Martyrs of Inhumane

Another week in village. Another nascent experience of true India. The India which always attracts me the most. Attracts to know, attracts to understand and attracts to feel it from the within.
This time I was in Bastar District of Chattisgadh. This district is famous for its beautiful Bastar Art on wood and wrought metal and infamous for Naxalite movement. I had always thought of traveling those areas which is severely hit by Naxalism. Not that I want to be martyrs for unnecessary reasons but to experience closely the life and livelihood of the people who are part of or support this philosophy. Unfortunately I had not been suggested to travel in those areas. Since after 3rd week of every month, the Naxalite movement takes an unusual pace in these areas. I don’t know the logic behind this. So I planned to travel Kondagaon, a small and beautiful village of Bastar District, also a place where military forces had made camp for fighting with the Naxalite movement.
After finishing my work there, we were coming back from the hilly roads. It was sunset time. After spreading lights to the world where people of country feel that there is deep darkness due to the nasty Naxalites, the Sun was heading towards another world to spread its bright light. I had never seen such a beautiful sunset in any crags land. The blue sky was turning into saffron color as if it was spreading a beautiful bed sheet for its son Sun to sleep in the night after doing an arduous work of spreading brightness to the world. I was almost spellbound to see this beauty of nature. The car was running with its usual speed. Suddenly I saw some cheering crowd in an empty piece of land at left side of the road. I asked my colleague about this crowd and their cheers, he said that "cock-fight" is going on.

Oh, I would like to see that. And we went near to the crowd, made some place in the inner periphery of the circular crowd to see what is happening in the well of this circle. There two big roosters were fighting very badly with each other. Entire crowd was cheering and shouting to excite those roosters. Those roosters were fighting so violently that it once scared me. The claws of those big roosters were having a very sharp one edged blade tide with it. While fighting, they were using the blades to hit each other. Lot of small denomination of money was flowing in this fight as a part of betting. Some were winning, some were cheering hard to let win the loosing match.

The crowd was cheering, bloods of those roosters were fluxing, money was flowing, roosters were using different techniques to kill each other, some were winning some loosing and the ultimate winners were the owner of those fighter roosters. So inhumane. And finally that happened which was expected by the crowd. One beautiful red colored rooster died in this violant fight and the black colored won this fight. That red rooster while dying brought a smile over the crowd, a smile of satisfaction, a smile of “Paisa Vasool”.

A village may be considered as a silent, serene place to live but there are lot of violence happening there and lot of unknown martyrs are giving their life to make the day of the villagers. Martyrs of inhumane acts like that of that red rooster. My all the sympathy are there with you, you brave red rooster (RIP).

The Wings of Money

India… A country… rather a journey for us to understand, learn and experience its vividness. It is said that Indian Economy is govern mainly by the agriculture sector or rural India in a more panoptic sense. But how the rural economy works is the major question?

I am traveling a lot of villages these days as a part of an initiative of our company to go rural. This had given me an opportunity to observe closely and get a first hand experience of the rural part of our country.

For any economy to function, there need to be a market for the purpose of giving runniness to money. The Rural Indian does understand it better. Hence every village of country is having a system of weekly bazaar. This weekly bazaar generally is organized in the Gram Panchayat head quarter village. Every Gram Panchayat is covering approximately a population of 5k. The number of villages ranges from 2 to 10 in every Gram Panchayat area. These weekly bazaar sells every thing which would be helpful to run a rural life and includes household items to the agricultural products, fertilizers, pesticides, vegetables, clothes etc. On the day of bazaar, you go to any shop and they would hardly give you time to talk. They are so busy with the fundamentals of rotating the money that they would tell you to talk to them some other day, if you are not there to be the part of their economics process. This is the day of the week when the money from the household moves to the sellers and makes them suddenly rich person for atleast a week time.

But how they are using this liquid money further? This is the question which sometimes enamors me the most considering a huge amount of money which flows from one hand to other in these weekly bazaars.

I was traveling through one of the village called “Kanharpur” in the Churia Tehsil of Rajnandgaon District of Chattisgadh. It was 11 O’clock in the morning when we reached this village. The entire village was looking abandoned at that time. I asked some people sitting below the trunk of one of the huge tree at the entrance of the village about this. They said that yesterday was the bazaar day in their village and every body are tired enough that they are resting in their house.
Of course handling huge money as per the rural standard definitely brings a kind of strain in the muscles of the people. The mental muscles.
But another question was what next they are going to do with that money? Are they going to invest it in their agriculture or land or they are going to save this money in their bank?
That person answered, “Why don’t you go to some house of this village? You will get answer of all your questions”.

That sounds good. I went to one of the window kiosk kind of shop located inside the village. There a kid was sitting in the shop. I asked that kid to call his father or any other elder member of the family. He went inside the house and called his father. A middle aged person came to the window. He joined both his hand and said in chattisgadhi language, “Sir, I am a bit high and I would not be able to talk to you right now. Kindly forgive me” and went inside the house. I asked my driver, who belongs to Chattisgadh, about what that person has said. The driver told us to get into the car and said that you will find entire village drunk today. Also, every house today makes best of the best food as per their standard. This is because of the fact that they have made good money yesterday due to the weekly bazaar and this is the best way they can celebrate the money. Eventually these people makes money every week to celebrate one day.

“Strange. But what will they do after that? How would they operate their regular life once they fall short of the money?”

“Sir they would wait till next bazaar to make money again. This is how rural life operates. They are not worried about their future or savings. They have very less expectations from their life. They actually live in the present moment rather than thinking for their future. And this attitude of these people are well being used by the zamindaars of the villages”. This is how money makes a complete cycle with creating a little productivity to those who actually had set the money to rotate and gives maximum benefits to those who are not directly involved in the movement of money. And in this order, keeps the villages and villagers of our country as it is, without making any significant change in their life. The hard earned money flows from one hand to other without generating any value to those who actually push it to flow and rotate.

Eventually this is the case with most of the villages of India, the actual driver of economy. The drunk driver.

Knight-errant Night

Sometimes it seems like our life has become so monotonous that its monotony starts killing us. During that monotony period, we could be able to explain our whole day or life in just 3 or 4 lines. But a time comes when your life become so action packed that you actually live every moment, cherish every moment and say “statue” to time to let it freeze in those moments. After a long time, the same thing has happened in my life during last fortnight. I was so much busy doing lot of stuff that I really don’t have got time to think about anything else but about the every passing moments. And to the top of it, every moment was so special that I would wish to hit a REE button of life to experience those beautiful moments again.

One such occasion was joining an official ceremony of our office to honor those who have done something different from their routine work. The appropriate word they say is “Out of the box thinking / working”. This occasion was organized in the lawn of one of the tranquil and swish hotel of Mumbai. About 250 people were there to attend the ceremony. All came by invitation with who’s who of the organization. They were those 250 people of the organization who have been selected by a selection board based upon their work. All achievers. Everyone was in their best of the best dressings with essentially suits of clothes. The occasion was so formal that even those who are popularly known for their smutty jokes were talking some sense. There was a big stage for felicitating the winners. It was huge 60 feet by 40 feet stage with lot of decorative and magical lights. Two huge screens were there to capture closely and show every emotions of the people. It was really a “WOW” moment for me to be a part of that ceremony.

And finally a time came when our name has been announced by the anchor. As we were proceeding to the stage, the two huge screens were showing our work that we had done to increase the image of the organization into the market place. The anchor was harbingering us with the best of the best phrases and vocabulary. While the certificate was handed over to me, the entire lawn was reverberated with the applause. Though applause sound lasted for merely few seconds, as we were among the last to receive the award and everybody was tired of clapping, it gave me a rarefied pleasure which perhaps is beyond the explanation. A great pleasure was that those who were applauding for me were selected succeeders of the organization. And getting praised by the winners is always a special thing. It was a night which is hard to forget till the end of my life. This one night had developed a kind of covetousness in me. A covetousness to come here again and get clapped again by selected achievers. I know I need to work really hard to climb that 60*40 feet stage again. But for that bizarre stage, I would not mind working hard and doing some “Out of the Box” work.

A Topic To Write...

I was reading some book and then suddenly I got this idea. The idea was, there was nothing great in that book. I mean, there was nothing that makes the Author distinguished individual in the world. There was nothing great if someone is writing some story on two architectures who made their name in the world and one at the end leaves his job and became painter with the intention of self – actualization. But, it becomes a great philosophical epic novel. And if someone is writing about Indo – Pak partition or about series of incidences of his college or his call center and becomes best seller. Even I can write that.

Then what I was waiting for? Why didn’t have I wrote till now?

Perhaps, these Authors are having some topic to write but I don’t have one. Or perhaps I couldn’t be able to identify one. Till the time I do not identify any topic to write, I need to keep reading and keep appreciating works of other people… without criticizing them.

The Real Life Hero

There are times when you learn a lot from the stories spreading around you. The only important thing is, keep your senses open for the happenings and you could be able to pick stories around you and the learning incorporated in it. The same thing has happened today. The story goes like this:-

I am generally a very lazy guy. I do not act upon unless it costs me the life. This is because I am a bit careless about myself. But this implies only about my personal life and I am not much careless about my professional or social life. Since long I was finding that I was falling thin in my wardrobe and I seriously needed some good clothing for myself. But because of my seer laziness, I was just trying to push this requirement for every passing next day. And then it started affecting me in a way that every morning after bath, I was literally searching for some good cloth to wear in my wardrobe. Finally I decided to purchase some good cloth to avoid this morning hassle of mine. So I went to one of the big store of Raipur and purchased some clothes. There was this store boy who was helping me find suitable clothes for me. His name was Gopal. After I finished purchasing clothes, he suggested me to give these clothes for stitching in the showroom only as they were providing their customers the facilities of tailors also. I owned his suggestion but with a condition that I need all these cloths after a week. He committed that he will take follow up with the in-house tailor and would deliver the apparels on the stipulated time.

After a week, on the given date, I reached the store to ask for my clothes. That same guy took the bills from me and went to the in-house tailoring factory upstairs and came down in 10 minutes saying that he is sorry that he could not be able to fulfill his commitment of delivering the clothes on time as some of the finishing work is still pending. I just lost my temper and vehement over him as if he could not be able to fulfill his commitment than why the hell on earth had he committed? This was Saturday and on Sunday this showroom remains close. So I would have to wait until Monday to get the stuff delivered. When he saw me loosing my forbearance, he said that he would request his tailor to finish the work by Sunday and he himself would come to my house to deliver the clothes. I knew that this guy is still making a mendacious statement and he is saying so just to console me. Things were not in my hand, so I left the store after giving him my address.

To the surprise of my life, I got a call of Gopal on Sunday morning. He said that it would take another 15 minutes to finish the work and latest by an hour he would visit my house with the clothes. Exactly after an hour, I got a knock on my door. I opened the door and saw this tall and smart guy Gopal. He was carrying two packets having all my clothes. This was one of the happiest moments of my life. Not because I got all my clothes, but because of the fact that this man had finally fulfilled his commitment screwing his Sunday, just for the sake that he should bring a smile over my face and most importantly to avoid any thought in me that Gopal is a guy who don’t know keeping promises. I was overwhelmed. Man you’re this small gesture had really brought a good smile over not only my face but my heart even. I said Thank You to him and after getting this big Thank You, he really felt very happy. He just turned around, kept both his hands in his pant pockets, held his head high and moved away as if he actually had won a battle and now going proudly into his house back.

What I liked the most is not that he brought my clothes, but the fact that this guy knew that though he didn’t have fulfilled his commitment on time but still did not have taken much time to finish the task. Though it cost him his week end for which now he would have to wait for another week time.

Every one of us is facing such situation in our life when we makes some commitment to someone but could not be able to fulfill due to some involuntary or intangible hurdles. But what is most important is that how fast we overcome the hurdles and take decisions fast to make the task finished without further delaying it. This is not to show the world that see I am almost well on time but to tell our own inner soul that this is what I am.

A big learning for me. Thanks Gopal for the clothes and for this lesson as well.