The cost of affection

 In my dreams I did run free across an endless verdant veld

Winds eddying and rippling around me as all senses meld

Unburdened by any of the shades of humanity I range,

Far, wide & wild, through vistas common, imagined and strange

Chasing the storm , running to meet the sunrise at each step

Dithering, exhilarating, intoxicated as memories and reality with hope adapt

 

Thus were my dreams of long and late, ardent delirium in changing pictures cast

These dreams, it would seem, are now shelved in the past

 

In dappling shadows , punctuated by the glaring sun was the snare

For capricious words, touches of want and gossamer kisses she shared

 

Full of belief in the most high, an ever moving kaleidoscope of emotions,

She wrought me a day of such compunctions

 

Twas a day, an evening , a conversation of chance,

Of secrets, stories and the steps one takes in fate's dance

 

How find I now my tastes bereft of edges & of intents,

Where before was I, in my seclusion content

 

The girl with an unbidden penchant for affections abound,

Carved me a tattoo of memory , vibrant with touch and sound

 

Dream I now of a life seemingly mundane and droll;

Comprehension in it's entirety, demands it's due toll.  

The Dynamics of a Mad King CIty

Whatever you, I or a thousand other folks say about Mumbai, it still remains as shrouded in mystery as ever to someone who has not spent a part of their life in this place. And sometimes even then.

Imagine then the chaos that seems to hit you in the face when you fall feet first into this crazy kaleidoscope of possibilities that is "Mumbai Nagariya". Things are moving, people are hustling, the air is thickening & the water smelling at a rate & pace that will literally leave you breathless. This absurd, unforgiving pace is what will hit you first about Mumbai.

Followed closely by the people. After travelling the length and breadth of India in my 27 odd years of existence, I was under the impression that I now have the pulse of a mega-city, even a lunatic kingdom such as Mumbai. My bad. I have managed to have educated discussions with autowallahs, seen policemen commit seemingly completely random acts of kindness and had people travel with me, simply to show the way and then travel back to where I picked them on their own fare. Crazy!! And I am from one of the kinder places in the nation.

I am unable to reconcile this with the stereotype of Mumbai as a professional city where everyone is running his own race against the world.

Even though this might be a bit premature, I cannot but include the colours of Mumbai. There is an epic level of class that reflects in the way people conduct themselves in the more, let's say posh areas of Mumbai. Brands mean nothing, looks mean being classy & understated, art means Rajesh Khanna movies with chai sessions, hermes scarves wipe mayonnaise from alluring lips and BMWs & Audi's scrape the roads with Marutis & Fords, an iphone or a nexus is a threshold requirement, while where you party defines your income class.

I like to think that every city, every town, every manifestation of human habitation has a pulse that is peculiar to it. Mumbai doesn't have one. It has a multitude. And I am still journeying to find more of these elusive facets of mad, myriad lord of cities.

Following Dreams

                       "The future belongs to those who believe in the beautyof their dreams.”
                                                      :- Eleanor Roosevelt

Hi, do you know about dreams? Yes, dreams, not aspirations or aims or any of the jargons that we in B-schools all over seem never to be in short supply of. You know those unrealistic things that we used to think we would do once we grow up? Well, we are all grown up now, what have any of you done of those ,  let’s say ‘dreams’ then, lately? Oh, are they hobbies now? Or perhaps interests? Or have they been reduced to some lines on a piece of documentation you call a Curriculum vitae (yeah, that’s CV.)

Why is it that we are so overtaken by this urge to surge ahead in the rat race that we forget that gave us shape? The first instinct of a person is generally said to be their primal nature responding to the situation. How many of us wanted to become rock stars, pilots, cricketers, scientists, actors, artists, chefs or race- car drivers? Or was a job in an office where you spend 12 hrs a day slogging, most of the time not even to see a sizeable impact of all your effort that ‘ultimate wish’. Unlikely. I could rattle of examples of people who followed their dreams and what they achieved thereof, dark ages till date. But it would not do us any good. Have to be practical would be the first jibe in reply, followed almost immediately by ‘How would we survive?’ and leading the vanguard, most of the time, ‘our parents would kill us’. Yes well, it is a slightly impossible thing to claim that all these people who have lit the way before us were impractical, died of depravation or were tortured by their families all at the same time.

As a generation we seem to be afraid to take the leap of faith it seems, and I most definitely include myself in this. It can very well be argued that we have seen the rise of more entrepreneurs in the last 2 decades then we have seen in the last century. This is the age of the microchip and the touchpad after all. Science fiction is becoming reality as we walk, talk and touch our way into tomorrow. Employment avenues have widened, with new ones coming everyday. After all, how many of us would have thought that being a party planner would ever be a good paying job? Yet the part of the world where the greater majority of the entire planet lives seems to be focussed on taking up engineering or corporate business! Imagine at the pace the world has changed, IS changing and then imagine how different it would look 10 years down the line. Wouldn’t you rather do something that you are good at and enjoy doing then something for which the beginning and the end result is that pay-check?

Take for example our very own Bodhi tree. Is Satadru Bagchi going to be immortalised in our hallowed corridors for being an awesome manager or because of the song that generations of Xlers have memorised and will memorise till posterity?

How many such examples are toiling in our great engineering colleges or b-Schools? How many can stake their claim to be the next Narayanmurthy, the next Kalam, the next Sabeer Bhatia the next anything? Yes remarkable achievements by people such as J.K Rowling and Paralympic athlete Monique van der Vorst who never gave up on their dreams isn’t the norm and that exactly is the point. It needs to be. Or do you want to wake up one day in the future and start brooding over what happened to you?

In the present scenario that the world is morphing into we need these dreams, these abstract hopes to be converted into reality. For in a time and place where people are doing what they love to do, what they are interested in doing can we hope to see what future the very best in ourselves can create. And if the past is anything to go by, that perhaps is the closest we can achieve to collective nirvana.

Time for a reckoning dear Motherland.

I read this article today in one of the magazines that I subscribe to. Most of the time it’s a very sensible, apolitical rag. That was why I was surprised to see a very sensationalist theme to the month’s cover. Radical Islam, it screamed out. After a 20 minute read through the articles forming the main cover story I was left a little bemused. I am from a state that is being secretly infiltrated by people from another country and the majority of the them are muslims. Perhaps the editor would like to mark this as an area of interest when he next makes a list of places to visit for fact finding.
And I have just read that the Indian state is a monolithic structure formed by the very chaos it has mid-wifed in the form of caste, creed and religious differences. This in a time when there are people willing to engage themselves in activities tantamount to murder and massive public damage to carve a fiefdom in the form of pseudo democratic ‘states’. No words with the part ‘mono’ come to mind.
We Indians are a perplexing lot. If people are not in agreement on this too, they just need to look at the power structure of the nation, Hindu fundamentalists, Islamic bigots, communists, ethnic figureheads, moneyed non-interested individuals. These are people we have sent to the parliament to argue for the case of the common man. If none whom we send to that mecca of corruption and verbal heroism are common, ask yourselves, would anyone really plead our cases. Case in point, is our judiciary. Proudly we proclaim, truth is blind. It apparently is heartless too. Kasab becomes a terrorist icon and when they finally decide to hang him after all the tribulations and media drama even the dust from the bodies of the people who died that horrible day is gone.
And now to localize this. Guwahati is the very gateway of the entire North East. It does business going into hundreds of crores every week. All main projects that the government or any other body/group wants to roll out, it has to be done here. People are needed, manpower in the form of sheer muscle and presence. In our vanity, we the people of the land have decided in the majority that these tasks are beneath us. How many assamese youths will you find pushing the brick trolleys, driving bulldozers, mixing cement, fixing drains, pulling rickshaws, driving autos, doing menial jobs? In our arrogance has our weakness thrived. In the beginning our brothers and sisters from other parts of the country trooped in to fill this void that we left. They were welcome. If not to certain extremist elements to the general populace. But in the last two decades we have seen influx from the somewhere else. Even the famous student’s moment back in the 70’s which literally birthed one of the more influential political parties of the region failed to stop this. People remember the IMDT act, and have only heard. None will see this go into action. Vote banks, religious discrimination, linguistic discrimination etc etc all of these and more arguments will spring up against it.
Do we heed our common sense, do we even have the strength of heart and will to follow that if we do. Ofcourse we do. After all we are in the Land of the seven sisters, the biggest of all of them. We face a different problem now that the generations before us haven’t had to encounter, our very identity is under threat of being lost. For you see the people of the state give her identity, if the people themselves are gone……

Ami Asomiya nohoi Dukhiya, Bhupen Hazarika’s famous line ,everyone remembers this. Not many sing the next verse, Ajir Asomiyai Asom nisinile Asom mogoniya hobo. It was bugle call to all of us who proclaim ourselves proud Assamese to rise up and make a stand.
It is high time we heed it.

Ever charming Shillong

I took a walk down memory lane last night when I was sitting on the front porch of my small 2 room house in Shillong and looked at the vision that is this place at night. As if stars had in actuality decided to get up close with us mortals . I remember Shillong of a decade ago, a soft, whispering town in the hills. Chilly at the warmest and icy at the moodiest. The pretty hill people walking along in that peculiar gait that is attached to these regions. A town of merry drinking , beautiful women, winding windy paths, captivating sunrises, never ending rains and warm cups of tea, all rolled into one of the most comeliest places to go to if in a mood to let the hair down.

Much has changed and some not all.

The sunrises are still there, glorious, intoxicating and rejuvenating. A sunrise from the Polo grounds is indeed a sight to behold to be convinced of it’s magnificence. I know there are vistas all over the world that have appeared in newspapers, magazines and the like that will most likely put a shade on my claim. None the less, I ask, please stand on the 5^th hole of Golf Links grounds at 5 o clock in the morning and watch the sun rise in a slow crawl on the East khasi hills. If nothing else the play of the rays on the dew drops on the grass will captivate you. It is one of my most favorite things about this town.

So are the windy paths, but a better modernized version, with sleek cars zipping past. 50 cent and the gangstas’ music replacing the boy bands of yester years. Shillongites like their music diversified and sometimes eclectic. Just walk into any of the cafes that are now littered all over town to find proof. I used to remember when we had to walk all the way to Glory’s plaza to have a bite of Aunty’s momo. Delicious. Even now. Now Police Bazaar and Laitumukhrah is full of momo places. Roadside vendors selling the vegetarian option. Not that they aren’t delicious. From automobiles to food ,change is everywhere and most evident. There’s even a Dhaba, a proper Dhaba here.

New buildings, new roads, new localities. Shillong is indeed now expanding. Almost rivaling the rate at which it’s nearest City, my home town Guwahati is growing. But along with the outlines and colors of it all the identity has morphed as well.

The identity of the city has changed. No longer a place of rest and recollection. It has become a bustling business hub. There’s a office of almost every major business house of India now located in Shillong. Small, wooden cottages have become a rarity. Replaced rapidly by multi storied concrete giants. Hills have made way for more of these. Trees in the city while intact are not as dense. The color of money has grown greener. There are daily traffic jams in on the main roads. So much so that parts have to be blocked from time to time. The coffee shops of old have given way to swanky cafés. Costlier and less cozy. Restaurants have changed, the hotels have changed, a whole new plethora of bars, both discreet and colorful have come up. And the pace at which it is happening? Astonishing.

Shillong has changed beyond all comparisons from it’s previous avatar, yes. And yet it still manages to charm me, time to time.

For you see the rains are still magical, the women still beautiful and the sunrises magnificient

Economy in Assam

For an Assamese farmer, no sight is more beautiful or soul satisfying than the sight of lush green fields with the grain bending to the gentle evening breeze. It is that which he works for in the excruciating heat, lashing rains, in the face of gun toting men on either side of the law and sometimes Nature herself. Unfortunately, it also forms the economy of the state. Which is actually a very poor statement for a state that produces more than a quarter of all the oil barrels that the country indegeniously manages to supple to the billowing demands of the ever increasing industries, with three refineries supplementing that, add to it the tourism potential of the Wildlife santuaries, the adventure tourism potential of the region of the now convened BTC and the NC hills, also throw in the energy that can be generated from the mighty Brahmaputra. With a mix of a vast workforce capable of performing atleast nationally if given the chance.

But the state is slowly and surely making progress, as can be seen from all the inventive forms of entrepreneurship that is coming up in the economical scene of the state. Architectural firms, Pharma manufacturing units, wildlife awareness campaigns to promote state, national and international level interest in the wildlife of the state, outsorcing centres, call centres and even a few BPOs are helping the youth get that much needed employment drive. And the IIT is helping the Education scenario in Assam, with parents not pressuing thier wards to scurry away after gettin seats in the local engg colleges. Which in turn helps the local scenario.

And in the backdrop of all this is the rampant corruption in the land where money is leeched rapaciously where it can be done, politics has seeped into every aspect of society,policemen dance to the tune of money and militants act as agents of the lord of death himself........

bloodshed in heaven, terrorism......

Assam, it is the very heart of the entire North-east, the great indian appendage that prevents all chinese pretension of dominance in the peninsula. A land as rich in it's flaura and fauna as in the multitude of races that pride in being called Assamese. I say to you whoever reads this now...if you want heaven and donot find it in Kashmir...come here.

And yet it would seem that the great valley is being tainted red in these past years and even now.....Explosions rip apart people, thier blood forever staining the land, bullets cutting short lives that would have otherwise gone on to lend solidarity to community, bandhs that stop the beating heart of life, economy vital to the existence of a prosperous state. Yet, every morning people here wake up, greet the sun and step out of thier houses just the same.

I was here when the recent blasts, that occured in the main marketting and heavily populated areas of Guwahati happened. Just the other day, a big blast had occured in the marketing complex where our nighbour owned a shop, when i asked her if it didn't seem a bit dangerous to go there again, she replied, very sedately, yes. Then turned around and went all the same.
This is the steel that makes an Assamese.

The ULFA have become nearly mad in thier 'struggle'...striking at will wherever thier fancy takes them, makin no difference between friend and foe. As is apparent in the number of civilian lives that have gone into the list of thier murders in the past few years. And this from an Organisation that preached the sanctity of assamese life. As of now, they have most seemingly become puppets to the ministers, or politicians. And yet they insist on thier name.

Not only them, Assam these days has become a breeding ground of all sorts of militant organisations, the dimasas, the karbis, the Boros...all of these communties have militant organisations and all screaming for a part of mother Assam. not to mention the Rabid nagas.

if only they would have realised that thier efforts would be much better spent if directed towards maintaining the unity in the region, indepent existence is a very fluid concept. But that is something they should learn.

And all the while the centre looks on, vaguely aware what is happenin.......
i think it is time we the young generation rose to take control and responsibilty of the situation. but the question will remain, are the people who live in Assam assamese or should only the assames inhabit Assam?