changing decision. Those two years made me the person I'm. It gave me a sense of belonging. It gave me life's perspectives and of course a better understanding of the world around me.

Then that day happened! That day I wish had never come, not in this decade, never in my life. The day life hit rock bottom. The day when amma was diagnosed with that dreaded disease. Well, the fight after that. Fight against the disease and in fact the fight within against sinking hope. Well, defeats do end up bitter, but I ended up better. Through that struggle and dare I say the next few years were the best of the decade. To marry a rockstar and at the same time work with a dream team, is all I could have asked for.

If you grow up in a small town, you always dream big dreams. I did too! Dreams, when they become reality, which leave you with a sense of wonder and gratitude and the last year was all about that. The year finally ending up working among the better people the world can offer.

Life in the last decade was incredibly adventurous. Took me to places I had not dreamt off. Yet life was full of botched up dreams; dreams which never really took off! As I look forward to a new decade, I look forward to living new dreams, and of course, stuff out of the syllabus of life prescribed, for those I expect and those I don't together constitute the dreaminess of it all.

Happy new decade people! 

The sidewalks of the road, the peripherals of life!

As I sped past the church, I saw some rags lying on the middle of the road. I was going in a hurry and did not have much time to react. It did look different though. But then life is so fast. I flew past the pile of rags lying there.

After my work is done, I returned back and I could see the rags again, this time from quiet a distance away. As I came closer I could see a face emerging out of the filth and the mess, the pile was. It was a man lying in the middle of the road covered in a brown sack. As I went past him again, I managed to see him beg with the corner of my eye. I sped past him, but my eyes kept returning to that man. What if somebody hits him? He is sitting in the middle of the road. The inner man in me started asking the difficult questions. After a few minutes of tussle within I decided to turn back.

I decided to try and put him back to the sidewalk of the road and went up to him. He saw me coming and started asking for some money. Taking pity on him, I took out a few rupees and gave it to him. He thanked me. I turned back. But could not go. You are here to take him and put him in the side walk. Not to tip him some money. The inner man's voice again. This time a little louder. But, he was dirty and shady and ragged and naked. How do I do this? I kept questioning my wisdom to come back to him.

Gathering some courage, I went and finally told him, "Sir, can you please come to the side of the road, somebody might hit you"; He said okay and continued to sit there. I waited for a few minutes and repeated the same again. He thanked me this time and continued his begging in the same place. May be he could not move, I thought. May be his leg is stuck somewhere. The inner chaos was becoming louder. But how do I touch and lift him? Or do I ask him one more time? May be he did not understand. I gathered more courage and went to him the third time. "Sir, can you please come and sit on the sidewalks and beg. Somebody might hit you".

There was a quiet; a small pause. He turned back slowly and said, "I know it sir, but nobody gives me any money if I sit in the side walks. People look at me only if I sit in the middle of the road. Why anybody, even you saw me only coz I was sitting here ", he stung back.

What does it take for me to look at the hurt and the suffering in the sidewalks of life? Sadly, I needed them to be sitting in the middle of my life to even consider them humans.

Reminding myself that the story of Christmas was the story of the peripherals. Those on the sidewalks of life.

Merry Christmas!

The CAA - NRC protest

This has been on my mind in the last five days. Through the stupid sickness which has put me through difficulties, the mind has always been on this.

"I'm not safe in this country anymore, I do not know whether my friends will be Indians, I do not know anything in this country", this voice of the young Jamia girl crying is repeating in my mind again and again and again. 

I have read, re-read every available article on this! Though I'm completely against this government,  have listened to their side of the stories too. I even sincerely listened to H. Raja, Adv. Sai Deepak and a few of their other intellectuals as well. Not to say, last night I even had dreams on this.

May be it is time I take my mind off this before it starts affecting my mental health. I seriously don't know whether it is even right to be thinking along these lines, when the country I so love is bleeding. Alright, I will leave my rant for another day. Will come straight to the point now. 

I'm not here to explain in detail again why I believe CAA in itself is discriminatory and put it along with the NRC it is really dangerous. Also not here to explain why they have to be seen together and the Home minister of the country has said umpteen times that they are to be seen together with or without the nitty gritty of the law. 

But, I'm here to talk about a thing called 'State capacity'. Now that the NRC exercise is done in Assam, with 19 lakh people have been said to not have documents to prove citizenship. So these 19 lakh people went from pillar to post to get whatever documents they could and yet could not convince the officials on the veracity of the documents. What next for them? They go for an appeal says the government. So they appeal in the high court and then to the supreme court. So 19 lakh more cases on the already burdened courts. How do you even monitor the 19 lakh people now? Even if one case is adjudged in a day it will take 14 years to finish off all the cases. 

Alright, let us imagine the worst case scenario that all 19 lakhs are proven by the courts to be foreigners, Bangladesh is not going to take them back. So we have to keep them in concentration centres. As coldly as it may sound, how are we going to build concentration centres to hold 19 lakh people and how much are we going to spend on building them. The biggest jail in India, the Tihar jail holds 11000 odd inmates though it was built to hold 5000 inmates. So are we going to build 172 jails of the size of Tihar in Assam alone? Tihar is 400 acres big! So are we going to build 70,000 acre worth of concentration centres and jails? Never forget, this is just in the Assam, and we have 29 more states. 

Okay! So now that we have built so much more jails and every illegal immigrant is put in, what next? Who will guard them? Who will fund their food? Or do we plan to let them rot to die? 

Okay, let me calm down a bit. Not go overboard. Let us just imagine the NRC is passed by the government and in the best case scenario asks every citizen to go to a government official to prove his citizenship using any document he has. Though the home minister has categorically said even voter ID and Aadhar should not be used, I will give benefit of doubt to him. Let us assume, we are told any document is fine. We just have to show it to them officials concerned. 

We are 133 crore Indians now. Since Assam is already done, we are 130 crore more people to finish off the process.Let us imagine there are 1,00,000 govt officials given entirely to do this process. They are very efficient and each person finishing off the work of 20 people every day working 10 hours a day. It will take almost a year for everybody to finish off the process! By that time India will add another 1.5 crore more people. 

Of course we should take into account the amount of money spent by the state on this process. Some reports say it will be approximately 55000 crores. This is without the amount of money and time spent by the people of the country in running around to prove citizenship. 

As somebody who loved policy making and want to study public policy at some point in life, a government which has not thought through the STATE CAPACITY to implement a law has no right to pass the law in the first place. 

As I was about to sleep yesterday night, one picture came haunting by! One beggar was sifting through shoes left by people as they ran helter- skelter during yesterday's police lathi charge in the protests in Delhi. That my dear people is this country. He does not care one bit about citizenship! All he cares for is shoes to protect himself from the cold of the night. 

The chowkidhar who sold us the lamp!

We were a joint family, and a large one at that. Uncles, aunts, sisters, brothers and cousins. One whole big mess!

Two generations ago one uncle married outside our religion. The usual fights happened. We never let the uncle in again. He settled down near us. We fight often! More often these days.

We were not very rich. But slowly yet steadily we were growing richer. Few in the family went abroad to study. A few went to other places of the world and became rich. The family field was giving way to modernity. Cows were being replaced by tractors. Some women even wore jeans. Our culture did not allow them. Though most of us complain about the tight jeans, in our innermost hearts, we do like them. Though the crops were failing and a few of my family suffered from hunger, malnutrition and poverty, there was hope. A small flicker of light at the end of the tunnel. Our salaries were growing at nearly 10% every year and slowly the light was burning brighter.

This man came selling lamps. He said his is the brightest. "This lamp can show us the light for years to come",said he. It can show us in better light, in fact he said this will make us all new. He called himself  'Chowkidar', the watchman! He said he has used his light before in one small part of the house and it had worked wonders. The large family we are, could not really concentrate on every small bits of our house. What was the relation between a chowkidar and a lamp? I know you have that doubt! We did not ask him either. Neither did he answer. He had a white beard and we don't question people with white beards generally.

So he started guarding the gate! Five years since he came selling that lamp. Was it six? It almost feels like forever!

Suddenly he said the money we were using to live were all black in colour and should be banned. Black money? But not everybody has the same colour money. Why do I lose my money?  I protested! Listen to the chowkidhar; he knows better, said the big family. The feeble protest fell on deaf ears and all the black money vanished. But they are still found, I protested again; Shhhhhh!!! It vanished said the chowkidhar, don't question his wisdom, they told me. I shut up.

Suddenly we realized our salaries are not growing as much as it used to! The genie in the lamp he showed is not out yet. Wait for a few more years, the genie will be out soon and then we will see the good days, the chowkidhar said. But, we were already having pretty decent days sir; Of course the old chowkidhar slept in the night and a few robbers stole our money. But we were never this poor, a few of us fought. But he is fair. Fair skinned people never lie, said my extended family. I had to nod.

Few months ago the chowkidhar said that for the northern part of the house to shine brighter, they have to switch off the internet and shut people down for a few months. The northern part had always been a problem. May be this is the solution, we thought. Not many in the family liked the northern part of the house anyways. You remember that old uncle? They say the northern part of the family stay in touch with them.

Now the chowkidhar brought in a new man! His deputy. This man also had a beard. Well, you know what we do with bearded men, don't you? This new man is full of josh. Sometimes very rustic. He looks like the Bollywood villain. But most of our heroes in movies were villains once. Remember Rajnikanth?

He now wants all of us to register in a notebook. He wants proof of us living in our house.Not many of us can prove our allegiance to the house, some in the family protested. The poor in the family never had any document to prove they belong, was their contention. But what if a few from that old uncle's family remain inside the house, says he! They are taking your work; And that is the reason why your money is not growing as much as it used to. But, what if a few of our own family members don't have proof, asked the some who are fighting?

What if they don't have proof? Good question!

I told you this man had a lot more josh. He came up with this brilliant idea.  All the family members belonging to different religions, let them be given a free entry into the house. But all those from the Uncle's religion, we will not allow. The chowkidhar and his deputy were happy! Simple ain't it? The uncle's religion not allowed; All others allowed without even registering.

Did I tell you that our family had members practicing all sorts of faith? Including that Uncle's faith? So what happens if my family member, who has lived here for many years, practicing Uncle's faith, cannot prove his allegiance to the house? The smartest family member asked. He will be sent to the Uncle's house, simple, said the deputy! But what if the uncle does not include him as well? Then we will build jails and put them in. Then, we won't have any problem with them. But we never had any problem with them before also no, deputy? The smart ass protested. The deputy never listened.

The family which had survived the pettiest of fights is breaking into pieces. For it appointed a man who was selling a lamp as the chowkidhar. I wish we had known then, that men selling lamps don't make good chowkidhars!

But why do we need a chowkidhar in the first place?

State's monopoly on violence

The country was sleeping when four young men were shot dead by the police. Rewind eight days, these four men were supposed to have done the most gruesome of crimes, rape and murder of a young doctor.

The young doc, who was coming back from her work was tracked, raped and burnt to death even as the family and the police were searching for her in the wee hours of that sad November night. Four young lorry drivers were supposed to have done the crime and the police promptly arrested them within a day or two and the police were given ten-day custody by the court of law to prove their guilt. Among the sadder days in India as another of its daughter met the horrible end; Another young dream nipped in its bud.

Now, let me clarify certain concepts clearly.

Violence is wrong! Morally, ethically and legally wrong. It is wrong on any human being's part to use violence against another. So, imagining that those four young men were the real perpetrators of the crime, what they did is wrong. But can police use violence? If violence is wrong, then why only certain men and women calling themselves police(Government employees) carry instruments of violence, like guns? To understand this, we got to understand that in a modern democracy, the state is given a monopoly on violence. To put it simply, any government has the right to use violence on its citizens, and by monopoly I mean, ONLY the government can use violence. Nobody other than the government can use violence on anyone else.

Ah, then can any random government employee use violence on any citizen? What if some random policeman or army man starts shooting randomly? That is why the state has developed a mechanism called the rule of law. Rule of law basically means "the restriction imposed on the arbitrary exercise of power by subordinating it to well-defined and established laws". So the state has its own laws within which it can use violence; There is a separate entity created by the modern democracies called judicial systems whose sole responsibility is to decide whether the rule of law is followed by the state and by the citizens.

One of the most important and established restrictions on the state is the concept of "Innocent until proven guilty". The presumption of innocence, that is, till the mechanisms of justice prove any citizen guilty of a crime, the citizen is considered innocent. So the government mechanism can suspect someone to have done the crime during their investigations. But till the mechanisms of justice, which are a separate entity, decide on the guilt. Those two are a separate entity. The governments and the courts! These are kept separate as safeguards given within the system to protect the government mechanism from the illicit use of violence.

Let us get back to today's happenings. So the police suspected four people to have committed the crime. We shall give the benefit of doubt to the police. But till the mechanisms of justice prove their guilt, these people are innocent. The onus is on the police and not on those young men to prove the guilt to the courts (Mechanisms of justice)

Imagine in case the police is given the right to violence without the courts, any random policeman can use the instruments of violence on hapless citizens just by suspecting guilt.

I understand that the crime was heinous. But for any heinous crime should come within the rule of law, letting the state use its monopoly on violence without the rule of law, will be a dangerous proposition.

When democracy laughs at you!

Dear people of India, I'm sorry, but you are all fools. Yes, you! You, you and you! Every single one of you. Of course, those who supported the congress against Hindutva. Oh yes bakth, even you! You who thought BJP and their coterie will save you.

Do you know what does democracy do to you? Laugh! That is what you are; Jokers! Who are to be laughed at.

Fools or Jokers? Well, does it make a difference? Maybe fools and jokers. Do you remember that man in the circus of yesteryears? Who made foolish things to be laughed at? You remember him, don't you? With green hair, rainbow-coloured baggy pants, a pink nose, and an irritating walk. That man is you! In the circus of democracy, the clown is who you are.

So BJP joins hands with the Naturally Corrupt Party (NCP). No, I did not name it! Modiji did. You jokers, who thought BJP will wipe away corruption from the face of the earth, take that! Modiji will join hands with who according to him is the most corrupt person and wipe away corruption! Well, Modiji is mocking at you! He laughs, and he laughs till his guts hurt. oh, the funny joker! Woe unto you.

Well, others who supported congress, coz, the congress is against Hindutva and the politics of hatred, did you forget that the Shivsena was almost the epitome of the politics which you repudiate? But going along with Shivsena is okay, ain't it? Ah, did you see the glint in the eyes of Uddhav Thackeray? That was him laughing at you, poor you!

Even as I write the laughing continues and it will continue since you and I don't have a choice but to dance; dance to the tune of democracy. A democracy which will forever laugh at your dance! 

Of hatred and grace!

The friend called frantically. Treeng treeng, rang our house landline phone. The year was 2001. I had just entered my teens. "Switch on the TV! Switch on your TV and see what is happening", he sounded panicky. I switched on the videocon television set of the yesteryears, the ones with a big back. I just froze at what I was seeing with my eyes!

Two huge buildings had just come crashing down. Few rabid terrorists had just rammed their flights into the twin towers. Shortly after that news came that another building is also hit and then the pentagon itself got hit. Life as I knew it was never the same again, for I realized that day what hatred was.

I clearly remember lying down in my bed that night not able to sleep. Questions jammed my young mind. Many of which I could not fathom. The next day in school, everybody had their own version of answers! A new generation was trying to comprehend hatred that day.

Then 2008 happened! Most of us had just finished college. A few had managed a job! 24*7 live televisions with hollow news channels and petty debate shows were becoming the fad! November 26th, 2008 was when our generation saw hatred first hand! For four days I stayed glued to the TV, thinking whatever has happened to mankind. "How did hatred percolate so much into the human veins", now a little more mature young adult brain of mine was trying to comprehend.

For a person and to a large extent a generation that had only thought about hatred as exported from outside, the last few years of social media has shown that actually hatred is deep within every human's heart. We innately hate! We hate each other on the basis of religion, caste, political affiliation and everything else. We hate, coz we can hate!

The epitome of hatred in the last three decades of this country was when we let hooligans raze down a building in the name of religion! For all the complications Ayodhya's history is, hatred is its fulcrum. Hatred towards people of another religion.

Can man ever overcome hatred? Will the experiment of having an Indian state with many different nations put together as one ever be bereft of hatred? Can mankind ever live without hating another man for living a life different from his own? The questions that thronged the teenage mind of 2001 and the young adult mind in 2008 still beg for answers!

Today could well be the day where we can overcome hate! By showing grace. GRACE?

Grace is showing love to the underserved. Intentionally showing kindness to those who have hated us. Going out of the way to understand those who have rebuked us and ours. Grace put simply is 'loving the undeserved'! For none of us deserve love, with our hate-filled hearts.

Grace could well be the answer! As the world expects the Ayodhya verdict with bated breath, Can we show some grace to the world that hates? For grace and only grace can overcome hatred! 

The Scam the governments are!

So Indian government is planning a new parliament and a central secretariat building! "The new building will symbolize new India's aspirations", quipped Biman Patel, whose architectural firm has been given the job of designing the new buildings. Do you know that they designed the Sabarmati river front, the BJP head quarters as well? No! No! I'm not smelling anything here. Just putting out facts! Yet that is for another day.

So the total cost for the design stage is a measly 229.75 crores! A humongous 3% of the overall budget allocated for the project. Are you bad at math? I will do the calculation for you. Just 7500 crores approximately is the total money going to be spent on the new buildings. So the parliamentarians could sit nicely and debate. Of course they walk out often coz there is not much space there to sit now.

Just to put things in perspective, the central government spends around 7400 crores on policing Delhi every year. Do you know the new health insurance scheme of the prime minister? It includes 100 million families! The scheme is allotted 6400 crores last year. Just in case you did not know, the Indian government gave Rs.400 crores to build 'world class institutions' this year.

So how does it matter? For you and for me?

I was not working for a year and so did not pay any tax. So do I have the right to complain? Well, let me just put out facts for the learned working middle class who end up reading me rather than complain.

Most of you paid 20% of your salary to the government of India! So basically, 20% of your time spent in your offices is for the GOI. So you actually worked the entire months of January, February and a few days of March without getting any payment for that.

Well, all of you who worked hard for nearly two and half months without getting a pay for, you would have been called slaves in the yesteryear. We are called tax payers in the modern world. And what did you slave this year for? For the parliamentarians to sit in aspirational new India's  modern building and debate! I promise they won't walk out anymore. They will have enough place to stay back after all! 

Farewell Sussex! You were so kind

Life, I know, is never meant to be easy! They say the ship is safe at  harbour but that is not what the ships are made for; they had to go to  sea and man(or woman) the weather! But the ships do like it when after a long journey, it is washed and painted at the workshop, before embarking on the next journey.

Two years ago, I was quietly flipping through twitter when QS world ranking for institutes doing Development Studies popped up. Institute of Development Studies(IDS), University of Sussex, the best in the world was shown above Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge. Curiosity became the lust of the heart. "What about studying in the best Institute in the World?", said the heart! Oh, you won't be able to make it said the mind. The practical mind! Life went on! The thought never did.

Suddenly one fine day I found myself walking in the green, serene campus of the University of Sussex! I was lost. I looked lost too I presume, for one stranger walking past me, stopped to check on me. "You look lost son,  can I help you", she asked! From that day, Sussex has been so kind. So very kind!

Growing up in a dusty small town in a remote South Indian town can never be the best exposure to the world out there! But dreams are sometimes funny; I dreamt and Sussex was where my dreams took me to.

Sussex was in fact made of dreams. I dreamt of sitting in an intellectually stimulating discussion with people from many different countries, and that is what my institute was all about. I dreamt of reading economics and development and here I was debating the theories of development economics. I dreamed off policy research, and policy research is what I did most of the year. Of course I had a dream to go to the Lords, watch a match in the hallowed lawns of Wimbledon, peep into the majestic Old Trafford stadium, play cricket in the villages of the English country side, and ended up doing all of them! England gave me everything I had asked for! In fact everything I had dreamt of. And it was kind! For everytime one dream came crashing down, it healed me with something different, if not better.

Then there were the people! The beautiful people from across the world. The people Sussex threw at me. So many of them from so many different countries. From Syrians to Pakistanis. From Canadians to NewZealanders. And ofcourse countrymen from different parts of India.  Sussex and the dreams would have never been the same without them. They were the family away from family! They were the rock on which I built the dream. They accepted me as I am! The careless, uncombed, bearded, dirty, loud mouthed individual; And better still, they shared similar dreams. When dreamy eyed people gather together, It is fun! Believe me.

So, sadly today I woke up to reality! The dream is coming to an end. The ship is washed and painted. It is ready to go. The huge waves of life are ready to swallow them. As I waved and hugged the final good byes, I realized most of us may never even meet again! Yet we braved ourselves for the final farewell, for dreamers don't exist until they go out to make the dreams come true.

Farewell Sussex! Farewell IDS! Life as I know in reality is much harder. But you taught me that dreams do come true. Until life's dreams bring us together again! God speed.

The toxicity of our political discourse

Two incidents that happened in the last week clearly showed what is wrong with my country! One which happened in Tamil Nadu. One in the place I live now, in Brighton, UK.

Last week a group of civil service aspirants from the Central University of Tamil Nadu (CUTN), Thiruvarur had planned a discussion on the Kashmir issue, the abrogation of article 370 and 35A. The Vice-chancellor of the university sent out individual memoranda to the 30 odd students who allegedly participated in the discussion. Well, the memoranda said, 'anybody or group of persons who indulge in activities which is a threat to the security and integrity of India will not be tolerated' and such activity will lead to dismissal from the university followed by criminal action under IPC'.

Yesterday I got an email from a friend from university. She is organising a discussion on the Kashmir issue. The University has been kind enough in arranging two eminent speakers on this, one from India and one from Pakistan. Both social scientists, who have studied policy processes and political participation all their lives.

I'm sure the discussion will be thought-provoking. I'm sure it will be analysed from every angle possible. There will surely be questions and debates coming from both sides of the spectrum. Of course, there will be a historical narrative being presented. At the end of it all, we will come back as better people, with a better understanding of the situation, the processes and the politics of it all.

So, you may say, that this is being done since the country has no stake in it. But even Brexit was analysed threadbare in events like these.

Politics and policies should be discussed in academia. Well informed scholars who have the studied the subject should lead debates at the university campuses. If academia does not contribute, then WhatsApp universities, paid & biased journalists, riled-up politicians will fill-up the vacuum. That, unfortunately, is the tragedy of our times.

Toxic political discourse is the bane of this generation, and excluding academia from politics might well be the reason for it. 

Independence from hatred!

On the 14th of August 1947, Mahatma Gandhi was in Calcutta, where he and one of his bitterest critics, Muslim league leader Huseyn Suhrawardy, were together trying to ensure that the communal riots of 1946 would not be repeated again. 

"At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance", as the first prime minister was uttering these immortal words, a journalist thrust his mike on Gandhi. 

Do you miss being in Delhi now? he asked the great man. The man had just won over the greatest power planet earth had seen till now, without taking a gun. 

"Others may sing of the wine and the wealth and the mirth,

The Portly presence and potentates goodly in girth;

Mine be the dirt and the dross, the dust and scum of the earth! 

Theirs be the music, the colour, the glory, the gold;

Mine be a handful of ashes, a mouthful of mould.

Of the maimed, of the halt and the blind in the rain and the cold - 

Of these shall my songs be fashioned, my tales be told.

Gandhi quoted John Masefield's 'Consecration'! 

When yet again India wakes up to another day to remember the day of independence, I remember the words of the great man again and fashion my song on his. 

My song will be on Kashmir and its people, for their true freedom; The innumerable Dalits and the tribals and the battle for their rights; the minorities and their peace; 

For my country is maimed and halt and blind, in the rain and the cold of hatred; 

The post truth era!

"I went to the tuition ma", I said. அங்க என்ன மா சொல்லி குடுத்தாங்க? (What did they teach you?). My mother asked nonchalantly. 'Chemistry' I replied, not suspecting that they have caught me playing the fool. The unflustered dad sat there quietly listening to our conversation. இங்க வா (Come here), he said. He made me sit on his lap. And in his own inimitable way said, "இனி விளையாட போனா சொல்லிட்டு போடா" (If you are going to play, inform us and go).

I clearly remember having tears flowing through! I had been caught red-handed. I had told them that I'm going to tuition and went to play. I had lied.

I was, and in many ways still am, an impulsive liar. I exaggerate ordinary things. I'm a writer after all. But that lesson which my dad taught me that night never really went away from me. He said, "it is important to stand by the truth, come what may"! Falsehood is for the fainthearted. You are brave, face up to the truth. They still ring loud and clear in my ears.

In the year 2016, the word 'Post-truth' was described by oxford dictionary as the word of the year. I started imagining how would my dad have lived in the era of 'post-truth'? Where objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief. I mean, a man won an entire election based on a Model of development which did not exist. But no, it does not matter! People believe it is true. It is okay if it is not true. People's beliefs matter more than objective reality.

Does truth matter to me as much as it mattered to my dad? I seriously doubt it! If so, then why do I even forward WhatsApp messages without verifying its veracity? Most of the WhatsApp message I forward might not be true. But I don't care. I like the story. Most of the NEWS I consume is not true. Yet I read them and believe it to be true. Do I like the story, then it must be true. I don't like it, it cannot be true, has always been my definition of truth in the post-truth era.

In a relative world, will absolute truth survive? When every Tom, Dick and Harry have their own version of the truth, will opinions and ideas become part of our living reality called truth?

What will I teach my children? that it is important to speak the truth or to speak what he wants to be true? 

Love shall overcome!

"Well, he is a 'Muslim' and I can't get my food delivered by him! Please change the delivery boy, else I will cancel the order"

This was the quote that rocked the ever boiling Indian twitter scene last week. Both sides of the spectrum, the religious right and the liberal left fought, abused, yelled and mocked each other. "Food does not have a religion, food is a religion", said the liberal left! The more vocal right-wing showed the various food rules religion has imposed on humanity. The stench of hatred was in fact nauseating.

When an old friend of mine pinged today reminding of the friendship day, It got me thinking. Nothing unusual I suppose. The older you get, faster the philosopher in you get going.

Day one in the United Kingdom! This great olympian and his wife, a world-leading researcher herself, drove a long distance just to pick me up. No, I have never known them before. She is a friend of a friend. Just a random act of kindness. Two days into this country, I was walking trepidatiously, looking lost, when a random stranger walked in and said, "Are you okay, do you need help?"! A swiss once walked an extra mile to help with an obscure presentation I had to make. A Colombian sat through an extra hour to explain a concept I did not understand. A man from Ghana helped me with my writing. Of course, the Pakistanis were the best. Two best buddies were Bangladeshis. And then the Indians. Indians from all over the place. Indians of different caste, creed, language and religion. Nothing deterred them from showing kindness and love. Nothing deterred them from being friends.

True, the bloody politicians, religious bigots, language and cultural terrorists may try and divide the world. But kindness and love will always prevail. For more the hatred being spewed, the tighter we will hold on to the precious friendships made over the years.

For friendships make the world. And friendships are made of love. And love shall overcome!

Oh, the great Indian culture!

It is still sinking in! What happened in the world cup was a travesty of sport. There is no way that one team could be called a loser. Yet, life, like sport is like that. Not fair and Just. Sometimes even cruel. Well, I will have to stop blabbering at some point and so I stop here.

I suddenly had this random thought on what would have happened had India played in the final instead of New Zealand. We should have played anyways. But, that is for another day of rambling. What if the great MSD was run out instead of Guptill in the last ball of the super over and the English were declared winners over India on the basis of more boundaries scored? How would we have reacted? 

I'm sure the ICC would have been lampooned. Effigies of English players burnt. Everyone including the umpires would have been called cheats. Some random buildings would have been broken. Few people of the Caucasoid race would have been beaten up. The ICC would have been made to apologize publicly. Social media would have used every available bad word to mouth every random individual remotely linked to the ICC or English cricket. For sure we would have declared ourselves victors. 

Alright, let us imagine another counterfactual. What if the match had happened in Wankhede, Mumbai? What would have happened to the players and the umpires? Will the stadium be left back in the same condition as it was before the match started? I won't be surprised if the stadium was set on fire as happened on the lines of the 96' semifinals and stones thrown. 

Compare it to the way Kane and his followers behaved after the defeat yesterday. Cultured is the word used to describe them. They were hurt too; But then they were so graceful, that the travesty of the result almost seemed an afterthought. 

Every time when we use the word culture to a nation-state, it should reflect the way the people of that country behave. So when we use the word 'Indian culture', it actually should denote our behaviour. The tragedies of life show one's true behaviour and hence the behaviour of the people during tragic times will show the true culture of the country. 

In that sense, we are far from being the 'Great Indian culture' we call ourselves to be! Far from it. 

Sport - Cruel sport!

What a game of cricket! And in the end, the best team won, or did it? Was England the better team on the day of the final? On paper yes! But surely not at the end of the day. Surely not!

Cricket is a simple sport. One team hits 'X' number of runs and the other team has to score 'X+1' number of runs within the stipulated number of overs. There are different modes of scoring a run. You can run. You can hit a ball hard enough so that it reaches the boundary and you can hit the ball long enough it goes over the boundary. Simple, right?

So what if the second team also scores the same 'X' number of runs scored by the first team? Just share the trophy! It is a tie. Is it that complex? Well, I agree we need a winner! Okay, then let them play one over each. Like overtime in football and basketball. So what if it keeps happening again and again and again. I mean the super overs keep getting tied again and again. Then stop the game and share the trophy. Football does it all the time. So does hockey.

Suddenly ICC and cricket management decides that if the super over gets tied, the number of boundaries is counted and the winner is decided on the team which has scored more boundaries. So what if I run four runs, will that be counted as a boundary? MS Dhoni the greatest finisher in the world, has won matches single-handedly just by running ones and twos. I remember a match which he scored a fifty without hitting a boundary. How is that a lesser inning than a somebody who has scored the same number of runs by scoring seven boundaries?

What if Federer and Djokovic were playing the final set 12-12. So, shall we stop the game and decide the winner on the number of Aces made by one of them?

Sport in itself cruel. The amount of pressure and the pain the body of the players take is huge. Let not stupid rules play spoilsport. If at the end of the day both the players or teams are considered equal on the basis of the basic rules of the game, just share the trophy. There is nothing wrong in saying both of them were equally good.

Why should we always have one winner?

Attributing a character to the group!

Nadars are business-minded people! Brahmins, ah, we know what they are. Christians are looking at an opportunity to convert. Muslims want to dominate. The girls from Nagercoil are calculative. Well, black people are rough and English are racist. Americans only think about money, Tamils are conservative and of course yes, Malayalees are a closed group.

I will be honest! Some of these were my ideas too; We have all used them at various points of our lives. We attribute a character to a group!

And that groupings were of varied different forms! Religion, race, country, city, language, and even gender.

Yes, that is the norm. Everyone does it.  Surely most people of a group, when a character is attributed to that group, display that character, and what is wrong with that? I can hear you all come back at me! Let me tell this story.

Today morning at work a terrifying incident happened. When my boss and I were on the way to work one random guy came and threatened us. He started abusing! Expletives, you name it, he used it. We were taken aback. We did not know how to react. After a full five minute of abuse, he decided to walk away.

All four of us in that place, me, my boss, another colleague and that man are from different countries and are from different races. Basically, we had different skin colours. After the incident, the immediate reaction in your brain is to identify that race to that kind of behaviour. Well, it is natural! Ain't it?

He was abusive coz, he was thinking he is retaliating against a wrong done to his race by other races present there. No, he had it wrong! Not everyone from the race which had targeted him have the same ideology. My mind started thinking badly about that race until I had to remind myself about a few wonderful friends I have from that same race!

You get the drift right?

Individuals vary! They vary within a group. Their characters change over a period of time. Of course, every individual has some influences from the group(community/clan or whatever) they mingle with often. But that does not make them another human being! They may have similar ideologies. They may have similar views on certain issues. They may behave in a certain way. But nothing can make one man a carbon copy of another man.

Thus when we judge an individual and attribute a character to an individual, it is imperative we think twice! Coz, judgment should always be on an individual and never the group!

I told myself today, that come what may, I will never relate hatred to the race of the man who abused me! For it was that individual who wronged me and not the race. 

Love shall prevail!

"Why do I hate the Pakistani cricket team?", I asked myself. As a self-proclaimed cricket aficionado, logic says I should love the Pakistani cricketers since Pakistan always had the biggest cricketing talent. Always! Who would not have gone 'wow' when Wasim Akram bowled those toe crushers or when Saeed Anwar hit those gorgeous cover drives? Yet, growing up every time when Pakistani cricket did miracles, an in-built hatred brewed up. A sort of jealousy I presume!

Why were we made to look at Pakistan as an enemy growing up? What made us believe that all Pakistanis think about is to dislodge peace in my country? Who told me that all Pakistanis are bad people? How was I made to understand that Pakistan broke into a separate country coz they hated me?

Ah, history had been cruel to us!

Till the moment we (Me and my friend) invited some Pakistanis home for dinner I never realized what a beautiful group of people they were! And when they invited us for the eid celebration, I realized we have all along been tricked into believing some wrong notion about a country, and because of that a group of people!

Oh, what a time I had on Eid! It has been a long time since somebody had invited me to all the three meals of the day. Am I that cruel? Well, they did! We played pranks, laughed out loud, pulled each other's legs, had a lot of fun. Yet, it was not just frivolous fun. There was love! Palpable love. You could sense it in the air.

Just a group of Pakistanis and Indians. Wishing the best for each other. We did discuss the sport. We argued about politics, the dirty game. We, of course, had different opinions. But, through it all, the love never went away.

As I bade farewell that night, 'K' hugged me saying 'Thanks Sam bhai'; And in that moment of brotherhood, we broke the chains of hatred which had bound us.

Politics and politicians may divide us. History may divide us. Geography may divide us. Vote bank politics and unruly mobs may divide us. Religion may divide us. Yet, that day proved to me that the only emotion that will prevail is love.

Here is to many more years of loving friendship and brotherhood(Sisterhood) to the wonderful people from Pakistan who helped me open my eyes to love beyond an inbuilt hatred. For love shall prevail!

The impulsive road trip!

As I opened my Chrome browser late in the night yesterday this quote popped up! 

“Don't think about what might go wrong, think about what could be right.”

I smiled at it. Providence! 

Well, let me tell you the story behind it. So last Friday I submitted all my written work. Nearly 15000 words of writing in 15 days. I won't really say I had slogged it out, but surely worked hard for it. Friday night I met a friend at an Iftar party, and over biriyani, we discussed a road trip that we should do. Since it became late that night, we just slept over the idea. Literally slept over it! Next day morning things fell in place. We decided we will rent a car and do a random trip. A trip to nowhere in particular. 

And what two days! If you have not tried driving through the villages and towns of the UK on an English summer, you should. Beauty redefined! Well, beauty defined. 

And just before starting we wanted to include one more person. But nobody turned up. Everyone was sleeping after the tiring month I suppose. Few were drunk. And one even said, I can't take an impulsive decision like that. 

Well, that is the story of an impulsive decision to drive randomly for two days. 500 miles. Four friends! English summer! Greenery! A brilliant DJ with indie pop and Punjabi folk and razzmatazz Bollywood numbers!  And well, a whole lot of intense conversation. 

What if I had thought about things going wrong before deciding to drive! Thankfully I didn't. Everything went right. And I will let you decide why it is the right decision by looking at some of these photos. 

You got to admire the photographer! I meant GOD!

My driver. He used to be an IAS officer! Wink! Wink

                                                   

                                                   
                                                                Looking beyond!

                                                             No, we did not climb this cliff!

                                                   

                                         

                                The only word in the english language I know to describe this is 'wow'!

                                            The partners in crime! If impulsiveness is one.

                                       My wife thinks I'm colour blind. Clearly, I'm not. No?

                                                    Did I tell you it was green? All over!

                                                      Arundel fort from a distance!

Fancy Cars

                               This was what we saw on either side of the road. Serene and green!

                                                                     The drive!

I can't quit!

It flew off a thick outside edge. But thankfully went very low to the slip and the fielder at slip could not catch it. It instead hit him on the ankle. He winced in pain. I could hear the shriek!

Oh, wait! Did I tell you I went to play cricket? Real, tough cricket!  In a beautiful green ground, we can only dream of in India. The pitch was real as well. Forty overs a side. We even had an electronic scoreboard.

So I opened the innings. The last I did was in school. Quite some time ago. I mean, a long time ago. We were chasing 189 in 40 overs and had a difficult start losing 3 wickets early. I was there at one end with another friend who was settling down. The required rate had just gone above 6.00 runs per over and so I had to accelerate. I had started off slowly, rather trepidatiously. I was also feeling my legs about that time. Fielding 40 overs and batting for almost 20 till then had taken its toll on me. The body was cramping as well. Then that happened.

I nicked a ball to the slip. That man in the slip cordon was himself in the middle of an excellent spell from the other end and had settled down at the slip. One ball went off my edge hit his ankle and he was visibly hurt. I could see him wincing in pain. Are you alright sir? I asked him concerned. Oh yes, I'm fine! I will be alright; came the reply. I could see the swollen ankle. His white feet looked bloody red. He started to limp badly.

"I think you should rest sir", I said cautiously; "You are afraid of getting out to me? ain't you?" He replied, tongue in cheek! I laughed it off.

"My grandson is watching I can't quit"! He said again. "Grandson? Who is that?" I asked him. That kid who bowled fast, he is my grandson, he shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. He is 16. I'm 60! He finished before walking back to his fielding position. He went on to bowl two more really tight overs in that spell before walking off to take some pain killers.

Sixty! That is his age. SIXTY!

It hit me really hard. Here is a man double my age playing with wincing pain and I am almost quitting coz' of cramps.

I'm not quitting, I told myself. Not before winning this. And went on to bat till the end, though it ended in a lost cause.

Well, it was one of the best days of my short cricketing career. Coz, I did not quit. Coz, that man, that old man, taught me, quitting is never an option. Not in cricket. Never in life!


Some photos from the cricket match

                                                               Cricket in whites

Getting ready to open - on the left

Lush green outfield

The courage I inherited from my timid mother!

As the world celebrated their mothers, I was running away from the timeline. With really tight deadlines and loneliness of this place, with the wifey also not around, I did not want to start missing my mom all over again. I'm a coward. 

Well, my mother was one as well. Coward would not be the right word I should say. Timidity would be a better word. She was afraid of everything. Every damn thing. Like crossing the road, her children's future, a difficult patient, talking in English. She was afraid of it all. 

At least that is what I thought of her; Till that dreaded disease gripped her and like a boa constrictor broke her piece by piece.

A timid person and cancer should not go along well together. When the doctors initially gave her four weeks to live, she should have just withered away. She was timid after all. 

Yet she did not. She smiled through most of it. Oh ya, she went back to work. And took the stairs for all the four floors of our house like she used to do before she started medication, with that unbearable pain. The steel in her suddenly grew bigger. Maybe it was always there and I had missed seeing it.  Where did that come from, I had often wondered. Every day when she got up she vomited. Of course, she cried. Then braced herself for another day's work. And worked her way through, till the last bone was broken. 

Was she really timid? Maybe I mistook the innocent smile for timidity. Yes, maybe she feared for everything in the world. But faced them all with the smile intact. Fear never came in between her and the most difficult patient. Neither did fear come in between speaking in impeccable English to her foreign son as she often said of the boy 'J' from the US, who stayed with us for more than a year. And bigger than it all, it never came in between letting her children live the lives they wanted in the remotest of villages of tribal Assam, considered to be terrorist hit by the world around her, even if that meant quitting high profile corporate jobs. 

And then I realized, courage is not an absence of fear but facing your fears with a smile. And then I realized, my mother was the most courageous woman of all. For she had the biggest fear and yet the best smile through it all. 

I smiled my way through the mother's day. For my mother's gift of courage to me is woven subtly into the fabric of my psyche that I can hardly distinguish where she stops and I begin. 

Life lessons from the black border colie

So every day at around 7.45 AM one of my regular routine is to look for the dog! Oh, that beautiful, black Border Colie.

The routine for this guy goes like this. There is this huge piece of lawn where the dog is brought to by the owner. And the man will throw down a ball into the distant territory and this dog will run to the ball and pick it up. Simple! Throw it up there, and he will go pick it up.

And after giving the ball back, the guy starts to run immediately for the next run even before the ball is thrown back again. Once the ball is thrown, once the ball just crosses the dog, the excitement just doubles up and the speed picks up. Sometimes if the man delays and he could not sense the ball crossing him, he turns back to see. But only if the ball had not come yet.

And the routine is done again! And again! and again. Till the owner is bored. Our guy just keeps running the ball down. Every time. Every single time.

And then the routine is repeated the next day. And the next. And the next week and the next year. Till I presume the dog decides to call it a day. But the excitement withers not! It just keeps ebbing away in that tiny heart of his.

Ah, if only I have the excitement of the routine! If only I can run my race at the speed of that lovely creature. If only I have the energy to pick my pace up once I see the target. And then get back, buckle down only to start running again with the same energy and excitement. If only!

I promised myself that one day I will own a dog. And run with it and learn to be as excited as it gets every day. Every single day! Till I learn to get excited at the routine.

Cambridge!

Life is never the same again! As I got back into the car and left Cambridge behind, I left a part of me, into that distant historic past of the Village of Cambridge. It is the story of a young boy growing up in a distant little town in South India. The story of dreams. He grew up dreaming of Cambridge. The Cambridge which taught his childhood hero, a brilliant mathematician who quit a glittering Cambridge career to serve humanity in the dusty lanes of his town.   

"What did it mean to be in Cambridge?" was the rhetoric often spoken about in that part of the land! "What did it mean to be in Cambridge?" was almost a talisman growing up. Cambridge meant history! The history, the boy in me so loved. History of so many years that both the hands with all its fingers each counting a century is not enough. And so, began my journey to this historic place, first in my dreams, much later in reality. This village has contributed to 118 Nobel prize winners, my tour guide said! I caught hold of every word of his, like life’s treasures. 118? Oh ya, he shrugged it off! There was an air of nonchalance in that body gyration. He went on! I stopped there. 118! I replayed that number in my mind again. The whole of my country have five, and we celebrate that number. A three-digit stat was beyond belief. I was just about recovering when he said Rutherford discovered electrons in the lab next door. And do you know ‘Watson and Crick’? they celebrated the discovery of DNA in the bar there right across the street. That man continued on his monologue. Not realizing the profundity of his own statements. After talking about Sir. Isaac Newton, Dr Stephen Hawking, Dr Charles Darwin, Bertrand Russel, and Charles Babbage he took a break! Maybe he realized I was still recovering from the number 118! Suddenly it hit me hard. The names do not matter in Cambridge! But it is the ideas; the convictions, that matter. Of course, Sir. Isaac Newton lives on. Yet the Idea of gravity that came out of the hollow blocks is the better optics for the village of Cambridge. Convictions are things certain! The certainty of the ideas which germinated in the minds of the people who lived in this remarkable village. Just to reinstate this, the street corner opposite to the most famous kings’ college is the corpus clock which shows the exact time only once in fifteen minutes. So that clock slows down and fastens up on time every fifteenth minute. And it is completely made of mechanical parts. How is that even possible? Well, In Cambridge it is possible! I took the quiet boat ride across the colleges soaking into the glory of Cambridge’s historicity. The stunning landscape. The refreshing greenery. The huge cathedrals. The old hollow blocks. Yet, when I closed my eyes, Cambridge meant something else. It meant dreams. For it is the place where dreams become reality and in reality, people dream. Dream about big ideas; until they become convictions; till those convictions conquer the world.          

Life is good!

Argggghhhh! I shouted. It was pitch dark. My friend had just left me by. He heard me shout and came running. "Are you okay!" He helped me on my feet. I'm fine, I'm fine! I said, getting back on my feet slowly.

I had a bad fall. We were on my way back home from my badminton courts and I twisted the ankle; I think I stepped on some random rocks. I have a long history of ankle injuries. Something to do with my awkward walking style I presume. Once a doc saw me and said I have slightly cleft legs too. Whatever that meant!

So, I was helped home and then I laid down on the sofa while my wife helped me remove the shoes and then helped me with some ointments. She called a friend and got some pain killers. I joked around to take my mind off, and slowly things settled down. I still could not walk without pain but I was managing. For a finicky patient like me, I think it was not a bad enough injury to fuss. Wifey asked me to bunk work the next day and I happily concurred.

While things settled down and I went back to my reading, it struck me, life indeed had been incredibly kind! It was just a minor injury and there were at least three people worried for me. And there is the huge loving family who was not even informed of the incident. The brilliant friends. The nice warm house. Life of dreams living near London. Meeting some of the biggest stars of my sector day in and day out.

Last week I heard first hand from a country I shall leave unnamed on the atrocities on the daily life of the common man. The week before I listened to another friend from a different continent almost cry about how his country is going through the doldrums and millions are rendered homeless every month. Another colleague once remarked that by the end of this year he does not even know whether he will have a home to go back to.  I have been to some of the remotest parts of my own country and have seen people living without having more than one meal a day. I once went through a refugee camp and the less said the better about them.

As I take my philosopher cap off, just reminding myself again. That I'm one of those who are blessed enough to start counting my blessings and stop complaining.

P.S: The boss did not concur to take one more day off and so I went to work grudgingly.

The courage to say 'NO'!

She called me frantically! "Can you meet me today?, I want to talk to you", her voice shivered. I said an immediate 'yes'. We decided to meet in a busy coffee shop in Chennai.

I entered the coffee shop and waited for her. She came in a little late. Very unlike her! We finished our coffee and then she started the conversation. "Sam, a man is willing to take care of my treatment bills; He is willing to give me a job and also is asking me to move into the office provided accommodation!", her voice not radiating any sense of excitement! "Oh great ka, what is bothering you then?" I asked her.

She had cancer! She was poor and was living off friends! She had lost her father quite early in life. The mother had her own problems to deal with and left her. She was not thirty yet! 

My reply made no sense to her! I was too naive. "Sam, he is asking me to move into the office provided", she said again. It hit me hard. I kept quiet. "My treatment will be costly sam; I won't be able to afford it", said she. I knew it all too well. "What shall I do sam?" Came the inevitable question. She knew that we could also not afford that kind of money. 

What would have I done in her place! What if somebody had threatened me with life, to do something which I would not normally do? or what if somebody promises me a million dollar to manipulate official documents? Okay, money is not an attraction! What if they promise me the post of the member of the parliament. Just do it once, was the offer! Will I agree? Or worse, what if they threaten my wife's life with that?

The phone rang the next day. It was her again. "Sam, I will be honest with you; The offer was tempting. But I decided to say 'NO'. I decided to die instead". I could sense tears in her eyes. I kept quiet. Words deserted me. 

The moral courage to say 'NO' at the face of extreme adversity! I'm not here to preach moral standards; For I don't qualify for that. But to draw a line, and to stand within that line, even if the world tries to push you over needs incredible courage. And for that, I bow down. 

She died five years ago today! Would she have lived had she said 'Yes' then? I don't know. Maybe she was not practical enough in the eyes of the world. But that day, she taught me a lesson for life. 

"Sam, If you decide to draw a moral line, don't step on it, ever and for whatever", I could hear her loud and clear. 

To read more about her

http://samszammy.blogspot.com/2015/03/reflecting-on-life-that-deserved-more.html

http://samszammy.blogspot.com/2014/03/a-life-world-was-not-worthy-of.html

What do I stand for in life?

I'm that crazy individual whose mind just keeps pushing the body all over the place. So one day I will be all pumped up doing the gym and the next day I will be wallowing in my bed like a couch potato. One day you can see me full of passion thinking on different ways of changing the world, and the next day I will get the 'who cares what you become' attitude and just watch YouTube videos through the day.

But this question kept haunting me for a long time! What do you stand for in life? And I decided to write them down just coz the writers want to boast themselves off to the world, not only about their writing prowess but also on how their lives are wonderful.

So here am I, thinking my life out loud! Nope, writing my life out loud? rather silently.

And as I started writing this I got reminded of this voice in the background; The voice of Gregory Boyle whose organization 'homeboy industries' works among the incarcerated gangmen from the cities and bylanes of the United States of America.

He reflected on his life in the following words, and this is me wishing at the end of it all, this to be mine.

"To stand with the demonized, so that the demonizing will stop,
  To stand with the disposable, so that a day will come when we stop throwing people away,
  To stand with those whose dignity has been denied, and
  To stand with those whose burdens are more than they could bare
  To stand with the poor and the powerless,
  And the voiceless, making those voices heard"


Well, after all the showing off! I finish with this prayer in my heart. The prayer to give me a heart full of tenderness, for only a heart that ventilates tenderness for the broken world has any chance of changing it.
  

The War and its history!

My history book in school was replete with war heroes. 'Alexander the Great', conquered the world, I studied. 'Napolean' the French emperor who led France through many victories and conquered many parts of Europe was celebrated. We were taught resilience and never say die attitude from the hero Ghazni Mohammed. I was ten years old when the Kargil war was fought. The bare minimal memory of those days was celebrating victory in a war. We had won! The enemy was conquered, hurray!

The movie Lakshya on Kargil which I watched with so much passion never showed the lives of the many soldiers who died along the way; on the way to capturing the highest point of 'Nowhere in particular'.

I celebrated the movie. Loved it to bits. Had goosebumps when Hrithik Roshan limped to the peak and planted the Indian flag on the cliff. On that unlivable cliff!

Wars, the bloodiest wars of history had always been portrayed as the fiefdoms of courage and valour. Yet, there is another side to it. The sadder side! Strangely, war never meant destruction. No, never we learnt about the number of people Gazni killed in his conquests. Whatever happened to their families? Did they manage to rebuild the damaged houses? What happened to the widow? Did she end up living all her life wearing the sad white sarees? Were they thrown in the funeral pyre of the martyred husbands? What about the children? Did the scar of losing dads ever go away? Did they harbour the hurt of their loved ones getting killed all their lives? Ah! The sadness of war. That gory face which was never shown in our history books.

The history books were written by the Winners, said, my friend! Well, didn't the winner lose anything? Of course, India supposedly won the Kargil war. And what did we get out of it? The pride of keeping the national flag on the snowy ice-clad mountain where mankind can never live. Maybe a few goosebumps and for sure some respect among the other nations! All of these are important. Very important; but did we count the cost? The lives of many soldiers. The devastated families. Orphaned children and widowed women. Will the Paramvir chakra ever give them their lives?

Warmongering people, Count the cost! Wars can never be profitable. Not even for the winners. For there are no winners in a war.

War histories were not written by winners! History books were written by those who lost lesser comparatively.

Do we really want to be done away with casteism?

Sneha could get a 'No Caste', 'No religion' certificate! And as soon as this news came into the world of social media, the true blue activist in me woke up. So I presume she will not get admissions for her children using the quota designated to the caste. Quite brave of her, I suppose!

So how many of you believe that by doing away with the caste certificate, we can do away with casteism in its true and original form? I'm not a fool to believe that! Casteism is here till to stay till we don't let our children intermarry.

The sad reality of India is, we all are casteist. In our innermost hearts, we have the caste bias. I know for sure a few in my family had! Well, they sure have! Ah, we don't believe in casteism, they say; Yet they won't let their children get married to a person from another caste. Even if it is another caste, not from the lowest caste, they say in private. I call them the hypocritic Christian. For casteism in its true form should never have anything to do with Christ and Christianity. If any so-called follower of Christ has a caste-bias, well, rest assured they are a hypocrite. HYPOCRITE! That is how I spell it.

And so coming back to question, do we really want to do away with casteism?

I had often thought we will all one day win over the cruel world of Casteism! In the distant utopian world. But having second thoughts now. For, we need to sacrifice certain things to win over. We need to let our privileged children stand on equal grounds with those who are considered to be on a higher pedestal. Are we ready for the sacrifice? The sacrifice of letting our children fight it out without a quota! And in the process may even lose a seat which they could have got otherwise.

Well, sacrifices are not our forte anyways!

Of course, intermarriage will have to happen. And it will inevitably happen with the generational shift from the predominance of arranged marriages to the love marriages. But then, till the structural roots of the casteism in the dependence of the citizen on the completely caste-based reservation is not done away with, casteism and its ugly head will never really go away.

Yes, casteism is a much deeper problem than quota based reservation! Of course, it will take many generations for it to be completely done away with, Ture, we need a lot more interventions apart from giving simple 'No caste' certificates. And for sure, we will have to keep marriages out of casteism.

Yet, if you really think casteism is a disease, and it should be done away with, be ready to sacrifice! 

Can terrorism ever be avenged?

I felt numb reading the news that 40 young men were killed in a dastardly terror attack! Those pictures reminded me of another day in Mumbai, when the terrorists from the neighbouring country wreaked havoc. The heart felt a pain.

Like every time when India lost its Bravehearts, the media uproar started. "we need revenge", was the audible discourse. Hashtag #pulwamaavenge was trending widely. Every Indian got really riled up. And got ready for revenge.

So how to get revenge? How do you avenge a terrorist attack?

The terrorist who is ready to kill is ready to die. In fact that one man who executed the job is already dead. He was ready to die and so no point even talking about it. What next? The planners and the others involved in the logistics of the killing should be the next target. But do we know where they live? If only we had known!

So let us imagine they live in the neighbouring country. And we get ready to do another surgical strike! or a war! The soldiers, sadly the very same group which had lost its friends, will be sent again. Deep into the war-torn territories. The territory of bloodthirsty warmongers. Is it safe to do that? What guarantee will we have that not one of ours will not be killed again? Or at least the guarantee that we will kill only the planners of this gruesome attack without any other innocent life lost.

And even if there is the remote possibility of everything going on perfectly and we killed only those who planned and executed this gruesome attack; What next? Another group will come! And we will be avenging another attack.

And lest we forget, we(both us and the neighbours) are nuclear countries. One wrong move and we would end up fighting nuclear wars destroying a million lives.

So where do we start? Can we just leave this incident aside?

Nope! The terrorist who executed the plan was a young boy who lived and worked in Kashmir(India) for most of his life. We had done something terribly wrong to have made another young man take this route. We will go to the root of this as a problem and solve it. Let not another young Kashmiri boy take this route.

And before everything else, this is a huge intelligence failure. Do a thorough study; Plug in the gaps. 40Kg of bombs brought in to the country without our notice is a shame. It cannot have happened without involving locals. Catch hold of them and punish them! India cannot afford another terror module developing inside our territory.

And seal the porous borders! I understand it is very very difficult. But do we have a choice?

The only way to avenge terrorism is to prevent them from entering the territory again and not let our people enter the terrorist gangs.