Patna diary

I

Congressi politicians are facing harrowing time, not because of the scorching summer heat but rather its the political heat generated by their own colleagues that has kept some of them on their toes.

The caste based census issue is something that has wedged a deep divide between the political class in between the UPA itself. As can be read, even the intra party members of Congress are looking north and seeking south. Check Ajay Maken's blog on http://ajaymakenthoughts.blogspot.com/2010/05/letter-to-all-young-mps-on-caste-based.html#comments to find how atleast some of the politicians are not behaving like political opportunist.

Then there is the issue of naxalism on which Congress is divided; again. Digvijay Singh feels that they are mislead ideologues while Chidambaram feels that they are nothing but terrorists.

Then it was Mr.Tharoor who was confused between what he wanted to be. Whether a loyal lover, a dedicated politican or a chirpy twittu. Well he was not even sure that why was he made a minister or why did he come to India in the first place. But as things ended the way it did, he must be a relieved man. Mr.Tharoor, you are still miles away from the honesty (pun intended) that is required from a person to succeed as a political entity in this part of the globe.

Another maverick, Jariram Ramesh had to say sorry to the Prime Minister when he openly criticized Chidambaram for his dealing of India's international relation with China.

Manmohan Singh is literally rocking on how to deal with the naxalites. Should he follow Sonia Gandhi or tow his trusted lieutenant Chidambaram. Whom should be fix the blame on for the recent train mishap? Should he agree with the Railway Minister, Mamta Banarjee who says that it is a political conspiracy to malign her or nod his head by going with the cops and say it was the maoist.

Couldn't stop humming Koi rasta to dikha...khuda ke liye....

II

It is not that only on the national level our political structure is showing signs of going haywire. At a more local front, in Bihar too things are not looking good.

Recently a police officer was appointed as Bikramganj DSP. That shouldn't have made the news, because routine transfers seldom evoke curiosity but in the present case , the newly appointed officer is himself on the run from the police. Even before he could assume charge as Bikramganj DSP, a police team from the district police headquarters was sent to arrest him.

The concerned officer who was earlier attached with STF, Avinash Prasad,is wanted by police in connection with a criminal case for last two months and an arrest order against him is pending in the court of law.

About 2 weeks earlier in a similar sort of comical yet serious incident, which raised fingers on the Policing situation in the state, Bihar Human Rights Commission (BHRC) ordered the state government to pay Rs 40,000 each as compensation to ten persons who were jailed on fabricated charges of murder and kidnapping in two separate cases. The commission has also recommended appropriate action against the then SPs who had submitted a false report.

Again nothing new as such incidents do happen in our country, but what has made this incident serious is the fact that in its reply before the SHRC, the police department said that it was because of the "pressure" on the SP to come out with a result soon due to submission of a representation by the kin of the supposed dead victims in the chief minister's Janata darbar, that led to the gross error on the part of the officers, which included a young IPS probationer.

Bihar Chief minister is undertaking a "Vishwas Yatra" of the state so as to prepare for the state assembly elections that are due soon. Speaking in front of the mass, Nitish is bringing out the achievements of his government, but hard he tries, he is not able to say how he has been time and again let down by his subordinates. The biggest let down was couple of years back when Kosi breached its bank and his officers were caught napping. What happened afterwards is a painful history.

He has a reputation for being upright and high on discipline but that qualities are not channeling down to the lower level. His efforts to put Bihar back on tracks have been successful, albeit, if he got more cooperation of his support staff of government employees the result would have been far better.

Nitish Kumar has all through the last four and a half years focused on Good governance but as the political finale approaches, it seems the state has not progressed much on that front. Corruption has not come down inspite of the fact that a proactive approach was adopted to tackle this disease, including setting up of fast track courts.

The various state departments in Bihar are still to come out of the 'high' that the previous regime gave them. They still feel that they have every right to prolong and unnecessarily delay work of the common men. They still believe that bribe is a part of their salary.

For their routine work they expect that they will be offered cash. And believe me, antics adopted in MunnaBhai won't work here.

I personally had this experience of being asked for bribe for a legitimate act when my cousin who is seeking job of his father on compensatory ground was asked for money in return for moving his file ahead. Not going into the details, a feeling of anguish comes when you think that how can these people be so senseless and shameful. And you feel bad when you think that how will those thousands of illiterate people who have no one to lean on will arrange for ten thousand rupees to join a job which is their legitimate right and whose monthly salary is maybe four thousand rupees.

Losing hope is very easy and to rekindle it is herculean. And right now, after going through the many a such shattering experiences time and again, I am moving towards the easier approach.

It will be easy to change Bihar, but not so easy to change the people here, who for years have lived on situations that have eaten away some of very basic human tendencies.

But then Hope dies when you let it die...just like love.And I am not very good at letting things die.

Prologue

This pages of words is not about a love story between college students, or a tale of a boy from a rural village making big in the urban jungle. Maybe it is about my life, maybe it is about your life and of everyone like us. Of girls and dope, of valentines and kingfisher, of school and college days and the tantrums of heart.

There comes a time in life when we arrive at a juncture, where we start looking back at ‘those’ days of yester years. It’s during these days that we start talking about the past, because at that time we believe that we have seen enough days of life so to go back into the past. At least thats what happened with me. I started going back into the past tales of school uniforms, teachers and lunch break when I was saying present sir to my lecturers and attending what they call lectures.

Well, while keying words in my laptop I frankly have no idea whether I will be able to complete this ­­–­­­­book. Book ? Who said anything about a book. Ok ok..I am writing a book or at least that’s what I think I am doing and this is the first page of that very book. I don’t know till how many pages will my mind walk by my side on this and whether this collective stroll will be enough to bring out a collection of tales that will be enough to say that yes, I am a proud owner of a book that I myself wrote.

It is said that humans are creature of emotions rather than logic, and believe me, I have experienced this facts umpteen time, and I believe that it’s better to be governed by emotions than logic. Perhaps you will come across incidents as you turn the pages which might baffle you, but look closely, you too might have acted the same way.

Emotions maybe very erratic in nature but they are uniform too. It is a strange paradox but I find it true.

Why does a girl unflinchingly loves a boy and continues to love him even when she knows that chances of going along with him is around 98 million light years far. Why does a person in spite being betrayed by his or her love interest still wishes that miracles happen, people change and a similar miracle will happen and they will be together again.

Why is that suddenly you realize that times and people have drifted away. and you ponder when was the last time that you and your closest group of friends met, did nothing, sat for hours and when they left for home you didn’t realize that it was those hours of time that constitute a great life.

Sometimes the sms forwards do carry some sensible messages.

There will be lots of love here. People say that you can fall in love only once. And I humbly disagree. You can fall in love many times either with the same person or some one different. But when you are loving someone then you should love her or him only. Commitment and dedication should be for that person only. I have come across people who were in a great relationships for years and years and suddenly they go their different way because they breakup. And then they fall in love again, with someone different. And they completely forget their ex.

That doesn't mean that they are heartless. Love was then too and love is present now also.

Love is something that makes everything around us beautiful. When in Love, it is the god himself that manifests in you.

The greatest of emotions that a human being has is the gift of love and hope. And with that hope I start something new that will lead to finding the love of my life.

The usual disclaimer doesn’t apply. There are names here and they bear resemblance to living person. So if you find your name among the lines or think that you resemble the character, then in all heavens, you are right.

I may change some names, especially of girls, because they might now be attending to their kids and hubby and to their new found love, but I will make no effort to hide their characteristic so that when they read this they know that it is about them. Tribute to love comes in many ways.

Of my close friends, I know they are large hearted and they won’t mind if I use their actual name, infact I think they will relish it, when their deep dark secrets see the light of the day. I hope I am able to scandalize you enough guys. You deserve it guys...every bit of it, because if it was not for you all then nothing worthwhile to write would have come up.

Lets start from Bhopal, as someone rightly said, “You're biased towards this city.” And I know that she is so true...

The girl on a moving train

The girl on a moving train

leaving a city poor as she moves to the next

the darkness outside matched by her black eyes

and a white moon that shies away due to her sparkling smile

a blue scarf that makes her appear more reddish

a white strap on her hand

and a lone colorful bangle to make the rainbow complete

songs of birds and of a silent night

are no match for her sweet voice

a casual look turns into an attentive stare

among the moments of attraction that looks to seek through

I watch silently as she speaks of her peaceful life

and of her vivacious life, of her hope and of her dream

and listens my tales of small cities and younger childhood days

the silence of something amiss

of something not the same

of something less than love

the strangeness that comes after the sudden familiarity

and the eager shyness to seek attention

maybe we will meet again

maybe she would not be the same again

neither would i be amazed to see her again

among the countless moments of aimless affection

As we chased some timber thieves...

It was another night of the Gharghodan safari that I have become so accustomed to. And whenever it happens, something more exciting than the previous incidents comes up.

This happened yesterday night. And what night it was. It was already past 11.00 and there was no electricity for the past 3 hours and the local people told me that this darkness was here to stay for 2-3 more hours as there was a major fault in the transmission lines.

So Mr.X , my neighbour and a very efficient forest guard and me decided to go the forest on a night patrol so as to maybe see some wild animals who like us would come out of their residents to escape the heat. We hopped into the Sarkari bolero along with 3 more of the guards and started .

The night sky was full of small stars, some shining more brightly than the others and some playing the game of hide and seek. After a 30 minutes drive we were deep inside the forest and came across a pond, the very kind of spot where you can lie down for few hours, feel the cool breeze and close your eyes to every conceivable thought.

And that was what we did. I found myself a comfortable huge rock to settle down and my co-travellers were lost in their talks of jokes and obscenities I found myself wondering among the dark night and the clear sky. The surrounding was peaceful with the occasional sounds of a curious cricket and a fish that was coming on the surface and diving back agaian. My eyelids became heavy and I slept off.

The half an hour sleep was broken by the frog like voice of one of the guards who said that its time we move ahead on our patrol. And we were back in our car again.

The rickety bolero was moving at a gentle pace on the village road made up of mud and gravel. The excitement inside me was losing its steam as we had not come across any animal and I looked at my cellphone for the non existent network and it dawned on me that it was already 12.30 and still we were deep inside the forest.

II

As we were moving ahead we saw head light of a two wheeler coming from the opposite direction and I don’t know how but maybe because of some instinct that comes with years of service the guards sitting in the back side became excited. There were three people on the motorcycle and as we crossed each other they looked at us. And we knew something was wrong.

After just one minute , we saw a tractor coming with its head light switched off. Just as we came parallel to each other our driver shouted “sahab Lakdi” ( sir, Wood) . And instantly my mind told me that it was going to be a long night.

The Bolero which until then could give a LOL syndrome to a cycle wala suddenly became possessed as our driver, a young guy of maybe 17-18 years became a local Chhattisgarhi Narayan Karthikeyen as we started chasing the tractor which was moving far from us.

I tightly held on to the side support of the car as it jumped and raced on the muddy tracks like a forest mice. The headlights of our car was illuminating the tractor that was moving farther and farther ahead of us and I was able to see the outline of the 4 bodies who were sitting on the log and like us were holding on to their dear lives.

The guards sitting behind me were shouting all kinds of obscenities on top of their voice asking the tractor driver to stop. But it was proving to be an unfruitful attempt , their idea behind this was to somehow play on the nerves of the tractor driver so much that he collides his vehicle with a tree or slips of the road.

Let me picture the scenario for you so it becomes a bit easy to see what was actually going on.

Moonless night, a Kucha road, a tractor that is moving ahead like a mad elephant rumbling through the peaceful forest, a white official chhattisgarh forest department bolero that is chasing the wood smugglers and inside that bolero is a guy who is mind you not a forest employee, and behind him are 4 more hyper excited people who were raining a barrage of assorted words.

The low on profile but high on risk chase went on for 10-15 minutes and as we came near to the tractor, we saw a hamlet that we presumed was the original destination of the driver.

On the outskirts of the village, the same people whom we had come across earlier on bike were waiting and soon as they saw us they turned left so as to confuse us and force us to follow them rather than the tractor which had turned right and vanished out of our sight.

No one fell for the bait, as we all knew that the bike will be lost in the many a narrow lanes of the village and even if we are able to catch the people on the bike we would not have the evidence that they are the wood fellers as the logs were on the tractor.

As with some kind on Marco polan instinct, I told our driver to turn right into a road which was nonexistent at that time, but I knew that the tractor had turned right and it had to be there.

And as we turned, we saw people jumping out from the tractor which had come to an abrupt stop and running as if their lives was on stake. We too jumped out even before our vehicle had come to a stop and ran towards the fleeing thieves.

But the local tribals who were supposedly on the tractor were so fast and fearless that even though it was pitch dark they made a sprint through a thick foliage of wild plantation and we were only able to catch a man who was wearing just a loin cloth.

The chase had finally come to an end. But a new situation was developing...as we found ourselves surrounded by the local tribals armed with lathis and axes.