Short Stories and More
Thursday, January 16, 2014
'India shining'?
I watched a video from Hans Rosling which depicted rise of various developing countries into developed world. There the life expectancy and education rose first, then the GDP. Its true about Korea. Its about to become true about China and may be of Vietnam and Bangladesh.
But India is different. It is a democracy. And policies set by government in a democracy tend to become populist. India has universal suffrage since its inception. This impacts the policies which tend to become even more populist. Money is spent on giving free food and free electricity to majority of population. Agriculture is exempt from Income Tax. And obviously, there is no money left for improving health system, education or mass transport infrastructure.
Yet somethings have improved in the past. The roads are better. The airports are better. But this largely serves the population with money to own the car and to fly.
But the problems in India are rarely solved by the government. We need to dig deeper to find green shoots. And that's where we will find private enterprise playing the role which government let go.
Private schools are booming. These schools are run by private individuals 'for profit'. This means they do not have any ulterior motive but to give education and make money in the process. And their clientelle are lower middle class and labour class who sometimes invest 30% of their earnings in educating their child. And best of all this is not limited to urban areas. A recent report states over 25% of enrolment in rural areas is to private schools
The mobile communications has changed the face of India. As an unfortunate side effect, more people have access to mobiles than toilets. But what is not obvious is that SMS and missed calls makes communication smoother and information easier to access. Now farmers have access to market rates and it becomes tougher for touts to clinch a killer deal. Internet and broadband are not yet widespread, but that is only a matter of time.
The rate of growth of population especially in south and west India has slowed down drastically.
Banking is largely computerised. So are many services. People are far less tolerant to power cuts and bad roads than they were in the past. And there have been few cases of activism by educated elite. This is the first time since the 60's that educated elite has involved themselves. But this has been too few and far between.
And thus we come to a interesting cusp. Either things will improve drastically, and if so, this would be upside down development with government trying to catch up. If things go bad, we always have hope that we will have government aided development some time in future.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
The Surprise
In Bangalore, realizing that her 'Surprise' had backfired, it was two days before Sakshi could speak to anyone without crying.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Serendipity
“I Love You!”
He heard her loud and clear. He even the sweet smell of her perfume. But when he opened his eyes, there was nobody. He was sitting all alone on a ruin by the river with only cool breeze and chirping birds for company. His reverie had been interrupted. He got up and started walking along the familiar road towards his home.
This was not the first time he had heard it. The voice had haunted him over and over again. It was sweet; yet there was something sad about it. He felt it was familiar; yet he could not place it. It was like everything else in his life. The streets, the house, the people… everything. He felt as if he was living in a trance, a dream, where everything was hazy, the voices toned down, disconnected. Was he hallucinating? Was he going mad? The thought was disturbing.
One hot afternoon, a few days later, he found himself sitting on a bed staring at a large old cupboard. It stood in a dark corner. He felt drawn to it. He pulled at the handle, the door opened smoothly.
The cupboard was full of books, some new, some old, neatly arranged. But the books did not interest him. He kept searching ignoring the books. Under one of the plank there was a small recess just enough to give him a finger hold. He yanked at it. Magically, the bottom half of the plank swiveled out revealing a small compartment. It contained a lone diary. He took out the diary closed the cupboard and started reading it.
The diary was full of scribbles; he scanned through a few entries. It was written by somebody who led a boring life. He was flipping through the pages when a folded paper slipped from the diary and fell on the floor. It was a handwritten page neat and crispy. And it told a story of a boy called Sameer.
“Sameer was a shy, slightly introverted boy. His only childhood playmate was his neighbor Shruti. They were almost of the same age and good friends for as long as they could remember. They always liked to play together; they shared everything from chocolates to secrets. They were best friends, they were inseparable.
“Ambitious father, a pamphlet in the newspaper advertizing an IIT coaching center in the city and a relative exalting the virtues of the coaching center resulted in Sameer packing his bags to join the residential school which prepared students for IIT. This was after his class ten; Shruti joined a local college. The coaching center was famous for military discipline. The students, once inside would not be allowed any disruption in their concentration. Visitors were allowed only once a month and even then only parents could visit. And going home was a forbidden except for a prescribed week once a year. They provided each student with a time-table which spanned from early morning pre-dawn Mathematics lessons sessions to pre-sleep biology drawing practice.
When Sameer visited home a year later, he had become a shadow of himself. Sameer’s mother could not bear that her son had to suffer at this age. She declared that her son would not go to the residential school again, She was convinced that the residential school would harm her son. Sameer did not protest either, he was not very happy there either. He joined the local college; he and shruti were classmates once again.
Sameer who returned from school was a different person. He made friends more easily and was generally extroverted around them, while he became introverted when around Shruti. He had not seen her for a while although they wrote to each other regularly, and when he saw her now he could not but resist but wonder how beautiful she was. This converted into a full blown crush by the time he joined the college.
He would find himself staring at her quite unconsciously. But one day she noticed his stare. She waved at him and instead of responding, Sameer blushed. That day he resolved that he would speak to Shruti about his feelings. He knew that this would take it out of his system.
Sameer would try and catch Shruti alone, and though he succeeded many times, he could never speak his mind. Frustrated, Sameer decided to write a letter. That evening, when he was along at the house, he sat down and wrote a long letter. But the letter was never delivered. His life was interrupted.. by a phone call.”
He turned the page around to find it was blank. Whoever had written this had intentionally stopped at this point, like they did in novels, to encourage readers to move to next chapter. But here there was no second chapter to be found. He searched the cupboard, turned almost every book upside down, peered into holes in vain.
It was evening. The sun was setting. He was sitting under a large tree on the banks of a lake surrounded by fields on either side. Sameer’s incomplete story had made him restless.
He heard sound of some feet running. He turned around and watched as a school boy approached the tree, stood on a protruding root and retrieved and retrieved a stone from a hiding place. The boy walked up to the shore, closed his eyes concentrating on the stone for a few seconds, slowly took aim and flung the stone flat into the lake and counted as the stone bounced 5 times before finally submerging. The boy jumped with joy. “Come on, it’s getting late.” A girl from somewhere further behind was hurrying the boy. He turned around to look at the young girl, but there was nobody there. He turned back towards the place the young boy who was jumping with joy a few seconds ago was gone too.
He walked around the tree. The trunk looked smooth and solid. Just as he was sure that it must have been a dream, he saw the hiding place camouflaged by overgrown bark. There were a few stones and to his even greater surprise a neatly folded paper. It was written in the same handwriting, and was the second chapter of the interrupted story. He anxiously started reading it without even bothering to sit down.
“Just as Sameer was about the finish the letter, the phone rang.
‘Hello’ Sameer answered.
There was silence at the other end.
‘Hello. Who is it?’
Sameer heard someone giggle at the other end. Then the call got disconnected. 10 minutes later the phone rang again. Sameer picked it up, his heart was beating fast.
‘I wore a red dress today. Did you like it?’ It was a girl at the other end.
‘Excuse me?’ Sameer was confused.
‘You heard me. Think about it. Click’ The girl had disconnected the phone.
Sameer slept uneasily that night.
The girl called Sameer every evening, without fail . “Today I wore green”, ‘Today it was blue.”, “Today it was blue again, but a different blue!”. That was all she spoke, not a word more.
Sameer became obsessed with her. He started writing down all the dresses worn by different girls during the day and wait for the call in the evening. But he never could make out who it was.
“Then one day she did not talk about dresses. ‘Halliday and Resnik. Page 128”. When he opened the book, there was a photo of a temple with “4 P.M.” written it. Sameer recognized the temple in the photo. It was located on top of a hillock on the way to college. He looked at his watch. He had 30 minutes to reach the place.
Sameer cycled as fast as he could. He parked his cycle on the road from where a hundred steps led to the top of the hillock on which the temple was located. Sameer was out of breath when he reached the top. He looked around. But it was deserted, the temple itself was locked. There was an arrow drawn using sand, which pointed in the direction to a tree. When he followed the arrow he saw a coffee cup kept under the tree. The cup was empty except for a coffee bean. Below the cup there was a photo of a bus with “4:15”
Sameer searched for more hints. There was none. Then it hit him; near the foothill where he had parked his bicycle, there was a bus stop with a large advertisement of the new coffee brand. The advertisement consisted of a cup and a coffee bean.
Sameer’s heart was racing, from the exertion and excitement. He kept the photo in his pocket, carried the cup in his hand and ran down the steps with all his remaining strength. When he reached down he was breathless. He first looked at the bus stop; he did see the Cup and the coffee bean. As he looked down, he saw her sitting and waiting. He smiled. Eagerly he stepped forward to cross the road. He was still looking at her. She stood up smiling. Next moment, there was noise of screeching tyres and a loud crash. Sameer had been knocked down by a car.”
Like the first part of the story, this chapter also ended suddenly. He felt exasperated. He felt sorry for Sameer. What happened to Sameer? Who was the girl? Did Sameer survive the accident? With all these questions on his mind, he walked back home.
Disconcerted, he was sitting on the porch of his house late in the evening with his head resting on the wall. He was thinking of Sameer and the incomplete story. He felt drowsy. He was tired. He closed his eyes.
“Sameer was lying in the hospital bed, mostly unharmed physically, but comatose with only a bandaged on his head. The physical wound was healing. It was late afternoon when Shruti walked into the room. Vikas, Sameer’s elder brother, was sitting on the chair by the bed. Shruti asked,’How is he now?’. Vikas shook his head his face clouded with worry. They sat there staring at the peaceful face of Sameer. Vikas asked Shruti to take a sit. He took out the cigarette pack from his pocket and asked Shruti whether she give Sameer company for a few minutes. Shruti nodded. Vikas walked out of the room eagerly, he had been holding the craving for too long.
Few minutes later, Shruti was holding Sameer’s hand delicately. Her eyes were damp. She whispered “Please wake up Sameer. I will never be able to forgive myself for playing the prank. I love you, Sameer. Please wake up.”
He woke up with a start; he had been dreaming about the story. He touched his head, it was still numb. And suddenly everything around him had meaning. It was his house, his parents. He was Sameer and the story was ‘his’ story. He walked to the telephone, dialed a number.
“Shruti?...” A pause. “I remember… everything”
After a silence of few minutes, Sameer heard a sob at the other end. Tears, those were happy tears.
*(My proof-reader is busy serving a higher priority interrupt. You might have noticed the result already.)
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Poison Ivy
She was beautiful. He was handsome. They met in college and it was love at first sight. They decided to get married. But she was poor; daughter of a nobody. He was a prince with a crown and a palace and with a heritage of royal Rajasthan behind him. There was bound to be trouble. The queen did not approve of his son’s choice. But the prince was adamant he would go to any length to get married to his love. The queen finally consented. And they got married. It was 25 years ago.
Are you laughing? Yes I know there were no Kingdoms in India 25 years ago. But he lived like a prince. And who would have told the haughty lady that she was not a queen anymore? She ruled her house with more stateliness than her ancestors had ruled Rajasthan. And the village where they lived still considered her the Queen. But we are digressing.
Lets call them Roopamati and Kunwar Singh for sake of anonymity. Roopamati and Kunwar Singh got married. Soon Roopamati was expecting, everybody talked about heir to the throne would be born. When she went into labour the whole village held their breath. The instruments of celebrations were cleaned, ready to explode. The whole village stopped as generally seen during the last overs of world cup finals.
It was late in the night when the door opened, the nurse was smiling holding a baby ‘It’s a girl!’. There was a collective sigh of disappointment. The queen turned around and locked herself in the bedroom. The prince prepared for himself a peg of whiskey and went swimming for an hour in the backyard, the usual activity before sleeping. And so that night, nobody held me, nobody hugged me, except Roopamati, my mother. Nobody congratulated my mother, nobody even smiled at her. Unfortunately I was too young for that.
It was obvious, the prince needed an heir and that a girl could not be an heir, so Roopamati had to try again for producing an heir. And Roopamati tried, like an obedient daughter-in-law. I must be 4-5 years old then. 3 months later Roopamati fell violently ill. She was taken to a hospital in town; the pregnancy had to be terminated. And she was told she could not become pregnant again. She was discharged 15 days later, doctors had brought her back from brink of death.
When Roopamati returned, the whole environment had changed, it had become hostile. Everybody knew that she could not give the Prince an heir. She was ignored by everyone, from the prince, the queen to the lowest of the servant in the household. The queen was furious when she was told that her daughter-in-law could not have any more children, she needed a grand-son for continuing the lineage. The queen came to a conclusion and the royal writ was dispatched. Roopamati should do every pooja, every vrat, every upwaas have a son. And everybody should co-operate with daughter-in-law with the fast as long as it was sanctioned by the Royal Pandit, anybody violating it would be held responsible under pain of death. Although this was an empty threat, everybody followed.
Roopamati regained her strength, temporarily. And before she could recover completely, she was forced to follow a strict regiment to please the gods. She had no choice but to follow the orders. The only person who could help her, her husband, had withdrawn himself in a cocoon and refused to even talk to her. And the intention was clear, the fruit was distinctly unambiguous. They wanted an heir, she had to bear a son. But for all her hard effort to please the Gods, miracle evaded Roopamati and she weakened by every passing day. The dream of having a normal life faded.
It had become a fight between her spirit and her body. The body was getting weaker every day due to her effort to please the gods by sacrificing food. The spirit was strong and wanted life. Some days the spirit won, and she was almost cheerful. Other days the body won, and she was bed ridden. Finally the body won and gave up.
I was a silent spectator of all this, a helpless child. I watched her as she collapsed while doing rounds of Tulsi in the morning. I watched as she was carried into the bedroom and when nobody cared to call for a doctor. I watched her being confined to her bed due to weakness. I watched as her hunger died along with willingness to live. I watched and I cried. I was 10 when my mother was announced dead. Her spirit had died long ago.
After my mother’s death, the queen took on herself to mould me into something I was not. She frowned when I ate fast, it was not in accordance to another important feminine trait of Grace. She frowned when I refused to learn cooking, to learn stitching or singing. I had to learn all these things, if I had to become a good wife. She expected unquestioned obedience, I was free willed. And life became endless lessons, endless unpleasant lessons.
The library room in the palace was huge,and as it turned out, rarely used. I started hiding there from grandmother and her lessons. I also started reading. That’s when I learnt about Christopher Columbus and his journey to America, about Raja Harishchandra and his divine test, about Newton and his Theory of Gravity. But what fascinated me most was the land of animals and plants, of which I liked the snakes, the spiders, the scorpions the most. I would have considered it odd that a young girl like me was fascinated by poisonous creatures but I had nothing to compare with. I was a loner.
Soon after my mother’s death, father got married again. The second wife was a poor little soul who took on the task of producing the heir immediately and left me alone. One year later she produced an heir, and all the energy of the palace was spent around the Heir. I was left alone to the books.
That’s how I spent my next few years. I had no friends, I did go to school but talked to no one. I spent most of time in the library hiding. I was not unhappy. I was not ill treated. And I would have continued the life had it not for a servant who blabbered the plans of my father. According to him, I was old enough and he had plans for my marriage, negotiations were on through a middle man. I panicked. I did not want to end up like my mother. I wanted to control my own life. I hid in the library, I cried for a long time.
On that cool night, a young girl ran away from home. She had nothing but few hundred rupees stolen from her father’s wallet and an old diary which contained an address of an uncle whom she remembered having a kindly face. The address was that of Mumbai and the train which left the station at midnight also went to Mumbai.
It was a stupid thing to do, but I was lucky. I reached safely and the uncle with kindly face also had a kind heart and he supported me. My father searched the neighborhood and when nothing turned up, announced that I had could not handle the loss of my mother and had jumped to death. I am pretty sure he was relieved. After all he would had to give lots of dowry in my marriage to keep his status.
But that was 10 years ago. Lot of water has flown under the bridge and I have grown. I completed the schooling, went to college and now I am a researcher. The passion for venomous creatures which caught me in childhood has not receded, and I continue to work on the most poisonous species of the world. Our task is to extract the poison and find out about how it can be used other than to kill people. Some of them have fascinating applications, like anesthesia or anti-coagulant. The challenge lies not only in extracting the venom, but keeping it stable so that it can be injected at will. The work is fun, because I love what I do. But it can be dangerous too.
Few months ago, while I was working in the lab I fell down paralysed. A lab full of students with experience in handling poisonous insects soon realized that the symptom was that of being bitten by a rare Amazonian spider. I was working on exactly that species, so it was not a mystery how I got bitten. But they were perplexed none the less because I was nowhere near the glass box which kept the spiders. It takes only a few seconds for the paralysis to set in, once the spider has bitten. They panicked and although they knew that the effects reduce after 15 minutes, I was admitted me to hospital. I was fine by the time admission was done, but doctor kept me overnight under observation. I suspect the effects of spider bite were novelty for them too. I was a sort of a star that night.
But that stardom attracted an unwanted visitor. A person, who from the appearance appeared like a religious guru, stared at me endlessly. He was a middle aged person and from the number and quantity of visitors a fairly successful one. After lot of thought, he spoke to me:
‘You are daughter of Kunwar!’
I was cursing my luck. Of all the people in the world, the guy who knew my old identity should be in the hospital. He started narrating old stories and I realized that many royal families of Rajasthan were his followers. And as required by his profession, he kept all the information about each and every family. He knew that I had run away and that my father had declared me dead. He talked to me about my mother and the poor soul how much she had suffered. That was first time in 10 years that I was close to crying for my mother. He sensed my anger at my father, that I held him responsible for killing my mother and he talked about forgiveness. He talked me into meeting my father again. He convinced me that atleast I should try to understand his side of the story.
By the time I was discharged, this person had my phone number and my promise that I will forget the anger and meet my father. Not sure whether it was under the influential talk of Sadhuji Maharaj, but I wanted to meet my father. The spider bite appeared to have some divine intentions.
Sadhuji Maharaj went straight to my father’s house, and used his silver tongue and convinced him of meeting me. He knew for some time that I was alive and living in Mumbai, but had not taken any pains to meet me. But this time I was invited to stay in the palace. Sadhuji Maharaj had given a guarantee that I would not be harmed there. And so I went planning so that I need not stay for more than 36 hours.
I was welcomed warmly, more warmly by couple of old servants and less so by the family members. Lots of things had changed in the palace since the time I left. The queen was gone and my father was presiding over the palace. His wife was still a poor little soul who talked shyly even to the people who served her. Her only son had rebelled against his father and had moved out of the palace along with his wife and kid to a near by town trying to etch a living for himself. The father was trying his best by using his influence to make his son’s life miserable. He was hell bent on teaching his son a lesson for rebelling against him. A further digging revealed bits and pieces of the cause of son’s action. It was turn of my father to want a grandson and he had tried to pressurize his son and daughter in law. Thankfully the son, unlike his father, preferred to move out than let his wife suffer. I was sure this incident was just a last nail and my brother had more reasons to move out. But this went on to prove that my father had not changed a bit. My enthusiasm to meet my father waned.
When we met, me and father did nothing but stare at each other and then at the ground. Maharaj was a bit disappointed that we did not connect, but was somewhat relieved when I was invited for dinner at the hall the next day which was held as a farewell to Sadhuji who was going on foreign tour for 6 months.
The dinner was a grand affair befitting the royal lineage. There were number of guests with Sadhuji Maharaj being the chief guest. But he had made up his mind and was trying his best to get me and my father together. We spoke guardingly.
Later in the night, most people had left. Sadhuji Maharaj was talking to some of his disciples when he signaled all of them to leave which they did immediately, leaving only 3 of us. Maharaj made a small speech about how important Father-daughter relationship is and why he is happy that things are looking good between me and father. He concluded the speech when Maharaj hinted that he may have some good groom for me from suitable Khandan. He even had one in mind and spent the next 5 minutes praising the groom and his family. I was speechless but from my father’s expression I suspected he was privy to this information. I had always known that the Maharaj had ulterior motive but this was beyond my imagination. Our silence was awkward before it was interrupted when his disciple came to announce that the car for departure were ready. I made up an excuse that I need more time think and we could discuss further after Maharaj’s foreign tour.
Maharaj took it spiritedly. He thanked my father for the party, called his disciples and left in the car which was provided by my father. I had another hour before the train left. I bid good bye to my father and rest of the family and went to the room assigned to me in the palace. I collected my baggage, asked the servant to keep it in the car. I was following him when I took a wrong turn and reached the backyard instead of front door. There, my father was taking his pre-sleep swim alone.
When he saw me, he came to the edge of the swimming pool to talk to me. As I bent down to say good bye, he felt something prick his left arm. He instinctively retracted into deeper water, but the paralysis hit him at the very same moment.
Do you know what happens when a human being is paralyzed and in water? ‘Plop’ his body goes like a stone towards the water. No sound escapes the water, no thrashing. Silently the air gasps out of the lungs and all is over but not before a terrible pain when the spirit wants to struggle and live while body cannot. The same terrible pain as experienced by my mother.
I reached the front door, thanked the servant who had kept the luggage in the car and left. In the train I disposed off the syringe piece by piece on various bridges as the train chugged along.
My half-brother is the prince now. But there are lots of conspiracy theories on how the older prince died, some of them suspecting the wounded spirit of Roopamati. As for me, I don’t feel any interest in those poisonous creatures any longer. I am thinking of a career change.