Friday, October 2, 2009

23 hours of solitude….
I have two other friends who are from my city and study in my college, yet every time I go home during the holidays, I have to travel alone. Of all reasons- attending summer semesters, not wanting to go home, or a trip to Agra with friends (or Lucknow or any god forsaken place) -this time I wasn’t graced with their presence for the worst reasons of all-they missed the bloody train.
Most of the time I have a smooth ride home owing to the delay in the arrival of trains. No, I’m not trying to sound ironical-when my train from Allahabad is late, it actually shortens my journey-coz the time gap between the two trains which take me to Rourkela is reduced. But this time the impossible happened-the train reached before time at both the stations-which means I reached Bilaspur at 3:30 in the morning, and my next train was 7 hours later. To make matters worse, I had forgotten my earphones at my hostel….music, my faithful companion had ditched me this time.
The first hour passed with me trying not to fall asleep….then the tea stall opened-and I don’t know what the owner put in that small cup of hot brew but it kept me awake for the rest of the journey. I didn’t go to the waiting room as I was afraid I would step on the numerous people sleeping on the floor. And I didn’t go outside coz my luggage was punishingly heavy….how did one laptop and 6 pairs of clothing weighed more than a 7 year old is another story. Not to forget I needed protection, coz two months of hostel food had made me hollow from the inside. So there I sat… surrounded by hundred different kinds of people yet alone. And then I observed very interesting event…..

I was trying to find if my e-mail about a Michael Jackson article had made it to the ‘Your letters’ section of the latest issue of TIME magazine I was holding when I saw a young kid dressed in what appeared to be very old t-shirt with a printed message: ‘I was born intelligent but education ruined me’. He was holding a broom in one hand and was possibly waiting for a train to make money by sweeping the floor. He looked as if he hadn’t eaten for days….he sat with the bridge of his nose tucked between his knees and I saw his that forearms were unbelievably thin. I had a box of fried rice I bought from a takeaway restaurant at the Allahabad station and was about to reach for it when a generous looking woman offered him a 5 rupee note. He looked her in the eye and replied ‘hum unke jaise thodi hai aunty, kaam karlenge phir dijiyega’ pointing at a beggar woman(I am not like them, pay me after I do my job). The ‘aunty’ guiltily withdrew the money. The box of food was in my hand. I put it back, returned to my magazine and let the boy have his moment of pride.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

who's right and who's wrong

23rd may 2009


on the 23rd of April ,i was sleeping past 12 noon.no, i wasn't in bed. i was sleeping because i wasn't at the polling station. a lot of my friends made fun of each other based on the little TV ad in which a guy is serving tea to people on election day so as to 'wake them up' while i wondered how could the elections effect my life. i asked myself what good can come from voting for some sardar who did nothing when terrorists were touring like a rock band through the big cities of our country or for some 76 year old who advertises for himself on face book but promises different things to people of different religion or some third party leader who got an engineer killed for a birthday bash.......


the big question is not why to choose or how to choose but who to choose. from a layman's view there is not one person in the country on whom we can rely and say that we trust him/her with our money and our vote. we have a tendulkar in sports , a rahman in music, people like swaminathan and apj abdul kalaam in science; why not a world class leader in the government? right now its not about choosing the right guy, it's about rejecting the bigger criminal. these were the thoughts running through my head a month ago.


yesterday i was watching the swearing in ceremony and i noticed the average age of the cabinet members was about 68 years ......and i started thinking again.....every government official retires at sixty but the govt is itself seventy years old. doesn't the old law apply here? issues like these make us question our own claim to be the most successful democracy in the world.


then why should we vote? and the answer is quite simple ....we should vote because we ourselves should not be guilty of neglecting our constitutional duty- the same thing we accuse our leaders of.maybe such a situation would never have aroused if we were more responsible in the first place.so if u thought your vote didn't matter , think again.