"A penance to the core"

Albeit for a moment, one and all are trudging on. A palpable sense of equality is bestowed by nature. 

Modern machines have been reduced to a mere mannequins.

For a change, there is no “struggle of orders.”

 Even the patrician has been reduced to a plebeian. 

Alas! The world order may remain so. Albeit be for a moment.

Snowfall procreates silence and tranquility, both are virtues we misprize. 

Suddenly we realize the power of silence. Albeit for a moment.

But in the narrative of life, there is more grey than sheer black or white. 

Right now it’s all virginal white- Albeit for a moment.

For our interest, we made her persuade, she too gave in. 

Belittling her courage, trivializing her honest efforts, not realizing that she was there for us always; 

presupposing her presence we slept in the glory of our day's victory. 

Our victory proved pyrrhic, failing to withstand her silence.
We realized the value of being there- always. Albeit for a moment.

Which destination do you relate yourself to the most?

We live at different places, initially, where our education takes us, later on,  it’s our work. Relating oneself to a destination is utopian. We are always in quest: the quest for money, which eventually relish us the materialistic pleasure, the quest for the better profession, in short, the quest for a better life. Such quest often proves chimera.
Is there a destination one can relate to? It may not exist because we haven’t created it as yet.

To be born, at the first, is blessing itself. There is so much around us, we just need to realize. There is a purpose of our existence; let the quest be for that. Being spiritual! Trust often was so, and it will be always.
Once we do that, we will carve a path for ourselves. We will make a lasting impression on the sands of times. It’s not the destination that’s important it the journey.
We should not get trapped: our mere existence does not entail belonging, it never should. Our deeds and action should evoke our belonging. The path is long, arduous, and full of hindrances. To reach the mountain top we have to trudge for long, only then we can have the ringside view of the valley.
Once we keep striving hard, we would keep on evolving, and so would our ideas and belief. Somewhere in the future, we would find, we belong to some destination, it does exist. But it’s your deeds that would bring it to existence.
Eventually, we would reach our destination, a destination we would love to belong to. But it would not matter, it never should. It’s the journey that matters. The quest should go on: the quest for hardship, the quest for ideas, and the quest for the betterment of society. Quest until we found, we belonged to the destination. As I said, the journey is important, let destination be as it is: the result.

Water Crisis in Shimla-A Mayday

"It’s awful- Why did nobody see it coming?" asked Queen Elizabeth, in an event at London School of Economics, about the Subprime crisis of 2008. Same can be said about the water crisis residents of the Shimla- The Queen of the Hills- are facing these days. For the past two weeks, the city has confronted a specter: an unprecedented water shortage, on a scale never heard off and never witnessed. 

But the question is did someone see it coming; executive, bureaucrats, officials, nouveau rich, environmentalist, NGOs, political parties, civil societies, the revered anglophile of the  city – and of course the ever burgeoning middle class of the city. Perhaps not, we all were engrossed in our own little world; busy in our own cocoon. We had a job to do, an election to be won, a protest to be made, a policy to be made (not to implemented), a sojourn to be had, an advert- Tagline: Come to The Salubrious Abode-to be published, a house to be built (home-stay perhaps, its profitable venture, tax fee as well) and of course, profit were to be made. 

Meanwhile, our worthy Mayor had a conference to attend in China; ironically conference was on "Promotion of Tourism". Everyone had their priorities cut out. How parochial it will be to question our society for this fallout, after will we did what we are supposed to do: compete to survive. Indulge in  fun and frolic, even if its  at any cost nature, even though the approach may be apocalyptic. So what? One life, many dreams.... 

Our parsimony has transcended all limits; we bedeviled the environment at every possible opportunity. The present situation is Kafkaesque. Unequivocally. Look what we have made our little world: we don’t have drinking water for weeks, forget about water 24/7, in the capital of the State. Is this the price we will have to pay to build a so called SMART CITY? And remember, once Shimla was the summer capital of the British India. One can imagine the  plight of people residing in villages, close to 90% of the state lives in villages. Specter is a man-made; we all have played our role and performed our deeds, and we still are performing incessantly.

         What can I say of the tourists who flocked to Shimla amid this crisis. Ruthless. When city was craving for water, they still found it appropriate to go ahead with their vacation. How unsympathetic and casual! Empathy, the word has been deleted from our culture. What about owners of the hotels in the city ? Well, its neoliberal world: business always gets the priority over life. Life can never win the race against business. Show must go on, life can wait for another day,another summer....

Shimla welcomes one with sky piercing pine and cedar trees, cobalt blue sky, verdant valley views with bucolic setting. The mixed aroma of pine and cedar in the air is reinvigorating, the mist shrouding the mountains in monsoon and then lifting the veil slowly is like masterpiece of a painter. Swiss Bavarian, Gothic and Tudor Architect is reminiscent of the era gone by. The city has witnessed Shimla Manifesto in 1838, conference in 1914 which resulted in drawing of the McMahan line between India and China, Partition broached upon in 1947, the historic Shimla Agreement in 1972, and now the first city in India to face such a sever water crisis. Shimla, the Queen of Hills, imperceptibly has grown old, the allure it offered is somewhat subdued; Queen that withstood the ravages of difficult time has finally given up. Queen is a reduced picture of terrible beauty: jaded, exhausted and deracinated. Reckless urbanization, wanton deforestation and unabated tourism took away its life; hubris of the imperial era is left as a soul.

We consolidate our strength and improve upon our weakness. We don’t exploit our strength to the extent that it becomes our weakness, and very reason of our extinction. The approach we have adopted, as a society, is apocalyptic. This will lead us to ecocide-and there is no coming back. Water is elixir of life, raison d’être of life on earth. Its a man made problem and will requires man made solutions.  No divine intervention will be there. We, as a society, will have to restore the ecological balance pro bono publico. We can’t ignore the mayday sent out by the Queen. Hope someone is listening, for a change. Remember! "Hell has no fury like a woman scorned"- This one is a queen...

GRACKSUN: Book Review: Eleven Gods and A Billion Indians by ...

GRACKSUN: Book Review: Eleven Gods and A Billion Indians by ...:              Cricket in not just a game, it’s a religion, for majority of Indians. A religion that bleeds blue and act ...

Book Review: Eleven Gods and A Billion Indians by Boria Majumdar

             Cricket in not just a game, it’s a religion, for majority of Indians. A religion that bleeds blue and act as a glue to bind us all together, as no other religion , sports or event does. It’s our colonial masters, who brought cricket to Indian shores, but they never would have imagined, two centuries later, this game will transform into such a colossal that will have no parallels. Cricket in India brings everyone together: Bollywood celebrities, politicians, bureaucrats, business tycoons, aristocrats, proletarians, media barons and plebeian. They all cheer every run scored, every wicket taken in unison; the result of the game reflects the mood of the nation. Somber nation means loss in a cricket match, fun and frolic in the country is representative of an Indian victory. The nation beleaguered with so many issues find solace in cricket. The players are revered as living deity by more than one billion people. Boria Majumdar, a Rhodes Scholar, cricket historian and eminent sports journalist has aptly named his latest book on the history of Indian as “Eleven God and A Billion Indians” published by Simon and Schuste.

            The book has a remarkable cover: golden in color, the front side has a photograph of two Indian batsman in the middle of the pitch hugging each other, with a sea of Indian spectator clad in blue waving the umpteen tricolors in the background; the back side has a letter written by the Cricket Advisory Committee on 17.06.2017 to BCCI regarding selection of coach, which is like a teaser. The book is divided in five parts and contains 450 pages.

            After outbreak of the match fixing scam, Indian cricket was at a crossroad. The fans had lost faith and were perplexed by the event. The first part of the book deals with this episode and entire chapter is dedicated to it. The writer talks about the stupendous India Australia series of 2001, and how this series restored the faith of the fans in the game after the murky incident like match fixing. The captaincy reign of Saurov Ganguly is extensively written, including the Greg Chappell fiasco and his difference with the KKR coach John Buchanan. The part two provides an insight into the BCCI- an oxymoron. How the evolution of BCCI happened from a cashless organisation to a cash rich behemoth. The section also portrait the Indians biggest brand and an incident that stopped time in Indian: IPL and retirement of Sachin Tendulkar.  Indian team victory against the mighty West Indies in 1971 at Port of Spain, the remarkable story of 1983 World Cup is covered in part three of the book.

            There is a fascinating chapter on Ranji’s love life and cricket in part four of the book, along with how the sport was played on communal line back then; debut of India in test cricket, political backstage in that era, stories of ego clashes over the years are also covered in this part. Part five is dedicated to the modern deity: Virat Kohli, and a chapter on woman cricket in India is there too. A complete section in the book dedicated to the photographic history of Indian cricket. You will find photographs from different eras, postcards, cartoons and  palimpsest of autographs.   

            The book contains everything: anecdotes, interviews, conspiracy, thriller, politics, passion, emotional drama. The most fascinating aspect of the book is, it can be a case study for the student of economics and management (writing on BCCI and IPL), for a political analyst and administrators (writing on politics in BCCI) as well as for those who loves history and reading in general (as this book is a historiography of Indian Cricket). The writer must be given full credit  for language, story telling and  the research put in, even though there is an error when he narrates an incident regarding Roberto Baggio missing a crucial penalty in FIFA 1990 football world Cup. Roberto Baggio did not miss the penalty in 1990 world cup, he indeed missed one in 1994 football World Cup final against Brazil in USA.  In the words of the author the book is “a story of ecstasy and agony, of adversity and triumph, of corruption and cleansing and, most importantly, of obscurity and intense public scrutiny. When I discussed the autobiography of Sachin Tendulkar-Playing it my, which Boria has co-authored - with my friend, “It did not do justice to the Legend” my friend retorted. This time around, Boria not only did justice, but delivered a gem to be cherished as a reward by all the cricket lovers and readers across globe. Holy book of Indian cricket has arrived. A must read. Happy Reading

GRACKSUN: Tragedy of the Plebeian

GRACKSUN: Tragedy of the Plebeian: Catharsis would fail to assuage pain and melancholy surrounding the air of Khuwara, a village 17 Kms from Nurpur. Khuwara, a sle...

Tragedy of the Plebeian

Catharsis would fail to assuage pain and melancholy surrounding the air of Khuwara, a village 17 Km from Nurpur. Khuwara, a sleepy village in district Kangra has found itself on the front pages of newspapers for wrong reasons-these images of the village are not only disturbing but numb chilling. An image captures the present, to be reminiscent of the moment in the future. These images will reverberate the pain and despair of the grief-stricken families for years to come.  Monday, 09 April 2018 was supposed to be the start of the promising new academic season for 12 children (all aged 4-12 years) from this village. The day that promised to start of laying the foundation for the bright future of these children, delivered ruination. The school bus while returning the children and teachers back to their homes plunged into the gorge skidding off the slippery road; killing 27, out of the 23 were children. Khuwara has secured a name for itself in the annals of history, not with the deeds of these children, but with their untimely death. The history of this village will have the blood of these innocent children in its hand. Spare a thought for the bereaved family, calamity had struck their lives, from all sides. Their children: most valuable treasure robbed, their future dreams dashed and hope of prosperity ceased. Prima facie suggested negligence on the part of the demised driver. The first day of the new academic session turned out to be the last day of their life for these ill fate children. 

The incident moved us all; in fact, it bedeviled us. We are broaching over the incident and will continue to do so for days. I, myself is guilty of not paying heed to this calamity; agonizing images in the newspapers made me realize the magnitude of the accident. Some might even vent their spleen on authorities by staging a protest. Social media will be popping up with messages of melodramatic trite. There is a palpable sense of loss on every face but at the same time, our ostrich mindset acts as scruples in raising our voice and making it heard. We, as a society, have failed: the fact that the cremation place was replete with corpses and places didn't suffice. Forget about road safety for the moment. An incident as such does not make any democracy proud, be it mature or developing.

The administration sprang into action: it was announced immediately that a committee will be formed soon to avoid such accidents in the future. District administration annulled all cultural function that was to be organized in the next 10 days. The Hon’ble High Court has taken suo motu cognizance of the accident and issued a notice to the state government and appointed amicus curiae, a former Advocate General in the last government. Politicians are pouring into the village to offer bromides and console the bereaved families. The state government ordered an ADM level inquiry to find out the exact causes of the accident.

 The mass cremation was carried out on the next day; the scene was heart-wrenching: cries, lamentation, chest-thumping, tears flowing profusely like streams from the eyes of one and all. The people, of all age group, thronged the cremation site, to offer their homage to the dead. The cremation site had no proper road, a path had to be laid out with the help of a JCB machine. Development is yet to reach cremation sites in our country, it seems. Some say had there been a crash barrier tragedy could have been avoided. Such comments have become archetypes after every tragedy. It’s a matter to be broached on another day- maybe on another platform. A village has lost posterity; calamity has left the village in the void forever. Time will surely stop the tears and heal the wounds, although scars will remain as a milestone to reflect the gravity of the agony and suffering.

Back to the capital of the state, it’s raining incessantly, for a change. In all possibilities, God is also crying his eyes out to the tragedy. The road here is like rivers of cars, meandering gracefully and cacophony offering the painful music. The school cabs teeming with children crammed in them. Children of the plebeian, maybe, maybe not. There are splashy big cars with conspicuous red rubric engraved in front on an errand. Red rubric: speaks for power, sense of authority, a possible immunity, almost everything except accountability. As long as we have two different sets of cars – one crammed with children other too commodious for one or two inmates- carrying children to the schools, we may never find an answer or solution to such accidents. Soon political swords will be drawn out from the sheath to wage a war.  Meanwhile, we have a tragedy to mourn- a tragedy of the plebeian.