Where Are You Going ?

The  more it rains the more I feel sad. The sky is full of gray clouds as if the world is heading for it's end.  Never a gloom can bring so much joy.  Big droplets to sharp needle like showers occasionally accompanied with thunders and lightning a rain is a treat to watch from window. Not to speak of the roads in rural areas the cities too speak worst of the rains. Water swirls on the roads as in rivulet speeding towards unknown places.The much walked and known road appears strange.We do not know where to stamp our foot. The dug hole can pull you down to it's bottom, or uncovered drainage manhole can suck you to the city outskirt rarely floating with life.After a down pour  the vehicles stranded push ahead with honking above  polluting decibels.Pedestrians taking shelter at the roadside shop start maneuvering at once like creatures moving out of their hideouts.  The roads get jammed with pandemonium fell out from the sky.

  It is not a rare experience in a monsoon country where rain is part of life during  one third  of an year. Despite all the hardships it creates we love rains. We  eagerly wait and rejoice  rains. It is hard to guess a  life without a  rain here. Fate of  the farmer is   written with rain drops on his fore head. Skeletons, either human or cattle,   scattered over parched fields during drought  match the total bodies that float in flood waters during rainy season  in this rain fed nation. I guess no other country  in the world  gets so much rain. Water, water every where not a drop to sink !

Not a day passes without a power cut. Ridiculously the line man promptly switches off for the scheduled power cut even during heavy down pour. In a month or two most of the bore wells go dry. The lakes which swell during rainy day make dwelling for many people  subsequently. The villages cut off from the rest of the world a while ago are on  drought radar after few months. Heaps of sand accumulates in the midst of  life giving rivers. You walk miles even to leave ashes of a dead man  into the water.

Rain ! Rain ! Where are you going ?  You drench me generously with all your kindness . But my pockets are too small to hold you for long. .

Congratulations !!

Congratulations Sree Ram !!  for winning the title "Indian Idol". You deserve it. The  victory does not belong to you alone.  It is victory for people of India who proved that they can rise above divisive commerce and cross boundaries  when it comes to the talent.

India is 63. One more year of celebration. No body thought that it  survives this long. Never in our dreams we saw  India becoming fourth largest economy in the world during  our life time.  .India prospers when government sleeps. Thanks to the well thought over private enterprise. With the growth not inclusive we still stand at the rock bottom levels of human development.index not very different from my childhood. Yet  I hope to see things differently before I kick the bucket.

Kashmir ! At What Cost ?

I have never been to that place. Ever since I stood on my own feet to think of  holidaying in this snowy heaven  it was troubled.. I was told that  it was an exquisite piece of work by the almighty. Hindi movies with breath taking view of Kashmir valley  added  my passion towards it's  pristine beauty. I fancied to see the most beautiful people of the place.  I dreamed  of Apple  Trees heavily flowing to the gentle breeze. I wanted to feel  the streams noisily gliding over the pebbles. I wanted to sway in those beautiful boat houses. I thought of owning few wooden  filigree tables in my drawing room. I could even  move out of the country for my dream holiday in some places. Yet  I could never materialize my dream of visiting Kashmir.Now I think it is never  possible.

In my child hood I over heard my father talking about "plebiscite" and Shaik Abdulla though I did not really  understand them. After watching a movie about  Lord Mountbatten I guess I formed some idea about the origins of Kashmir problem. I read. Tied to understand at the skeletal level. Yet there is some thing which goes beyond my grasp. The turn of events, mishandling,  bad policies, continued military presence,  corruption, every thing put together we created a monster in the valley of pristine beauty. We could never take  a place in the hearts of those poverty ridden beautiful people. Millions spent on guns could have created scores of industries up there  much to the deviant of growing frustration among the disgruntled locals. With habitual apathy we messed up the whole issue. Millions poured with  no return in literal terms.   We created LeT, and in a way paved way for universal terrorism. We fold like 'touch me not plant' whenever the Kashmir issue is put on the universal platform. We are scared of the solutions.

To day with women and children on the streets pelting stones on the security forces, India is never seen before as unfriendly as of now.  What is Indian in Kashmir? Only  Indian  security  forces with their tents and bunkers. The sense of alienation is total and strong in the minds of the residents.  Billions gone  down the drain  for decades just to control the  population unwilling to collaborate. The suppression is too harsh to the extant of human rights violation. When are we going to negotiate peace? We are too late. Our late  nine stitches are not worth one stitch in right time. We messed up with many issues in our new  experimenting democracy. Now  after decades of bad governance and institutionalized corruption and over play by the  hyper vested interests in public life,  peace in the valley is a too distant a  dream. 

I might in all probabilities visit Switzerland, but however I wish,  never to  Kashmir which was said  to be an integral part of India.!!  It took me five decades to realize the fact. 

Walk 'n' Talk Animals

Stray dogs themselves make my heart pound. Not that I hate every thing untamed. But I am bewildered by their unpredictability. Until I watched "Dog Whisper" I never knew that  staring  at dogs could mean a  menace to you. . Unintentionally I  happened to connect  with few stray dogs while I was set for my  morning walk  some time ago.  I thought I was warning few curious looking dogs on my way by looking straight into their eyes. That was the beginning of my perils with stray dog. They showed loads of affection and shook me to my foot by pouncing on me wagging their tails and scratching with their nail  and I began screaming.  Pitifully no one was available  to  rescue me in those  wee hours, until I found a milk vendor on  his bicycle who cared  to drive them away.

 It brought back the memories of a puppy I reared  long long ago, so long ago  until it was six months old. But  I have spent those  span of  six months  in clearing his excreta,and deodorizing my house than  emotionally connecting  with it. I had no time yet  I admit I was  a bad trainer.Till that fateful  morning wherein I had my morning blues with street dogs I never cared what was walking next to me when set on foot. From that moment I turned  very conscious of every dog on the street and took all the care to avoid them to the extant possible. Some dogs are  very cunning. They follow you, but the moment you stop to check  they too stop and  look sideways. And when  You revert to  walking with a sigh of relief  all again  you find them following your foot steps. Some dogs try to give you false impression that they are not following you. But in fact they are leading you.They run ahead of you  as if they care a heck  and after a while  turn back to check  whether you are following them or not. Some dogs  stop and bark at you  to grab your attention  and in a split  second  change their mind and  proceed  with sudden  detachment.You have no clue why it tried scare you in the first place and decides to take u turn at once .However  I found myself  more attractive to   lame, weak, diseased, dogs who show special kind of  affinity towards  me. Probably I look like  a natural harbor of lame ducks. Again in  few years I gathered my courage to be on my own on streets despite dogs. 

 Other day I was on my own until I found some living thing  in  brown pulling itself  next to me. It is a  normal dog  I thought,  and in few moments I was terrified to discover it to be a  monkey. How come I landed with an animal which is supposed  to live on  trees ? When  I stopped to figure  out where exactly I was going,  many monkeys were spotted  all around. They no more appear to be interested in trees.   They were just, squatting,  walking, grooming and playing   on the street at all the peace in the world.. I thought I should stop and take an  about turn. But to my amazement I began  noticing  people hopping me ignoring monkeys on their way.  Some cared to  walk along with them.  After a while I saw one monkey pouncing on one man without provocation of any kind  and he shook him  off and continued to walk on his mission. Bravo! We Indians  can survive anywhere. No body ever stopped. They continued to walk. The small  by lane  is the only patch available for morning  walk in that area.  Next few days monkeys did not go any where. Every day we found them either  sitting on the road or crossing it.. One day they disappear only to appear on a  following day. Each day  I found sweepers with their large brooms chatting standing next to them. Fruit vendor with his push cart hardly appeared to have been frightened. He did not change his place. Walkers raced with monkeys on the roads as if they were just dogs. It is as if there is no differentiation between dog and monkey. Every body look bolder than me. They continue to walk on streets crowded with monkeys. The man  with scratches was sighted on the next day with a bandage on his forearm, yet determined to continue with his mission. . He has  no where to go. Rest of  others have no where to go. The monkeys too have no where to go !!

Television showed  a cheetah beaten  to death by villagers for preying on their sheep. We find bears with their furn burned for trespassing  into fields. Many  elephants create  havoc in villages bordering forests with their habitat shrunk day by day. Leopards attack humans while on their walk to shrine. It looks like a war between human and wild life.  Humans have needs and fears. Yes.Agreed.In this war for survival undoubtedly man wins over beasts using his brains and ammunition. Poor animals have not learned making guns and yet greatly rely on their natural primitive sense of survival and danger.Man makes nonessential overreaching presence in every available space. A streak  of  hegemony, overpowering,  dreadfulness, avidity ,rage surfacing in human actions can wipe out scores of life from this planet. I pose a straight question to myself. Does this planet belong to me alone?