eid and kawar

This piece was written last year.

Grudgingly I left for my office on 9th December for it ought to have been a holiday since it was Eid. It is high time that holidays for festivals and jayanthis be brought under the purview of fundamental rights. Reduction in human and vehicular traffic could be noticed but Gurgaon, being infested by mnc’s, was as usual. Lap one of my journey was as usual spent listening to chants and dozing off. In the lap 2, which is in the rickety dtc, I again tried to sleep for speeding qualis, sedan’s carrying air-hostess’s and planes touching the tarmac no longer motivate me to gaze outside the window. Lap 3 is where I encountered the rush and jam. From the jam-packed auto I could see vehicles being shooed away from the NH into the service lane. “Wow! The NH is being cleared for some poli-tic-ian and his cavalcade”, I thought and started cursing the whole breed; the breed which barges in uninvited and whines when shooed away. The autowallah asked us to disembark midway. A few paces took me to a constable and on enquiry I came to know that traffic had been stopped for Eid celebration. Nonplussed, I carried on further and I could see a slice of the truth. Soon beggars greeted me and kids pressed into me, few more paces I could see the side-lane near to the local mosque being fully occupied by men wearing white kufie caps, settled on mats, row after row. I soon reached the end of the fly-over and a peep revealed that the gradient (both sides) was occupied by battalion of men in their kufie; all set to offer special prayers.

Why, when, where and many question about this festival can be found out using google. This link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_ul-Fitr also provides some information as to how Eid is celebrated worldwide. I had always wanted to visit jama masjid and capture the praying shot. And here I was before a much larger gathering, filling 2 service lanes and the rajeev chowk flyover. I missed my digital camera but nevertheless the phone came handy. A voice crackled through the loudspeaker foisted over the lamp post and went on lecturing about Islam, its meaning, worldwide status of muslims, education and dereliction to offer namaz as kids with begging bowls played on the NH and beggars lay revealing doctored wounds.

Traffic had been completely stopped, from which point, I do not know. But there would have been a huge pile up for the whole affair lasted from 8:30 to 11 am. And no attempt was being made to hasten up the process. Police stood by doing what they do the best chatting and yielding their sticks. The sermon dragged on and the actual namaz lasted only for 10 minutes; a visual treat, how the men bend and raise in unison calling allahu akbar. The assembling, lecture and dispersal took more time than the prayer.

I was waiting anxiously with couple of bhelpuri wallas for the finale. I wanted to see men hugging and wishing eid mubarak which is called musafa (I think) just as in bollywood films. However to my disappointment, I could only see couple of hugs and the men started walking back to their homes as the preacher repeatedly pleaded for musafas. And I too slowly walked back to the auto stand and reached office at 11:30.

This year too traffic was stopped on the national highway for atleast 3 hours and one can imagine the pile up of traffic. Luckily, I reached only an hour late. And this time the times of india carried an amazing pic of namazis occupying the entire rajiv chowk flyover with comments on resulting traffic jams.

Yet another kind of fanaticism is seen when kawarias throng on the road and the state governments make special arrangements for them, reserving a part of the lane for their smooth travel and also closing the highway leading to haridwar and offices. Often, these kawarias indulge in wanton destruction of vehicles and sorrounding fields if per chance a kawarian is killed or water carried by him is spilled. A new variant is also seen these days, the relay kawari, kawaris in bikes and trucks, each runing with ganga for certain distance with loud music. More hooliganism and traffic is seen. It has become more of a show business rather than professing of faith.

Unfortunately, vote politics and appeasement policy has lead to pampering of such practices. Decades ago, when gandhi supported the khilafat agitation, jinnah had warned, "that it was crime to mix up politics and religion..". Wise words...anybody listening?

To Patna

“abey bihari” – happen to be the starters for the ensuing tantrums for most delhites if a cyclewallah or rickshawallay or autowallah whimsically changes lane or refuses to budge on delhi roads. The “me mumbaikar” campaign targeted biharis working in mumbai – the doodhwallah and taxiwallah and there was huge hue and cry in media. This spite against non-mumbaikars runs deep in the sena family. Back in lack 60’s the cartoonist’s party had raised tirade against the madrasis, again on the same ground that madrasis were usurping jobs in then bombay. Quite an insecure lots these senas! I have always found folks hailing from bihar to be honest and hardworking (interactions with delhi autowallahs). Most of them have lands in bihar and family cultivates the land while they are busy here. In two to three cases, son or brother was in software company or was preparing for ias exam. Each was of the opinion that politicians had ruined the state. Indeed an austere looking man had swallowed crores of simple fodder and more austere looking wife ran the show. The man (jayaprakash narayan) who had started the bihar movement to fight corruption and mis-governance would have hung himself out of shame seeing bihar’s condition.

Students from bihar folk to delhi university dreaming to clear the ias examination. They do not stop at ias examination but also appear in bank po exam and various military exams. One of my batch mate at law fac, rahul mishra, had managed to clear crpf exam and was mighty pleased with his performance; for now he had a value in bihar marriage market which could off-set the dowry given in his sisters marriage. Unfortunately, while returning from drinks party late night, he got killed in a car accident.

It was a one day trip to patna – the land of lallu, the land of biharis. Although I had a very limited time on hand, I was all-eager to explore the place. I reached new delhi railway station well before time and I was glad for reaching early. It rained cats and dogs and I feared that train would be cancelled. Later on I came to know that the rain had severely damaged roofing work at delhi airport. I was on platform 16-newly added platform and just next to vip parking. Soon a strange thing caught my eye; folks were queuing up next to a thick rope stretching across 3 pillars under the supervision of delhi police and soon the line went long. Discipline and delhi are like banks of a river; I enquired from the policeman on duty and came to know that the line was for getting into the unreserved compartment. Indeed, some reforms introduced. I again saw a similar line further ahead, just around ac 2-tier compartment.

The sampoornakranti arrived and I boarded my compartment; the rainwater had seeped in and had formed tributary and distributaries. Just as I settled, came up a chap and informed me that the said seat had been allotted to him. I calmly said, “we’ll clear when the checker comes” but I was ruffled at the thought of being pushed to 3-tier. This usually happens to folks traveling in ac first, in order to accommodate some influential. But, being a patna bound train, I did not rule out “pulling out strings” for ac two seat. I rushed out to see the chart and my name was there. I saw the checker standing and enquired with him and he informed me that I had been upgraded to ac one compartment free of cost. I was elated; I always wanted to travel first class ac and here was I by sheer chance in a coupe and the second chap never showed up. I enjoyed the setting sun from the tinted glass along with lays chips. Throughout the journey, peculiar stations showed up prefixed with ‘halts’ like v.v.giri halt and google later showed me that these were illegal stations built by villagers and they also forced the trains to halt there.

The train was late by couple of hours and the minute I stepped out of the station, a panditji with holy water greeted me and asked for “shani ka daan”, it being Saturday and I was amused. Only steel cans decked with black cloth do the rounds in delhi on Saturday with the slogan, “shani ka daan, maha kalyan”. I checked in and had my lunch around 11’ish. I took rickshaw to reach my destination and around 1 I wrapped up the briefing session with the advocate. I had couple of hours before the meeting with judge and I had plans to visit the ghol ghar and ganga ghat. 15 minutes of rickshaw travel took me to the ghol ghar which used to be a granary. A series of small steep steps reveals river ganga, patna city and patna-hajipur gandhi setu. I, in my enthusiasm, climbed the steps too fast and when I reached the top, my head spinned and I went out of breath. Before I collapsed, I managed to click couple of shots of river ganga. It was only after five to seven minutes that I regained my form with my possessions intact. I had to shelve the visit to ganga visit for the while and went back to my hotel for a glass of fresh lime water.

I had couple of hours after the arbitration matter

(Patna Railway Station)

and roamed around the gandhi maidan area clicking the nalanda university building and various statues. Thankfully, the return journey was all smooth and rajdhani arrived almost on time. Although, dad had warned me not to venture to take photos standing besides the door, the approaching yamuna bridge provoked me to do so and I clicked some photos of river yamuna with humanyun’s tomb and the shanti stupa in the background.

bigamy

All these year I foolishly entertained the notion that muslim men indulged in bigamy for they have the backing of their personal law. The muslim personal law allows men to have more than one wife only during war time or women out-numbering men. I was taken aback when I read sunday toi that hindu men accounted for 5.8% of all bigamous marriage while muslim men accounted for only 5.6%. Now, it needs no explanation as to who is in majority. I received further shock when I read that this practice is higher in south india's hindu upper class.

The problem rises above religion and thus, need not be given religious shade but is of "male-dominance" and this underlying motive has moulded the interpretation of our scriptures and side-lined women by labelling her as 'naari' i.e. "do not try your hand at anything". Having said this, polyandry is also noticed in our social fabric and so is 'swinging'. Viewing from male and female perspective, the question is of morality versus individual freedom and add the concept of live-in relationship.

Eventually these things may work fine socially but when law steps in, the effect would be pinching.

Poli-tic-ians, tigers and snakes

The news channels showed jairam ramesh, minister of state for environment and forest holding a python during the inauguration of the snake interpretation centre at the vanvihar national park in bhopal on saturday and other officials donning the role of a ‘sapera’, displaying snakes as if they had given birth to reptiles. The usual clamor followed of violation of some wildlife act. Funnily and sadly, it was the same jairam ramesh who announced that committee would look into acts of balasaheb throat, maharashtra agricultural minister, who had entered a tiger cage and caressed and patted a cub. Of course, the committee would have sat over and gulped chais and samosas and closed the affair. Of course, ‘politicians’ cannot survive in society but by reciprocal concessions (to modify johnson’s quote).

More comic was the defence presented by digvijay singh to save throat; interpreting the provisions of wildlife act, diggy raja pleaded that, “patting is not molestation”. k.p.s gill should have known the potentials of diggy raja and hired him as defence counsel in bajaj case.

Teachers

School is not preparation for life, but school is life – John Dewey…sadly I concur with his quote when Iam just couple of years away from my 30’s. The average human mind is always yearning for "what next?” instead of enjoying the present and thus I used of dream of ‘college days’ in school and ‘of earning money’ in college and so on ‘life’ goes on…

Each year as the “teacher’s day” rolls by, I do a memory jog of teachers I have encountered and their effect on me and before I reach a stage where my memory goes corrupt, I thought of putting this piece.

Already I have lost memory files for 1st to 5th class comfortably spent in a rather small school. All I can recollect is stern ms. chaya singh for social, ms. indu for science and affectionate mrs. talwar. For 6th onwards, I moved to a ‘big’ school whose prospectus promised a swimming pool, the kids have only seen monsoon pools. With change in school and friends, my marks plummeted like bse only to rise during the finals. Amidst my alternating current marks graph, flocked in and out various teachers.

Math was my nemeses and so were the teachers. The first teacher was a stout, chubby and cheerful vandana dayal who later went to Bangalore. She was one teacher who always wanted us to be ahead of the other sections. Next one was ms. saraswati kulkarni and I always entertained the thought that she was a south Indian married to a kulkarni due to her good English and more stress on ‘is’ which went ‘iiiiiisssss’; thankfully it was not ‘hisss’. Mr. vijay taught us the Xth course and I must acknowledge that he, realizing my phobia for the subject, took special interest in me, brought me to the first bench and taught me. And then came the disciplinarian mr. sunil saxena (head of disciplinary committee) with funny English accent “hey! You over there” (trying to ape english actors). Vectors, differentiation, derivatives, integrals, differential equations, 3D geometry, lp, probability appeared like douglas jardine’s bodyline series. I finished my 12th math paper in one and a half hours flat and spent the rest of the time staring at my friends who were working furiously. I had this gut feeling that I would flunk for sure but to my surpise I fell 3 short of my glorious half-century. The credit obviously does not go to mr. saxena who only knew to shout and slap kids.

Hindi was taught by mrs. rupam, another strict teacher who once pounced my hair for not producing the homework copy. I had never maintained any homework copy for hindi and came up with a new copy for each homework. Thankfully, I opted for sanskrit in ninth.

The school had good English teachers and in particular mrs. rohini jakati, ms. padmaja, ms. amita and mrs. sahai . All of them had a cheerful disposition and truly enjoyed teaching. I am indeed indebted to mrs. jakati for she had kind words to say about me in parent-teachers meeting despite my flunking in social science and maths (this was in 6th). She explained to the class the difference between ‘can I’ and ‘may I’. There was this youngish teacher, whose name I cannot re-collect, who used to chew bubble gum while teaching. Overall, English teachers were cool. One particular incident I must refer to; unhappy with my marks, I had tore my answer sheet. My select friends followed my act. mrs. sahai soon called each student for bonus 3 marks and she was pleasantly surprised to see torn sheets and said that she would be keeping them as mementos.

The science stream teachers were mrs. prema swaminathan, mrs. archana trishal, mrs. ram rakhyani, ms. prabha. Mrs. swaminathan and ms. prabha were the best of the lots. Also there was a male teacher for physics who always used to circle the girls side, perhaps trying to improve his chemistry.

Social science as a subject interested me and ms. praveena bhatnagar was largely responsible for inculcating interest and love for history. She was very meticulous about correcting home-works and each copy was returned with pages full with red corrections. She not only suggested answers but also framed sentences. She deprecated the practice of copying and described this as “licking another’s vomit”. Our class protested and cried when another teacher was appointed as our class teacher in her place and we pooled in money and gifted her some imitation (this was in class Xth). I must thank her for lucidly explaining the world wars and contemporary history especially the concept of “tunnel vision” associated with world war. The love for history still survives in me and I continue to read on. There was another history teacher, ms. sapna singh, who taught us in 6th or 7th class.

Sanskrit was never my forte and this was another subject wherein I used to pass only in my final exam. Two teachers were very good – mrs. rekha kapoor and mrs. suman sharma. The third one from gorakhpur – mrs. savita srivastav was a misfit. Her dressing sense exhibited “matching concept”; if pink was the saree, so would be the color of her lip-stick and her sandals. In the end, utterance of “suuar ke bachon” (swine's kids) undid her.

Mrs. naveen bhalla was our accounts and business teacher for 11th and 12th class. She was also our class teacher. She came out as a very good teacher and gave her 100% to explain us various book entries. The accounts class indeed turned out to be a chaotic one and we really enjoyed. She was also creative in manging students - she made dull boys sit with the intelligent ones and for a change I was recognized as an intelligent one. I was one of the “lord of last benches” and mrs. bhalla tried hard to re-settle our group, implemented desk-rotation but we flagrantly disobeyed and remained rooted to the last bench. She gave us a sense of liberty which we were to enjoy in college and in that sense her handling of class 12th assumes importance. Sadly, she too left the school after one year of our leaving.

Economics syllabus was interesting, especially in 12th and mr. shaji george was newly appointed to teach us the subject. His class was funny because of his typical malayalee english accent. He soon busied himself in teaching us graduation level economics. He only used to dictate his notes which I used scribble like a madman so that I could not read it afterwards. Tired of dictating, he delegated to a girl who used to record in tape so that students could hear them in walkman.
The miscellaneous teachers happened to be our games teaches – mr. negi and d.k.bose. mr. negi was quite popular among students for his antics during the prayer session. ‘D.k.bose’ was simply altered to a hindi tantrum. The music teacher was mr. manish khullar and I still remember his tight slap during bongo practice. He used to claim that he was the hummer in parachute ad. And then there was this bald yoga teacher, mr. zutchi. I had never seen him teaching yoga and he used to pounce upon hair of students, perhaps due to inferiority complex. I have only a faint memory of computer teacher, a fair and youngish (perhaps Bengali) teacher. Electronics which came in “some useful period wasted (supw)” was taught by a sardarji who used to loose his cool during afternoons, no offence intended.

I still abhor my big school structure but I still remember couple of teachers with sense of gratitude.