The after-seethe

A few days ago, I was at Gwalior station, waiting for a train that just wouldn't arrive. Since I travel very light these days, I just swung my bag on my shoulders and proceeded to walk about, mostly between the enquiry counter, the platform and the tea-stall.

The man approached from a distance. I could see him but didn't notice him until he extended an arm and tried to wrap it around my waist as he walked past. For a fraction of a second, it didn't sink - what just happened? But instinctively, my hand had latched on to his arm. Even as he began to walk away, I pulled him back and with the other hand, caught his ear, and asked him (in Hindi), "Where do you think you're going?"

Young man, checked shirt. From his expression, he didn't seem to realize what was going on.

He just stared, then asked, "What do you want?"

"I want to take you to the police station."

He tried to walk off again. I hit him on the arm and twisted his ear. A few people gathered. Most paused half a second to glance at this new tamasha, and walked away.

He stepped back and struggled free. Then he got out his wallet and began to produce credentials. Some sort of identity card. "I'm not just anybody, you know..." he began.

I snatched the card out of his hands and yelled, "What do I care about this? What difference does this make? Come to the police station."

A few people asked, in passing, "What's going on? What's the matter?"

He said, "I didn't do anything."

I slapped him.

Before I could ask anyone to help me take him to the police station, he snatched his identity card out of my hand and broke away. I was about to follow him, frightened as I was, but right behind me, there stood two railway police cops. In uniform. Not saying a word. Watching.

I saw the checked shirt receding, disappearing into the crowd, and decided to forget about going to the police station. Instead, I went to the ladies-only waiting room, to seethe in silence, and to glare at every man who entered the room whoever briefly.

The flame flickereth no more?

A few weeks ago, holed up in a small-town hotel one evening, staring dully at the television, my finger stopped jabbing remote when I caught a glimpse of Mashaal.

I had seen the movie before, but yet, I hung on. Waiting for the famous death scene. The one where Waheeda Rehman, who plays Dilip Kumar’s wife with a quiet, assured dignity, dies out on the street. Her husband tries to hail passing cars and cabs, bangs on locked doors and screams ‘ae bhai!’ Nobody stops. Nobody calls a doctor. Nobody listens. She calls out to him, and dies.

I had known I would cry. And I did.

But this time, there was another scene which grabbed my attention. It was the shop-breaking/looting sequence before the death scene. Raja (Anil Kapoor playing a rough mawaali type) and his friends had just been smashing, and stealing from, a store. A very disappointed Vinod (Dilip Kumar, the upright journalist-activist), goes to his room to upbraid him. Raja, however, is not in the least bit remorseful.

He begins to talk of a memory. When he was five years old, he remembered being out with his father, walking through the market. His father had reached out to touch the fabric that was hung up there for sale. The shopkeeper had yelled. The paradox was his father was a weaver. Perhaps, the very man who had woven that bit of cloth, was now forbidden to touch it.

Raja swears that he would not live like his father did. If he was not permitted to touch something in a shop, he would break it.

For a long time, it stayed with me. That sequence. Incredibly, the movie was made by Yash Chopra.

Funny, how they just don’t say that sort of thing in the movies, any longer. No?

The weird, the comic and the ugly

This is almost a ritual for bloggers now: to keep an eye - a widened, part-horrified, part-amused eye - out for the weird searches that direct the web-world to their blogs. I had mentioned one particular google search a couple of years back (sadly, have not kept the promise I made at the end of that bemused post).

Here's an update on some of the more interesting searches that led people to Known Turf (the comments in brackets are my reactions):

teachers in transparent saree

mallu in transparent salwar

black prostitutes on the job

quiet kind person (This googler sounds interesting)

fat woman on thin man shoulders statue

sar pe topi lal lal

ae handsome (!)

aye mere nehru (!!)

naughty tailor taking measurements of nude girls with his hands

please I saw the rashtrapati garden (why the 'please')

smriti irani cleavage pics

chennai aunty sex story

DO GUYS LIKE QUIET GIRLS? (In all capitals. And the answer to that is, I hope so)

madhuri dixit mili raste mein mili raste mein, khaye chane hamne saste mein

low waist sarees (this cannot be an Indian, surely?)

jonsar map india

Perverts "R" Us /Stories/ First Time Sex Experience

researcH WORK on rasmalai (Wow!)

dilip kumar saw sayra bano nude (One certainly hopes so)

air hostess getting raped

photos of white prostitutes

indian sexy maidservants

Empathetically meaning Dictonary English to hindi (Empathy means 'samvedna' in Hindi)

yana gupta fashion pictures

how to make an icy chai

woman from india gropped in public large breasts

xxx text stories of sex in india

paliwal farm jaipur sex drugs party

kamuk ho gayi (Kamuk means lustful?)

roti from millets

fuck renuka chowdhary

pathani suits mumbai

shia muttah marriage with hindu women

night bus girl rubbing her breast story bangalore

madhuri dixit mili raste mai (again!)

Which symbol on the 100 rupee note help blind recognize it?

disillusioned with osho (Tsk-tsk)

sanskrit shloka on peace in hindi

land allotment policy for Biodiesel plantation in punjab, india

"hidden recording devices" journalistic ethics audio

One more

It is the season for regrets, it seems.

Dashrath, the man who single-handedly cut a road through a hill, breathed his last recently. From Hashiya, I learnt that he was a Kabir-panthi, and that he had been happy with the way the CM had treated him, during a visit.

Glad to hear that he was cremated with full state honours.

There is no need to say, rest in peace. If peace is possible, I'm pretty sure it is his.

The regrets pile up

So Qurrat-ul-Ain Haider too is gone. Slipped away, in a hospital at the edges of this city.

I've been trying to say something about her, but cannot find the words. Partly, because I am remorseful about not having met her, and partly, because I'm annoyed at not being familiar with her work. Oh, little extracts and bits. But not the seminal novel. And while I did buy some of her books in Hindi (I can't read the Urdu script), I still haven't gotten around to reading them.

Ainee Apa, they called her. My grandfather did not call her 'apa'. His children used to tease him, well into his eighties, about the secret crush he harboured. I cannot remember how, in what words, he deflected this teasing, but the photograph stayed.

My first memory of this woman was a photograph, laminated and put out in the drawing room. Stubbornly occupying pride of place amongst other photos of my grandfather's moments in the sun - a prize, a function, with heads of state. And one with Ms Haider. Both smiling, both wearing thick glasses, him seated a little behind, sort of looking over her shoulder.

The other reason she was stuck in my head was because somebody told me, I had been named after her. Ainee/Annie, they called her. And so my grandfather chose to name me. For years afterward, I wondered if this was true, but could never get up the courage to ask him outright.

And since moving to Delhi, I had often wondered if I should pay her a visit. Had never been able to decide whether it would be welcome, or not... One more regretful 'too late'.

Brief items

While I was away and unconnected, several items awaited me in my work inbox. A small sample.

1.

Govt.Girls Middle School, Jaffrabad Extension, Delhi-32, has been charging girl students for using the toilet. Apparently, the toilet is kept locked and those who cannot afford to pay a rupee each time are forced to relieve themselves in the open.

This in a country where millions of girls stay away from school for the lack of toilet and water facilities.

2.

A girl was, in effect, thrown out of school for talking to a boy. According to the legal notice served on behalf of the Class-X-B student, the Govt. Sardovaya Bal Vidyalaya, Vishwas Nagar, Shahdara, "was in two shifts, morning shift for girls and afternoon shift for boys but for the last two years both the shifts were merged and the school was made co-educational. (It is submitted) That on 1st August, 2007, during the recess hours (about 11:30 a.m.), Poonam and Avdhesh (student of class-XI of the same school) were talking in the X-B class room in the presence of about thirty six students. While they were talking, Sh. Dhan Singh, Hindi subject teacher, entered into the classroom and asked Avdhesh to go out of the class. While Avdhesh was moving out, the teacher started beating him. Avdhesh pushed the teacher and run away.... Poonam was called in the principal's room where police and Avdhesh were also present. Sh. Dhan Singh, Hindi subject teacher told the principal that Avdhesh was talking with Poonam. On this, the principal told Poonam that she has been removed from the school and would not be allowed to attend classes anymore."

3.

Seven Dalits ostracized by village for refusing to beat the drums.

4.

Teenager died after spending the night at the police station.

5.

Activists affiliated with the Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India celebrated World Breastfeeding Week by burning bottles meant for feeding babies.

6.

Lok Sangharsh Morcha activist Bhikhu Bhai Tadvi was ordered by the Narmada district Collector to leave Narmada, for two years. This order also applies to surrounding districts like Vadodara, Surat and Bharuchh. Bhikhu Bhai is a national secretary of the LSM, and has been charged with instigating the tribals to spread Naxalite activity in the area. According to the press note, this is not the first time the organisation's leaders have been confined. Suman Bhai Vasawa, president of the Gujarat unit of the LSM, had been arrested in 2006 under PASA, a law not unlike TADA, and released after 50 days in detention.

7.

The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) has allegedly been breaking its own rules by allowing field trials of Bt Brinjal. The press note refers to rules "...which state that large scale trials will not be allowed unless the complete biosafety data has been generated. Bt Brinjal clearly does not fall in this category... In fact, some of the prescribed tests like foliar feeding studies (which have been mandated after reports of animal mortality and morbidity after open grazing on Bt Cotton fields) have not been completed on Bt Brinjal."

8.

The practice of keeping two tumblers — one for dalits and another for others in tea shops — is persistently prevailing in 33 reserved village panchayats in Salem and Erode districts.

9.

Environmental and social activist groups in the country have expressed concerns that Japan may dump toxic wastes into India by takingadvantage of the proposed comprehensive economic partnership agreement (CEPA). The concerns are fuelled by Japan's reputation for dumping poisonous and hazardous waste in the south-east Asian countries with which it has free trade agreements .

10.

A Dalit youth who refused to work - in exchange for the Rs 20 he'd borrowed - was set ablaze.

The heart that beats no more

I met Lal Singh 'Dil' about two years ago. Interviewed him for this story, mentioned him in passing, in that blog post.

And I did not say anything else about him. How he lived, in what sort of ramshackle barsaati, how he attempted to make some terrible tea for me, how he seemed ill and shriveled and how sunken his cheeks were and how he did not know how to honour me, as a guest, and how he would not let me leave without tea, and maybe a drink? How he held on to my hand when I got up to leave, and how he kissed it. And how he had begun to scrawl poetry in coal-black, all over his walls. And how he asked a visiting friend, Kali, to paint the lines higher up, all around.

There had been some beautiful black-n-white portrait photos Kali had taken, of Dil, but he canceled his own exhibition, when people began to protest against one particular photo - Dil lighting a bidi, and the flame of the matchstick reflected in his eye. (People had problems with the photo because it showed a famous figure smoking.)

And how often I had thought that one of these days, I would go back and see how Dil was doing. And whether he remembered me, and whether he tried kissing the hands of all young women who visited.

And now, it is too late.


For more on Dil:

http://www.theotherindia.org/caste/lal-singh-dil.html
http://www.littlemag.com/vox/dil.html
http://www.littlemag.com/vox/dil2.html
http://bhupindersingh.blogspot.com/2006/07/lal-singh-dil.html

Update:

Sourabh has a tribute to Dil in the Hindustan Times. I cannot find a link, but have his permission to reproduce it here:

Where is the heart?

Lal Singh Dil is dead. Long live the revolution

Sourabh Gupta

You love me, do you?
Even though you belong
to another caste.
But do you know,
Our elders do not
even cremate their dead
at the same place.

Lal Singh Dil died two days before my 29th birthday.
But why measure a death as tragic and big as the poet's against an impending birthday as happy and petty as mine? The next day was August 15. The irony of his passing away could have been juxtaposed to that date. But I couldn't do that. I shall remember only this: that Dil died two days before my birthday, a day you celebrate what you have become after you were brought into the world. But Dil was dead. The heart would seize up into a gnawing void.
I have read very few of his poems and do not know much about his long harsh life and I never met him more than twice within a gap of two months and there too he didn't talk much. But Dil was mine because I was not his reader, not his fan. I could not measure his worth with the lines he wrote as I still do with other poets. Neither could I praise his poems nor could I criticise them. Like a lover does to his lover, like a boy does to his grandfather, I had just surrendered to Dil. He might have had remembered me if he saw me again. But that will never happen.
The poet had been killed by gangrene in his intestines, my friend had told me over the mobile. That night, I gulped down some of my grandmother's Correx cough syrup and went to sleep.
"Log Dil, Dil kehende rehdey ne. Par dil hai kithe? (People keep asking for Dil. But where is the heart?)." The thin old man smoking a bidi in a Panjab University lawn some months back had mocked in his softly shrill and suppressed voice to the scholar friends surrounding him. This line was an afterthought, to a debate on whether Marxism was science or Marxism was religion. Dil was arguing for the second line, without any rhetoric, almost talking to himself, as if he didn't want to argue. (This was where I first met him.)

'Words have been
uttered
long before us
and for long after us
chop off every tongue
If you can
But the words
had been uttered.'

The poet could never become the assertive bourgeois; but he was not from the subjugated proletariat either.
Dil's lineage went far below: he was from the stooping figures of social injustice; he was a chamar whose soul itself is considered filthy. No amount of education or money or power could wipe out this slur of destiny. To wipe out this slur of destiny, the destiny would simply have to change; the poet would have had to take rebirth.
On the evening of August 15, Dil close friend Dr Satyapal Sehgal, a Hindi teacher at PU, told me he had been to his friend's funeral at Samrala and with extraordinary sadness recited to me on the phone Dil's poem that I have written above. Dil had really been cremated in a Dalits' cremation ground, he told me.
To turn around this fate, the young Dalit poet had attacked with a group of other Naxalites a police chowki in Chamkaur Sahib in 1969, and after nine months of intense police torture, had fled to UP and become a Mussalman. On his funeral, everything that Dil had done to cleanse himself of his destiny was burnt to ashes. He had changed a lot in 64 years; the world around him had not.
My friend had cursed that it was the state that actually killed Dil, however self-destructive the poet might have been, while Sehgal bitterly said that the Punjabi writers' fraternity was responsible for Dil's death. They knew his critical condition but never took heed and got him any medical help till the last moment.
'News of Naxalbari spread like wildfire. I was working as a daily wage labourer then. Carrying loads up and down the stairs, I felt strangely energised. It was like a great opportunity. What I had not been able to go and do in Vietnam, I would achieve here…,' Dil had written in his autobiography Dastaan.
Dil had recalled to us his lock-up days with grimace. If an animal had been tortured that much day and night, it would have died, he had smirked. He was still being watched, he had said. Two Punjab Police constables often came to visit him, peering through the door to check if he had fled again. But in them too-- the policemen keeping an eye on the former Naxalite-- Dil only saw love. They would come and ask, how's your health, baba? Thy too were enamoured by the gigantic poet. Spying was only an excuse to be close to him, the poet had told us.
After an hour or so, the discussion in the lawn broke up. It was never meant to take the turns it had taken. It was getting bitter with friends and fans.
Dil, the diminutive figure with a rexin bag under his arm, began walking away, following the scholar friend who had brought him to the university. Hungrily, I followed the poet, walking with him, making small talk as if I had known him since my childhood, just to be near him and see him with all the love I could muster up from my welling heart. I had a vision of a saint. But the saint just nodded his head-- it didn't matter if he knew me or not; if I liked him or not. It was beautiful—this inability to connect with words.
As he began to light another bidi, walking on the loose red gravel below the trees, I turned my head back, to see the students walking behind us. I then sped up and went ahead of Dil and turned back completely on the gravel and saw what I wanted to see fully—with two other girls, the tall voluptuous girl student, very fair and well-fed-- the extra flesh oozing out of her very tight jeans and t-shirt—inching towards Dil from behind and dwarfing, by several feet, the dark and oily and wasted-looking revolutionary poet as he kept looking down still lost in himself, and the girls walking past the poet, nearly brushing his rickety blackish body of a labourer and walking past me eventually, lost continuously in their own banter. I felt the rapture I had anticipated. I had seen two opposite worlds coming together. Like a wave had come and crashed onto my heart; it felt all salty and sweet, maybe the heart had burst at its seams.
In hindsight, I had seen the master and the slave and I had seen the revolution. My going ahead and looking back was the revolution Dil had fought for—the rich and the poor or the upper caste and the lower caste, with all their little cultures and dogmas and suppressions and superstitions, feeding on each other, coming so close, so tantalisingly, so obscenely close, that one annihilates the other.

'The long caravan is moving on
Carrying the burden of rebukes
Along the long shadows
Children are riding donkeys
Their fathers have dogs in their arms
Pans hang on the backs of their mothers
Babies are sleeping in these pans.'
From Dil's Evening Tide

Parnab came for Dil later. From Delhi, Manipur, London, East Timor, Kolkata, I don't know. But he came. He was possessed. He was as short as Dil and as fair and plump as that girl in the university. He was from both the worlds simultaneously; he was a two-world.
Parnab started from Chandigarh in a Ford Ikon in the evening with a woman friend of his and a friend of mine who knew Dil by heart and reached the delirious old poet's one-room dwelling Samrala in the dark of the night finding the poet expectedly drunk.
That night, that lonely night, my friend saw the poet weep.
Inebriated Dil was telling them how his publishers were threatening him since he had gone to another publisher, how the old publishers were threatening to stop whatever meagre royalties they gave him. The helpless old man cried and cried.
Parnab Mukherjee is a very sharp theatre actor and theatre director and journalist and activist and in Dil he had found his new play—a solo performance on the poet's struggles with identity and the state, with the poet himself as the audience.
As such, I met my muse again at the Government Museum and Art Gallery, looking tired and more lovable after a rattling, lonely two-hour bus journey from Samarla to Chandigarh amid the morning heat of May, to be, for a day at least, the crown prince of a play on his own life.
Even in the well-lit white gallery, Dil was invisible, like so many others we see, pulling loads or human beings on thin wheels. He had to be pointed out to the journalists and the photographers. He did not carry on his face the inner glow of a belly well-fed and a body less exhausted. Dil had to be pointed out. Then Nirupama Dutt came, the journalist who had written this in a magazine seven years back: "One day soon, I think we shall learn that the slightly crazed man who sold tea and wrote poetry to be painted on trucks, said his namaaz in the mosque and heretically drank country brew, is no more. What will happen then? My hunch is that the people of Samrala will build a little mazar to him and anoint him a Pir." Dil is dead but nothing holy or supreme has happened to him. But the two had a bond. She would sweetly incite him to relive the old times and Dil would melt and slowly expand the story from there. Using the moment then, Parnab would recite a long prose-like English poem on Dil (which I do not know if Dil fully understood but the journalists did, quoting parts of it in the next day's papers) and using the moment again, Dil would read an even longer poem from Naglok. The loop, the circular snake-rhythm of the recurring word 'Naglok' from his fragile throat reverberates in my mind as I write it down.
"No other play had depicted the life of the sweepers so well. Watching it, I felt the saga was set in the present. Harish Chandar was shown tending the pigs, working with a basket and a broom, cremating corpses for a fee and finally breaking down when his wife would not let him touch him for fear of being defiled," Dil had written in Dastaan.
In the evening, Parnab turned and twisted his round plump body on the gallery's floor enacting the agony of Dil and the people of Nandigram—both fighting the state-- and the stick-like Dil somberly watched, sitting crossed legged in the first circle, staring, through Parnab's loud dialogues and restless body, into an eternal, stony void.

Seen and heard in Kashmir

Seen at Srinagar airport, on my way back from covering this story:

Large groups of tourists, possibly religious tourists, working themselves up into an aggressive mood.

They were waiting for a Spice Jet flight. Since it had been raining, many of the flights were delayed, including mine.

These tourists decided that they would not wait any longer and starting queueing up (though theirs wasn't a queue, you understand; it was three or four thick and a random zigzag long) at the departure gate. The harried airline officials tried to reason with them, but to no avail.

Across the glass doors, your could see a Spice Jet plane arrive. This group decided that they were going to board the plane, and were unwilling to accept the fact that this was not 'their' flight and that people cannot just up and board any plane, not unless a departure announcement has been made.

This restive little group had been shouting 'Har Har Mahadev' for a while now. The Kashmiri policemen had not said one word, so far; had been unfailingly polite, smiling while explaining that they would have to wait until the airline officials gave them the signal to board.

Some of the men began to press against and bang on the glass doors of the departure gate. Some began to hunt down airline staff and in aggressive overtones, demanded to be put on a flight - now! The staff quickly escaped to the other side of the glass doors and made themselves as inconspicuous as possible.

More shouting of 'Har Har Mahadev'.

An old, old woman, with thick glasses and a rather marvellous, old black burqa with satin trimming, pulled at my hand and asked me to sit beside her.

"Don't stand there. It's not safe."

And then she told me all about how she had a wedding in the family and how her daughter was dangerously sick, and how she was waiting to go to Delhi. And looking at the voluble bunch of tourists, she said:

"Junglees!... Are they not?"

I said, "Er... hmm.... er, I should go and find out about my flight."

I saw her catch at the passing hand of another young woman, bidding her take the empty seat. The wedding, the sick daughter, the flight that had to be boarded.

And then, another woman.

And over strange shoulders, the resounding cries of 'har har mahadev' and harassed police officers, trying to be polite while pushing back something not unlike a mob.

Language, language!

"Chairing the meeting, the PCCF-cum-Secretary, Environment & Forests, Shri S S Choudhury urged upon the PRI members to decimate the information divulged in this meeting to the people of their respective constituencies to get their support and cooperation for sustainable development along with conservation of forest resources of the islands for future generations."
(emphasis mine)

Yes, of course.

This is from an article in 'THE DAILY TELEGRAMS, July 30, 2007', headlined "Greater involvement of PRIs in conservation of isles natural resources stressed".

Now, I have no idea whether the reporter was only truthfully reporting what he heard, or whether, his fingers slipped a bit on the keyboard. But, in either case, the slip appears Freudian. When it comes to information, this country does seem to do a good job of decimation.

But, sub-editor, where wert thou?

Things one should know about deras in Punjab

To get a feel of just how influential the Dera is, around Sirsa, just drive through it. You will see Sachi Daadhi, Sach Nursery, Sach Petrol Pump, Sach engineering repair works, Sach Beauty Parlour... the truth, perhaps, is out there.

Security was very tight. At the entrance to the Dera Sacha Sauda in Sirsa, I was subjected to a security check more stringent than I've seen anywhere else, including at airports or the Secretariat or ministers' offices. Three times, groups of women stopped me, ran their hands over me, including my ankles, the small of my back, and my neck, lifting my hair to look under it. Each object in my purse was taken out, opened, pressed, snapped shut, put back. My mobile phone was switched off, and on.

At most of the other deras I visited, there were similar security measures but none as diligent as this. And nowhere else were the women so firmly, politely, unyielding while conducting the security checks. Even long-term followers were subjected to security checks.

Outside the building, there are rows of frightening photographs and posters of oral and throat cancer. Not delicate, no.

And inside, one of the followers tells me, "We go everywhere. To Gujarat, during the earthquake. To Tamil Nadu, after the Tsunami. Floods in Bihar. Our guruji even went to Kotra, to meet the tribals. You should have seen them. They were violent people. Mahua drinkers. Unclean, Naked. They threw stones at us, but we kept talking to them. We gave them food.... and love, of course. Such violent people, they even shot arrows at birds! We taught them to give up bad habits, take to farming and weaving."

I took notes to avoid having to look at him while he talked. Tribals... who could aim at a bird in flight... given food. Later, I attended the satsang. There must have been ten thousand people there. A woman sevak told me that this guru performs miracles. He can cure cancer with kharboozaa (melons). "If you write all his miracles down, you could make a granth of it".

I shuddered a little. The last time somebody wrote his own miracles down and made a granth of it, he went to jail, survived a stabbing and a bombing, and continues to ride in a jeep with a machine gun mounted on top.

The satsang is also called a 'majlis'. And at this majlis, thousands press into each other on one side, a high chair awaits, on the other. Sevaks fan the rest with large, hand-held pankhaas. A hush, the security men arrive, a green screen with tinsels rolls down, behind the high chair, and Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh occupies it. A clutch of musicians break into song.

A qawwali by Baal Mukesh Insaan.

The announcer insists that the qawwali is a bhajan.

The waiting crowds erupt into 'balle balle'.

The singer sings - "Tera andaaz zamaane se judaa dikhtaa hai... Dekhne walo.n ne yahaan dekha hai... sir farishto.n ka yahaan jhukaa miltaa hai... dhoondne walo.n ko is dar pe khudaa miltaa hai."

The living Guru.

The women do not get up to dance. Their men do. Their children do. The women say they are longing to dance, oh, they can barely restrain themselves... but they will not. They have their 'maryaada'.

Another bhajan.

'Satguru ke darshan paao ji, dil ki pyaas bujhaao ji'.... sung to the tune of the popular song 'ye desh hai veer jawano.n ka'

And right through his sermon, Baba Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh refers to intoxication and 'nashaa' and how terrible it is, and isn't that why you're here? To quit? Every fifth sentence is about addiction and 'nashaa'.

Little roars of approval and acquiescence from the crowd.

Just before the jaam-e-insaan program, an announcement - the media must leave. All journalists, all cameras. Please leave.

I left.

And then I went on to visit other deras.

Overheard, on the road. Anonymous comments about the Dera Sacha Sauda:

- This man is only capitalizing on the Dalit need for dignity

- 'Jaam', talk and de-addiction.... I can bet that on the inside, he's offering all the nashaa himself. These people need to be raided. Chhape padne chahiye.

- Ye Sikhi ko tod raha hai.

- Premi... why not? Still a Sikh. Still Akali.

- This man has no social relevance. Just a self-serving quest for power and money.

- Don't we know we are all human? Why this need for 'insaan'?

- What's in Sirsa? Why do you want to go there? It is not worth your time.

- Abstinence. That's what they call 'good moral support'.

- Did you see all the high-tech? Live recordings were happening and on the internet, these sevaks will show it to people online, through yahoo messenger. I saw it myself.


Basic things one should know about Dera Sacha Sauda (since it looks like the controversy won't die an easy death) and deras in general (though I must warn you that most of this is based on hearsay, i.e., what various people have told me. Some are academics, some journalists, some followers, some policemen.)

- Deras were different, fifty years ago. They were small mazaars or ashrams or huts or any place where a holy man or preacher has decided to live, and where his followers sought him out. It literally meant 'a place to stay/halt'.

- A 'dera' can be headed by a 'baba' or 'sadhu' or 'fakir' of any religion denomination, though there are very few Muslim peers left in Punjab. Some Sufi deras remain, and remain fairly popular. There are many sects in Sikhism, and almost all have some form of representative dera. In fact, gurudwaras are a fairly recent phenomenon in Punjab, and especially in the Doaba belt of Punjab. For instance, many villages have a dera called 'Lakha.n da daata'. This may have a statue of 'Bhairav' (or 'Pairao.n', as they say, in Punjab) outside it. The Lakh Data was supposed to be Sheikh Makhdoom Ali Hazbiri, or so I am told, and there is a significant mazaar to him in Lahore, Daataganj Baksh.

- According to a Punjabi newspaper, Desh Sewak, there are 9000 Deras, spread across 12000 villages. At least.

- Originally, few deras had 'branches'. When a follower was ready to become a guru himself, he usually wandered off, and set up his own thing. This has changed. According to official sources, Sacha Sauda has 25 branches in Punjab, Divya Jyti Jagran (headed by Baba Ashutosh) has 13, Radhasoami Satsang has 23, Namdharis have 13. They may call themselves 'ashram' or 'satsang ghar' or 'gurdwara' or whatever, but the common man refers to them all as 'deras'.


- Sacha Sauda is headquartered in Sirsa district, Haryana. Sirsa is also where the other major dera, the Radhasoami satsang, is headquartered.

- There are two buildings for Sacha Sauda dera. The newer one is where the current chief, Baba Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh lives and usually preaches, twice a day.

- It was set up (around 1948) by Mastana Baba Baloochistani who was a disciple of Beparwah Shah. According to legend, Shah sent Mastana to take care of the spiritual health of the 'bangdi' people, who lived along the Haryana-Punjab-Rajasthan borders.

- Mastana Baba lived in a cave and refused to take money or donations. It is said that he (and some of his supporters) used to dig for a living - I assume, at construction sites - and he would actually give money to the desperately poor. The current guru's residence is still called a 'gufa', or cave, though it can't be anything like one, by the looks of it. (Wasn't allowed to see it up close).

- The role of chief/head of a dera is referred to as a 'gaddi'. Chair or throne. The head is called the 'gaddi-nasheen'.

- The passing on of spiritual power was traditionally called 'ilaahi baksheesh'.

- Dera Sacha Sauda claims that there are no fixed rules or rituals. No covering of head - though most women I saw did cover their heads. No taking off of slippers or taking of ritual baths.

- The bulk of the income of the dera, so the spokesperson says, comes from land. Initially, a small plot was created as a kitchen garden. The followers would colect dung from the roadside and sell it, or use it. Over the years, about 700 acres or more have been acquired. The spokesperson says that it was uneven, barren land. Some of it was dug up and the soil used for brick-making. Later, the land was evened out, and the soil tested by local agricultural scientists. By switching to organic farming, input cost was brought down to the minimum. Returns went up three times. Orchards were inter-cropped with aloe vera. Etc etc.

Since agriculture is not taxed.... they've got plenty of money.

The Dera spokesperson said (I'm only quoting) "We have stopped asking for money in the name of God. That is the highest form of corruption. This hypothetical entity does not depend on us for monetary support."

- The jaam-e-insaan ceremony comprises of large vats of rooh-afza mixed with milk. Followers drink that, swear to follow the 47 rules set down by the guru, drop their surnames and add 'Insaan' as a suffix.

- The spokespeople insist that no conversion takes place. However, the ceremony seems to be shaped along the lines of a conversion ritual. Nobody is asked to renounce their own religion. But people are asked to swear by a new code of living, adopt a new name, and drink a sip of the 'jaam', which is similar to rituals involving holy water, amrit, etcetera.

- There are 47 rules (including one forbidding abortion) but three main rules: an oath to give up all intoxicants, including alcohol; turning turn vegetarian and (I quote) 'good character'.

- Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh belongs to Pilibanga, district Sriganganagar. He was originally Gurmeet Singh. It is said that he started visiting this dera since he was about five years old. He was given the gaddi on 23 September, 1990. His followers call him guru-ji, maharaj, or 'pita-ji'.

- There are 40-45 ashrams, spread across several states, that are affiliated to this dera. The chief baba alone can hold a 'satsang' but there are bhajan-kirtans at all and the 'sevaadars' or 'sevaks' can read out his sermons.

- To be part of the jaam-e-insaan ceremony, you have to fill a form in advance, with a biodata and a photo. So, I was told. But there were masses of people waiting in long queues, to receive the jaam, when I'd visited; most were uneducated, and had probably never heard of 'bio-data'.

- In Jagmalwali village, tehsil Dabwali, also in Sirsa, there is another branch of the Dera Sacha Sauda. It was set up by Gurbakht Singh, now dead, when he was not chosen to take over the gaddi.

- There are people who allege that they have been loved from their lands by force. There was a small protest between 1993 and 1995, old-timers recall.

- The Dera chief has also been accused of having a hand in the murder of journalist Ram Chandra Chatrapati, who headed a paper called, believe it or not, Poora Sach.

chulha te manji

In Punjab, there is a village called Ajitwal.

In Ajitwal, there is a family of farmers. They probably have roots in UP, but have been here for three or four generations and can only speak Punjabi, cook Punjabi, worry and laugh Punjabi.

One son-husband-father-farmer. He is bathing when I enter the house. The door is wide open, and he squats, in his underclothes, in a small bathroom. The door is shut after my arrival.

One old woman. The mother-grandmother-greatgrandmother who cannot hear, cannot speak even a little Hindi, speaks incessantly and makes dahi-lassi for breakfast.

One middle-aged woman. Fine wrinkles, a slow smile and incessantly busy hands that move, nevertheless, with a steady, noiseless rhythm. She works all the time and when you look at her, and she turns to look back at you and smiles a quiet smile, the work seems to fall away... somewhere. Where? Just off the edge of the your eye; just off the sides of her fingertips; just along the curved lines of her rubber slippers. She calls me Guddi. When I leave the house, she is the one who reaches out to embrace me. A tight, close embrace. Only my own mother has ever held me this close, this hard. It is the embrace of bone and blood and it is not afraid of civilization.

One young woman. Thin. Oh, so thin! A mother of two young children who race about, nervous at my newness. The 'noo' of the household. She too is incessantly busy. But harried-busy. So visibly busy with work that she herself seems invisible. When she pumps at the hand-pump, the cranking seems louder than the clink of her glass bangles. When she scrubs the dirty dishes, the very streaks of crusting daal seem to be letting out a slow moan. While she is utterly, utterly silent. Meeting my eyes with a quick smile, a too-wide smile behind which presses the urgency to get something else done. Quickly, once, she whispers, she never could go to college. They got her married after high school. I had not asked her.

Another young woman. Pleasantly plump. A full body. Fair. A loose, fat braid of pale-brown. The unmarried daughter of the house. It is she towards whom I am gently pushed. As if we belong together. It is she who leads me to the manji, sits cautiously at the other end and whispers - 'are you married?'

It is she who draws me into an inner room, to sit on a softer, modern bed, to whisper more questions - where? how? until when? how much? alone? mummy? daddy? why not?

And to whisper about her fiance - a student still, who lives with an aunt, who belongs to a village in Haryana. She too lived with an aunt in a slightly larger village, almost a town, until the year before. She went to college there. Here, in the village, she does nothing. She's done some crafts and embroidery courses, but she is not encouraged to practice any of it here. She says, her daddy says - 'do what you want, when you go to your own home'.

Her own home. I ask her - 'what's the village called? where your own home will be?'

She doesn't know. And suddenly, she clams up, and doesn't speak to me again, until after dinner.

Her mother, the tall one, the older 'noo' who is now the quietly confident mistress of the house, beckons me. Asks me what I will eat. I shrug - anything, whatever you're eating.

But they have already eaten. They eat before sundown. The chulha is lit for me again. An open-air chulha fed with dry twigs. The smoke rises. The children gain courage. They dance around me. The little girl is dressed almost exactly like her older brother. She tugs at the hem of my kurta and runs away. Returns. Tugs at my dupatta. Runs away. Her brother follows suit.
Their greatgrandmother calls them. Takes the little one into her lap - 'Tell her a poem. Sing her a song.' They coax. The little one is suddenly shy, near tears. She looks victimized. I look away.

Their young mother is invisibly there, somewhere. Her shadow lurks near the kitchen.

The mother of the house is rolling out roti again, the daughter is taking them out of a warm tandoor. They feed me. They do not let me wash my own plate.

Later, a row of manjis are laid out under the open sky. A whirring stand-up fan is placed near my bed.

And just when I am about to lie down, the mother and daughter beckon. I follow them out. Their brother-son is at the gate, carrying one of his children. We walk a few houses away, in complete starlit silence. A large metal gate. A few knocks and calls. A smaller door opens within the large gates. We stoop to enter.

A cousin. Full-ish. Smiling. Another mother, tall-ish, rushing about to get milk. Four times, I have turned down offers of warm milk this night. But here, it is handed to me. Protests fall on smiling, deaf ears. Milk.

This young girl sews. Fabric is strewn all around a machine. Her mother feels my kurta - 'Cotton... is it?', and she sounds disappointed. They all wear soft , printed cottons. I wear the loose kurti of an old woman. The young ones all wear them tight.

The younger girls pull me away, take me to a small barsati at the top of the house, onto a balcony. The cool night air. Again, the whispered questions - where? alone? why? why not? man? can't you find?

I smile a lot. Shake my head a lot. They giggle a little. We descend when the questions are done.

The engaged girl has brought along a letter. It is from her fiance. Addressed to the whole family, not to her. She is a passing reference, respectfully regarded in the last paragraph. Her cousin reads it. Her cousin's mother reads it. Her own mother glances at it. She's already read it.

I finish the milk. We step out into the silence. Back on the eerie dirt road. Only a few houses, but such utter loneliness. Back into a small door cut into large metal gates.

The man of the house is half-asleep. He sits up. We all gather round to talk of water, of fields, and deep, deepening dryness. Of salinity and pumps. The baggy bleakness of his eyes. The shifting silence on the wrists of the women. Greatgrandmother, grandmother-wife, wife-mother, daughter. Printed cotton, so still in the soft folds of patiala shalwars.

The fan whirrs. I lie down next to the engaged girl, unfold a rough sheet.

The stars are such medicine.

Dreams are as cold, village wells.

Dawn breaks to the chink of glass bangles.

Peace Talk

Came across this poem by Kunwar Narayan. Am not going to attempt a translation because this poem works primarily (for me) phonetically. It has to be read in Hindi, preferably read aloud. Please note that 'gun' in the first verse is the English word 'gun'.


Shanti Varta (Peace Talks)

- Kunwar Narayan

Allaho Akbar
Vintee hai bhagwan
Agar do to anu-bam
Na ye gun, na vo gun

Brahmastra daanam
Rocket mahaanam
Mahashoonya khaddam
Samajh gadd maddham

Ladaaku vimaanam
Na annam na vastram
Karein shaastra charcha
Magar hod shastram

Halaahal pachaye
Magar munh pe kheesam
Karein shanti vaarta
Magar daant peesam

Puraanam quraanam
Sabhi ko pranamam
Na saakhi na sabdam
Mahayudh tthaanam

Isa na islam
Marxam na buddham
Na mazhab na dhammam
Param satya yuddham

Parmanu bam bam
Tum tum na hum hum
Mitaane au mitna mein
Hum kum na tum kum

Na paschim na poorvam
Nakaaram bhavishyam
Visphot safalam
Niraakar vishwam!


Those who are more familiar with both languages, and better equipped than I am, are welcome to translate it.

The spin and reel of it

I sometimes wonder whether some of us (film reviewers especially) are losing the ability to be entertained. Or whether we like to set ourselves up as tough customers, who put up intellectual barriers between our minds and a movie, where having fun is not a virtue unto itself. What else could explain the negative/wishy-washy/pursed-lip reviews that Jhoom Barabar Jhoom has been getting?

Is it because we no longer enter a theatre with a little skip in our pulse, and when the lights go dim, our hearts do not thud with the anticipation of being whisked off into a different world? Is it because 'real' can only be equated with dark, gritty, gory, violent, depressing? Is it because we ourselves have lost faith in the power of fantasy, and we no longer believe in simple premises like girl-meets-boy-at-a-railway-station?

Or was it because some of us are so alienated from our own cultural contexts, that we just do not get the 'reality' of this fantasy? A fantasy in which ordinary people tell lies, not necessarily to get out of trouble, but also because those lies are their dreams. Dreams in which your lover is rich, foreign, exotic. And willing to marry you. Dreams in which you acknowledge your hard-headedness, your greed, your crookedness, even your self-defeating racism.

Is it that a whole generation has grown up without those classic, allovertheplace, Bollywood films that this film is contantly referencing? Do they not understand the slightly accented Punjabi peppering most of the dilogue? Do they not hear their mothers talking, when the mothers in the film talk? Do they not hear their own happy, romantic subconciouses tumbling towards the inevitable happy, romantic climax?


I, of course, loved Jhoom Barabar Jhoom. Saw it last night and could see it again tonight, if only movie-watching was not so expensive. If only I had the option of a third-rate theatre where tickets cost Rs 12, or even Rs 25, and the cold-drink man comes 'cold-ddrrrrink' clinking glass bottles with the metal opener during the intermission... If only, I could go see it again and again, every weekend for the next month.

Lest it appear as if I'm saying that 'it's a Hindi movie, so why not leave your brains outside the theatre', I'm not! This is actually a fairly intelligent movie. Not only does it experiment with the story within a story mould (which many people have done before in different ways, and of which Roshomon is the most obvious, most famous example), it also seeks to tweak the mould. I don't think we have seen this particular format of storytelling in mainstream Bollywood, so far. Nor have we seen a single theme song being used so cleverly, so successfully, so constantly in any other film. It is terribly hard to listen to the same song - high on beat and lyrics, low on quiet melodiousness - for half an hour or more. But here, the audience is begging for more of the same, because it never is quite exactly the same.

What's more, the filmmaker Shaad Ali has his finger on the pulse of the people. Not the whole nation; I don't mean that he's familiar with, or bringing to life, each class and caste in each corner of our very diverse counry, but he's very definitely got a grip on one vein - that of the aspiring, small-town Indian, who may not be hungry for food but is hungry for love and adventure and exotica and money and bigger, wider canvases. This was very evident in Bunty Aur Bubli (beautifully summed up in the song - chote chote shehro.n se, khaali bhor-dupahro.n se, hum to jhola uthaa ke chale), and to a smaller degree, in Saathiya (two subtly poignant scenes are stamped upon my memory - one is when Rani Mukherjee's family is sitting down in the evening, playing cards; her father is drinking alcohol, the mother and sisters are drinking tea. The other is the scene in which Rani wants to hug her husband in the film, after a hard day at work, and he is embarassed because she's doing so in the balcony, with other peole looking on; her resentment and frustration is a remarkably fine mix of just about everything in that frame, that moment, that life.) In Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, Shaad Ali has taken one step further, and opened the door between the audience's fantasy and that of his characters. For instance, there is an obvious reference to Punjabi illegals (immigrants) in the UK, and this was all the more delicious for me, because I have covered that story, and know just how big that aspiration - and that racket - is, and what a huge deal it is, to have made it from Punjabi Indian or Pakistani, to British Citizen.

Speaking of characters, all are well-sketched, well-cast. All four of the major roles are meaty in their own right. Of course, they're stereotypical too. But the beauty of it is that, because they're a fantasy, because they are and are not themselves, they have the scope for stereotypical, overthetop representation.

For those who like to read stuff in lists and boxes, for the following reasons, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom is immensely enjoyable:

1] The title came to the screen studded, as if with little fake diamonds.

2] Abhishek Bacchan's mobile phone's ring tone. It goes 'Ae Handsome! Ae Handsome!'

3] Hearing Lara Dutta abuse - like a good, authentic desi. The scene where Preity Zinta attempts an impromptu slanging contest with Dutta is particularly, er, endearing.

4] The guy playing Abhishek's friend-mentor, Hafiz Bhai. His tone, his diction, his dialogues, his expressions are priceless. (what's his name?)

5] Amitabh Bacchan is NOT playing sutradhaar, again.

6] It's funny. I was laughing out loud every five minutes.

7] The boys' costumes are to die for. The women's clothes are nice too, but to see silk and colour and glitter on men, for a change, is such joy.

8] The theme song (and dance) grows on you, and it assumes a special growth curve when you 'see' it. Listening to it is just not the same thing. Once you've seen it on the big screen, the song somehow slips into your blood and throbs there, willing you to get up and jhoom-o-fy.

9] Bobby Deol as he is in the second half.

10] The sizeable flirty young desi girl, with the spectacles stuck in her cleavage, and her Punjabi invocation of mum's advice.

11] The Mr and Ms Southall contest.


If anybody hasn't yet, go watch it. And if you've been to see it, and didn't like it... oh, forget it. Go see Roshomon.


Footnote: I hadn't been keen on film initially. The half-wit print interviews with the stars of the film had a lot to do with that, I suspect. None of the fun, none of the spirit, none of the cheek with which the film was made shines through.

UPDATE: Saw it once again! Yay!

UPDATE 2: Saw it once yet again!

A number-plated memory

Young man. Striped shirt. Big-ish car... cannot tell which make; never cared enough about models and names.

Young man leans out to ask for directions. The rest is a familiar, old story.

'Where is PVR Saket?'
'Do you live around here?'
'Would you like to come with me to PVR?'

And after I say 'No', he says, 'Fucking bitch'.

I stop, turn around, take a good, long look at him. No words. I glance down at his number plate, and walk on ahead.

He follows.

'Excuse me, ma'am. Sorry, ma'am.'

Whoever was driving HR29 Q 1782, on Monday evening, June 18th, 2007, is not a very nice young man. The apology was not accepted.

Kaash

If only, brokers didn't have to be paid.

If only, people built houses meant to be lived in. Rooms with large windows, and doors right across so the breeze knows it is welcome and the air is not weighted with claustrophobia.

If only, homes were not created to earn - each square foot put there so that it can forever become a tiny mint all by itself. A thousand for a bathroom, two thousand for a kitchen, five thousand for a kitchen that doesn't send a woman into a depressive tailspin. If only, they didn't try to tell you that this is quite enough for your needs... what more could you possibly want?

If only, you had nothing but your clothes and books. Or that the cupboards understood - a woman's needs are king-size.

If only, you weren't afraid of bumping your head against the shower, or risked having a nervous breakdown each time you looked at the toilet.

If only, the walls weren't lilac. Or pink. Or green. Or both.

If only, there were railings on narrow staircases.

If only, people who had room to spare would give two rooms, instead of just one, keeping the adjacent one empty and utterly, senselessly, locked up.

If only, they wouldn't assume you cannot live without air-conditioning. And would believe you when you promised you wouldn't use it.

If only, you were a pigeon. So you could fit into the holes a city rents out. Or were free to sleep on other people's windowsills.

If only, landlords returned deposits without a fuss, without making you feel like you were cheating them.

If only, they didn't ask you your caste. And when you refuse to tell them, they didn't stammer, didn't press on with questions about where you belong. If only, they didn't care. If only, they didn't stare at you when said you were alone. If only, they didn't need the lie of respectability. If only, they weren't so afraid of 'boys'. If only, they didn't threaten to treat you exactly like their own daughters.

Oh, if only!

Sunday afternoon

Sunday morning and a knock on the door. A stranger.

Who hands me a picture of guru nanak, benevolently gazing at nothing at a forty-five degree angle. I take it, finger it, and look expectantly at the stranger.

He says that there's a special function organised by the colony. At the gurudwara close by. A langar for the poor and water stalls for all thirsty passersby. I begin to calculate mentally how much I could spare.

The stranger whipped out a tiny bill-book. "Whatever you find it in your heart to give... sister. What is your name?"

I hesitated. Though I was half-willing to pay, shut the door and go back to sleep, something was holding me back. Yet, this was common enough. Every year, every festival, a knock on the door.

He extended another photo to me - some sort of religious ceremony underway. I glance at it but do not take it.

He asks, "Are you Punjabi?"

"No."

"That doesn't matter. Everybody has given. Even the students living downstairs."

For some reason I don't understand, I said "No, I don't think I can."

"Whatever you can. It is god's work." And that just made it worse.

"No thank you, I cannot attend and I cannot help." and I handed back the tiny picture.

He simply rustled his bill-book. "But you must. Sister, come tell me your name... And you should also pray. Every morning, you should spend some time, hold out your hands like this, and -"

Snap. "I have no faith. I don't pray."

"This if for the poor. They will be fed at the langar."

"When I want to give to the poor, I can do so directly. I don't need you to organise it for me."

"Everybody else has given."

"Sorry, I cannot."

He half-turns to go. "Are you a student?"

"No" and I shut the door.

It took me ten minutes to figure out what had happened. Why, despite being half-willing to pay up and be done with it, I refused so stubbornly. It was the awful mixture of religion and money. It was the pressure. It was the attempt to make me do somehing on the grounds that everybody else had done so. It was the invocation of the poor in that pitying-bullying tone.

And it took me another half an hour to realise that gurudwaras have langars anyway (a tradition that I admire and wish all other religions wouls emulate). All are free to step in, cover their heads and eat. I have never heard of a gurudwara organising a langar on the strength of door-to-door collections on a Sunday afternoon. What, then, was this collection for? Who was this young man?

On my way out, later in the afternoon, I checked to see if there was any water stall set up on the road outside the colony. There wasn't.

Why don't they speak up, then?

In Delhi's buses, about one-fourth of the seats are reserved for women. The first seat on the left is for the conductor(s). The second is for the handicapped. The next four rows (on the left side) are marked 'ladies'. Most often, there will be men sitting on these, until a woman shows up and dislodges them. (Just for the record, I do not dislodge men from ladies' seats. If, however, a young man - not an old one - gets up and offers me the seat, I usually, gratefully, accept).

The other day, a blind girl got onto the bus. She was accompanied by a young man, and it was very clear that they were much in love. For some strange reason, she also wore a ghoonghat that covered her face entirely. As she stood beside me, her fingers scraped the air around us, fumbling for something to hold onto. At first, I thought the was because of the ghoonghat, and it irritated me. I wanted to say something suitably biting about wearing viels and inconveniencing everybody else too. Then, I noticed that she was fumbling for the man's arm too. When she found it, she held onto that for dear life, and made no attempt to even peep through the folds of the fabric before the eyes. I realised that she was probably blind and was going to offer her my seat, when she began to move ahead. The progress was very slow, for she could neither see the people pressing in from all sides, nor figure out how to separate them and push ahead. Her fingers continued to scrape the air, in soft futile circles.

The young man apologized, to nobody in particular - she cannot see.

A woman sitting ahead of me beckoned - why don't you take her to the handicapped seat?

He said - ok. And he tried to guide her ahead.

The crowd did not move an inch. The couple seemed stuck for a while. Then, they reached the handicapped seat. A heavyset man occupied it. He sat there, staring straight ahead. Unseeing.

The same lady called out again - let her take the handicapped seat.

The man did not move. As if he had not heard. Could not hear.

Another lady beside her called out - hello! Let the girl take the handicapped seat.

Someone else said - where's the conductor? Conductor bhaiyya, get her that seat. She's blind.

The conductor got off his own seat quickly (which was quickly filled by another passenger), and moved towards the back of the bus, selling tickets. As if he hadn't heard.

The girl still stood there, fumbling, feeling, faceless. The young man stood there, silent.

From beside me - why isn't the conductor saying anything?

And suddenly, silence.

Then, I leaned forward and called out - hello! That's the handicapped seat. Please tell him to vacate it.

And the lady next to me also spoke up - conductor bhaiyya, tell him.

The voices - mostly women's voices - murmured again, called out again.

And the heavyset man finally turned around, for a brief instant, as if startled, and then vacated the seat.

The blind girl sat down. Everybody else sat back.

The conductor standing nearby mumbled under his breath - why don't they speak up for themselves, then?

One of the worst things about my job is the tears. Grown men and women breaking down.

You can handle kids' crying. They scream their lungs out, they whimper until something distracts them. They sniffle, their faces contort, and all of a sudden, they stop. But how do you handle an old man's tears? How do you handle the crack in an adult voice, sentences disappearing into illogical whimpers of protest?

Weeks after the Varanasi trip, two things have stayed stuck in my head. One, is the weeping of old men and women. At least four of them broke down, without warning, leaving me tongue-tied.

Manni, the grandmother who still climbs trees, braves broken ankles and survives by making pattals. Her legs tremble now, she said. And she wept. Her daughter lost a child to malnutition, but was dry-eyed. In the Musahar hamlet, the women don't have the time enough, tears enough, for buried children; almost all have lost one in its infancy, or two or four. They cannot afford to keep accounts of regret.

Mullain, father of Kanhaiya who is now dead. Former weaver. Father-in-law of Bhagini. Dependent on Bhagini, who makes about Rs 25 a day, washing dishes and sweeping other people's homes. I asked them how they live, and he said, "We live... eat two days, don't eat two days." I made the mistake of asked his opinion on the weavers' situation. His voice trembled. "Think? What should I think? What should I say?"

Nirhu. Sixty-five years old. Former weaver. Lost two young sons... to illness... to weakness... to malnutrition... who knows? The elder one was about thirty-five and a father of three himself. The younger one was about twenty-five, and father of one. Now, Nirhu must support all these children. How? "I dig in the groumd. Work on construction sites. In brick kilns" And his voice trmebled. "My eyes are gone.... Within 8 months, I lost both sons....my back has been broken by their going." And after a pause, I asked, "Are you okay?" He said, "Okay? Well, I'm not ill at the moment. I suppose I am okay."

Chamila, Nirhu's wife. Who has lost two young sons. She also goes to work on construction sites and brick kilns. I squat next to her, near the earthen stove. A small fire is lit. A pot is simmering. What is cooking? Potatoes. And what do you eat that with - rice? daal? "There is no daal, no oil, no chillies, no haldi. What daal?" And she started to weep.

I left that village feeling sick at the heart. And then I walked into the other thing that is stuck in my head. A swimming river of stars.

Jugnoo.

I hadn't seen fire-flies before, not in such glory. Not at such proximity. Here, in this village where there was no electricity, where my own step on wet mud sounded loud, here, I step almost into the centre of a shimmering, invisible web of pin-pointed light. Like restless, warm diamonds. Like crystals of live poetry. Like having the stars laid out in my path, at my feet.

ek ladki bheegi bhaagi si

Was stuck to her cell phone outside a small 'mart' while it poured in sheets more solid than water can be.
Was cursing her decision to carry cloth bags, cursing the monopoly of white shalwaars in her wardrobe.
Was buying shampoo to the tune of a hundred drops melded into one mechanical drone melded into the drrrr of a sewing machine.
Was leaning into the whip of the wind.

ek ladki bheegi bhaagi si
Was trying to flag down auto, mini-bus, anything. No cycle-rickshaws in this part of town.
Was cursing the government and its urban transport policies.
Was looking in the bus that had stopped beside her. The conductor saying, get on, we'll take you as far as the bend.
Was debating whether or not to - less than six people on the bus and she cannot tell whether they are passengers or friends of the driver.
Was thinking of what she'd read about buses and being the only girl on board.

ek ladki bheegi bhaagi si
Was warned, 'bheeg rahe ho, madam, log kuch kuch keh ke jayenge'.
Was struggling between wanting to accept the polite offer of bus-drivers in the rain, and the fears that lurk within that bus.
Was finally standing in the bus, near the door, ready to get off in an instant.
Was told to sit inside. Was ignoring the request.
Was sitting on the conductor's seat, right near the door, because it had been vacated for her.

ek ladki bheegi bhaagi si
Was waiting, pointlessly. The rain would not let up and the bus would not move. Traffic snarling half a kilometre ahead.
Was hopping off, without an umbrella, cloth jhola bleeding its handloom truth onto her white shalwaar.
Was rolling up her shalwaar, which would slip down and unravel. Rolled up again, unravelled again.

ek ladki bhegi bhaagi si
Was listening to 'aaye-hai' and 'oye madam' and 'madam ji ko bhi bhithaa le'.
Was turning about to glare at the comment-passer. It was a khaki uniform. A cop, on a bike, riding pillion behind another cop.
Was turning to a wolf-whistle, at her elbow. A face in the car window. The car ramming into the jeep ahead. Headlights crunching and smashing and glass silently falling into the gushing gutter water, rising, rising.
Was wading through rising gutter water.

ek ladki bheegi bhaagi si
Was rushing up a dark stairway, to a dark house and for once, wasn't missing the electricity.
Was listening to 'your room is practically air-conditioned!'. Wind-conditioned. Rain-conditioned.
Was no longer bheegi bhaagi si.

A voice, like a call.

Can't remember where I've heard it, but I always carry it around - this idea that the body is the soul. The body is all you have. It is the body that creates, the body that feels, the body that runs away, the body that gives up. You cannot lose more than a body. The body is ultimate.

This idea is reinforced every time I listen to good music. Being musically illiterate, (well, almost), I respond physically to most singing. In fact, my tastes can be summed up in one line: either the music should move me, or it should make me move. If it does neither, it's not my sort of thing. But if it does, if it moves me, I feel it like food, like fabric, like flowers. Like, my gut responds to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Like, my mouth responds to the peppy fifties filmy songs. Like, my chest responds to Begum Akhtar and Farida Khanum.

Sain Zahoor... I think the back of my head and eyes have decided that he bears a little of that magic. This man, whom the world is comparing to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, this man who sings Sufiana kalam, they say, like the sufis did; this man was singing on the last day of the (awfully named) Hungry Hearts theatre festival. And I was listening. At first, with my eyes wide open. For he walked onto the stage carrying an ektara festooned with bright strings of multicoloured.... what is the word? They are like bunches of colourful parandas that village girls wear in their braids. Like the strings that auto-rickshaws in small towns will hang from their rear-view mirrors. Rarely have these strings acquired such brazen dignity as they did on that ektara.

We'd waited long enough for his performance, but the wait itself had been worthwhile. The first part of the evening, in fact, was absolutely enthralling. Sabir Sain and Abdur Ghafur Sain were on the dhol, in a jugalbandi with Warsi Ballu on the tabla. All I can say about it was that the drumming pulsed in my blood and despite the freezing air-conditioning, I felt warm. If I'd been in an open space instead of being confined to a seat in a packed auditorium, I'd have gotten up to whirl.

[The singer that followed this piece, Mohammad Hanif Multani was, well, alright. I suppose. He was followed by Inayat Ali Beli, who was fun. The energy was tremendous, and the audience was happily clapping along.]

And then, finally, Sain Zahoor walked onto the stage. With strings of ghungroos wrapped round both ankles, carrying his ektara in both arms, like you carry a sleeping child. Dressed in a shimmering, tinselled, red shalwaar-kameez, and a black turban, and quiet confidence. And he began to sing. And my eyes closed, my neck threw itself against the back of the seat; in minutes, I was filled with questions. About purity, about purpose. What is the purpose of this man here, his voice? What is the purpose of colour? Of sound? Of beauty? Of language itself? What are these words he is singing?

Bulle Shah... singing of dancing to please the beloved, and losing his caste, because a dancing girl has no caste. Bulle Shah... singing of black - his black beloved, the black letters of the Quran, and who wants the fair ones?

My heart is sold to words, and I only understand Punjabi in bits and snatches. Bulle Shah makes me work very hard. But Zahoor is making is easier - the words reach me, and even if they didn't, they wouldn't need to. His voice is translating them for me into a language that doesn't beg understanding.

The accompanists weren't helping. The harmonium was almost drowning out the ektara, the tabla and flute were irritants. I wanted them to stop, and when a stranger's voice yelled out, between songs - 'Sirf ektara!' - it became obvious that that many others did, too.

This is a voice that does not need, and perhaps, does not even brook, any company. It is a voice you want to be alone with. Perhaps, it is not even a voice meant for auditorium and stage. It is a voice that calls to you as if from over a distance, and stops you, inside your head. It is the voice of a wandering singer. The voice of a sain.

Between verses, with a 'ha!', or is it a 'haq!', the voice snaps its fingers at you. That single syllable, that half-word is like a tap on the knee, and then he stamps his feet and begins to dance in circles, ghungroos filling the room.

And then, Zahoor is singing... Allah Hu.... Hu.... Hu....

And I'm wondering - what is the significance of this? All the sufi singers sing it so - 'Allah Hu...' In your prayers, you are supposed to say 'allah hu akbar'. God is great. But they stop at 'allah hu.'. God is. And sometimes, only 'Hu...' Just the verb. Is. What is this 'is'? Is it an assertion of being, of existing, and thereby, of everything else?

Each time my mind wandered, with each drawn out, gently warbling 'hu...', Zahoor's voice would drag me back. Like, being tugged at with muslin threads. Like, being woven in and out of a pattern. Of the here, and now. And forever.


Is he like Nusrat sahab? I don't know. Not really. The great qawwal's voice had something dry and crackling in it. I never heard him in concert, but even over the stifling distance of a CD or tape, even then, his voice would touch me like a fist. Zahoor is different. Like, something firm and baked.

And finally, when the accompanists are persuaded to stop, finally, after Zahoor has touched his fingers to his eyes and extended his hands to his listeners, and bowed, he is persuaded to sing one last song. There is his voice and his fingers on the ektara, and you can only draw in your breath once, deeply, and exhale. It is a voice that calls out to you. Like a hand beckoning in a dream.