Being Chased By The Rain

Earlier, I read about bomb attacks, rapes, suicides and abductions in the newspaper. I would ensconce myself safely in the warmth of a sofa at home, and read casually, sipping my tea. Now, in the recent past, these incidents have happened to friends, to acquaintances or to people I shared a public space with, on a daily basis.

I just got to know about a crime in JNU. Apparently, a man attacked a classmate with an axe; she screamed in pain, in terror; and he proceeded to slit his own throat and consume poison. While they were rushed to the hospital, a knife and a pistol were also recovered from his bag. He died on the way, but she is in a critical state.

When we look at a crime from a distance, we assume this cannot happen to us, or to those near us. When these crimes happen to people you knew even distantly, the enormity of it strikes with full force. Last week, a friend of mine was found possibly raped and murdered in a hotel room in Bihar. Despite active online campaigning for justice, I know in my heart that not much will be done. I know for a fact that enthusiasm will die down. I know for certain, that it will take years to bring justice for a crime committed without remorse.

Last evening, while returning from work in the evening, I noticed the urgency in everyone’s footsteps. They were scurrying to run home, to escape the onslaught of the rain on Delhi roads. Our CM says ‘one can/must only pray’ to avoid water-logging, flooding on the streets. So, we ran home-ward bound, to avoid being electrocuted by AC wires hidden in the rain, to avoid car engines breaking down in the middle of a road, where the water reaches its bonnet, to avoid being drenched and leered at by by-standing men, to avoid the costs of over-charge to cabs and autos—to avoid, being dead, raped or destitute.

While in the shared auto, I could see the raging black clouds behind us, creeping up stealthily, consistently. And each one of us, meek as a mouse, was hoping to get home, to escape the fury.

Being chased by the rain brought on realisations of growing up, of stressing out, of realizing the mortality of parents, of siblings, of friends, of yourself. Being chased by the rain, made me dwell on the horrors around me. Being chased by the rain made me look within, and wonder, is human existence meant to be so fragile? So futile? So worrisome?

I’d rather be a dragonfly, unaware and free to flit past the monsters of humanity.

For Sneha

For Sneha, a brave and spirited woman, who was found possibly raped, and murdered in a hotel room in Munger, Bihar.

She was a shining example of a state
That has become a metaphor- Bihar.
She fought for independence, for disengagement.
From her tribes of yore.
She revolted to become a phenomenal woman.
To break the shackles of slavery
Her womankind had been bruised with.
She revelled in laughter, in children, in the little things.
She turned the government on its head
Being a part of the system that mocked her.
Working, shoulder to shoulder, with men
Who wondered agape at her ferocity.
She gave herself to educating the little ones-
Still clueless of the marshes that lay before them.

She now hangs, by a chlorine scented bedsheet
From the window- semi-nude, for the world to see.
They heard her muffled screams, they heard that cry.
And muted themselves against the carnal monster
Feeding himself off her.

They said it was suicide.
They said it was HER.
She is dead now. Dead.
In the inhumanity of your warm, safe homes.
Dead. In the sub-altern theories
Written with your pens of power.
Dead. In the comforts of marginalisation.

Go. To. Sleep.

Nameless

All things of beauty

Can be found in the penance

Of the trash big cities churn out.

Painted on your walls, with precision

Are the works of art that come

With dollar tags imprinted on your mind.

This is your weapon against loneliness.

This is your armour against the solitude

That your soul craves.

A squirrel on a rhododendron tree

Nibbling away with alacrity

Will only seem wondrous

If you paid $1000 a night

At that resort you planned a vacation at.

To ease the numbness that defines you.

Any other day, you would brush away.

An an annoying monsoon insect

The jarring image of the old withering man

Picking his lunch from the trash can.

Where you chucked your potato fries-

Cheap and unhealthy, to you treadmill toned body.

As you munch on a herbed salad.

And discuss innocuous details

Of a rat race that you won, and he lost.

Live your reality of soundless screams.

Live the horror of 'a life well accomplished'.

Accomplished, yes. Within your amnesia of ideology. 

Rains, amma and wipers

Oh look, a wiper. Instead of a regular broom, to literally sweep away the water. I remember looking at this ‘wiper’, wide-eyed as a child. It had been bought to clear away water that was streaming down the staircase of our under-construction first floor.

I remember being allowed to stay up till pretty late at night, using this wiper to clear away water while I watched any cartoon of my liking, on television. I must have been twelve years old, and my delight knew no boundaries.

Since the staircase came down into the living room, my uncle and I took turns keeping the room dry. I was so amazed by this ‘wiper’ and how one didn’t need to mop after using it, that I even proudly compared our house to the Taj hotel for being so ‘fancy’, for having a cleaning utility item that most middle-class families at that time, would have coveted as pure, unadulterated luxury.

Tonight, I came home to a water-logged apartment at my sister’s place. We had two wipers this time around, in a house meant for one person. They did not register in my mind as novelties. As we cleaned up, complaining unabated, about the horrors of living on rent in the big city, the laxity of a money-minded maid and how pitiful our lives were, I thought about my grandmother.

My father had arranged for her funeral for the next day, so that I could see her. I arrived late in the night; our drawing room had been cleared out to place cold, unaware-of-their-doomed-presence ice slabs on the floor. On them lay my grandmother. My first reaction was to run to the closet and cover her in a warm blanket. She always complained of being cold; how could they put her on a slab of ice? She’s too delicate.

For hours, I cried by her side, nudging her shoulder, pushing away that one astray strand of hair, and asking her to wake up and smile at me. This is not a heart-rending tirade of her death. This is the story of wipers.

Eventually, I gave up on waking her up. My mind told me, ‘Look, she’s finally extremely mad at you. For leaving her, for going away, for not understanding the pains of old age and for forgetting about her. She won’t wake up, she’s mad at everyone. She will pretend to be asleep, hold her breath and rather disappear into an electric crematorium than wake up for any of you.’

I did not give up trying for four hours. Then I decided, she likes the ice. I’ll make her more comfortable. My grandmother could never stand a messy house, and always had a problem with spilt water. She feared, endlessly, that someone might slip and break their backs. And now, slowly seeping from below her, was a cold, unending stream of water, collecting in pools around the room.

I grabbed a wiper and began mopping. I did it all night long. I would look over my shoulder at her, wondering if she’d approve. I would look at my uncle sleeping in the next room, who would awaken with a start to not find his mother by his side. But the wiper, my constant companion kept my tears at bay.

The cold, white dead body of my grandmother, the yellow poled wiper and the thinning ice are images I carry with me. Each time I mop away rain water, each time I sip a drink cooled with ice, and each time I look at that empty bed back home, whose occupant never welcomed me without a smile.

Nameless

There are words that become old friends.
There are words that become bitter enemies.
I like saying cobbler and pebbled street
Savouring them on my tongue like new candy to a child
I like saying cougar too.
Cougar, cougar, cougar.
Not like the woman with a teenaged daughter
Sagging and perky, sticking out.
Red lips and pink lips hiding age and youth alike.
No, not cougar like that.
Cougar, more like the instinctive animal.
Cobbler more like a man of stories
Than a mechanic of shoes.
Pebbled street where I can walk barefeet
And feel the alternating cool and hot,
Like fresh cookies and an oreo shake.
I could never say 'supercalifragilisticexpialidocious'
Without sounding overly rich
Like a young man with drug money
His father gave him after severing a derelict's head.
I like my people the same way too.
Not long twisting carboard cut-outs you could buy at the mall.
More scented like fresh earth on a wet morning day.

This is how I can fill up those empty spaces
That jut out like abandoned shop windows in me.
This is how I will continue
To say words. Cobbler, pebbled street and cougar.

Something worth sharing in the light of the recent Kedarnath tragedy

Perils of plain-speak in U.P. by Prashant Kumar

The suspension on June 28 of U.P.’s Special Secretary Revenue, Gurrala Srinivasulu, who plainly briefed the media about the casualties in the Uttarakhand disaster, has caused much annoyance among the I.A.S. officers in the state. The action, however, did not surprise those who have been watching with concern the antics of successive governments here for the past two decades. Repeatedly pestered by the media for several days to reveal the exact number of deaths of the pilgrims, tourists and rescuers from the state, the officer innocently spoke the truth: “How could one tell about the number of those who died when the number of people returning alive cannot be counted properly.” A section of the media, hungry for scandals, described the “comment” as “insensitive” and the government rushed to control “damage” to its “reputation” by ordering immediate suspension of the officer. 

Curiously, U.P. Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav had a few days back told the media at Lucknow that his government had paid a compensation of twenty lakh rupees to the families of each of the two rescuers from U.P. who had died in the chopper crash. A couple of days later, the media were officially informed that the crash victims from the state were as many as five and not just two. Given the large number of unidentified bodies recently found in and around Ramabada in Rudraprayag district and more feared buried under the silt, which “sensitive” government officer could cite an exact number of deaths of the pilgrims or the tourists from U.P. or, for that matter, any other state?

Whereas Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna has put the flash flood death toll at one thousand, the hill state’s Speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal claimed on June 30 that the figure could very well cross ten thousand. How does one expect any officer of any state to give a correct figure in such a confused scenario?

A state government that takes pride in honouring tainted officers (including convicts) with prized posts, and frequently keeps dozens others on wait list just because they do or do not belong to a particular caste or lobby, has no moral right to define sensitivity or its antonym. Victimisation of innocent officers (this time a Dalit), who are not cunning enough to hide embarrassing truths, does no good to the image of a government facing a severe deficit not only of officers and budget, but public trust as well.