On a lonely sea beach,
on a starry night.......
When all the world's asleep
and the elements awake,
I have seen
an old traveller of life
sitting,
leaning against the rocks;
looking into the distant past...
When sea was a friend
and life a glorious dream
With a wife whose smile was the sunshine
and passion as endless as the sea.
Whose eyes were the flames of the night
and hair the night itself...
One fine day, fate had intervened
turning life into ugliness
his passion was devoured by the sea
and she was snatched from his arms,
into the arms of death.
That was the end.
Or the beginning....
of a lonely life on a lonely sea beach.
He howled as his passion beat the shores
and elements lashed around.
He cried and cried...
till he was no more.
But all this happened light years ago
and yet he is still there.
For I have seen him
sitting all by himself,
against the rocks
lost in thoughts...
as deep as the sea itself,
when all the world's asleep
and the elements awake...
a part of elements himself.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Saturday, April 11, 2009
The Memory of Wild Flowers
I lay in the hospital dying a slow death. I have been diagnosed with lung cancer and the last 3 months have seen my other wise placid life go tropsy turvy. In these last few hours, people come to visit me, say things about me at my bedside but I am in a daze and don’t exactly follow them. Maybe, my brain is too old now. Maybe, the drugs are too strong. I feel as if I am in a wire mesh…can't see properly, can't talk properly, can’t hear properly but all this while just one thing manages to be crystal clear…the smell of wild flowers. I had wanted to spend every living moment surrounded by the flowers of a memory that have long back wilted but had followed me in my last few hours as well….
I still remember the very first time I noticed her. It has been 30 odd years now but the memory is as fresh as if it happened just a few minutes back. Its strange how the mind (or is it the heart?) can hold on to the smallest detail, like the dress pattern, like the way her hair was falling on the forehead and forget that there is a class full of eager enthusiastic students who awaited me, everyday-maybe forced by the timetable if not by free will, till 12 weeks ago.
It was way back in 2000. The second last semester of Engineering had just got over. I had done quite well and the profs were impressed. Life seemed a bed of roses- extending into a high flying job with a big corporate house. All the hard work that I had taken over the past 3 years was paying back. I had no inkling that my life was going to be rocked out within the next few hours.
A couple of friends from hostel who also lived in the same city were taking the journey back home with me. It was 3:00 PM when we boarded the train and were supposed to be home by the dinner time. The weather in Gawhati was amazing as usual and some how I felt bad at leaving the awesome mausam and going back to the heat of the plains. Initially chirpy, all of us settled back with our own thoughts/books/ writings/discussions as the train gathered speed. I guess it happens with most of us…I call it “train-magic” – the ability of the train to lead people into a state of semi hypnosis where they see some random events of their lives race by-instead of the scenery. Since I got the window seat, I was the victim of one such hypnosis. Even though I had intended to read “The Thorn Birds” on way back home but the beautiful scenery in conspiracy with the train sound over the iron tracks enticed me into a web of thoughts- while the book lay unattended, deciphering my facial expressions from my lap.
I was shaken out of the reverie when the train made a stop at one of the small stations. Belagaon. Chai-wallahs, jhaalmori-wallahs, beggars, vegetable vendors, fruit stall wallahs were competing against one another at the loudest to attract customers, while the passengers rushed behind the collies carrying their luggage or guiding the children who wanted to have a free run on the station. A typical Indian station. I looked around and saw that my friends were dozing off – no one to give me company for checking out the station. I shook Puru and asked him if he would like to come…he refused. “Ok, then keep an eye on my stuff”, saying this I walked outside to get something to eat.
I refilled my water bottle and got 2 samosas plus a salted cucumber. Puru had woken up and was signaling to me to get him some guavas. I bought the guavas and since I did not have a one rupee change I went back to the train window to get the same. It was when I was coming back to the fruit vendor that I noticed her. She was no more than 15 years and sat just beside the fruit vendor stall selling wild flowers. She stared out into the crowded station looking into nothingness as the flowers lay in her lap. She shadowed them from the setting sun – with a possessiveness as if they were her own blood. Maybe they were- for she looked like an oasis of calm in the sweating shouting desert of the crowds milling around her. I stood watching her and then walked to her as a probable customer to her wares…Something about her faraway look wanted me to know her more…maybe her spirit was much older than the body…maybe being under the constant "train magic" had given her this pose and expression. She was there but she wasn't there.
There was no change in her blank expression as she saw me bending…but then as I enquired about the price of the flowers, she smiled. A smile that pulled me into the labyrinth of her eyes, closing the door to the world, to the sounds, to the waiting train and to everything else. She had the strangest kind of eyes I had ever seen. As a part of the compulsory social work during the first year in the college I had volunteered for an organization called Drishti. I had come across abused women, helpless adults, unwanted children, terminally sick mankind not to mention the varied assortments of people from asylums, the brain dead and the healthy whose brain were dying out a slow death. But then I hadn’t ever come across such a vacant expression…an expression that changed to immense beauty lighting up the whole universe the moment she smiled. She was not particularly attractive...it was the smile that made all the difference.But then the smile lasted for the smallest second and then she was again lost in some other universe. Without removing the eye contact or losing the vacant expression she raised her hand and put out a finger. Re1/- each Since she had only 5 plates of flowers I bought it all to look generous even though I had absolutely no clue as to what I was going to do with those flowers. She seemed surprised at my gesture but didn’t say a thing…I still wanted to hear her so I asked her where did she get those flowers from. Again she raised her finger and pointed behind her..the exit of the station. No answers about where in town or village or beyond. It could have been anywhere...even another corner of the world. Before I could even think what my next question the train hooted and it was time to go….Our eyes continued to be locked till I boarded the train.
Back on my window seat…as the train chugged out of the station she was still looking at me and so was I. My friends queried about what I was doing with flowers and the girl…and I replied something utterly foolish. They started making fun of me but I didn’t mind….my mind was elsewhere…with the flower I had just met…
I carefully hid the flowers (didn’t want my family to question me on my sudden interest in 5 plates of wild flowers). Once in the privacy of my room, I smelt them again. They were nice…exotic…and their smell different from any that I had ever felt before. My mind drifted back to the girl with the vacant eyes....with her image in my eyes and the smell of the wildflowers around me I slept off.
Holidays went as usual but each day found me thinking about her…Contrary to previous occasions I was happy to go back to the college this time because it would give me 10 minutes to talk to the flower girl. Meanwhile one part of my mind was wondering if I would find her there. What if? And even if I could find her what would I talk to the teenager? Tell her that I had been thinking of her every day? That sounded even weird to me, even though I knew my interests in her were absolutely platonic…
I was at the train’s door even before it had chugged into Belagaon. My eyes scanned the crowds and located her…she had the same vacant expression, the same posture of sitting, the same clothes…it almost seemed that that time had not moved since I last saw her. As soon as the train slowed I jumped out and….now what? The questions came back to me…I stood watching her for a while as people jostled around her. Suddenly a push from behind and I was carried right in front of her. And then she saw me.Her eyes lit up…so she recognized me…it pleased me to no extent to think that she had been waiting all this while for me…I moved closer and bent again in front of her. She offered me the flowers and I bought all of them yet again. I asked her what her name was. No reply. Where did she live? No reply. Where did she get the flowers from? No reply…just the same old gesture that she had given the last time…outside the station. Where outside the station? No reply. I worded a few praises about the flower but the only response was a flash of brilliant smile and then she would get back in the closet with that vacant expression. As the train hooted it was time to go again….precious 10 minutes wasted without a single question answered. Like the last time her eyes followed me back to my seat and still followed as the train moved again….
Back to my thoughts, I wondered about her. Was she dumb? Or too shy? I was not sure. I hadn’t heard her speak even once. But her eyes…those eyes were like the wildest forests..inaccessible, yet inviting. I knew they would bring me back there soon and this time it had to earlier than then the end of the term. Since the decrepit Belagaon was only an hour away from Guwahati I decided to visit it over the following weekend early morning and maybe spend the whole day there. I could catch the evening 3:00PM train back. My thoughts took a steely resolve as I smelt the wildflowers.
Next weekend I told no one (my friends would have called me crazy) and took the 6 AM train to Belagaon. As the familiar station came into view I found that she was not there. OMG. I hadn’t planned this turn of events. Suppose if she didn’t come the whole day? What would I do? I got off the train planning what to do. Then decided to take a walk outside the station to where her fingers had pointed. Maybe she lived nearby or maybe I could find her collecting flowers somewhere….
Outside the station the early winter morning wore a bare look. The sun was trying to break through through the clouds and the air smelt of fresh puris and chai. I ate a couple had a kulhad of chai- a rarity now and was all charged for the exploration. Within half an hour I knew all the roads by heart. It was really a small town, rather a modern village that had developed being on the outskirts of Guwahati. According to my rough estimate not more than 200 families lived there. Most of them were the natives from the hills and they survived on agriculture.
My problem now was how to find my wildflower. I again came back to the station looking for her. Still not there. Again outside the station Iheaded to the woods that were close to the station…maybe if I could find her there.
The woods were beautiful. Simple village folk looked at me with a surprised expression. What was a young city guy doing there alone? I smiled at them but it did not occur to me that I could ask one of them about the flower girl who sat at the station. Or maybe I wanted to keep that as the last option. Soon I was out of the stretch of habitation and the woods merged into a real forest. It was quiet and felt cold even thought the sun was out. Soon I came across a thicket of wild flowers….the same smell…so I had found the flowers but not the one flower I was looking for….
My mind questioned me about the next action. I decided not to go deeper into the woods...didn't want to get lost.Should I wait for a while there or should I head back to the station? The second seemed more reasonable since she could be getting the flowers from elsewhere and not necessarily from the particular part of the forest. But before leaving, I took a bunch of flowers….her flowers. Somehow the smell made me think that she was close by….
Back to the station, I breathed an air of relief…she was finally there. I walked up to her and she seemed surprised seeing me coming from behind.Her expression fluctuated from the vacant looks to surprise and then to pleasure as she looked at the flowers in my hands. I thought she would finally speak out of the happiness of seeing me but she didn’t. I again asked her, her name. No reply. I told her my name. No change of expressions. I asked her if she would take me to the place where she got the flowers from.She pointed to the flowers in my hand with the expression; “but you already know where to find them”. All my questions were in vain…she kept looking at the flowers. So I offered her those. She patted them and then held them to her heart. Was I supposed to make anything out of the gesture of the young girl?
Suddenly, as the station clock sounded 1:00 PM her expression changed to worry. She tried to push me away. I couldn’t understand but then moved away to a nearby bench. She regained her former position…the same vacant expression, then same style of sitting with the flowers in her her lap. As if she was paid to sit like that. Soon I had the answer to my question. A girl came along with some food and then the 2 of them got together to eat. Oh…so she didn’t want to be seen with me. Over the food once in a while she kept glancing back at me. I watched her all this while and realised that she was talking...so she was'nt really dumb - I was the only prisoner to her-silences and eyes. I couldn’t make out what the 2 girls were talking about but then once the other girl turned to look at me. Maybe wildflower was telling the other girl about me…..
Lunch over, the other girl went away and wildflower regained her original position. After a while when I thought that no one would come back to disturb I again went back to her. This time I asked her why didn’t she talk to me? No reply. Would she like to go out with me to the town? She just shook her head. No. I told her I studied in Guwahati. No expression. Would she like to go to Guwahati? No reply. All my questions had the same 2 answer….either no reply or a shake of the head to indicate no.
After a while I got tired and frustrated of this game and went back to the bench. Who was this girl? For the whole day I hadn’t seen anyone buy a single flower from her. Why was I there at all? I was angry with my self for wasting the whole day about a stupid whim. I cursed myself as the girl continued to sit and stare vacantly into nothingness, holding the bunch I had given her in her hands- while the rest of the flowers lay in her lap.
My train arrived. I was so angry that I didn’t even say a bye to her. I boarded the train and again her eyes followed me. I didn’t care. I just wanted to get away. As the train started my eyes wanted to look at at her one last time. I turned towards the window and saw that she was still watching me intently.Or was she looking through me? I could'nt be sure... My anger surged and I looked away…..
Back to the college I decided to put all the thoughts about the flower girl out of my mind. But once in a while the vacant expression came back to me and so did the smell of the wild flowers. End of term arrived and it was time to go home for the final time. Amidst all the excitement of embarking on a new life of a professional, leaving college and goodbyes, I found myself getting excited about the flower girl as the hour of departure came closer. Despite my previous failed attempts. Despite my anger. Despite everything.
As Belagaon came into view my eyes scanned for her. I found her sitting at the same place. By sheer luck my compartment stopped right in front of her. But she wasn’t looking. I had a huge amount of luggage and was alone so couldn’t risk getting off the train. So I waved at her. She didn’t see me, even though those eyes were looking right through me. So I shouted out…”Phool wali….oh phool wali”. My fellow passengers gave me a weird look as to why would I want to buy flowers on the train. None of their business. If the flower sellers are there at the station, so were the buyers….
My shouts bore fruit and she looked at me, recognized me. But didn’t move. I kept calling her but of no avail. All she did was to look at me vacantly. I was angry again. Angry over her, angry with myself and angry for even thinking of her. I got back to the book I was reading and was cursing myself for the stupidity. The train coughed and then it was time to move. Maybe the last time at this station. As I raised my eyes to bid a final good bye I saw her standing at the window. Why so late? Why at all? I had a thousand questions…but didn’t know where to start. The next moment she was jogging with the train and I told her that I wouldn’t be coming back. I asked her, her name but she didn’t say a word. I asked her a thousand other things in those few seconds but she didn’t respond. I told her a few hundred things…my name, my city my address but she didn’t say a thing. She just ran with that robot like vacant expression of hers, one hand holding on to my window bar and the other clutching the precious flowers . I was debating with myself about pulling the chain….my fellow passengers must have been thinking me as mad. But I didn’t care. As the train was about to move out of the station; gathering speed my wildflower, dropped her bunch of flowers in my lap through the window and stopped running. I pressed my face at the window but could'nt see her so went to the door and stood waving at her. She saw me, smiled but never waved back. No goodbyes, no words. Just a bunch of white wild flowers when I came back to my seat. The flowers, like the rest of their predecessors found a place in the pages of the books I cherished.
That was the end of the story. In all those years I crossed the station several times but never saw her again. I never lost hope though. When the death statement was pronounced I prepared my “to-do list” and one of the items was to visit Belagaon- my last attempt to find the girl who had held me captive for so long. The place looked basically the same with a few new additions. The fruit stall was still there and so were the chai wallahs, the puri walla, the beggars and the jhaalmori wallahs.Even the bench where I had sat on my last visit.The only thing missing was her. I stared into the empty spot wondering for the nth time as to why was I here.
My journey outside the station to where her fingers had pointed long long ago, again yielded no results except that the flowers that were given to me by her found their resting place – under the same thicket where I had found flowers for her 30 years ago. I embarked on my return journey, marking a cross against this particular item in the “to do list”, bidding a final farewell to the place that had given me strange memories and emotions. As the train moved out of the station my eyes blurred with tears but then something caught my attention.
A single pristine white wild flower lay next to the fruit vendor’s stall exactly at t place where she used to sit. An oasis of calm in the sweating shouting desert of the crowds all around.....
I still remember the very first time I noticed her. It has been 30 odd years now but the memory is as fresh as if it happened just a few minutes back. Its strange how the mind (or is it the heart?) can hold on to the smallest detail, like the dress pattern, like the way her hair was falling on the forehead and forget that there is a class full of eager enthusiastic students who awaited me, everyday-maybe forced by the timetable if not by free will, till 12 weeks ago.
It was way back in 2000. The second last semester of Engineering had just got over. I had done quite well and the profs were impressed. Life seemed a bed of roses- extending into a high flying job with a big corporate house. All the hard work that I had taken over the past 3 years was paying back. I had no inkling that my life was going to be rocked out within the next few hours.
A couple of friends from hostel who also lived in the same city were taking the journey back home with me. It was 3:00 PM when we boarded the train and were supposed to be home by the dinner time. The weather in Gawhati was amazing as usual and some how I felt bad at leaving the awesome mausam and going back to the heat of the plains. Initially chirpy, all of us settled back with our own thoughts/books/ writings/discussions as the train gathered speed. I guess it happens with most of us…I call it “train-magic” – the ability of the train to lead people into a state of semi hypnosis where they see some random events of their lives race by-instead of the scenery. Since I got the window seat, I was the victim of one such hypnosis. Even though I had intended to read “The Thorn Birds” on way back home but the beautiful scenery in conspiracy with the train sound over the iron tracks enticed me into a web of thoughts- while the book lay unattended, deciphering my facial expressions from my lap.
I was shaken out of the reverie when the train made a stop at one of the small stations. Belagaon. Chai-wallahs, jhaalmori-wallahs, beggars, vegetable vendors, fruit stall wallahs were competing against one another at the loudest to attract customers, while the passengers rushed behind the collies carrying their luggage or guiding the children who wanted to have a free run on the station. A typical Indian station. I looked around and saw that my friends were dozing off – no one to give me company for checking out the station. I shook Puru and asked him if he would like to come…he refused. “Ok, then keep an eye on my stuff”, saying this I walked outside to get something to eat.
I refilled my water bottle and got 2 samosas plus a salted cucumber. Puru had woken up and was signaling to me to get him some guavas. I bought the guavas and since I did not have a one rupee change I went back to the train window to get the same. It was when I was coming back to the fruit vendor that I noticed her. She was no more than 15 years and sat just beside the fruit vendor stall selling wild flowers. She stared out into the crowded station looking into nothingness as the flowers lay in her lap. She shadowed them from the setting sun – with a possessiveness as if they were her own blood. Maybe they were- for she looked like an oasis of calm in the sweating shouting desert of the crowds milling around her. I stood watching her and then walked to her as a probable customer to her wares…Something about her faraway look wanted me to know her more…maybe her spirit was much older than the body…maybe being under the constant "train magic" had given her this pose and expression. She was there but she wasn't there.
There was no change in her blank expression as she saw me bending…but then as I enquired about the price of the flowers, she smiled. A smile that pulled me into the labyrinth of her eyes, closing the door to the world, to the sounds, to the waiting train and to everything else. She had the strangest kind of eyes I had ever seen. As a part of the compulsory social work during the first year in the college I had volunteered for an organization called Drishti. I had come across abused women, helpless adults, unwanted children, terminally sick mankind not to mention the varied assortments of people from asylums, the brain dead and the healthy whose brain were dying out a slow death. But then I hadn’t ever come across such a vacant expression…an expression that changed to immense beauty lighting up the whole universe the moment she smiled. She was not particularly attractive...it was the smile that made all the difference.But then the smile lasted for the smallest second and then she was again lost in some other universe. Without removing the eye contact or losing the vacant expression she raised her hand and put out a finger. Re1/- each Since she had only 5 plates of flowers I bought it all to look generous even though I had absolutely no clue as to what I was going to do with those flowers. She seemed surprised at my gesture but didn’t say a thing…I still wanted to hear her so I asked her where did she get those flowers from. Again she raised her finger and pointed behind her..the exit of the station. No answers about where in town or village or beyond. It could have been anywhere...even another corner of the world. Before I could even think what my next question the train hooted and it was time to go….Our eyes continued to be locked till I boarded the train.
Back on my window seat…as the train chugged out of the station she was still looking at me and so was I. My friends queried about what I was doing with flowers and the girl…and I replied something utterly foolish. They started making fun of me but I didn’t mind….my mind was elsewhere…with the flower I had just met…
I carefully hid the flowers (didn’t want my family to question me on my sudden interest in 5 plates of wild flowers). Once in the privacy of my room, I smelt them again. They were nice…exotic…and their smell different from any that I had ever felt before. My mind drifted back to the girl with the vacant eyes....with her image in my eyes and the smell of the wildflowers around me I slept off.
Holidays went as usual but each day found me thinking about her…Contrary to previous occasions I was happy to go back to the college this time because it would give me 10 minutes to talk to the flower girl. Meanwhile one part of my mind was wondering if I would find her there. What if? And even if I could find her what would I talk to the teenager? Tell her that I had been thinking of her every day? That sounded even weird to me, even though I knew my interests in her were absolutely platonic…
I was at the train’s door even before it had chugged into Belagaon. My eyes scanned the crowds and located her…she had the same vacant expression, the same posture of sitting, the same clothes…it almost seemed that that time had not moved since I last saw her. As soon as the train slowed I jumped out and….now what? The questions came back to me…I stood watching her for a while as people jostled around her. Suddenly a push from behind and I was carried right in front of her. And then she saw me.Her eyes lit up…so she recognized me…it pleased me to no extent to think that she had been waiting all this while for me…I moved closer and bent again in front of her. She offered me the flowers and I bought all of them yet again. I asked her what her name was. No reply. Where did she live? No reply. Where did she get the flowers from? No reply…just the same old gesture that she had given the last time…outside the station. Where outside the station? No reply. I worded a few praises about the flower but the only response was a flash of brilliant smile and then she would get back in the closet with that vacant expression. As the train hooted it was time to go again….precious 10 minutes wasted without a single question answered. Like the last time her eyes followed me back to my seat and still followed as the train moved again….
Back to my thoughts, I wondered about her. Was she dumb? Or too shy? I was not sure. I hadn’t heard her speak even once. But her eyes…those eyes were like the wildest forests..inaccessible, yet inviting. I knew they would bring me back there soon and this time it had to earlier than then the end of the term. Since the decrepit Belagaon was only an hour away from Guwahati I decided to visit it over the following weekend early morning and maybe spend the whole day there. I could catch the evening 3:00PM train back. My thoughts took a steely resolve as I smelt the wildflowers.
Next weekend I told no one (my friends would have called me crazy) and took the 6 AM train to Belagaon. As the familiar station came into view I found that she was not there. OMG. I hadn’t planned this turn of events. Suppose if she didn’t come the whole day? What would I do? I got off the train planning what to do. Then decided to take a walk outside the station to where her fingers had pointed. Maybe she lived nearby or maybe I could find her collecting flowers somewhere….
Outside the station the early winter morning wore a bare look. The sun was trying to break through through the clouds and the air smelt of fresh puris and chai. I ate a couple had a kulhad of chai- a rarity now and was all charged for the exploration. Within half an hour I knew all the roads by heart. It was really a small town, rather a modern village that had developed being on the outskirts of Guwahati. According to my rough estimate not more than 200 families lived there. Most of them were the natives from the hills and they survived on agriculture.
My problem now was how to find my wildflower. I again came back to the station looking for her. Still not there. Again outside the station Iheaded to the woods that were close to the station…maybe if I could find her there.
The woods were beautiful. Simple village folk looked at me with a surprised expression. What was a young city guy doing there alone? I smiled at them but it did not occur to me that I could ask one of them about the flower girl who sat at the station. Or maybe I wanted to keep that as the last option. Soon I was out of the stretch of habitation and the woods merged into a real forest. It was quiet and felt cold even thought the sun was out. Soon I came across a thicket of wild flowers….the same smell…so I had found the flowers but not the one flower I was looking for….
My mind questioned me about the next action. I decided not to go deeper into the woods...didn't want to get lost.Should I wait for a while there or should I head back to the station? The second seemed more reasonable since she could be getting the flowers from elsewhere and not necessarily from the particular part of the forest. But before leaving, I took a bunch of flowers….her flowers. Somehow the smell made me think that she was close by….
Back to the station, I breathed an air of relief…she was finally there. I walked up to her and she seemed surprised seeing me coming from behind.Her expression fluctuated from the vacant looks to surprise and then to pleasure as she looked at the flowers in my hands. I thought she would finally speak out of the happiness of seeing me but she didn’t. I again asked her, her name. No reply. I told her my name. No change of expressions. I asked her if she would take me to the place where she got the flowers from.She pointed to the flowers in my hand with the expression; “but you already know where to find them”. All my questions were in vain…she kept looking at the flowers. So I offered her those. She patted them and then held them to her heart. Was I supposed to make anything out of the gesture of the young girl?
Suddenly, as the station clock sounded 1:00 PM her expression changed to worry. She tried to push me away. I couldn’t understand but then moved away to a nearby bench. She regained her former position…the same vacant expression, then same style of sitting with the flowers in her her lap. As if she was paid to sit like that. Soon I had the answer to my question. A girl came along with some food and then the 2 of them got together to eat. Oh…so she didn’t want to be seen with me. Over the food once in a while she kept glancing back at me. I watched her all this while and realised that she was talking...so she was'nt really dumb - I was the only prisoner to her-silences and eyes. I couldn’t make out what the 2 girls were talking about but then once the other girl turned to look at me. Maybe wildflower was telling the other girl about me…..
Lunch over, the other girl went away and wildflower regained her original position. After a while when I thought that no one would come back to disturb I again went back to her. This time I asked her why didn’t she talk to me? No reply. Would she like to go out with me to the town? She just shook her head. No. I told her I studied in Guwahati. No expression. Would she like to go to Guwahati? No reply. All my questions had the same 2 answer….either no reply or a shake of the head to indicate no.
After a while I got tired and frustrated of this game and went back to the bench. Who was this girl? For the whole day I hadn’t seen anyone buy a single flower from her. Why was I there at all? I was angry with my self for wasting the whole day about a stupid whim. I cursed myself as the girl continued to sit and stare vacantly into nothingness, holding the bunch I had given her in her hands- while the rest of the flowers lay in her lap.
My train arrived. I was so angry that I didn’t even say a bye to her. I boarded the train and again her eyes followed me. I didn’t care. I just wanted to get away. As the train started my eyes wanted to look at at her one last time. I turned towards the window and saw that she was still watching me intently.Or was she looking through me? I could'nt be sure... My anger surged and I looked away…..
Back to the college I decided to put all the thoughts about the flower girl out of my mind. But once in a while the vacant expression came back to me and so did the smell of the wild flowers. End of term arrived and it was time to go home for the final time. Amidst all the excitement of embarking on a new life of a professional, leaving college and goodbyes, I found myself getting excited about the flower girl as the hour of departure came closer. Despite my previous failed attempts. Despite my anger. Despite everything.
As Belagaon came into view my eyes scanned for her. I found her sitting at the same place. By sheer luck my compartment stopped right in front of her. But she wasn’t looking. I had a huge amount of luggage and was alone so couldn’t risk getting off the train. So I waved at her. She didn’t see me, even though those eyes were looking right through me. So I shouted out…”Phool wali….oh phool wali”. My fellow passengers gave me a weird look as to why would I want to buy flowers on the train. None of their business. If the flower sellers are there at the station, so were the buyers….
My shouts bore fruit and she looked at me, recognized me. But didn’t move. I kept calling her but of no avail. All she did was to look at me vacantly. I was angry again. Angry over her, angry with myself and angry for even thinking of her. I got back to the book I was reading and was cursing myself for the stupidity. The train coughed and then it was time to move. Maybe the last time at this station. As I raised my eyes to bid a final good bye I saw her standing at the window. Why so late? Why at all? I had a thousand questions…but didn’t know where to start. The next moment she was jogging with the train and I told her that I wouldn’t be coming back. I asked her, her name but she didn’t say a word. I asked her a thousand other things in those few seconds but she didn’t respond. I told her a few hundred things…my name, my city my address but she didn’t say a thing. She just ran with that robot like vacant expression of hers, one hand holding on to my window bar and the other clutching the precious flowers . I was debating with myself about pulling the chain….my fellow passengers must have been thinking me as mad. But I didn’t care. As the train was about to move out of the station; gathering speed my wildflower, dropped her bunch of flowers in my lap through the window and stopped running. I pressed my face at the window but could'nt see her so went to the door and stood waving at her. She saw me, smiled but never waved back. No goodbyes, no words. Just a bunch of white wild flowers when I came back to my seat. The flowers, like the rest of their predecessors found a place in the pages of the books I cherished.
That was the end of the story. In all those years I crossed the station several times but never saw her again. I never lost hope though. When the death statement was pronounced I prepared my “to-do list” and one of the items was to visit Belagaon- my last attempt to find the girl who had held me captive for so long. The place looked basically the same with a few new additions. The fruit stall was still there and so were the chai wallahs, the puri walla, the beggars and the jhaalmori wallahs.Even the bench where I had sat on my last visit.The only thing missing was her. I stared into the empty spot wondering for the nth time as to why was I here.
My journey outside the station to where her fingers had pointed long long ago, again yielded no results except that the flowers that were given to me by her found their resting place – under the same thicket where I had found flowers for her 30 years ago. I embarked on my return journey, marking a cross against this particular item in the “to do list”, bidding a final farewell to the place that had given me strange memories and emotions. As the train moved out of the station my eyes blurred with tears but then something caught my attention.
A single pristine white wild flower lay next to the fruit vendor’s stall exactly at t place where she used to sit. An oasis of calm in the sweating shouting desert of the crowds all around.....
Author's Note: The location is as fictious as the story itself.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
The Journey with true India
It had been a busy day. I was going home for almost 6 weeks just before the graduation second year exams. This meant I carried the thick recommended course books home not to mention the n number of print outs taken from the so called reference material. The fact that I was a girl and needed to carry all the dresses (after all I needed to look good @ home) and shoes back didn’t help a single bit to the whole situation. Finally when every thing was packed I had an unliftable suitcase and another mammoth bag full of books…which I couldn’t even move a centimeter. However, being a regular traveler (and a pro to this kind of situations) I was sure that some kindly uncleji or bhaiyaji or a youngster would help me out.
The train stopped for 5 minutes at the small station that was near the hostel. I bid farewell to my mates and headed to the station at around 7:30 PM. Dinner was yet not ready so I had to skip it but the kindly Bihari Bhaiya who managed the mess had packed something for me to eat on the train. When I reached the station it was unusually silent and deserted. “Maybe not too many people on the Triveni Express tonight”, was my thought. I wasn’t unusually worried. I called home on reaching the station from the PCO booth (mobiles were still a rarity- especially amongst students) and it was then the information bomb exploded.
My mom told me that there had been a huge rally of the Dalits (which later became known as the Thu-Thu Rally) organized by our very own Mayawati aka Behanji at Lucknow and all the people who had attended it from the regions around Allahabad/my home town were supposed to return by the train I was to take. I made further enquiries and I realized that the train was late by 3 hours. My mom asked me to immediately leave and catch the train from the Central station because she didn’t want me to give company to drunkards, madmen and other unholy elements for the next 4 hours at the deserted station. I did as I was told but it wasn’t all that easy….
Allahabad is basically a student city, dotted with colleges and hostels. It’s old as well with full of sprawling English style bungalows, huge lawns and “a-first-timer-will-get-lost” kinda parks and gardens. Usually its calm but then there is no dearth of the guys commenting/ ogling / trying to be over friendly with the girls. Late hours after darkness aren’t really safe with incidents of chain and purse snatching being common. The Central Station was at the other end of the city- almost 15 kms away and I was supposed to go alone on a rickshaw with 2 unmanageable luggage through dark streets crossing not less than 3 boys hostels and a stretch of 1 kilometer that I usually didn’t even take during the day- thanks to the “incidents” and the ghosts that prowled the area. But at the moment I had no option. I had to go and that was it.
The ride to the station was uneventful…I had put on the jacket hood so as not to be recognized as a girl on the dark roads. I wasn’t really worried about the luggage because I knew no one could snatch it. No ghosts and no unfriendly elements appeared. Once at the station amidst bustling crowds and screaming children things looked easy, all I had to do was to sit and wait for another few hours and the train would be there. I had enough novels to kill time for the whole night. I had already hired a coolie and he was supposed to place my things on the train once it came. He had made me sit at the moment near the place where my boggie as per the reservation ticket. I took out a book and soon was into another world…..I had thought about taking the dinner there but closed in the web of the book a cold dinner didn’t look really tantalizing.
11:20 PM. Frantic announcements about the arrival of Triveni Express within the next 15 minutes brought me back to the reality. The coolie was also prancing around and he even queried about my huge luggage and unaccompanied status. I answered as much as I could but then he said something that made my blood go cold “Beti, aaj train mein bahut bheed hogi, koi reservation se nahi chalega- aap kaise jaoge?” (“Child, the train would be crowded and there wouldn’t be anyone following the reservation system- so how would you go?”) I was in a fix...I couldn’t go back to the hostel, I couldn’t stay at the station and here he was telling me about the train….Finally I decided to go…it seemed senseless not to go when I had already crossed one hurdle of coming to the station. Just another hurdle remained…getting on the train with my things and I was sure I could manage it somehow. Once inside some one kind enough would let me sit and then by morning I would be home…so what if a bit late…..
The train arrived…it was packed to capacity and it looked impossible that anyone could get in. Yet people poured in endlessly and so did I with the flow of the crowd. I had my reservation but then the reserved compartment looked the same if not worse than a general class.The coolie got my things…but the problem was I couldn’t go beyond the first compartment…people were all over, the seats, the floor, one guy was sitting on the top of the door. To make matters worse, I couldn’t find a single educated person in the whole ocean of faces around me. It was a crowd straight out of the poorest villages of India, people for whom getting 2 meals a day was more than what they could ask for. And God!! How the whole place smelt…like an athlete’s closet full of unwashed sportswear.
The eternal optimist in me told me that it was just a matter of few hours and I would be home, while the practical me wanted me to get off from the train at that moment. But the practical I was defeated because I was “locked” now. I had atleast 40 people between me and the door and there was no way I could move with my things in any direction forget towards the door.
Since there wasn’t any space on the seats I sat down on the bag- the bag that was full of books. I was already an object of curiosity a bespectacled, jeans-t-shirt clad girl with so much luggage traveling alone. Women nudged each other looking at me and children wanted to touch me. I cared about none. My mind was focused on nice things, which would take me away from the reality of the whole night ahead of me, the dank smelling compartment, the fact that I was hungry, thirsty and wanted to go to the loo and the terrible back ache that grew worse every moment due to the lack of back support.
The train moved but it was more like a bullock cart. The chains were pulled at every station and even at places where there was no station- the country folk knew the road nearest to home and they were unwilling to walk more or to take another means of transport from the stations where the train was actually supposed to stop. It was already 1:30 AM and we hadn’t really made a huge progress. I had finished off with the list of the “imaginable good things” and hence they no longer acted as a barrier to reality. I took a look around and all of a sudden I felt the patriotic uprising within myself. I thought about the then unknown lawyer Mohandas Karam Chand Gandhi whose life got shaped on one such trai journey in South Africa. These were my own country men and my education was doing nothing towards there welfare, nor it would ever. I would, the way things were going would have a nice job and all the comforts but what about these people? They would remain the same even 10 years down the line. They would smell the same, travel the same way and would not know that no numbers of “Thu-Thu rallies” would bring even a minute improvement to their fates. Was there something I could do for those teeming millions? Could I get into an administrative job instead of the MBA I wanted to be? Thoughts like this floated around until the day’s tiredness took over and I fell asleep sitting on my bag of books my head in my lap.
It was morning when I woke up. It wasn’t a huge progress that we had made in the hours of darkness but then we were moving and home was closer than what it was a few hours ago. However the crowd looked the same to me….there wasn’t a difference in their numbers. But then, everyone had a few inches of space to sit in the tin of sardines. A child sat next to me with her free flowing nose. She was looking at me with awed wonder and I smiled back at her, a smile that was acknowledged by her mother who sat next to her. I figured out that the child’s name was Gudiya and so I called out to her. She immediately came over and held my hands. I started talking to her and soon she was busy laughing and playing, like kids usually do. That made the time go faster…..I was already half dead with hunger the pain in my neck and the by sitting in a hunched position for so long.
It was around 10 AM that some police men came on a round. I had dozed off and was woken up by a thud against the bag I was sitting on. I opened my eyes and it was Mr. Policeman. He asked me what I had inside such a heavy bag. I said books and he didn’t want to believe me. He started lecturing me on bombs and how “people like me” were responsible for the blasts around the country. Me? Blasts? Bombs? I who couldn’t even light a cracker on Diwali? It didn’t make sense so I showed him the ID card and told him I was going home just before exams. Still not pacified. Looking back I realize that there was no doubt about my identity ever. All he wanted was to have a conversation with me and maybe bug me a little. His next interrogation item really pissed me off because he wanted me to open up my bag and show him in. All the pent up anger over the delays and tiredness from the day before came back and I told him I wasn’t showing him a thing...how could he imagine a girl like me traveling alone to be carrying bombs? And if at all he wanted to check my bags he should first create a space of atleast 1 meter on each side. He seemed surprised that I had spoken up and mumbled something but then got away. Gudiya’s mom looked at me with awed attention – she who in all probability hadn’t spoken to any male except her husband in atleast her adult life. The men folk started chatting about how the policemen are all mixed with criminals and soon the conversation took an interesting turn about the politicians. It gave me a first hand view of how the commonest of the common people see the leaders. As Gods. Mayawati is in demand because during her campaign she had provided 2 blankets and a bowl/utensil to each of the families. Sonia Gandhi wasn’t in demand because she had given only one blanket and a day’s meal. I realized that India will always have scams and a bad political situation till the time the majority of the voters were like these-the one who did not have a vision beyond the next meal and the next winter. Somewhere unconsciously, I was so carried on by the discussion that I forgot where I was and gave some input about a much younger politician. I was again the focus of attention (the kind of attention that told that Mayawati and Sonia Gandhi were the only women whom the men traveling with me had heard discussing politics). My opinion was turned down and I didn’t dare to argue further because I didn’t dare to test the political bent of mind of people who were back from a rally. But then I was in the lime light now. A high school drop who was a glib talker (Chandu was his name as I later gathered) and looked like a politician’s chamcha came over and sat beside me. He asked me my surname and what my father did. He spoke aloud about how I with all the “Wealth of my knowledge” could join politics and maybe become an MLA from some unknown village(s) in Bihar. His conversation though intriguing and motivating made me laugh, because I never had any political ambitions. Soon he was discussing the local politics and even gave me his phone number so as to reach him when-ever I wanted to be in for this. He even told me that the local MLA’s son was a good friend of his and was looking for an educated wife, who would pave the way the way to the top. He said I fitted the bill perfectly with my high caste, serious looks and short hair (! ##$$$???) I ignored the comments because I didn’t want to be the attention of a pack of goons from the next day onwards.
Our conversation (trust me, that was the longest conversation I had pertaining to politics in my whole life) could have gone on and on hadn’t the police guy arrived again. Chandu called him over (as if he were an old friend) and told him that I was a perfect to be some Dineshji’s future wife. The policeman looked at me again and gave a weird expression. He asked Chandu to get some tea and biscuits for “Didiji” (well that’s me :-)). I refused, saying I didn’t drink tea. At this the policeman kicked at the butt of Gudiya’s father and blowing out some expletives said aloud in the local dialect “How could you let didiji sit on the bag for the whole night…she should have the whole berth” Then he mumbled sorry for his earlier inconsistencies and the bad experience I had in the train and with him. It looked funny to me to see the turn around in his behaviour….
Soon I had a whole berth to me. The people didn’t want to sit at the same berth because news had spread around that I was a high class Brahmin. I invited them over to sit instead of the floor and they looked at me with surprised pleasure- as if they hadn’t expected that out of a fellow human being. The last hour on the train was the most comfortable one an soon it was time to get home. I was worried about how I would get my luggage out but then I shouldn’t have- I had a whole compartment full of people willing to do something for me….I was escorted to the awaiting car and finally felt relaxed to be finally home(well almost).
I never joined politics and chose to be a consultant rather. Those people must have gone ahead with their lives affected but the churns in the political climate – a blanket here, a meal there, some cattle a bag of wheat….Mayawati is still the dalit Goddess and Chandu must be there acting as a link between one of the MLAs and the poor people , earning a few rupees in middle. The MLA’s son got married to a local business man’s daughter who was 11th dropout. Te marriage was covered by the local press. Gudiya must be 8 by now, ready to embark on the hard life of a woman in the Indian villages.
Do you think are we really free?
The train stopped for 5 minutes at the small station that was near the hostel. I bid farewell to my mates and headed to the station at around 7:30 PM. Dinner was yet not ready so I had to skip it but the kindly Bihari Bhaiya who managed the mess had packed something for me to eat on the train. When I reached the station it was unusually silent and deserted. “Maybe not too many people on the Triveni Express tonight”, was my thought. I wasn’t unusually worried. I called home on reaching the station from the PCO booth (mobiles were still a rarity- especially amongst students) and it was then the information bomb exploded.
My mom told me that there had been a huge rally of the Dalits (which later became known as the Thu-Thu Rally) organized by our very own Mayawati aka Behanji at Lucknow and all the people who had attended it from the regions around Allahabad/my home town were supposed to return by the train I was to take. I made further enquiries and I realized that the train was late by 3 hours. My mom asked me to immediately leave and catch the train from the Central station because she didn’t want me to give company to drunkards, madmen and other unholy elements for the next 4 hours at the deserted station. I did as I was told but it wasn’t all that easy….
Allahabad is basically a student city, dotted with colleges and hostels. It’s old as well with full of sprawling English style bungalows, huge lawns and “a-first-timer-will-get-lost” kinda parks and gardens. Usually its calm but then there is no dearth of the guys commenting/ ogling / trying to be over friendly with the girls. Late hours after darkness aren’t really safe with incidents of chain and purse snatching being common. The Central Station was at the other end of the city- almost 15 kms away and I was supposed to go alone on a rickshaw with 2 unmanageable luggage through dark streets crossing not less than 3 boys hostels and a stretch of 1 kilometer that I usually didn’t even take during the day- thanks to the “incidents” and the ghosts that prowled the area. But at the moment I had no option. I had to go and that was it.
The ride to the station was uneventful…I had put on the jacket hood so as not to be recognized as a girl on the dark roads. I wasn’t really worried about the luggage because I knew no one could snatch it. No ghosts and no unfriendly elements appeared. Once at the station amidst bustling crowds and screaming children things looked easy, all I had to do was to sit and wait for another few hours and the train would be there. I had enough novels to kill time for the whole night. I had already hired a coolie and he was supposed to place my things on the train once it came. He had made me sit at the moment near the place where my boggie as per the reservation ticket. I took out a book and soon was into another world…..I had thought about taking the dinner there but closed in the web of the book a cold dinner didn’t look really tantalizing.
11:20 PM. Frantic announcements about the arrival of Triveni Express within the next 15 minutes brought me back to the reality. The coolie was also prancing around and he even queried about my huge luggage and unaccompanied status. I answered as much as I could but then he said something that made my blood go cold “Beti, aaj train mein bahut bheed hogi, koi reservation se nahi chalega- aap kaise jaoge?” (“Child, the train would be crowded and there wouldn’t be anyone following the reservation system- so how would you go?”) I was in a fix...I couldn’t go back to the hostel, I couldn’t stay at the station and here he was telling me about the train….Finally I decided to go…it seemed senseless not to go when I had already crossed one hurdle of coming to the station. Just another hurdle remained…getting on the train with my things and I was sure I could manage it somehow. Once inside some one kind enough would let me sit and then by morning I would be home…so what if a bit late…..
The train arrived…it was packed to capacity and it looked impossible that anyone could get in. Yet people poured in endlessly and so did I with the flow of the crowd. I had my reservation but then the reserved compartment looked the same if not worse than a general class.The coolie got my things…but the problem was I couldn’t go beyond the first compartment…people were all over, the seats, the floor, one guy was sitting on the top of the door. To make matters worse, I couldn’t find a single educated person in the whole ocean of faces around me. It was a crowd straight out of the poorest villages of India, people for whom getting 2 meals a day was more than what they could ask for. And God!! How the whole place smelt…like an athlete’s closet full of unwashed sportswear.
The eternal optimist in me told me that it was just a matter of few hours and I would be home, while the practical me wanted me to get off from the train at that moment. But the practical I was defeated because I was “locked” now. I had atleast 40 people between me and the door and there was no way I could move with my things in any direction forget towards the door.
Since there wasn’t any space on the seats I sat down on the bag- the bag that was full of books. I was already an object of curiosity a bespectacled, jeans-t-shirt clad girl with so much luggage traveling alone. Women nudged each other looking at me and children wanted to touch me. I cared about none. My mind was focused on nice things, which would take me away from the reality of the whole night ahead of me, the dank smelling compartment, the fact that I was hungry, thirsty and wanted to go to the loo and the terrible back ache that grew worse every moment due to the lack of back support.
The train moved but it was more like a bullock cart. The chains were pulled at every station and even at places where there was no station- the country folk knew the road nearest to home and they were unwilling to walk more or to take another means of transport from the stations where the train was actually supposed to stop. It was already 1:30 AM and we hadn’t really made a huge progress. I had finished off with the list of the “imaginable good things” and hence they no longer acted as a barrier to reality. I took a look around and all of a sudden I felt the patriotic uprising within myself. I thought about the then unknown lawyer Mohandas Karam Chand Gandhi whose life got shaped on one such trai journey in South Africa. These were my own country men and my education was doing nothing towards there welfare, nor it would ever. I would, the way things were going would have a nice job and all the comforts but what about these people? They would remain the same even 10 years down the line. They would smell the same, travel the same way and would not know that no numbers of “Thu-Thu rallies” would bring even a minute improvement to their fates. Was there something I could do for those teeming millions? Could I get into an administrative job instead of the MBA I wanted to be? Thoughts like this floated around until the day’s tiredness took over and I fell asleep sitting on my bag of books my head in my lap.
It was morning when I woke up. It wasn’t a huge progress that we had made in the hours of darkness but then we were moving and home was closer than what it was a few hours ago. However the crowd looked the same to me….there wasn’t a difference in their numbers. But then, everyone had a few inches of space to sit in the tin of sardines. A child sat next to me with her free flowing nose. She was looking at me with awed wonder and I smiled back at her, a smile that was acknowledged by her mother who sat next to her. I figured out that the child’s name was Gudiya and so I called out to her. She immediately came over and held my hands. I started talking to her and soon she was busy laughing and playing, like kids usually do. That made the time go faster…..I was already half dead with hunger the pain in my neck and the by sitting in a hunched position for so long.
It was around 10 AM that some police men came on a round. I had dozed off and was woken up by a thud against the bag I was sitting on. I opened my eyes and it was Mr. Policeman. He asked me what I had inside such a heavy bag. I said books and he didn’t want to believe me. He started lecturing me on bombs and how “people like me” were responsible for the blasts around the country. Me? Blasts? Bombs? I who couldn’t even light a cracker on Diwali? It didn’t make sense so I showed him the ID card and told him I was going home just before exams. Still not pacified. Looking back I realize that there was no doubt about my identity ever. All he wanted was to have a conversation with me and maybe bug me a little. His next interrogation item really pissed me off because he wanted me to open up my bag and show him in. All the pent up anger over the delays and tiredness from the day before came back and I told him I wasn’t showing him a thing...how could he imagine a girl like me traveling alone to be carrying bombs? And if at all he wanted to check my bags he should first create a space of atleast 1 meter on each side. He seemed surprised that I had spoken up and mumbled something but then got away. Gudiya’s mom looked at me with awed attention – she who in all probability hadn’t spoken to any male except her husband in atleast her adult life. The men folk started chatting about how the policemen are all mixed with criminals and soon the conversation took an interesting turn about the politicians. It gave me a first hand view of how the commonest of the common people see the leaders. As Gods. Mayawati is in demand because during her campaign she had provided 2 blankets and a bowl/utensil to each of the families. Sonia Gandhi wasn’t in demand because she had given only one blanket and a day’s meal. I realized that India will always have scams and a bad political situation till the time the majority of the voters were like these-the one who did not have a vision beyond the next meal and the next winter. Somewhere unconsciously, I was so carried on by the discussion that I forgot where I was and gave some input about a much younger politician. I was again the focus of attention (the kind of attention that told that Mayawati and Sonia Gandhi were the only women whom the men traveling with me had heard discussing politics). My opinion was turned down and I didn’t dare to argue further because I didn’t dare to test the political bent of mind of people who were back from a rally. But then I was in the lime light now. A high school drop who was a glib talker (Chandu was his name as I later gathered) and looked like a politician’s chamcha came over and sat beside me. He asked me my surname and what my father did. He spoke aloud about how I with all the “Wealth of my knowledge” could join politics and maybe become an MLA from some unknown village(s) in Bihar. His conversation though intriguing and motivating made me laugh, because I never had any political ambitions. Soon he was discussing the local politics and even gave me his phone number so as to reach him when-ever I wanted to be in for this. He even told me that the local MLA’s son was a good friend of his and was looking for an educated wife, who would pave the way the way to the top. He said I fitted the bill perfectly with my high caste, serious looks and short hair (! ##$$$???) I ignored the comments because I didn’t want to be the attention of a pack of goons from the next day onwards.
Our conversation (trust me, that was the longest conversation I had pertaining to politics in my whole life) could have gone on and on hadn’t the police guy arrived again. Chandu called him over (as if he were an old friend) and told him that I was a perfect to be some Dineshji’s future wife. The policeman looked at me again and gave a weird expression. He asked Chandu to get some tea and biscuits for “Didiji” (well that’s me :-)). I refused, saying I didn’t drink tea. At this the policeman kicked at the butt of Gudiya’s father and blowing out some expletives said aloud in the local dialect “How could you let didiji sit on the bag for the whole night…she should have the whole berth” Then he mumbled sorry for his earlier inconsistencies and the bad experience I had in the train and with him. It looked funny to me to see the turn around in his behaviour….
Soon I had a whole berth to me. The people didn’t want to sit at the same berth because news had spread around that I was a high class Brahmin. I invited them over to sit instead of the floor and they looked at me with surprised pleasure- as if they hadn’t expected that out of a fellow human being. The last hour on the train was the most comfortable one an soon it was time to get home. I was worried about how I would get my luggage out but then I shouldn’t have- I had a whole compartment full of people willing to do something for me….I was escorted to the awaiting car and finally felt relaxed to be finally home(well almost).
I never joined politics and chose to be a consultant rather. Those people must have gone ahead with their lives affected but the churns in the political climate – a blanket here, a meal there, some cattle a bag of wheat….Mayawati is still the dalit Goddess and Chandu must be there acting as a link between one of the MLAs and the poor people , earning a few rupees in middle. The MLA’s son got married to a local business man’s daughter who was 11th dropout. Te marriage was covered by the local press. Gudiya must be 8 by now, ready to embark on the hard life of a woman in the Indian villages.
Do you think are we really free?
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