Tag: brokenness

The ‘Cancel’ Culture

It has been an interesting week. It began with my tryst with ‘cancel culture’ during Gandhi Jayanti. I guess across all sections there is a growing trend of cancelling Gandhi and of course Nehru. We all know how and when it started. But given the traction it has received we must introspect.

I don’t think it began in recent years, resentment towards these two leaders was always there among a certain cross section but now it has got amplified thanks to modern narratives and propaganda being spread through Whatsapp university and social media. Their own personal lives and lifestyle choices are casting a very dark shadow on their roles as powerful leaders who shaped India’s non-violent freedom movement and nurtured India’s new born democracy in its infancy.

It is ironic that as we gloat and compete for IITs, build new IITs, the leaders who steered India towards higher education and scholarship are being vilified and defamed casually. With their names too being removed from public spaces, I really don’t know whether their legacy and commitment towards non-violence, equality and high quality education for all will be remembered at all. Perhaps they will be known only for their personal life scandals just like film stars, writers, artists, or celebrities lives are often reduced to. I really don’t know where this ‘cancel’ culture will lead us unless there is another counter culture to balance it. I guess we are headed towards collective amnesia that Marquez and Galeano often talked about. We will not remember the past or how it shaped us because we are too busy cancelling it.

News from France has been interesting too. Bedbugs have entered our daily conversations too. Almost everyday I get to hear about bedbug related scares, jokes and their repercussions. Campus talks apparently are questioning kinds – why should French bedbugs be in the news at all when almost all big cities and countries have it? There are conspiracy theories afloat. France of course is not in denial and they are doing their best. My son’s room and entire residency underwent sanitization. It is evident from the recent focus of media stories on ‘islamophobia’ in France or this bed bugs saga that there is cancel culture propaganda and messaging. Like us, the French are apparently blaming their neighbours (who have fallen out over Brexit) for their woes and negative publicity.

Students of course have been kept busy with coursework and high level courses. After classes they huddle in discussion spaces available around the campus. Apparently, these spaces have reference books, tiny cafes and cluster desks for students to sit and discuss. Since classes are of 3 – 4 hours duration, they are allowed to walk out in between to get their cuppas. Teachers are highly impressive and they hold the attention of the class for 3 -4 hours at a stretch. From what I understand European universities have very rigorous undergraduate courses so students from elsewhere, even those who are doing double masters, are struggling a bit. They all are taking courses as a challenge so I guess they are happily engaged between classes and looking for groceries they need.

Finally my son went to a tiny Indian neighborhood thanks to his Ecuadorian classmate who wants to try cooking Indian cuisine while my son is getting introduced to Latin American sauces and recipes.He finally found – green chillies too – he was missing their taste and flavour the most. They are having nice little cultural exchanges and celebrating diversity. He gave a hearty laugh saying there you are trying to plan a festival to celebrate diversity but here we are celebrating it every day – bonhomie is amazing and no one mocks others.

He tells me, most students are very critical about their own nations and their politics so they don’t insult or mock others. I guess most nations are failing their youths in some way or the other. From what I hear, it gives me hope.

I am worried about how ‘cancel’ culture will play out in our nation’s future. Good journalism almost got literally cancelled by those who are in power last week.

France has kept its education and universities standards very high which is very heartening and it was evident when Nobel prize for Physics was announced. French Nobel laureate took the call during the break and went back to her class to complete the lesson. It says volumes about their commitment to teaching and nurturing younger generations.

Incidentally, when ‘Attosecond’ Nobel was announced, my son was doing his first lab class which he said was a great fun and nothing like the set practicals students do here. Yesterday he also said, “wish there was a way to enrol in undergraduate mathematics course here all over again and then do masters”. I had tried to steer him towards mathematics but now in French University corridors he is developing a deeper liking for mathematics. Engaging deeper is hardly visible these days in our education sphere when the focus is just to pass the exams with top grades and get qualifying degree for good jobs or positions which are so few.

My ironing lady was earlier looking for teaching jobs for her daughter who has done B.Ed from Bihar and now she is seeking any household help job for her. On the contrary, I met a brilliant MTech qualified student who is pursuing B.Ed. So we are in absurd times – qualified teachers don’t have jobs but engineers are seeking teaching qualifications as they are out of jobs too.

As a nation and as people we will keep going in circles I guess while making radius smaller and cancelling everything beyond that radius. Good luck to us!

Time That Is Now

On somedays
I just wish to
Leave myself behind
Walking in some bookshop
Or in a forest
Or climbing a hill
Be someone with no plan
At a crossroad

On other days
I just race ahead
Trying to find myself
In unseen future
Maybe still
Walking into bookshop
Or being in a forest
Unable to climb that hill perhaps

But I just can’t find or place myself
In the chaotic present
Where fear looms large
The past is receding faster
red shifting perhaps
And the future seems
To be taking forever to arrive
Maybe blue shifting on its way

Out of sync
Or perhaps out of breath
I glance back and ahead
Avoiding to look into the eye
Of the present that looms large
Will it devour us?
Time that is now

Destiny and Luck

In the name of the
Sun and sky
Let me lament
For the lives
That derailed
One late evening
Just as their lives
Were chugging along

As ever, they were
Destiny’s offspring
Unware that
That the game
Of destiny is
Forever fixed
Death is destiny
Life is luck

Suddenly many
Many lives
Ran out of luck
On that late
Summer evening
Destiny it is
To be born
In a land where
Apathy is normal
Kindness an anomaly

While their lives derailed
And were mutilated
Beyond recognition
In another far away land
Operation Hope
Was combing forests
To look for
Four lost kids
Their destiny
Lost game to Luck

Train Journeys

Anyone who has travelled by long distance trains in India will find it difficult to come to terms with this recent horrific three train collision and its aftermath.

I have travelled frequently to and fro between Mumbai – Kolkata, Mumbai – Pune, Mumbai – Sholapur, Chennai – Kolkata, Mumbai-Delhi, Kolkata-delhi and on other various routes till last year’s trip to Bombay with my son. We cancelled the return ticket and booked a flight due to multiple reasons: long delays as freight trains, I was told, were being prioritised, decline in food quality, and absolutely no reasons given for inordinate delays of 6 hrs, 10 hrs etc. When I did rant, I was often told that signalling systems were being revamped so I must not complain in the interest of the nation.


These long distance trains are microcosms of India. A compartment becomes a confluence of culture, class and plurality. Much to your annoyance or delight (depends on what kind of co-passengers you have) it is always a memorable journey.
A train becomes a singular entity ferrying people of all kinds to their destination. The variants being tea, food and other kinds of vendors, the railway kids who come out of nowhere to sweep the dirt away from under your feet, or to collect plastic bottles, beggars, singers etc. We can find all kinds of people to engage with as the train hurtles down the tracks.


In an accident like this, it is so difficult to trace vendors, railway kids, beggars who were there in the train. Maybe some of the elders will be located through their fellow vendors but what about those kids?
They too of course have a network. Once I had offered to buy a stick icecream for one of the tiniest ones, he smartly told me to wait till he got his friend from the other compartment. In no time, there were a bunch of 10 to 12 of them to have the ice cream much to the annoyance of co-passengers. I got much unsolicited advice on how they can’t be trusted and they are part of larger gangs, they rob etc.


My most painful unpleasant memory is of Coromandal express, of a stranger who tried to assault me while I was asleep and ran away before I could alert anyone. The trauma has made me a light sleeper so I stay awake either reading a book (till I am told to switch off the lights) or listen to various kinds of snoring, chugging sound of the train, kids wailing or staring out of the window into the dark interspersed by lights of small villages, towns or cities.


This microcosm of India – our long distance trains like Coromandal will continue to prevail as multitudes of Indians cannot afford any other option. One can only hope against hope that each one who lost their lives will be identified, including the vendors, vagrants, juveniles etc.
It isn’t just the trains which collided and jump tracks killing so many people. It is the trust we all have that our systems are functioning smoothly and we are on track that has been broken time and again. These deaths no longer feel like an unpredictable accident, it is again the cliched – chronicle of the death foretold. We all know our nation is being put on a track which will lead to disastrous consequences. How long before we won’t just be a spectator of multitudes of dead?

Love and Hate

Hate could
Learn lessons
From immortal
Love

How to hold
It all in
Till the
Heart breaks

How to turn
Away coldly
And never
Look back

You don’t
Need a knife
Just words
Are enough

Hate could
Learn lessons
From Immortal
Immoral Love

How to
Let go
And not
Fight for

How to wait
Till it comes
To knock
On the door

Hate just
Wastes it all
By losing
The battles

For in wars
Hate just
Blinds you
Fools you

Love recognises
The other
Who stands
With the sword

Love knows
How to embrace
And defeat
All the hate

Hate just frets
Fumes and
Builds the rage
To go on rampage

Love remains
Immortal
Tiny cry of life
For Life itself

At the Edge of Life

She stood at the edge, constantly turning back. They should be here anytime soon, if they loved her. After all they had promised, they will look out for her and have her back at all times.

The train was late. She thought of walking a little ahead to get on the tracks in darkness to ensure the train didn’t miss her and nobody tried to save her. She kept glancing at the phone, hoping someone had deciphered her cryptic posts and reached out. Even one ‘like’ would be the last bit of straw that could save her.

Then she wondered what was the probability that anybody’s life would be affected if she stuck to her plan. She could imagine the indifference, smirk, shock, grief, regret and blame shifting that would follow. She could imagine a little conference, post her funeral, where everyone would say nice things about her, maybe words of regret too but they will absolve themselves for making her feel what she felt – a useless, harmful, attention seeking, selfish soul – which definitely she wasn’t. Or was she as they perceived her to be?

Just then a small toddler reached for her and grabbed her collar. She was wearing a red dress, it probably attracted the kid. She turned around and saw two curious eyes staring at her. She had always attracted young toddlers attention for some strange reason. The mother who was carrying the child was fatigued and bored. Obviously, since she didn’t pay attention when the child must have reached out to her. The toddler kept babbling as she stared at it with a blank expression.

Was this the sign or proverbial straw she was looking for? The mother looked at her and bluntly asked, “why are you staring? Can you hold her please till the train comes? I am dead tired, hungry and fed up. Why is she always hungry for food and attention? “

For a moment she wanted to refuse and walk away but the child by then was clinging to her. It was like life itself had embraced her and held her back.

She realised how flawed her logic was, that her toddler back home would eventually forget her. Probably there would be a nicer step-mother in his life. But what if that person thought motherhood and babbling of toddlers boring?

She looked at this young mother who was glancing at her phone least bothered that the child was clinging to a stranger. She looked up and said, “please help me. Hold her a bit, my arms are aching.” She had no choice but to hold the child. The young mother kept looking at the phone. The train was announced. She was in a new dilemma. But the child kept playing with her face and her hair. Instinctively, she too engaged playfully. They both giggled. The train was almost entering the station. She swiftly turned around and told the mother that she was not getting on to the train and handed the child back. The young lady stared back, “why are you even waiting on a crowded platform then? Are you here to receive someone?”

She didn’t know what to say. She just blurted that she didn’t have money for the train ticket and walked away – walked away from her suicidal thoughts. She was sweating, shaking with tears welled up in her eyes.

She walked back to her home. It was a long walk. Long enough to get control back on her emotions and her life. Long enough to realise that if a stranger could trust her, if she could show kindness to a stranger even at the breaking point then there is evidence that she wasn’t what everyone thought she was.

She also realised how flawed she was in thinking that anyone could replace her to be a mother to her kid back home. She needed to be strong to be someone’s support now. Back home, everything was as she had left including the smirk on her husband’s face, ” so you are back. I knew you lacked courage.” She went to her kid who was sleeping and touched it, only to realise the child had a high fever. She walked back and asked her husband why he hadn’t checked on the kid in the last couple of hours.

He again smirked and said something on the lines that he didn’t realise, couldn’t imagine, child didn’t cry, was doing very important work etc etc and since she had opted to be a housewife so it was primarily her job to check on him and not to wander off to kill herself.

She stared back in disbelief. She knew exactly whom to save her son from – pathological intellectuals and skeptics, insensitive folks so full of themselves – who will endlessly analyse, blame, shame and do everything except take responsibility and show love.

PS: A piece of fiction inspired by a spooky nightmare that woke me up.

Our Story

It is rather strange
How we get planted
In our own stories
Unintentionally

All characters
However likeable
Or unlikeable
Play their part

A hero
Could be an
An anti-hero
Or vice versa

Characters often
Become variable
Refusing to be
a constant

However chaotic
This drama of our life
We script it
Or it scripts us?

We get planted
Uprooted
Worshipped
And Cursed

For some we
Become breath
Toxic air
For others

Remembering
Forgetting
Othering
Dying

Ironically
We measure
Our lifetime
As Time and not Life

A Tale of Family Decadence

One of the traumatic memories that keeps coming back and has shaped me in many ways is appearance of this man in rags, with knotted hair, unbearable stench emanating from him, teeth all stained, barefoot at our garden door. I was out, as always, playing in the garden, when I heard someone knocking at the door and the moment I opened, there he was – a sheer horror to behold.

First I thought he was a beggar, asking for food and alms but he called out my mother’s nick name which only family circle of Bijapur knew. I ran inside to call her in shock as familiarity struck the moment I heard his voice. He was the man I didn’t like much since childhood as he always pinched my cheeks hard and teased me. He was always this flamboyant dark glass wearing wannabe hero kind.

Could it be him? My elder uncle who had gone missing after bringing down fortune and business built by my Nana? Questions were many and my heart was pounding till my mother came out and confirmed my doubt. I was hiding behind her and taking a sneak look at him in utter shock.

Now there was a moral dilemma – to let him in or not? My father was alway at his long distant job location. My mother instinctively wanted to slam door on his face with anger but then he started sobbing and pleading. Literally, the erstwhile angry young hero was begging for mercy and help.

My elder siblings were dispatched to send off couple of telegrams, one to my father to return immediately. He was given a bath, fresh clothes and a barber was called in to cut his locks. He was in a daze and looked almost lost. He didn’t even look into anyone’s eye. Like Kafka’s creature he seemed to have undergone metamorphosis – that’s what money, freedom and bad company does to a person, I was told. He was very ill and it was a daunting task to keep the room he was in sanitized and stench-free. Soon my Appa arrived and they took him to a renowned hospital.

What I got was only updates after that. His wife who he had abandoned had returned to his side to nurse him. His son was at his maternal home. My mother’s side was justifiably angry. This person had squandered off my Nana’s earnings, his antiques, personal museum, his honour and had disappeared leaving his mother and younger brother in penury. They had to sell off beautiful furnitures and move out with bare minimum essentials to a kind doctor’s garage-room – a move to one single room from a mansion must have been traumatic.

Well, coming back to our anti-hero. He needed rehabilitation and care. He was in hospital for months. He soon regained his charming persona and doctors who were treating him gave him a small job offer. In short his rehabilitation was a success.

They rented a small room in Ulhasnagar itself. Again, I was the only one who frequented it to meet my elder aunt. She too started working to make ends meet in a nearby hosiery factory(there was no dearth of those in Ulhasnagar). I went during day time to avoid meeting my uncle. I feared him, pitied him, but I still admired the way he was recovering. I understood he wasn’t trustworthy.

Maybe I admired his wife more than him. My mother, his wife – both could have turned him away or gone to the cops. They had legitimate grounds too – a case of cheating, fraud certainly. But grudgingly my Aai did what she could to help him recover and then told him straight – not to ever visit her. He kept the word. His wife was more magnanimous, she didn’t leave his side.

We left Ulhasnagar soon after. When I bid my Mami farewell, I couldn’t give her the forward address. He had not only been legally disowned long time back but emotionally disowned too.

I don’t know if he ever wanted to be in touch. I am told he is still in the same vocation attached with the hospital. I didn’t try to find him. He simply has strewn away parts of the puzzle I am trying to piece together – life of my Nana – his photographs, his antique collections. It all literally went up in the smoke and was downed with liquor I guess.

There has been a psychiatric diagnosis that explained partly why he indulged and couldn’t return home but one can’t deny the fact that he chose to indulge carelessly and irresponsibly. I often think, was it the tourists who came to visit Bijapur who gave him a reason to indulge and splurge? Was it a spin-off which Nana did not factor in?

It all happened long after Nana passed away, yet everyone I speak to, blames Nana for not being strict with his wayward son, lacking in business acumen etc. But then a creative photographer who followed Mahatma Gandhi around the country and was totally into conserving deccan cultural heritage, how could he be a full time watchful father?

Unfortunately, family wealth, heirloom and mental health of my mother and other family members never recovered. It remained an unprocessed trauma and we went on to inherit it partly.

I always considered alcohol and drugs as the true enemy. Though in social gatherings I did sip but fear always loomed large – what if ? That ragged man at the doorstep is still my most real worst nightmare.

Humanity

I see humanity cuddled on footpath
Dehydrated in summers
Shivering in winters
Tattered and battered
Seeking shelters

Oh, humanity, what a tender child
Staring with wide eyes!
Or at times a wrinkled face
With toothless grin
At times, a young girl
Bold and vulnerable

As we drive away
Avoiding the eye
And the sympathy
Humanity stares boldly
And walks away

We have our battles to wage
Days to face
And a future to create
Humanity has no place in it
We have learnt to look away

And Humanity?
Round the corner
Evil finds her and
scoops her in its arms
For it’s victory dance

We did not save her
Yet we lament
Triumph of evil
And death of Humanity

Evil did not kill humanity
It was our collective apathy!
We clinged to our survival
While our soul was killed!