The Mahabharata- Decoded.

The Mahabharata , dictated by Ved Vyas and written by the elephant-headed Hindu God Ganesha is widely regarded and generally accepted as the story of Bharata and his descendants , which again is believed to be an euphemism for India and India's children.  Note that till the Oscar nominated Mother India changed perceptions,  India or Bharata was considered to be a man but then again considering that India is a land of duality where every truth is an exception to an existing truth , the term India emanates from the river Indus which is again considered to be a woman.

Keeping in mind this existence of inherent duality and closely going through the epic, one realises that the 18-day War of Kurukshetra that the Pandavas and the Kauravas fought was in reality a fallacy. Considering that this battle is held up in Indian history and mythology (the two freely interchangeable of course in India) as the ultimate Dharmayudh , the conclusion of which symbolises the victory of Dharma and not necessarily good over evil (according to conventional definitions) , my assertion that the very war was a fallacy tends to ruffle a few feathers,  if not more and anger a few Bhakts, if not all. Before you break down my house and burn my effigy let me at least justify my statement.  The Kurukshetra War was basically a battle between brothers for control over Hastinapur and by default the entire Kuru empire but if we transcend the basics, it was much more.  Sticking to the basics for now,  like I said,  the Kurukshetra War was a battle between brothers for control of an empire to which both believed they had complete stake but the truth was that neither the Pandavas nor the Kauravas had the slightest right to the throne of Hastinapur.  To understand this we must crawl back a few generations to the birth of the very teller of this story,  Ved Vyas.  Ved Vyas,  also known as Dwaipayana was born on an island, as his name suggests,  out of wedlock,  to Satyabati (who would go on to marry Shantanu later and mother the Kuru empire)  and a travelling ascetic Parashar. So herein lies that great duality of India again,  in a country which looks down on children born out of wedlock,  the most revered text was elocuted by an illegitimate child.

The matter gets murkier when the same Satyabati marries Shantanu,  great-grandfather of the Pandavas and the Kauravas and the marriage of the king and the fisherman's daughter not only mocks today's Khap panchayats for labelling intercaste marriages as unIndian and unnatural but also becomes the inter-caste fountain from which the Kuru dynasty flows. The marriage of Satyabati and Shantanu would however not have been possible without the sacrifice of Debabrata, Shantanu's only living son from his ill-fated marriage with Ganga and the only pure-blood Kuru son of Shantanu.  Debabrata, as we all know , vowed never to marry or father a child and always protect the occupant of Hastinapur's throne.  He earned the sobriquet Bhisma and the power to die when be wanted by his immutable vow. In due time Satyabati gave birth to two sons - Chitrangada and Vichitraveerja.  Chintrangada,  the elder son,  died young and the last remaining pure-blood Kuru who could contribute to the progression of his progeny without breaking a terrible oath,  Vichitraveerja, in a terrible anti-climax turned out to be impotent.  It is here that the story of Mahabharata would have ended had it not been for the guile of Bhisma,  who picked up two princesses from their Swayamvara and bought them to Hastinapur as his step-brother's wives. However Vichitraveerja could not stand up to the occasion and the throne of Hastinapur lived in constant fear of loneliness till Satyabati thought of her illegitimate son Ved Vyas and like a true-blue twelfth man Ved Vyas entered the arena in place of the unsuccessful  Vichitraveerja and fathered Dhrithrarashtra and Pandu with Amba and Ambalika, the two wives of Vichitraveerja. The progeny luckily continued but at what cost?

The cost of blood. The bloodline of Bharata was lost forever in this scheme to hide the king's disability from the public eye.  Consider this, neither Pandu nor Dhritrarashtra had an ounce of royal Kuru blood in them and hence neither did their children.  The only true descendant of Bharata remained Bhisma but blinded by his devotion to his past he forgot to look into the future.  Bhisma defended the throne of Hastinapur in the battle of Kurukshetra but not the son of Hastinapur because indeed Duryodhana,  the king in power at Hastinapur during the war was as much a foreigner as Yudhisthira, the attacker or for that matter also Shishupala. So this brings us back to the statement which I was defending for so long.  The Kurukshetra War was a fallacy because the war which was supposedly about brothers fighting to stake their rightful claim to the throne of Hastinapur involved neither brothers,  in the truest sense of the term,  nor any rightful stakeholders to the royal throne of Hastinapur.  Considering that the Kauravas were conceived in earthen pots of Dhritrarashtra and Gandhari and the Pandavas conceived by Kunti and Madri without Pandu's involvement,  neither were the Pandavas and Kauravas related from their fathers' side nor from their mothers' hence debunking the accepted theory that they were brothers, I rest my case that the war was a fallacy.

Having said that, let us consider for a tiny moment the fact that if anyone,  at all,  knew or could have worked out all of this,  it would have had to be Bhishma.  Having known that the Kurukshetra war was a lie,  a fallacy,  why did the educated and wise Bhisma allow such a bloody massacre culminating in the death of family and friends and almost the Kuru dynasty? The duality of India is such that,  to uphold a promise made to his blood father, Bhisma had to protect a foreigner on the throne of Hastinapur.  He made a conscious choice to honour his promise more than his hubris,  to honour his word more than his blood.

The battle of Kurukshetra might have been a fallacy but by no means are the lessons learnt from it anything but absolutely essential. The concept of honouring words above blood is observed even today in Indian culture when fathers honour childhood promises and marry off their reluctant daughters to the sons of their childhood friends. It is observed when different members of the same family contest elections representing different political parties.  It is observed when mothers and mother-in-laws support brutal rape of daughters and wives by moneylenders in exchange for the money lent. The battle of Kurukshetra might have been a fallacy but it's legacy lives on in every micropore of Indian society. Such is the duality of India and hence it's story,  that if the battle of Kurukshetra was indeed a Dharmayudh then whose Dharma was it that won or lost?  Was Yudhishthira's Dharma the better Dharma ? That Dharma which convinced him to kill his teacher with his words? That Dharma which convinced him to gamble away his family?  That Dharma which taught him to be a silent audience to his wife's public humiliation?  Or was Bhisma's Dharma the better Dharma? That Dharma which convinced him to be a silent bystander to an avoidable war? That Dharma which did not touch the righteous soul when a lady was being disrobed in his presence?  That Dharma which accepted Satyabati but not Karna ? Or was it Duryodhana's Dharma that won the Dharmayudh?  That Dharma which caused him to order the public rape of Draupadi?  That Dharma which convinced a young boy to poison his brother? That Dharma which allowed him to trick , trap and kill a teenager? Considering the duality of India,  it might just be possible that no-one's Dharma won the Dharmayudh.

The truth is that in a system so complicated that perhaps only we Indians can comprehend it, the concept of 'always' does not exist.  No one is always right or always wrong,  nothing is forever and truth in itself is relative.  The theory of Relativity may have been propounded centuries later but the concept was very much prevalent in both the Mahabharata and the Bhagavada Gita. The Dharma that won the Dharmayudh is not any individual's Dharma but the Dharma of relativity - everyone's Dharma and at the same time no one's. The very fact that a war that was a fallacy provides lessons that shape Indian society and culture even today,  is a recognition of the  duality of India.

Here is something to blow your mind even further. Years and years after the Kurukshetra War, which led to widespread annihilation and which was fought to justify the Dharma of Bhishma by brothers for an undeserved seat of power, another war ravaged the same subcontinent- a war which left the subcontinent gasping for breath out of trains sent across the border packed with dead bodies and raped bodies,  a war which was fought due to the 'moral' silence of a Mahatma by brothers for an undeserved seat of power.  The duality of Bharat was established again in 1947 - the duality of two brothers fighting for their own Dharmas - India and Pakistan.

The Hidden Doe

As I sit down to write what I intend to be a good enough send-off to one of my favourite portrayals of a literary character, I am lost for words. With fingers casting long shadows on my keyboard, a thousand childhood memories come flooding back into my memory, breaking the dam of deliberate barrier to nostalgia. I think of the long sunny afternoons spent lazily lying down across my bed with a book in hand, I think of re-watching the cinematic version of the same again and again on television and yet amidst all the pictures and images, the silent memories and lasting graphics only one word comes floating through, stamping its authority across the length and breadth of my mind – “Always”.

Born miles away from London and Hogwarts, in a city that the erstwhile residents of the British capital made their own, I grew up under the influence of a British schoolmaster much like most of my generation.  Professor Severus Snape was as important a figure in my life during my formative years as was anyone else and his importance cannot be discounted merely on the basis of his absence from the City of Joy on a continued basis. Maybe I did not learn much of Potions or Defense Against the Dark Arts (although I admit I am not bad at either of these two subjects and they mean as much to me as does Chemistry or Karate) from Professor Snape and maybe I did not like him the most in the beginning but slowly, yet surely I realized that no one has perhaps taught me as much has Professor Snape during my teenage years.

From teaching me that life is downright unfair and the best thing to do is to not stop and complain but trudge on (“Well it may have escaped your notice but life isn’t fair”) to teaching how wrong judging a book by its cover can be, from teaching me that heroes don’t need to be flashy or prominent but the real heroes are the ones in the most unlikeliest of places to teaching me about true love, from teaching me that every criminal no matter how big the crime deserves a chance at redemption to teaching me all I know about ultimate devotion to a cause- a devotion so powerful that in the end it consumes you, Professor Snape has been instrumental in making me what I am today.

When on a cold winter’s morning in February in 1946, the man who would go on to define Professor Snape on screen was born, little did he know that 19 years later a lady would be born who in 1995 would go on to immortalize his sallow skin, his large, hooked nose and yellow, uneven teeth, his cold, black eyes which end up saying so much. The “overgrown bat” had been immortalized and in 2001 I gasped with the world as he gave a name and face to my imagination, a perfect finishing touch to the character I hated.

Alan Rickman may have done a lot of other movies and played a lot of other characters on screen or on stage but to me and perhaps many others he will “always” be Severus Snape, Professor Snape because Mr. Rickman personified the quintessential antagonist in a non-quintessential way and revolutionized the way I thought and the way I looked at the universe. He hammered in through actions and merely one world, the true power of true love – something which Bollywood actors have been trying to sing and dance about for nearly 6 decades now. He made me hate him because he was Snape and Snape was him and yet he made me adore his devotion to his cause, to his redemptive cause , he made me fall in love with his quiet disposition , his silent work-till-you-die attitude from the darkness ,from behind the scenes while controlling the scene in the movie. He was someone who did not need to attract attention, his appearance demanded it. As much as I loved Harry and Hermione and Ron and the rest, the only Slytherin who made all the difference and yet never let Dumbledore “reveal the best of” him touched my heart.

As I received the news of the demise of Mr. Rickman earlier today, my first reaction was a momentary pause of disbelief followed by a never-ending avalanche of old memories, each memory laced with the lasting image of Alan Rickman collapsing against the wall of the Shrieking Shack and the words of JK Rowling rushed out from the depths of the dark abyss and hit my numb mind and left it rattled:

“Look...at...me..." he whispered. The green eyes found the black, but after a second, something in the depths of the dark pair seemed to vanish, leaving them fixed, blank, and empty. The hand holding Harry thudded to the floor, and Snape moved no more.” 

At the end of it all I am left with 7 books and 8 movies ,numerous memories and not enough words to express my immense gratitude to Severus Rickman for altering my life but instead with an enduring scene of a broken Alan Rickman hugging the dead body of his beloved and a distant voice that says, “Always”.

The first page I turn to while re-reading any Harry Potter book (after Prisoner of Azkaban) is definitely page 394.

Always.

Gone girls

As he ambled out of the Operation Theatre, barely being able to support himself, he felt his phone vibrate ferociously in his pocket for the umpteenth time that evening and knowing, who it was, he did not answer it. Seeing an empty chair, he slumped into it, allowing his tensed body to relax for the first time in hours. There was, however no scope of relaxation for his mind. Tears rolled down his lightly-bearded cheeks as his lachrymal glands succumbed to immense neural torture.

The dam had burst and now his mind raced through his life- flicking through image after image with an uttered word here and a heated argument there, sprinkled with generous does of loving moments and spoonful of disagreements , all garnished in blurred monochrome. Finally it stopped at a singular image, which had first popped into his head when he had returned home to find his wife lying on the bedroom floor in a pool of blood. The image of where it all started.

He still remembered the day he met her very clearly – it was a memory that his brain was not willing to forget. The setting was nothing dramatic. It had been a cool monsoon evening in Kolkata and his eyes had fallen upon her while he had been trying to locate his seat aboard the Delhi-bound Jet Airways flight. She had been seated on the seat adjacent to his and he had continued to take stolen glances at her while shoving his suitcase into the compartment above. Having made himself comfortable he had taken out his cell phone and was searching his pockets for his earphones when she had volunteered, “Lost something?” He had mumbled something inaudible and still embarrassed had vehemently shaken his head, which, as he remembered with a smile on his tear-soaked lips, had caused her to laugh out loud. The ice, having been broken and the earphones forgotten, that had been the beginning of it all.

As his mind reverted back to the present, he realized that it had been the beginning of the end. Five days together in Delhi had made sure that they knew each other too well to be simply acquaintances. On their return to Kolkata, they had exchanged addresses to keep the phone numbers, previously exchanged, company and one thing had led to another and a flight together had translated into frequent coffee breaks and stolen meetings in restaurants and lounges and soon their friendship had blossomed into something more meaningful and both had started to introduce each other to friends and family. He had attended her sister’s wedding and had quite a nice time too, dancing without a care in the world, under the groggy effect of alcohol albeit. She had in turn attended his mother’s funeral and provided ample solace to the grieving son who had been bereaved. Their closeness had become the talk of the lanes and by-lanes around their residences and the topic of hushed conversations in both their offices. These conversations annoyed him- could a man and a woman not be just friends? He had thought that the childish link-ups would have left his back once he had left the four walls of the college building but clearly he had been proved wrong. She, however, knew that she was falling for him and even though she had tried to talk herself out of it , slowly but surely she was losing control over her Platonic feelings.

As he looked at his watch, he realized that it was already a new day. Only two hours back, his life was about as perfect as it could get- a loving wife, two children who jumped onto his the moment he returned home and everything he could have asked for when he had passed out of college. A lot had happened in the two hours, however, that had wrecked his life and perhaps changed it forever. He thought back to how he had rushed home an hour back, ran up the stairs and opened the bedroom door with the sense of foreboding making his heart pound on his chest feverishly. The sight that welcomed him did not help ease the pressure on his heart but having been blessed with a cool head he managed to quickly dial the hospital and then his sister, the former to save his wife and the latter to take the children for the night. Perspiring heavily on a cool monsoon evening, he bandaged his wife’s slit wrist and cleaned the blood from her body and carried her downstairs. Without changing out of his blood-soaked shirt he accompanied his senseless wife into the ambulance and urged the driver to drive faster. In 10 minutes he ambled out of the OT.

His phone vibrated ferociously in his pocket. He sighed and taking it out, switched it off. He already had one uneasy conscience to answer to for now. He sighed again and cleared his parched throat. He was thirsty but neither did he have the strength to get up to quench his thirst nor could he brush away the fact from his mind that the sequence of events that threatened to turn his life into ashes had all started with a glass of water. His mind wandered back to the water-cooler near his cubicle in his office about two hours back when he had been taken aback. She was the last person he had expected in his office in the middle of the day but he suppressed his astonishment at her sudden appearance and proceeded to hear what she had to say. His sudden inability to talk had not been helped by the fact that she had been wearing the same shirt that she had worn when they had first met.

His pulse had quickened gradually, the smile had vanished from his face, his eyebrows had gradually arched into a frown and beads of perspiration had appeared on his forehead with every word that she uttered. He wanted to make her stop but he also wanted to hear the extent of damage that had been caused. When she had finished and sighed, gulping down the water from his glass, he had risen and cursing himself for forgetting his cell-phone at home, walked out of the office before anyone could stop him.

In the car, his mind had been not on the road and the drive home was all a blur now. All that his mind had focused on was the imaginary memory of his wife receiving the call on his cellphone and listening to a female voice exonerating her love for him. She was possessive, he had thought but perhaps she would not do anything rash. His hope had disappeared with time and by the time he had parked his car outside his front door, he had just prayed for her life. Having seen his cell phone on the floor, near the front door his hope had vapourised and he had rushed upstairs. Something had broken inside him as he had run in on his wife lying in a pool of blood.

As he sighed and stared longingly at the doors that opened into the OT, he wished, foolishly, that the doors would swing open and his wife would step out in her favourite sari, majestically sweeping her fingers through the air, showing off her Bengali pride but moments turned into minutes and yet the door remained firmly shut. As he took off his spectacles and allowed the tears to flow freely, he wished he had not forgotten to pack his earphones that day and how he wished he had not forgotten his cellphone today.

About ten kilometres away, she tried to call him again but his cellphone was still switched off. Her hands trembled as she withdrew a pair of earphones from her pocket, the same that had fallen out of his bag on that plane to Delhi, which she had never returned, and clutching them close to her heart she jumped off the bridge into the Ganges.

The doors of the OT swung open and he looked up hopefully, just in time to see the doctor walk slowly towards him.

“Sorry”,Dr.Dutta uttered, placing his hand softly on his shoulder, as he stood up.

He collapsed back onto the chair.

The Injustice of Equality

If half a century down the line a book is ever written on the wars that had been fought fifty years back, then the war-cry that must be featured in the book has to be ‘Equality’. No matter what battle is being fought, be it at the macroscopic global level or the microscopic societal level, it is based on one and only one war-cry and that is ‘Equality’. The global villagers are up in arms demanding equality in the workplace, in educational institutions, in boardrooms of multi-national conglomerates, in parliaments across nations and most importantly amongst themselves.

The most controversial demands for equality being made today are perhaps in the context of gender and sexuality. Now to start off, the very concept of ‘Gender Equality’ baffles me – it is confusing in its very core because it tries to equate to unequal entities which as anyone with basic knowledge of Mathematics will tell you, is not possible unless there is a ‘division by 0’ involved somewhere. Man and woman were created (by God or by a fusion of sperm and ova, depending on your religious inclinations) to be different in many respects. If you had paid attention to the Biology lectures in secondary school, you would have realized that men and women are physically different and are wired differently internally – both in terms of internal plumbing and mental acuity. Men and women react differently to different situations and think differently and beyond the similarity of white bones and red flesh barely any similarities exist. Having established, for the sake of the people incapable of complete use of their perceptive powers despite existence of all necessary senses, the fact that men and women are different, we can now focus on the second part of the problem.

The concept of ‘Gender Equality’ is absurd for the simple reason that it is not possible. Actions supporting ‘Gender Equality’ tend to me reactions against a patriarchal society which defeats its purpose completely. The present concept of ‘Gender Equality’ goes something like this –“If my husband cheats on me , it means I now have the right to cheat on him and he cannot say a thing about it” or “If a man molests and physically assaults a woman it is a crime but if a woman does the same to a man , he probably deserved it” or “If a man lecherously gazes at a woman it is derogatory yet if a woman does the same then it is unrequited love”. I can go on and on about such examples but that is not the point – the point is that equality is a utopic dream of a fool, not a possibility which can be successfully translated into reality. The aim of ‘gender activists’ seems to be projecting ‘women as the new men’ which is absurd and completely detrimental for society. Women don’t need to be men-like for them to be taken seriously or for them to deserve a place in society – they don’t need to smoke cigarettes to prove that they can, they don’t need to sleep around to prove that they can, they don’t need to be molesters and assaulters to prove that they can.

Men have made mistakes in the past and society has suffered because of those mistakes. It makes no sense for women to repeat the same mistakes in the name of ‘woman empowerment’ or ‘feminism’ – the concept of ‘If a man can do it, a woman can’ has to be done away with because I am sure a man can never do what a woman can. Women must be able to be comfortable in their own space, as women knowing that the monthly torture that they go through cannot be survived by an average male (“Mard ko dard hota hain”), as women knowing that they , only they, have been entrusted with the power to bring new life onto the planet. The ability of a woman to be a woman, who menstruates, who can give birth is not her weakness- It is her power.

If society is to truly move forward with both men and women leading from the front, then our aim should be towards ‘Gender Justice’, not ‘Gender Equality’ because in a country of over a billion and a world of over a hundred billion- where diversity is the be-all and end-all – equality cannot be achieved but justice can be extended. The steps must be pro-active rather than re-active and if any semblance of progress is to be achieved then serious efforts must be made to save the girl child, not to allow her a life amidst household chores and servitude but a life where she is educated, not merely schooled, allowed to love, not merely married off and allowed to be proud to be a woman, not merely ordered to look up to men. There must not be reservations for women in education or service but instead the ability of women to prove themselves as women amongst men must be respected. Women must be given every service made available to men, nothing more, nothing less because when two unequal beings are placed on an equal footing to start with then justice has not been denied.

Men and women can never be equal. They should never be equal because they, in their own way, shape our global village and in their diversity, their difference lies their strength. However, men and women can be given a just opportunity to prove their mettle, can be placed at the same starting line with none advantaged unfairly and to be placed at the same starting line, to be given the same opportunities to perform it is not necessary for women to lower themselves to the level of fallen men or for men to be pulled down from their pedestals but instead it is necessary for women to rise in their own eyes as women.

It is the collective duty of all men to ensure that justice is not denied because in a society where women aspire to be the ‘new’ men, there can be no place for us. Hence it is our duty to make us see women for what they really and truly are because without women, men will become extinct eventually. The society needs women and men of character, not pretenders and characters. 

The Last Plan

As the train chugged into Dum Dum junction, the crowd which had been thickening for quite some time now got ready for the daily ritual. Men grabbed onto other men and yet somehow managed to extend a few fingers towards the handle on the door of the incoming train. By utilizing the full potential of every finger, by pushing every sinew to the edge and by squeezing and twisting their flabby bodies into every available inch of space, modern men prepared for war. As the train shuddered to a slow halt, men rapidly placed feet on anything they could find. There were feet on feet, on metal, on leather, on cloth and barely any space to sustain more feet but still men found space not only to squeeze in more feet but entire bodies with heavy luggage. The heads inside the compartments let out sighs of exultation and those on the platform sighs of exasperation.

Amidst all the sweaty foreheads and flailing hands, Dinesh’s eyes, ever so ready to spot windows, literal or those of opportunities, spotted Mr. Bhowmick. The short and portly man had managed to secure a seat and his blue and purple checked half-shirt, laden with sweat and toil, hung loosely over his tired body. His fingers danced on his cheap leather bag which adorned his lap beneath which invisible to Dinesh was a pair of grey trousers torn in two places. His feet were dressed in a pair of sandals which he had worn ceaselessly for the last sixteen years.

“Bhowmick”, called out Dinesh over the sound of the engine which had hummed back to life. The portly man seemed not to hear as he stared absent-mindedly at the window. Dinesh was about to call out again when the old man standing in front of him, whom Dinesh knew only by face and not by name, interjected,” Leave him alone. He’s worried about losing his job.”

“Why?” asked Dinesh tentatively.

“Change in government is imminent”, murmured the old man.

Dinesh nodded knowingly and turned away.

As the train strolled into Sodepur station, Mr. Bhowmick got up and twisted and turned himself towards the gate and as the train stopped, the swarm of people pushed out Mr. Bhowmick depositing him onto the platform. Mr. Bhowmick started to amble towards the exit stairs as the train chugged out of the station. Dinesh looked out of the window hoping for an opportunity to wave goodbye but Mr. Bhowmick did not turn around. He simply looked up and sighed, peeked into his Sonata watch and sighed again. He knew exactly what he was walking home to, just like every other day.

After the routine 15 minute walk, as he turned left Mr. Bhowmick was not greeted by the usual dark, empty lane and the house at the end of it but a lane filled with people and smoke emanating from the house at the end of the lane. The house could hardly be seen by Mr. Bhowmick , partly because of the smoke which clouded his vision but mostly because all of Sodepur seemed to have gathered inside that tiny lane to watch a spectacle. As the bag slipped off his shoulders and his body went limp, someone placed a hand on his shoulder, someone else made him sit down on the road and some third person poured water into his open mouth. Someone else recognized the owner of the house and a sudden hush descended upon the crowd mocking the rising smoke. The crowd parted on its own to let the owner into his burnt possession. Mr. Bhowmick shuffled towards his house but before he could reach the front door his eyes encountered what they were searching for.

Mr. Bhowmick grasped his chest and withdrew a small bottle from his chest pocket .Hands shaking, fingers trembling, he struggled with the cap before finally opening it and poured the contents into his open mouth. The bottle, now empty, was disposed of into the gutter. He then knelt down beside the corpse covered by a white cloth and let his teardrops wet the cloth. He felt a cold hand on his shoulder and turned around to identify the face associated with the hand. 

Through his spectacles, now foggy with smoke and tears he recognized him to be a firefighter.

“Your wife, right?”, he inquired.

Mr. Bhowmick nodded and removed the cloth to look into the charred remains of what was his wife.  As he removed more of the cloth, his searching eyes failed to find what they were looking for.

He looked back up towards the firefighter and asked, “My son?”

“Sir before we answer that question , we are required to tell you that your wife had left the gas on , filling up the kitchen with inflammable hydrocarbons and striking the lighter one time too many had resulted in a blast which had charred her beyond recovery.”

Mr. Bhowmick nodded at the ground and thought back to that morning when he had walked into the kitchen and walked out sighing deeply. His wife had looked at him and smiled, a smile which remained unreturned. He had then walked over to the bed where his son was sleeping and smiled. His sleeping son had not smiled back.

“So where is he?”, asked Mr. Bhowmick again.

“Sir luckily your son had gone to school and hence was not here when disaster struck. He’s sitting in the truck right now”, assured the firefighter.

As the contents of the bottle spread through every artery of his body rapidly, Mr. Bhowmick looked up in despair- his sloth-like movements contradicting the rapid biochemical reactions disintegrating his body. It took some time for the ramifications of the firefighter’s words to register, for them to seep deep into the nooks and recesses of his mind and when they did, his blood was beyond recovery. His shaking hands betrayed the coolness with which he had executed his plan but his trembling heart knew that something had gone horribly wrong. He tried to get up , using his last remaining quantum of strength but couldn’t and fell back onto the street .

As his skin turned rapidly from the light brown, that it had been for the past forty-one years, to red and quickly to purple and finally assumed a bluish hue reminiscent of many Hindu Gods, all Mr.Bhowmick could discern were the sounds of panic around him, the sounds of whizzing brains not knowing what had happened and the silence of stunned hands not knowing what to do. All he could think of as his mouth filled up with froth and foam was that his last plan had failed, failed as horribly as he had in life. There were only two dead bodies where there should have been three.

In the fire- truck, 7-year old Anurag Bhowmick waited for his father to return and his mother to wake up.

The Solitary Helper

As she continued to gather the grains of white rice that brightened the dirty staircase, another pair of hands – less rough but equally effective – joined the act. She did not look up, she was too embarrassed already but her eyes darted in and out of the huge frame of the man crouching beside her – searching for some semblance of similarity. She found none.

From what she could gather from repeated stolen glances, she found only differences – his shining black leather shoes a distinct contrast to her bare feet which had almost turned to leather from the miles it covered every day, his expensive suit, whose cost she could only guess but which he obviously knew exactly to one hundredth of a rupee, an awkward deviation from her crumpled sari bought from the village haat .His spectacles seemed to mock her unprotected eyes which were myopic , his smooth , fair skin make fun of her sun-burnt and dilapidated one , his wavy hair laughing out aloud at her dirty greying mane and yet there they were , two very different pairs of cupped hands trying to achieve the same destination  in the middle of a dirty staircase on an over-bridge in an Indian railway station.

The stranger continued to pick up rice silently and pour it into the bag, emulating the woman alongside. The woman wondered who he was; the man wondered why no one else helped her. She urged her tongue to agree to her mind and express a gratitude born in the deeper realms of her body but her underdeveloped language skills and years of chipping away at her self-confidence hindered the transformation of thought into action .She silently went about her task although now, a storm raged inside her body – it was like someone was churning her insides.

The man wanted to tell the woman that she needn’t worry – most of her rice could be recovered and consumed or sold later but years of English vocation and detachment from his roots hindered the transformation of the same to actual words. He was sure that the woman would not understand English and he knew too little of the regional languages to effectively communicate with her. He wondered why no one else stopped to help her although about a few hundred pairs of feet passed them – some slow, some fast , some running , some strolling, some galloping , some wearing shoes, some wearing sandals and some wearing nothing at all but none of them stopped. He silently continued his task although now a storm raged inside his mind.

The last grain collected and put into the sack, the woman stood up, clutched her bag, balancing it expertly between her armpit and hip walked away as rapidly as she could. The man stood up too and walked away. The place – a dirty staircase on an over-bridge in an Indian railway station- however could not get up – it remained, to tell the story, the story of two strangers, one who received help and got embarrassed and another who gave help and got disillusioned, two strangers from opposite sides of the social spectrum united by the staple food of the country- rice, two strangers who did not exchange a single word but went back with so much more.

Even today the place exists and stands as a testament to the existence of goodwill in a fast-paced world as well as the existence of a ruthless world which doesn’t stop. In deference to the protagonists of the story, however, the place chooses to remain silent.

One Moment please

As he looked out across the vast expanse of greyish brown, no emotion swept over him. This was supposed to one of the most religiously sacrosanct places according to his mother, one of the most serene places according to his grandmother, one of the most awe-inspiring places according to his grandfather and one of the most romantic places according to his father but no emotion whatsoever swept him over as he slipped his hands into the pockets of his trousers and stared out. He sighed deeply and let his line of sight swing to the left and then to the right.

The breathtaking architectural wonder to his left that spanned across the breadth of the murky stretch did not speed up his cardiac muscles; neither did it induce any sense of pride or any semblance of belonging in his mind or heart. The transit system that populated the area immediately below his line of sight did not make the romantic lion purr in anticipation, neither did it make the hungry cat look longingly at the vehicles. The second architectural wonder which could be seen silhouetted against the misty sky did not make him draw in his breath sharply and release it slowly, neither did it render him motionless and speechless as his father had warned him it should. He sighed again and resigned.

Preparing to walk back , defeated and disappointed , he hopped off the low ledge , which had been his vantage point , and was about to cross the railway tracks which bordered the region when his swift movements were obstructed by a voice which caught his attention , in his stride .

“You are not from around here, are you?” inquired the soft, melodious voice.

“Actually I was born here,” he replied, a little too soon for his liking and turning around he completed, “but no, I’m not from around here.”

Considering that he had a skin-tone not unlike those of the locals and hair that was jet black, he was surprised by her question, which had turned out to be so accurate. “I am Karan. Karan Bakshi. “

“What gave it away?” he added after a slight pause.

“Well for starters the way you looked out across the river. Quite unlike a citizen. But what made it really elementary was your clothes “, she remarked smiling.

“My clothes?” he asked, puzzled, simultaneously examining his clothes desperate not to be embarrassed by a fashion faux pas.

“Well yes. You see our men don’t usually wear suits in the middle of the day in September and even if they do they don’t hang around this place”, she explained rather matter-of-factly.

“I see Miss Marple “, he retorted cheekily. “I sincerely hope that you are not the fictional character”, he added and was immediately repulsed by the cheesiness of the expunged words.

She afforded a laugh, albeit a short one, before introducing herself as Smriti Lakhotia.

As he walked onto the podium he looked down at the one pair of eyes that had always seen him ascend every podium for the past one quarter of a century and pleased to have located them, turned to face the remaining two hundred pairs and began to speak.

After nearly one half of an hour and two glasses of water, he sighed as he entered the final lap.

“Sometimes you find love in the most unexpected of places and most of the times it is always in the last place you looked”, he remarked as he stole a glance at the eyes which had not left him for the past 27 minutes. He continued,” In 2003 I came to this city in the hope of washing away the remains of this city from myself. Although I had lived in the United States for the past forty five years and had replaced the stone paved streets with concrete metalled roads, the puchka and bhel puri with burgers and French fries, the roadside addas with frequenting bars and taverns , the slow laziness and sleepiness induced by this city with the unforgiving world of boardrooms and presentations and the very essence of the old world charm with the mechanical superiority of the modern world, I just couldn’t replace my heart which I had lost to a girl in this city. So many years had passed but I couldn’t move on and I had to return to get closure, to convince myself that my heart was no longer in this city.”

He stopped and sipped some water, allowing it to percolate through his body.

With every eye and every camera following him now, he continued “Instead I realized that something that you lose is always in the last place that you check. It took me forty five years to finally get the place right but at the age of sixty five I had finally found what I had lost when I left the city. The city had not disposed of the pieces of my broken heart and for forty five years had held the pieces close to its heart, hoping that I would return to put the pieces together. It’s never too late to do something. I found my religion, I found serenity and I was left awestruck, all at once in the one single moment which changed my life. It came as late as 2003 but here I am today, happily married for twenty five years, all because I decided to give the city a chance. It is time that you do so too”

The Mayor received a standing ovation as he stepped down from the podium and walking upto the eight-five year old lady, who was the cynosure of all TV cameras and arc lights, embraced her and whispered into her ear “Let’s go”. She nodded and together they walked out as the audience continued clapping.

A twenty minute drive later they were seated ensconced in each other’s arms on one of the rickety boats that looked like it could sink any moment. Looking to his right and left, he realized what his father had found romantic and looked into his wife’s eyes adoringly. Looking back she whispered “Oh Karan!”

He whispered back, “Oh Calcutta!”

The Empty Seat

As I sped through the underpass to catch the last metro I looked at the luminescent dial of my Citizen wristwatch, noting amidst several huffs and puffs that I still had more than a minute to complete the 100 metre stretch of staircase ahead of me before the train huffed and puffed into the station. I leapt up the stairs devouring them two, sometimes three at a time and finally catapulted myself to the platform as the last metro entered the station. To my immense satisfaction, the digital watch cum alert system hanging above my sweating head read “10:10”.Few saw the smirk that lingered over my face momentarily as the victory of one battle gave way to the preparation for another – this time the objective being the capture of a seat before the multitude of obese middle-aged, experienced men grabbed onto theirs. I waited with anticipation, sweat dripping of my arched brow and my tensed sinews, body arched forward ready to pounce at the slightest sight of an empty seat, as the train shuddered to a halt. The second’s wait before the electronic doors opened and all hell broke loose was the most important – this is the time when one has to look for a relatively empty door and stand in front of it in such a manner so as to guard other potential competitors and at the same time accord the requisite bit of courtesy to the alighting passengers and at the same time , twist one’s body in such a manner so as to find the tiniest gap to squeeze oneself in without shoving others hence protecting oneself from an otherwise  expected barrage of colourful Bengali abuses . Combining the skills of many wild animals into one, I successfully maneuvered myself and managed to secure a seat for myself as the last metro chugged out of Mahanayak Uttam Kumar station. As I looked around triumphantly, the obese man on my right accorded me a slight smile before proceeding to take out his cellphone. I sighed and smiled back.

The obese man beside me punched in some keys on his cellphone’s keypad before assuming the stoic position perfected by the Buddha. A familiar pinging noise informed me that he had sent a text message. The man proceeded to repeat this action as the train stopped at Rabindra Sarovar and then at Kalighat and again at Jatin Das Park. Intrigued, I peered into the screen of his cellphone as the next station approached hoping to decode the cause for this man’s incessant texting. As Netaji Bhavan approached, I maintained a constant stare at his cellphone screen and as the train shuddered to a halt and the lady over the PA system announced our arrival at Netaji Bhavan station, my eyes watched as his fingers punched in “Netaji Bhavan” into his phone and then as the same few stubby fingers proceeded to type in a 10 digit cellphone number and hit “Send”. My eyes were quickly diverted as my ears picked up the sound of a sardonic cough emanating from my right side. I looked up apologetically at the man’s face, expecting an angry face and a barrage of choicest Bengali abuses but instead as I looked into his face, my eyes were greeted by a warm smile. I smiled back uncertainly.

The man continued his periodic action at every station and finally as Chandni Chowk approached I couldn’t control myself any longer.

“Newly married huh?” I asked rather bluntly.

“No. I’m just 37”, came the quick reply as if he was expecting a question sooner or later.

“Not your wife then, I presume?” I continued unabashedly.

“No. Actually the texts are for my father”, he confided.

Trying my best to suppress the waves of condescending laughter that ascended from my stomach, I looked away, laughing away internally at the 37-year old man’s lack of freedom.

My internal peals of laughter must have reverberated across to my right because the obese man continued “It’s not what you think.” Too shocked and more embarrassed to react, I continued to look away as he continued his monologue.

At some point during the conversation I must have looked up because as the train chugged into Girish Park station, I remember looking into misty eyes. Thinking back, I might have looked through and not into misty eyes.

As I put down the newspaper that had sparked my trip down the streets of Nostalgia, my thoughts circled back to the events of that day, which had started to end so much like any other day but had ended up ending quite differently. The news report was nothing new to the average Calcuttan. It was regarding an accident that had happened on the previous day at Girish Park metro station when a fat, obese man waiting to alight had been pushed and shoved by an onrushing crowd in such a manner that his feet had got stuck in the small space between the bogey and the platform and the train as it moved out of the platform, unknowingly chopped off a part of the man’s leg. I had recognized him from the file picture that accompanied the report. I had scoured through the report again and again trying to find a particular word and when I had found it I had slumped back onto the sofa distressed and shaken. One minor line in the report read “The inconsolable man’s cellphone could not be recovered as the train had crushed it after it had fallen out of his pocket onto the tracks.”

The more crushing news report came in the next day’s paper. Few across the metropolis could perhaps connect the two reports but I did and with a sinking feeling, I realized that atleast one other person will. The report was a small one. Infact if one did not look out for it, one could easily miss it out. For all practical purposes, it could be labeled as insignificant. The 10 line report spoke of the discovery of the dead body of an elderly man in a dilapidated house near Girish Park metro station. The man , the report stated , had been under medication and terminally ill, crippled by complete body paralysis with only his auditory and olfactory senses still working. The time of death had been placed somewhere between 10:30 pm and 11:00 pm on the day preceding the previous day .The report concluded by saying that death had possibly been a painful affair with the man suffering multiple cardiac arrests and multiple organ failure in a matter of minutes, with the investigating doctor suggesting that the cause of such an adverse reaction had been sudden shock.

As I put down a newspaper with a sigh for the second time in two days , I thought of the many things that the report did not specify – how it did not mention that the full body paralysis was due to a metro accident 15 years ago , that the man lived in constant fear of his son falling prey to the “Hell-train” and that his son , to pacify his father had come up with a unique way to keep his worried father informed without him having to move a muscle .It did not mention  how every day  the man received 13 texts – one for each station that his son crossed and the how 13 pinging sounds had become the sounds that dictated his life , that made him wait in anticipation , in morbid fear and on hearing which his soul lay embalmed and cooled .

I am not a doctor but I am sure that the sudden shock which caused the loss of a life was due to the one missing ping, because on that fateful day the inbox contained only 12 unopened messages.

I don’t rush to catch a metro anymore. An empty seat for me hardly justifies the emptiness that fills up another life.

The Colossal Calcuttan Carnival

The preparations start from months in advance as politicians quickly align their priorities and choose which Puja organizers to back vociferously and financially, as actors and actresses are selected to represent the Goddess and the Puja as ‘Brand’ ambassadors, as bamboo poles are planted into the concrete jungles to obstruct traffic and lines of sight, as a dash of vibrant colour is added to the otherwise dull and fast greying ‘city of palaces’.

Behind all the glitz and glamour, however, of the multi-crore yearly investments of faith and money, behind the scenes of the largest and most colourful carnival of eastern India lie the sad stories of many masons, architects, builders and others who shy away from the spotlight once their jobs are done.  The sight of barely dressed men climbing high up on bamboo scaffoldings without any protection whatsoever may be enough to send a chill down any spine anywhere in the world but here in Kolkata, we have become so accustomed to this sight multiple times a year giving realization to the popular “Bangalir Baro Mashe Tero Parbon (13 festivals in 12 months for Bengalis)” that we ignore them completely. The sight of a packed Kumartuli in the days preceding the Pujas with sculptors and artists , again barely dressed rushing against time to meet the demands of a city hungry for more ,may draw some sympathy in many parts of the world but we pass by without so much as a glance.

As D-Day or in this case D-Days get closer, Kolkata starts to get decked up in the most beautiful lights illuminating the beauty of an otherwise sleepy city. Lights overhead, lights on trees, lights on buildings, lights on gates, writings in lights and for organizers with more at their disposal even animation in lights , Kolkata truly gets an ‘illuminating’ make-over during the days of celebration . In fact if the lights don’t blind you at night, the ‘chumkis’ on the women’s saris definitely will, as one of my friends very correctly remarked . Behind the scenes, however no one notices the extra megawatts of current that are drawn to satisfy the needs of an insatiable Kolkata crowd while thousands of villages in India survive without electricity every day.

As the fervour and spirit of celebration of the victory of ‘good over evil’ takes over the City of  Joy and thousands of otherwise sleepy and lazy Calcuttans descend on the streets to get a glimpse of the victory of ‘god over evil’, it becomes practically impossible to get anywhere on time. Traffic snarls cripple the city along the vast expanse of every road from Bosepukur to Bagbazar and drivers trying to negotiate a stretch that on any normal day would have taken 5-10 minutes realize the value of time. It becomes impossible to catch trains or aeroplanes on time unless passengers leave theirs abodes with a good 3-4 hours extra in their hands because “Maa Durga” comes to visit her abode.

As Calcuttans and a true blue fans of pandal-hopping and “Maa Durga”, we are however prepared to look beyond the mundane problems that plague the society instead to focus our attentions on the divine presence amongst us .A city which goes to sleep before the rest of India suddenly draws immense quantities of energy from the hidden reserves to stay up all night and quench the desires to witness a hundred different masterpieces in clay spread out across the city. The carnival of lights and  dash of colours, the holding of hands with your ‘special one’ and joy of finally doing the same, the essence of roadside foods and forgotten diets, the concepts of ‘theme pujos’ and ‘bonedi pujos’ paints a rather inviting portrait with the same old Kolkata as the canvas.

As Durga Puja becomes a more and more money-spinning endeavour as the years pass by and as it assumes a more and more commercial feel about it ,Calcuttans rush in like fools where angels fear to tread .Today , it is the best lights , the best pandal , the best idol of the Goddess that everyone rushes to see , yet few rush to save the girl child from female infanticide , few to prevent their abortion , few speak out against the mental and physical torture of wives and daughters , few dare to stand up against rape and sexual abuse and very few remember that Durga Puja stands for the power of womanhood .

Kolkata wakes up to Durga Puja every year and the first thing that Kolkata sees is the head-count of people in the so-called popular Pujas tabulated in specific time frames in a popular Bengali daily and the immediate instinct is to make frivolous plans to be ‘one’ in the sea of people that night . Durga Puja has assumed a different meaning altogether for Kolkata today, perhaps not in sync with the original intention of this celebration and we have perhaps forgotten that amidst all the competition and commercialization. Yet, behind all the negative things that can be said about Durga Puja, their lies a lot of hope, of true celebration of divinity, of goodness. The opportunity to rush to pandals often gives us the opportunity to get back in touch with our families and friends .The fervour and spirit with which many youngsters and their elders await the Puja season is truly a thing of beauty, and definitely the wait will remain a joy forever for a Calcuttan.

Durga Puja gives every child born and bred in the city of Joy an overflowing basket of memories to treasure for a lifetime –the wait in the preceeding weeks to the Puja, the pandal-hopping, the only times you could stay up late without your parents after your life, the sound of dhaaks wafting through the air and ringing in your ears long after Durga Puja is over, the ‘dhunnuchi naach’ , the ‘Onjoli on Oshtomi’ ,the sumptuous feast that mothers and grandmothers conjure up as if by magic on the Puja days ,the ‘adda ‘ with friends , the sight of the friends you knew but can’t recognize them beacause they’re ensconced in Indian attires , the tearful goodbyes on “Doshomi” , the bhashan dance and many more .

What Durga Puja also gives us is a message that not all of us get –the evil that lives within us must be banished before we can think of the evil without, the power of women, the ultimate victory of good over evil-but maybe in hindsight it’s not too bad a thing because as Francis Bacon once said –“Where Ignorance is Bliss ‘Tis Folly to be Wise” and believe me, “Durga Puja is Bliss”.

The Voice Below The Kolorob

Being born and brought up in the sleepy metropolis of Calcutta, I will perhaps never forget the ‘Students’ Movement’ that rocked the city in September of 2014. The movement reached its peak perhaps on the afternoon of the 20^th of September when a mass rally and walk was organized from the Rabindra Sadan to the Gandhi Statue on Mayo Road – a 2.3 km walk in torrential rain. Nearly 70,000 people of different universities, religions, castes, languages, qualifications and political alignments braved the fear of going down with pneumonia by turning up for the event. The organizers of this mass rally ended the day’s walk by initiating a 5-hour occupation of Mayo Road and JL Nehru Road which they called ‘Occupy Dharmatala’. The occupation ended when the Governor of the state, Mr. KN Tripathi , who is also the de-facto Chancellor of Jadavpur University, agreed to look into the demands of the students, the demands of removing the Vice Chancellor, pro-Vice Chancellor and Registrar from Jadavpur University.

Now, this causes one to ask the very pertinent question – What happened at Jadavpur University that prompted a reaction on such a massive scale?

To answer that question one must refer back to an on-campus-incident which took place in the last days of August 2014 in which a female student complained of molestation by a few male students near the University hostel complex. Now, irrespective of what the female student claims, the truth about this incident is still very much debatable with numerous versions of the story being circulated on campus. Some versions, infact, make it very difficult to sympathize with the female student at all. Having not talked to the ‘victim’ or the ‘accused’ personally, I will refrain from spewing out the rumours here. However, two things, most definitely cannot be denied. Firstly, despite all efforts to deem the movement following this incident as ‘apolitical’, the incident itself was politically-influenced with the girl in question and the ‘accused’ being of radically opposite political alignments, which was one of the basic reasons for the altercation between the two parties. Secondly, whether there was molestation or not, something happened in the University premises that night before and after the altercation involving the girl, which should not have happened.

The mass movement hence began originally on 3^rd September 2014, demanding proper investigation into the incident by the University authorities. In the meantime, the Vice-Chancellor Dr. Abhijit Chakraborty formed an investigation committee which he maintains, was in accordance with Supreme Court specifications. The composition of this committee was however, rejected by the student unions on campus as they feared that the committee will be biased in its investigation. Now as already mentioned, the situation to begin with was influenced by politics and Dr. Chakraborty had his political inclination which perhaps was the obvious thorn on the path to an unbiased investigation. Now, I was all for an investigation into the incident, which would have implicated the guilty and if not anything else, removed the untrue versions of the incident from fogging the campus. What I fail to agree with is the manner in which the student unions demanded the same from the VC.

With the second point in mind, it hence, becomes imperative to make the campus safer for the thousands of students and professors who study and work here respectively and the Vice Chancellor wanted to do exactly this through installation of CCTV cameras throughout the campus, by improving lighting in the campus, by evicting outsiders from the campus, by introducing a system of entry into the campus based on Identity Cards and by preventing anyone from remaining on campus post 8pm. These proposals were all forward-looking and progressive , in my opinion, paving the way towards making Jadavpur University a ‘disciplined’ and ‘professional’ institution for all-round excellence. However , the student unions objected to the VC’s ideas citing reasons such as ‘loss of freedom’ ,’introduction of elitism’, ‘detachment from the outside world’, ‘inconveniencing students who forget to carry ID cards’ etc. All these reasons seemed ludicrous to me. In reality, not all the students but a good number of them do smoke on campus (despite signs prohibiting smoking on campus), do drink on campus, do immerse themselves into a state of oblivion through the taking of drugs and smoking of weed and cannabis and do engage in sexual activities in darkened jheel-paar (lakeside) or on the vast expanse of the football field. It is these people , with intoxicants and power in their hands, whose daily lives will be interrupted due to the VC’s propose rules and it is for the sake of a few that Jadavpur University will perhaps forgo the opportunity to progress yet again.

Anyway, thus with an iron-clad intention of opposing the VC’s ideas and forming a new investigating committee the student unions protested outside Aurobindo Bhavan , the seat of power at Jadavpur University, from 2pm on the 16^th of September 2014. The mode of protest quickly turned into Jadavpur’s favourite , a ‘Gherao’- where the students block all exits and entrances thus trapping the authorities inside the building , not letting them leave till they agree to their demands. I cannot adequately put into words my immense dislike for ‘Gheraoing’. Being a student of a Christian Missionary school, Don Bosco Park Circus, I cannot imagine a situation where I am blocking my teacher’s path because he/she has not given in to my requests. After all, he/she is a teacher, irrespective of my personal feelings towards him/her and notwithstanding his/her age, he/she is more qualified than I am and deserves that basic shred of respect from me. However, the students who gheraoed the VC obviously had no such moral restrictions and with no thought whatsoever into the inconvenience to the VC’s family that they might be causing, they continued the Gherao well past midnight.

With a family to go to and a worried family, indeed, the Vice Chancellor did what most men in his position would have done – he called the police for help. In the wee hours on 17^th September, armed police officers entered the Jadavpur University campus and escorted the trapped authorities out and then asked the students to leave. The students refused and the police launched an ambush attack on the students armed with only camera phones and Bengali expletives. More than 25 students were hospitalized following the attack and more than 30 were jailed. As despicable as this incident was , I find it hard to fault the Vice Chancellor for the attack because indeed he did call the police to ensure his own safety but there is no proof whatsoever that he forced the police to attack the students . The only incident that should be protested against here is armed police attack on the students, especially armed male police officers attacking female students while female officers stood and watched.

It is because of this dastardly act by the Kolkata Police and the RAF team at roughly 2 am on the 17^th of September that the movement picked up momentum and gathering steam snowballed into a mass movement across barriers demanding the resignation of Dr. Chakraborty. The incessant lying of the Police Commissioner Mr SK Purakayasta on national television , added fat to fire as the movement got louder and louder with the slogan “Hok kolorob” meaning “Let there be noise”. The movement , albeit a one that awoke the sleepy city and showed people that the young heart of the city still beats powerfully yet non-violently, however has meandered off from its original course of demanding an unbiased investigation into the ‘molestation’ incident and has turned into a full-blown personal vendetta against Dr. Chakraborty and the other authorities.

What the student unions do not realize and what one of my close friends (whose name I will not reveal for various reasons) is that by demanding the resignation of Dr. Chakraborty , they are only causing the empty chair to be filled in by someone with the same political inclinations again which will simply continue the vicious cycle. Instead the movement should have focused on changing the way the Vice Chancellor is selected, not by political parties (as was the case with Dr. Chakraborty) but by an independent and unbiased in-campus committee. The demand for the resignation of the Pro-VC and Registrar is baffling to say the least , simply because they have from the beginning of the movement extended their support to the students , condemning the police action (unlike the VC) and even visiting the injured students .

Also, by harping again and again on the fact that the movement is an apolitical one, the student unions have contradicted the very cornerstone of all movements “You have to be in it to change it”. The movement which has widely been hailed as a movement for Jadavpur University and against a certain political party in power in West Bengal is swaying people’s trust from the ruling party but not providing them with a political alternative in the elections. They are aiming to change the political contours of the state without being in politics themselves, a rather strange proposition.

It is very easy to move in the direction of the tide but extremely difficult to walk against it. The Vice Chancellor and the University authorities may have been wrong on many counts. The Kolkata Police was definitely wrong in carrying out an armed attack against students, especially girls, in the dead of night. However, that in no way hides the fact that the initial mistakes were all committed by the students. We have committed a million mistakes and it is because of our mistakes, it is because we could not repay the trust the authorities placed on us by giving us multiple freedoms that today there must be measures taken immediately to ensure campus safety. Jadavpur University still basks in its erstwhile glory days and no matter how many students one shows me who have left other institutions to join this University, it does not change the truth. The University has the potential to become the best in the nation and beyond but the first change has to come in the change-resistant mentality of the students. The change always begins with us.

A student caught cheating in the exam, if detained in college, till 2am the next morning will become the poster boy of ‘inhumanly treatment’ but when the same is done to an elderly gentleman, it is a revolution?

The end, most definitely, does not justify the means and if the means are such then the end achieved is pointless as humanity loses for the sake of a small victory.