Theft at Gandhi's Grave

“Holy day or just a holiday?” I took pride in this poor attempt at cynical pun. Today was a holiday but still I wasn’t happy when I woke up, reason being my father had told me that we would be going to Raj Ghat to see Gandhi’s tomb and pay our respects to him. I wasn’t interested; my mom even resented the idea. 

It was hot but not far. We reached Raj Ghat in less than half an hour. The place wasn’t as crowded as I expected it to be. Not shockingly, Anna Hazare was also present, there was a small contingent of about 50 people around him, then there were tourists; local and foreign, a hoard of school children in Blue and white, and who could miss the loud and happy tamilians. 

The tomb was beautifully flower decorated for the occasion. I could say it was special because there was more than just the Genda Phool that you find everywhere in Delhi. People stood by the tomb, near the flowers, behind the torch and posed at a thousand more places in the 15 X 15 space. Momdad went ahead close to the tomb to offer the fist full of Genda Phool that they had bought at the gate for 10 rupees. I decided to stand this one out, I stood leaning to the parapet wall surrounding the tomb and looked at the crowd. Some offered flowers, some bowed their head and some just wanted to click more and more photos.

Just a couple minutes later I saw my parents panic stricken faces. My mom’s purse had been stolen. A girl had put her hand into my mom’s handbag and had stolen the purse while in the crowd paying respects. We were aghast. Spoke to the security nearby, and looked for the purse hoping to find it fallen nearby, but it was stolen, deliberately and consciously stolen.

I was angry, at mother for being careless, at father for thinking up this useless plan and at myself for not bothering to stick with my mother in a crowd. Then I was angry at the thief, she had stolen right in front of Mahatma Gandhi’s tomb! Such irony!!

It reminded me of a line said by an 18^th century poet, he says “No man can be patriot on an empty stomach” Ofcourse he died 69 years before Gandhi was born. But there was only 1 Gandhi(and there were many other great patriots in history who almost fasted to their death), but the saying holds good for the thief, she was just trying to make a living, steal in front of Gandhi’s grave or from a pretty dame, it was just an attempt to feed herself. 

We spent the whole journey back thinking of what was lost and talking about how we could’ve prevented it and how people have lost their conscience. Stealing in front of Bapu! 6 hours after the incident I was still thinking, not about our loss, but the Gandhi connection. How these values of truth and justice and honesty and everything has turned out to remain just a sound of humbug! I thought about the Irony again and again, Theft right in front of Gandhi’s grave, how ironic how ironic... I said that aloud once.. then silently again. Then it struck me.. this wasn’t ironic, it was symbolic. Theft at Gandhi’s grave.

Strike The Root of Penury, Strike Not the Heart

Crisp Air turned Pungent and rolling wheels stuck. That’s the September of 2012 in Bangalore. Just after the BBMP called an indefinite Strike regarding the garbage clearing problem, five employ unions of the BMTC, KSRTC, NWKRTC and NEKRTC together called for an indefinite strike against the management calls of a 10% hike. The 10% salary Hike was not all that the Strike was based on, but it sure was the tipping point for the men. 

Talking about Strikes, they are not bad things.(in fact very good things for school kids) Strikes, Bandhs and demonstrations are powerful tools in a democracy. But how you use it is the question. Hurling stones and glass buildings, setting old tires on fire and painting walls is all that happens in India. Now I dont want to talk a lot about the ways we Strike in India or why we do them, but lets think of the whats happens when people strike. 

Obviously this article is coming but because of the Bus strike, so Im gonna talk about a few things I saw on tv. The Thousands of buses going off roads, lakhs of people stranded in bus stations. Some angry people throwing stones at buses, streets filled with cars and private vehicles, autos costing more than double or triple the meter price, or In short, everyone was having a bloody hard time. So can we conclude that the purpose of striking is to induce pain and cause damage??

isnt there a better way of striking? 

lemme quote buzzle

"One of the most important Japan facts is that the Japanese are amongst the most hard-working people in the world. Once, the workers of a shoe factory in Japan went on strike. The way they protested, represents certain facts about Japan which are typical of its industrious population. They simply worked on the manufacturing of single shoes (only for one leg). This way the production remained on course, but the company couldn't sell the product. Once the issue was resolved, the other pair was manufactured, resulting in a win-win situation for both company and the workers."

Can’t we do something like that?? 

Bandhs are all too famous in india.. but finally its india losing.. not the govt or some specific group of people. Its Indias growth that gets hampered during bandhs, businesses counting losses when banks call strike, and people lakhs of em suffering when theres a strike by something as important as public transport. 

We can’t be like Japan, we are different people all together. We’re not as hard working as them, and neither do we care if our inaction causes loss to the public. But we’re emotional people, and people like you, me and us built this nation and made what it is today.  We made India as big and powerful as it is. Today, India constitutes upto 80% of the total GDP in all of South East Asia. We’re not as useless as we think, we’re good people. Everyone panics when pushed back to the wall. We just need to know how to think. All of us are the same, and if I don’t care for the greater good, then how could you?  

PS: notepad typing, so spare my spellings pls :D

Fight For Who?

As I picked up the old book again, the words 

“he didn’t want nothing for himself” 

grew over me. Bound by its echoing cries I took a closer look, close enough to smell its age. April ’80 was written at the bottom of the first page. A few faded words making a sentence could be made out just above the date. 

It read:

"Do you think you can fight for others?

Usha Ratna"

The person who had gifted this book to my aunt over 30 years ago had  mockingly laid in a stiff punch.

I had missed this line when I first started reading the book. Maybe it was the eagerness of starting my first Steinbeck or the poise of being allowed to try a communist book or simply getting a book from my aunt, I just missed it. 

But it came back with all guns blazing.

I was lost for words, emptied of thoughts, and devoid of feelings. I was lost. 

Thirty years after the book had first traded hands, it spoke to me. 

“Do you have what it takes to fight for others?”

I don’t know. 

Maybe I do. Maybe it’s easier to fight for others. If you are fighting against being selfish and looking for ways to be selfless. Fighting against bonds, trying hard to stay detached, free, and bigger than yourself. Looking for some kind of meaning, a place, your place; without losing your balance or the touch of reality. Then maybe we should take to fighting others’ battles. 

Or do we even care? 

Anty Life

There is never a hot day in Bangalore, yet there is always hot water from the solar heater. The November of 2009 began with the vengeance of the retreating monsoons. Chennai was under water. Rain god showed all that meant violent love. Flooding roads, crashing trees and lots of tv coverage. 

300 kilometres away on a green patch of higher ground, there was thick cloud cover with an occasional falling drop. Children loved it and others loved for it. It was paradise revisited for Bangaloreans.   

I woke up with a few good text messages from close friends and a nice good morning message from a closer... Yeah alright I had the hots for her...  A hot cup of mom made coffee and exchanging text messages with the girl you have the hots for on a chilly morning with a slight drizzle. (Except for that idling garbage truck) mornings can’t get better.

Owing to the lovely weather and ample time, I ran against my natural instinct and decided to take a bath. Who knows, I might get lucky on a lazy cupid day.  The solar heater was on its off day, so we had to turn to the electric one. I felt a slight chill run down me as I stripped and turned on the taps. My mom told me when I was kid that you must first fill your buckets and then take off your cloths so that you won’t feel cold. I guess after all these years I’m still too eager to get naked. Well, maybe the reasons and places have changed a bit...  but let’s not get into that now. So I was getting ready to bathe and as the solar heater was busted due to the cloud cover, we had to use the electric heater.

I turned on the tap and was greeted with the familiar spurts of hot water as the tap filled my bucket. Just after a minute or so, I saw a few ants come around the tap. I thought they were just some random scout ants looking for food.  

 Huh! Lame ants, what will you find under a bathroom tap?

The bucket was full and I was getting high on the scent of the Mysore sandal soap. Just after I had enough, I placed the soap back on the shelf and turned to wash myself. That’s when it happened! I saw a swarm! There was a huge swarm of black common house ants moving all over the tiles and taps! There were thousands! Or maybe more! Guess what! The seldom used hot water tap had been their nest!  And those poor ants might’ve got too hot under the tap and were swarming out in panic.

The first thing I did was turn off the tap. Then I observed what was happening. A huge mass of slow moving ants were moving in the opposite direction of the heat. A few ants had taken off and were running around looking panicked. That’s when I realised the ants I first saw were indeed scout ants. They had been sent out at the first sight of danger to look out for a new safe place to nest. Only now there were more, maybe a hundred scouts. 

They seemed to enter under other taps, imperfections and holes in the wall. But maybe they were not fit or already occupied.  By then the swarm had moved quite a distance from the hot tap. I noticed that there were three big clusters or three places where ants had formed multiple layers, ant over ant and many layers like that. On closer inspection I saw that two of those clusters had bigger ants in the middle. 1 big ant covered and protected by a thousand others. Those must be the queens I thought. The 3^rd cluster looked slightly coloured, yellow white or off-white. Those were the eggs! So the million ants had formed three hard and impenetrable (or so they might’ve thought) clusters. Two protecting their queens and one protecting their eggs. 

The scout ants were still making their rounds and after a while the swarm slowly started moving, the clusters were dissolved; the queens and eggs were safely moved back to the nest. The scout ants might’ve thought the tap was back to normal. 

I wanted to let hot water out again and see if they do the same drill all over again. But then again, a man’s got to have a heart, plus one can’t spend the whole day in the bathroom right? Just then I realised how I must look, a nude man bent over looking at a slow moving ant swarm.  Hmm... Quite a view.

I did step out of the bath and lived on happily ever after. Until today that is.

It wasn’t until late yester night that I was reminded of this ant experience. I had just finished with a rather communist book and was at a loss of words. The book itself stood by the side of justice and humanity. It might seem clichéd or even retroprogressive to some, but the book dealt with over exploitation of work force by rich capitalists. I’ve always been intrigued by communism. And I just feel common ownership could be really motivating.  

Now communism might seem, as I said, retroprogressive. But isn’t china doing good? Isn’t kerala doing great?? It’s got the best HDI in the country! and not to mention 100% literacy. Why? It’s simply because everyone is given a fair chance. An authority stands up and commands its brothers to do what is right. And goodness prevails. Of course, the authority needs to be on the side of good. Which!! Is the challenge!  

I’m too small and know very less about the complexities of politics; the pits of communism and socialism, the highs of the “free world” and capitalism are also a little blur to me. And my dad would really be worried if I call myself a red, but isn’t keeping it simple the best? 

All I know believe right now is that an ant can move the world. How many times have we been given the ant’s example? Work force? Discipline? Hard work? Always look for alternatives? Always keep your chances open? Never give up?

Well Here’s another, Communism. 

Sadly for your guys, this write has been less about communism and more about what I do in the bathroom, so I’ve thought about reading more about communism vs liberalism or capitalism and maybe... If I find something interesting or at least am able to strike up a good conversation, I would surly put it out here. Thanks for reading... bye