The Fear of Loss...

'I don't want you to die', he said last night. 'Ever, ever, ever.'

'Why?' I asked

'I'll feel so helpless without you.' 

So. He grows up. My son. At 10, he is now able to think of possibilities which can have a lasting impact on his life. His senses visualise loss, loneliness, dependence, attachments. Death.

Welcome to the world of the grown-ups and the growing-ups, Son. The fear of loss will, from now on, be a constant companion through life. It'll stick to you like a leech. The sooner you train your senses to ignore it, the happier and stronger you'll make yourself from within. There is no such thing as death - you just stop living. And fear forces your mind to believe you cannot live the way you would want to.

Let not fear make you stop living before you actually stop living, son. Learn to live it up. With, or without me. Or him, or her, or this or that.

The Bad People

It seemed like an innocuous chancing upon of two stranger kids in the passageway of the AC 1 compartment of a train, both, on their way to the ‘hills’ for a short break with their respective families. Until words floated into my ears which made me look up from the book I was engrossed in, suddenly alert and all ears.

‘Are you a Muslim?’ asked the girl in pink Barbie tank top and purple tights, not very much older than my six year old daughter.

I could not see my daughter from where I was sitting, but the awkward pause in the conversation told me she probably was fumbling for words, and even more, for getting a hold over the ‘meaning’ of what she had been asked.

‘I don’t know, I’m not sure…I’ll ask my mother when I go in…’ Something in the way she replied, the tentativeness, the volume, the diffidence, told me instantly without even looking at her that my otherwise super confident cocksure girl was not comfortable fielding this query.

‘How dumb of you not to know even this!’ said the other girl gently swinging from one of the coupe window iron bars, or some such. ‘How old are you?’

‘Six,’ said my daughter, the discomfiture still writ large in her tone.

‘GOD! So old and still don’t know whether you are a Hindu or a Muslim! But anyway, I hope you are not one M.’

‘Why?’ came another feeble word from my perplexed daughter.

‘Because they are all bad people. Very very bad people. Paapi, as my maasi calls them…’ she said giggling and grimacing as if a terrible stink had suddenly whiffed through the passageway.

‘What’s paapi?’

I wanted to get up and intervene, not because I felt my daughter’s mind was being fed with an unqualified bullshit which had no business being there, but because I felt the other girl needed to be shown the prejudice that had been forced down hers.

But I waited a while. It was a long journey, and the conversation could wait. It was more important for me to first gauge the extent of this malaise in her young impressionable mind. However, there was an abrupt break in this exchange because breakfast arrived and the girls ran into their respective cabins to eat. My daughter whispered in my ears, ‘Mom, am I a Muslim? I don’t want to be one.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Sejal says Muslims are bad people as they kill and eat cows. Tell me no please. What are Muslims?’

Distressing as it is to see the origins of the deep-rooted seeds of intolerance lying very much (also) among the so called educated elites, one shudders at the mere thought of the extent of the spread of this mindless blinding bias. Sejal is the quintessential urban educated child with a set of parents both with plum corporate jobs who spend close to a lakh a year on their daughter’s ‘good’ schooling needs. That an eight year old may have already formed such a staunch anti-Muslim opinion in her mind is also a telling sign of the all pervasive subliminal reach of this conditioning. The seemingly innocuous tidbits that work at slowly poisoning the mind are all around us, waiting to be picked up and assimilated. It’s simply in the way you and I believe and talk and discuss and listen. The specific targets might change – Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Harijan, Biharis, Madrasis, Dalits, Pakistanis, Chinkis, blacks, whites, whatever – but the insidious nature and sting of the venom remains largely the same.

When I later sat with the two girls to help them dig deeper into the purport of what they were discussing, I felt I succeeded sooner than I’d expected. Children absorb information at lighting-speed, but they also are willing to squeeze out the unwanted and reabsorb the desirable that much faster. Since Sejal had grown up hearing that Muslims are sinners for slaughtering cows and eating beef, that was the only line of argument her mind could forward.

‘What’s wrong with eating beef,’ I asked her.

‘My dadi says it’s a sin because when they kill the cow, who will give milk to the calf?’

‘Do you eat chicken and mutton at home?’ I asked. She nodded. I pointed out to her that she or her family were guilty of the same crime that she was accusing the Muslims of. Wouldn’t the goat’s little one also not be denied his mamma’s milk if we went ahead and ate her up?

The intense yet faraway look in Sejal’s eyes told me her young mind was trying hard to distill this new way of looking at the situation. She saw sense in what was being said, just as she’d seen reason in what she’d heard earlier. But something about the way the facts were put forth before her assured her that there perhaps was more sense in what she was hearing now than what she’d learnt earlier.

That point onward, it my task became easier. I sat there explaining how certain beings are sacred to one religion, and not to another. How different religions adopt different ways and means of getting to that same one goal of loving and getting closer to their respective Gods. The girls sat there, with rapt attention, oblivious of the train thundering through a long tunnel.

Thus far, I had still not addressed my daughter’s concern: was she a Muslim?

And so, after having sat with the girls for a while, I posed them a couple of questions, one to each: Would you still rather your new train friend were not a Muslim? And would you still rather you were not a Muslim?

The replies, not surprisingly, to both from both was a spontaneous No.

And then, turning to my daughter, I told her she was not a Muslim.

‘Oh, doesn’t matter mom,’ she shrugged. ‘Would I still have you and daddy if we all were Muslims?’

Yes, I said.

‘Then it really doesn’t matter mom!’ 

A shorter version of this piece appeared in Tehelka magazine, October 1, 2011.

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main50.asp?filename=hu011011PERSONAL.asp

I Am, Finally, Anna. Or, Am I?

A late, confused, unsure, and somewhat reluctant supporter to the cause, I finally stepped out of my comfort zone and joined in the peace rally today. Turned down the volume of my car stereo to let the arousing rythm of the slogans by eager volunteers float in, gave a quick crash course to my kids on what was happening before them, turned off the ignition, told my kids to pick up their water bottles, and that's it...we were out, crossing the road over from being a passive armchair commentator on all things wrong with us to actively lending my support.

Why did I step out of the car? Do I believe a Lokpal can cleanse our deep rooted corruption? I don't. Have I been following Anna and his crusade closely for the last couple of months? Not much, indeed. Do I see myself as a staunch supporter of Anna and his satyagrah? Not in the least. Does a beaming Anna being led away from Supreme Enclave stir up a patriotic fervour in me? Unlikely. Did the charm of the TV cameras' flashing lights lure me to my one minute of photo-op fame? Ha! Good one! So then, why?

Because those many many moments of frustration and irritation with the corrupt bribe-ridden state machinery flashed through my mind today in that split second when I saw the enthusiastic young college-going students doing what thousands around the country have been doing for the last couple of days: doing their bit symbolically by lending their voice of support to a selfless cause by one selfless Gandhian and spreading his word around...Bhrashtachaar hataenge / Anna teri jung hum jeetenge...in its tone and tenor, the words felt impactful, simple, even sincere, perhaps, and oh-so-different from the loud, high pitched proclamations of undying love for the motherland one is used to hearing from the rowdy supporters of various political parties. I thought of the thousand bucks I had shelled for my passport renewal, of the innumerable rounds I had had to make to the government offices to get an NOC out, of the (newly laid) pot-holed roads which steadily wreck my car, of the clogged drains and overflowing sewers in most localities each time it rains, of the several trips that my father has had to make to the RTO to obtain some basic clearances in a car-sale deal. Of every such instance when I have shrugged, sighed, seethed within, and moved on.

So I stepped out, and crossed the road over to the other end where I suddenly became a miniscule part of a pan-national movement, almost a forest-fire that looks like it won't get appeased in a hurry. I knew that if there was one moment there was to speak out, it was this.

It was a heady concoction of pride, a lump-in-the-throat kind of nationalism, anger, satisfaction at finally raising ones voice against a national malaise, and the sheer joy of belonging...somewhere. What standing there did to me is not difficult to fathom; the crowds and noise do that to me, anyway. I saw my 6-year-old daughter excitedly light up candles along with a few other kids, while my 10-year-old son clutched the water-bottle, looking a bit unsure about how our being there would bring corruption levels down in the country, and played the watchful big responsible brother to his butterfly little sister, alongside.

And then I saw the PCR vans with the cops standing there, helpless at having to be a mute witness to the protest, with pretty much nothing to do, and yet, a lot to do. I saw the abundant patience and politeness with which they were conducting themselves, every single one of them, and I wondered what would be flashing through their minds right then.

And then, just as suddenly as old frustrating memories had come flooding to me in the car of the corrupt state machinery, there was a sudden surge of those many many many other occasions when I had been pleasantly surprised, even taken aback in a nice way, at the efficiency and smoothness with which a job had been done by a government office, with negligible fuss. Of those several occasions when a government servant had gone out of his way to assist me with to the best of his ability. I knew it was time for me to head home.

Not because i had suddenly lost interest in Anna's cause or saw the state machinery with fresh tinted whitewashed eyes, but because I realised that the answers to matters of this gargutuan proportion were far far more complex than my lighting a candle. And just as I knew I had to raise my voice against corruption, I knew I had to do something else...

'Thanks for ensuring a free-flow of regular traffic here, and thanks for making it easy for us. You'll are doing a great job...!' I smiled and said to the policemen standing there as I walked back to my car, got the kids to belt up, and turned on the ignition...

'Take care madam, andhere mein theek se jaaiyega,' said one of them, coming up to my car as it inched its way forward.

On our way home, my kids asked me if I would join the car protest happening tomorrow, starting at the same place.

I didn't reply to that.

Because I still don't know whether I will or I won't.

Life on www.publicdomain.com

My social-networking inertia makes me an anomaly in the web world. And what’s worse, I lack the necessary spunk to announce it through my status message on Facebook and gtalk!

Surrounded by souls who wear their lives and emotions on their sleeves, changing their virtual ‘status’ each time their kitten coughs or the doorbell rings, I find myself at sea. While real people in the virtual world chronicle, comment upon, celebrate, debate and deliberate every smile, every toilet break, every mood swing, I have nothing more to offer by way of originality or wit than the perpetual drab ‘available’ on my gtalk next to the flashing green light. My alter-ego says, girl, cheer up, you at least are a netizen with couple of log-in id’s in your name; look at many around you who still think gtalk is a dirty word invented by the g-string g-spot brigade, and Facebook, a scrapbook full of portraits. But there’s little solace in that argument, you’ll agree.

We led perfectly non-defunct lives even before we began drawing almost-voyeuristic pleasures out of people’s self-advertised mental, bedroom or boardroom one-liners. So since when did the human race get this eloquent en masse? And why this sudden urge to go public with the most personal of mood swings? On any given morning, even before I’ve brushed my teeth, I know which of my ‘contacts’ slept late, which one woke up with a nightmare, who had what for dinner, whose daughter smiled in her dream and who fought with her partner! Must I be told?

To be honest, the status tags do make for some interesting eclectic reading! On days when I have nothing to do (though, again an embarrassing confession about having nothing to do, while the rest of the world sends virtual pokes, nudges, quizzes, battles) I read these personal opinions of the veritable kind by people who, until just a couple of years ago, I thought were just like me. The only opinion we freely dispensed then was whether the latest Govinda flick was more crass or classier than his previous one. Suddenly, to read from them, supremely profound, at times abstruse (and I daresay, even, comic) sentiments like, “life, blanched, smoked, it passes me by”, only makes me more insecure about my own linguistic, cerebral and existential prowess.

A friend, who has long since taken me off his list of contacts, commented in exasperation, “Available, available, available. Don’t you ever have anything interesting to say about yourself? You don’t deserve to be online!”
Well, he said it.

Obituary: The Feifdom of Barkha Dutt (1999-2008)

In a billion plus nation, a decade of undisputed reign for a person in any field is an impressive feat. Moreso, on television. And so, a Padma Shree, unprecedented recognition and several awards later, if the queen is finally being made accountable for her words and actions, prompting her to strike back in self defence, it’s a sure sign that her infallibility has fallen by Arabian Sea’s Taj promenade. But despair not Barkha Dutt, in the cycle of life, we all come with our ‘sell-by’ dates.

Barkha Dutt has been around as the unsparing (though sanctimonious), and ‘intelligent’ (or so proclaims a recent award she’s received) and objective (though often heavily critisised for losing it in times of real crisis) voice of the nation since 1999. She shot to fame with the coverage of Kargil war, as the intrepid female reporter covering live the gun battle, the blazing cannon shots, the flying shells, standing bravely in the face of death. Though she did come in the line of firing from several quarters accusing her of compromising the security of the nation with her live reporting, she emerged from it unscathed, unperturbed and vindicated.

Post Kargil, her reporting was so damned novel and path-breaking, the way she cast a magic spell on the urban Indian, churning out the gut-wrenching ‘truths’ about the haloed institutions of the nation, looking straight in the eyes of the men in power, and throwing, ever so fearlessly, uncomfortable questions at them, making mince-meat of their halting half replies. What guts, the nation sat up and took notice; what grit, the nation applauded; what gumption, the nation swooned. And thus was born, brand Barkha Dutt, the Star (pardon the pun here) of NDTV, the popularity and TRP ratings of which soared with that of the lady.

A minimally turned-out Barkha Dutt, with her trademark no-fuss hair cut, mike in hand, spawned many a clone in the TV news reporting arena, inspired many a woman-of-substance characterization for Bollywood belles (albeit with fancier outfits), and roused many an upper elite of the TV viewing India into suddenly questioning everything with a political tone. It was as if, the otherwise uninvolved apolitical Indian citizen had finally awakened, and taken seriously to armchair round-tables, thanks to the fiery words that zoomed in through the primetime news channel. She handled real social ‘people’ issues too, but the decibels in the studio would be the loudest best in the scenes of a political altercation involving community specific blame games. During times when the nation or the world refrained from going to war and riots and agitations, Barkha Dutt turned to playing messiah to the poor, dying, marginalized, and the wronged in the nation, with equally admirable flamboyance and elan.

And soon Barkha Dutt transformed into a generic entity with a massive fan following. In a magazine survey several years ago, the third most sought after career option for young girls (as young as 4 years), after modelling, and becoming an item girl in Bollywood or in music videos, was growing up to be like Barkha Dutt aunty, though I wont be surprised if it was more the Priety Zinta (post Lakshya) rub-off. Young men and women with a flair for live reporting wanted to be ‘Barkha Dutt’, thereby flooding the countless news channels with sound-alikes, dreaming big of striking gold aping her style. (Henceforth, in this piece, we’ll refer to the entire breed of these reporters as the ‘Burkha Dutts’ - the flip-side of being a generic icon) To me, personally, it didn’t matter way back then whether she was a left wing fire-brand, a right wing pundit, or middle of the path moderator.

Much as she would have liked to believe that she reigned supreme in the minds of the masses, but if truth be told, once the novelty wore off, and the women had discussed her ad nauseum at the kitty parties and men at their card tables, the masses switched their loyalties to the rather ‘prettier’ looking clones who had more important issues to tackle like which celebrity was spotted with whom in Goa, or how many ‘female’ spirits infest a particular tree at night waiting for human male catch (I’m serious), and how the aliens from a UFO stepped down to wish a young couple who eloped and married (I’m even more serious). Since Barkha Dutt refrained from pandering to the delights of those looking for cheap sensational ‘breaking-news’ stories, her appeal was limited to the rather discerning intelligentsia, the genteel parties, the vocal activists, and the motivated youth of the nation who sought inspiration in her fiery words and fearless exposes.

In recent years, the high pitched ‘Burkha Dutts’ have acquired an amazing appetite for theatrics before the camera. Facts take on larger than life proportions, the chimera of a corruption-free nation feels almost waiting for deliverance, thanks to their ‘flawless’ investigative journalism, and despite their intention to uncover the greys in society and politics, their take on most real problematic issues finally ends up as limited black and white. I’ve found many of them downright rude, cocky and disrespectful to the people in power or rank, at times too full of themselves with their half baked opinions, and at most times, grabbing more sound bytes than the interviewee or guest. I’ve not come face to face with Barkha Dutt (I am neither socially and politically awakened, nor celebrity enough to participate in any of her shows or know her personally) to hear her away from the camera, but the only lingering feeling that I go to bed with after having watched the shows that Barkha Dutt hosts is, “My God, will she ever let the other person talk?”

Barkha Dutt, in particular, has become increasingly predictable and repetitive in style, form, and content. Having failed to re-invent herself, like most personal working-styles that ultimately become the person’s waterloo, the discerning junta perhaps has got too discerning, and therefore is now tiring of her.

24/7 reporting of 26/11 has sounded a wake up call for the ilk, especially for the high priestess herself. Though it’s difficult to say how such a sudden outburst against Barkha Dutt in particular has got mobilized post Mumbai, there is a palpable revulsion. Maybe it’s her hyper-ventilating, lop sided (she stayed clear of the commoner’s arena of bloodbath, CST and Cama hospital) and self congratulatory reportage that did it, or maybe she was perceived as being too intrusive and playing God, but it has been most certainly because she (along with the others) could naively have given away vital information to the terrorists regarding the commando movements and positions. That of all reporters, Barkha Dutt failed to act with restraint, maturity and responsibility, is what has irked many. People switched channels in desperation to get one decent non-sensational coverage of the events as the tragedy unfolded, but the more channels we surfed, the more insufferable the 24X7 reportage became. Personally, after day two, I denounced the news channels, and went back to the good ol’ newspapers. Blogs went up in no time pooh-poohing her, and the likes of her; SMS’ poured in from all sides echoing similar sentiments. Several ‘Take Barkha Dutt off the Air’ groups have sprung up on Facebook and Orkut. Print media, that got left out in the mad race for TRP ratings in the middle of the Mumbai mayhem given the limitation of it’s once a day visibility, may finally be getting its own back at the TV channels, given the way most newspaper columns and editorials have lambasted the live coverage this time. For once, the politicians, if they’ve cared to follow these latest virtual bytes will feel happy they are not the only ones facing the flak!

Both celebrated and criticized for whipping up sentiments of people, Barkha Dutt has courted small controversies over her style many a time, but never before has this nation risen so vocally against a reporter in the wake of a tragedy. Is this the end of Barkha Dutt? Certainly not, for if she’s inherited even part of her mother’s grit (her mother, Prerna Dutt, nee Behl, fearless in her work, rose up to be the Chief Reporter at Hindustan Times) she’ll fight back and weather this storm brewing in the chat rooms and the virtual boardrooms. But what most certainly has ended is her infallibility. And with her, that of the entire brood of clones that she spawned.
RIP.

Some Man, the Common Man...

Dear Nation,

I am one billionth of those that constitute you. Other than exercising my voting prerogative, I rarely come out to express my opinion in public. There are millions like me, snug in their existence, not easily roused by turmoil or tragedy outside their immediate realm of concern. But 26/11 changed that. Unbridled, uncensored opinions have been flowing from all corners, only to show that this time, your citizens finally have more than superficially been impacted, and they are no longer willing to tolerate nonsense. Good for you. A nation awakened is a nation aware.

But, awakened, yes. Aware, you’re not. Thousands like me have been grappling with an entire gamut of emotions over the past week, ranging from shock, disbelief, anger, disgust, insecurity, and expressing themselves boldly. The Common Man (CM), it seems, if the media pundits are to be believed, has finally come of age. We heard over –the-top reporters cry hoarse over the end of resilience for the CM, we heard the most honoured celebrity guests on the various news channels refer to themselves as the CM, we read countless blogs and open letters of protest, ire, exasperation from the Who’s Who of the newly constituted ambit of the CM.

Long live the CM! Now that thou hast arisen, do not slip into a slumber again!

But alas! The newly constituted CM is delusively misled into seeing itself as such. Even when emotions run high, rhetorics fly live across TV bytes and when, try as we might, they and I will still NOT become your common man. I’m sure you’ll agree mother nation. Excuse me for my poor grasp over statistical data, but we, the non-common men and women who check into the Taj, dine at Wasabi, and are invited on NDTV 24X7 to express our opinions in times like these, constitute a miniscule percentage of your population. The Common Man, we cant be. Maybe the gentleman who drives us to all these places and the ayah who baby sits our children while we dine out at these places are, but for us, the tag is a misnomer.

The real common men were the nameless ones who lost their innocent lives, unsung, un-telecast, un-interviewed in the mindless shootout by the terrorists at VT station. The other common men who share threads of their common-ness with the ones gunned down at the VT and Cama hospital felt the same insecurity, terror post the attacks, as the Chanel laced glitterati friends of the elite dead. And yet, not one of them was invited into the studios to vent their ire and disgust. Clearly, this time the national crisis further widened the us and them divide even in near-identical respective tragedies.

I wish our prime time news channels had ventured beyond the promenade of the Taj and the Trident to ask the people sitting in the interiors of states like Bihar and UP, Assam or Orissa their response to this horrific act of violence. They may have been surprised at the nonchalance of the real common man; such things happen in their backyards everyday, just that the live telecast makes a dramatic impact.

Everyday, in the name of caste, religion, land or language, innocent people are lined up again the wall, much as in the same way at the Taj and Trident, and gunned down mercilessly. Of course, as a macabre foreplay to the imminent bloodbath, the helpless women in the lot first get gangraped, (talk of multiple drama) and are then forced against the wall with the rest of them and gunned down.

But as long as they are a bunch of dalits, or people belonging to a certain community, or poverty stricken citizens lying in a pool of blood, such ‘small’ news reports don’t touch our lives at all. Infact, they don’t even get intercepted by our social consciousness radar. No TV crew, no live (or recorded) footage, no honoured guests voicing discontentment on air, no ‘we stand united against terrorism’ SMS’, no candlelight vigils at India Gate and no white-tshirt solidarity. If this is not homegrown, and most of the time, state sponsored or at least state patronized terrorism, what is? But you see, it’s the real common man dying there, not people like us, and sadly, that common man has no way to raise his voice with the rhetoric of ‘Enough is Enough’.

Brutal death, whether it comes inside the lobby of the Taj, or in a leaking thatched hut in a village, I suspect, the trauma must be the same. As would be the final moments of terror and horror in the eyes of both Gucci-ed bodies with a hint of wine as well as the emaciated half naked ones.

Dear Nation, I know you’re used to murder mayhems in cold blood, so much so that you’re kind-of immune by now. And therefore people like me have never spared a thought for homegrown homespun terror tragedies. I’m surprised at my (and of others like me) capacity to remain calculatedly detached at one form of terror and not the other. I’m appalled that I weep for one set of dead, and not the other, the numbers and varied demographics of which runs into many many thousands.

Have we as a nation become so numb that unless there’s minute by minute real life drama played out in front of us, we choose to remain blind to the 26/11s that happen everyday in the country. Must be the reality-TV hangover. I’m not even sure if the public outrage against the Mumbai siege, and the way the nation mourned, would have been the same had the news channels not kept on continuously flashing the nationalities of the terrorists and the evidence of the Pakistani hand; or had they been Hindu terrorists instead. As the bonechilling reports of the ruthless bloodbath kept trickling in, bit by bit, in the first couple of days, I saw even the liberal Hindu voices losing their objectivity at the gory images, and turning around to friends and family expressing livid anti-Muslim sentiments. Fortunately, the one front on which your citizens did emerge triumphant this time was in showing the maturity to check this community-targeted rage quickly, and in turning it against the politicians.

Our anger at our politicians is a natural response to their incompetence, apathetic politicking, and single-minded pursuit of power. But as your citizens, it’s time we too started sharing some responsibility. It’s time we recognized the social dichotomies among us and turned from being passive recipients of news bytes (and not always only sensational news) to active seekers of answers. Just as we need to make our politicians accountable, we need to make the media also take on the responsibility of reflecting the truths about you in an unbiased, sensitive, balanced way. Half unbaked truth is no truth. It is time that people like us recognize that nameless people like ‘them’ who fill up our ambient backdrop are real people. They are the real CM. Then alone we can ask the relevant questions. And stand united in protesting against injustice of any form. Injustice, which is also beyond our immediate realm of living.

Lovingly yours,

A Citizen

Seriously, Misled!

Next came my rucksack’s turn to act difficult. Last week, I dragged it down from the loft in an attempt to clean it – needed it for a short trip that weekend – but imagine the rude shock I was in for when it refused to cooperate.

“No, I’m not interested please. I’d much rather die than be seen with you,” it protested, and pulled itself away from me.

“Oh poor baby, something’s wrong in the loft-world up there, is it?”

“No. The problem is with what we are doing with our lives. We’ve thought about it, and we’re more or less united in our stand.”
“Which is?” I’m not sure whether I actually uttered the words or my arched eyebrows did it.
“Which is that we believe we’ll be demeaning ourselves by acquiescing to be seen with you.”
“Hallo?” I certainly did take affront to that, but went gentle on them nonetheless. “Listen, do you need a break? Stay put for a while. If you so wish, I could happily move you to a better, maybe sunny corner of the house, eh? I’ll take the other backpack. Just that you’ve been my favourite for a long long time. So will miss you this time buddy. But hey, I’ll manage! Happy now?”

“Stop this emotional blackmail right now. Do it on the weaklings. I’m a bag of steel, and I want to be with iron men who will help me break out of this life of anonymity. Period. And yes, you try your luck with the other backpack. If I know him well, you’ll have pretty much the same conversation you’ve just had with me.”

This looked serious. And without any context.

“Now come on. What’s wrong, will you tell me?”

After much deliberation, these carefully chosen words came out, “We’ve resolved not to get domesticated any more. We are made for more dramatic things in life, and refuse to be allowed ourselves getting stuffed with maps, LPs, clothes and shoes.”

“So what is it you wish to lug that’ll make you feel sufficiently macho?”

The moment of truth finally came, “All that those heroes were carrying. Grenades, AK47s, magazines, etc. I mean, look at them. They immortalized their rucksacks along with themselves. With you, all we get is toil without recognition. My buddy and I have been very envious of that Kasab fellow’s blue backpack hogging all the limelight all these days. And we can’t take it any more. We know we are smarter, and deserve to be pasted all over the media. And so, we demand that we be set free. We want to be off. And let’s do away with any mushy farewells please. We’ve found our calling in life and tears and sobs don’t quite fit there.”


“You mean you two wish to walk off here and now? Maybe you could wait until this weekened and see me through on my trip? And for heaven’s sake, we abhor those terrorists, how can you even think of associating with them?”

But they were adamant. “No. They are our super heroes. We heard it on TV that there are other heroes at large in Bombay. We want to get to them before the cops do. So, NOW. Release us NOW.”

“Well, well, not that I’ve kept you two as hostages. Looks like you’ve had an overdose of current affairs. There,” I said, stepping aside. “You are free to go. But just remember that it wont be an easy life. No cosy warm home corners, no affectionate pats after a trip well done, no affectionate gestures from my kids trying to cover you with cute stickers, no regular clean-up shampooing, no sight seeing. Life will be tough dudes. Ruthless masters, brutal rugged terrains, back-breaking weight, dirt, grime, unpredictable work hours, at times for days on end, even more unpredictable outcomes. You ready for it?”

“Yes we are,” came the unflinching resolve.

“And what when you get nabbed by the police, or worse, your masters killed?”

“Don’t you get it?” Said my favourite one with the look of triumph on his face, “Any which way, we’ll be on TV. That’s what we want. Didn’t you see, Kasab, his rucksack and its contents got far more footage than the brave cops who nabbed him? We’ve decided. That’s the only way to get immortalized. And enough. Please do not waste our time any more.”

I sensed the urgency in their tone, and the futility of any logic. They walked up to the main door without so much of a goodbye, hesitated for a while at the door, and turned around sharply. I could see the military posturing already sneaking in.

“Give us some money. How are we supposed to travel to Bombay?”

“Well, up to you to figure your own course of action. You two have let me down. Goodbye, and goodluck. A rough indication of when I ought to switch on the TV for your sensational debut?”

“We shall let you know.” They had even got that emotional switching-off perfected.

“No please don’t. I don’t want any of your calls traced back to me. Now please be off, and let me rest.”

And thus, they were gone, ungrateful, cocky and arrogant in their defection.

The next day, I went to the market to pick up a new rucksack for my trip, but somehow, couldn’t find any. So carried a small bag instead, and merrily went away that weekend.

Imagine my surprise when this morning I answered the doorbell to see those two bags, all battered and bruised, panting, half dead, waiting to be let in.

“Well? Beat-en retreat?”

While one of them said nothing, went straight up to the loft area avoiding my gaze, my favourite one mumbled faintly, with his head hung low. “We stood no chance. It seemed all the knapsacks in India had thought alike, and there was a major queue outside the possible hide-out of the terrorists. When we tried to jump the queue saying we’re the smartest, the other applicants beat us black and blue, colours similar to Kasab’s bag. So we protested that now we looked even more suited for the coveted post, but they came down with a fresh barrage of blows.”

I didn’t buy that, so told them that it sounded rather fishy that the cops couldn’t reach where the bags didn’t fear to tread.

“Your wish. Don’t believe us,” he said, rather hurt. “Wasn’t just us bags there. We also saw a queue of credit card salesmen, another one of the dry fruit wholesalers, and firearm agents. Now please move away from the door. We’re tired and drained and crestfallen post my shattered dreams. We want to rest.”
I’m letting them rest. The only minor change I’ve done in my house is that I’ve moved the television to another room, out of their hearing range.