About Aman, Aasha and Gorakhpur

A very warm morning to everyone. My name is Aman, a soul who was till recently residing in the body of the child named Aasha. Having come with the hope of staying nearly 70 years, I am, unfortunately, leaving early as Aasha has just died. The whole episode of her death made me observe certain things which I plan to tell God before he sends me to another body.

While descending to Aasha’s body, in the space I saw many satellites revolving around the earth to help mankind in development. I saw some space-crafts going towards Mars. A few of them were also set to cross the frontiers of solar system and enter the deep dark unending universe. Though I was happy to see that finally mankind has come so long as to explore the limits and adventures of the vast universe, the thing that most excited me was that many of these satellites and space-crafts had the Indian Flag, a country where I was being born into for the first time.

I had heard a lot about India from my soul-friends. They had told me about its freedom struggle and its economic development since Independence. On my way down from heaven, I saw the riches of India. Metro trains were operational in a few cities. GST, touted as the biggest reform since Independence, was being rolled out. The Indian Cricket Team was winning in Sri Lanka and the nation was jubilant for it. There were some billionaires. Nuclear reactors were operational. Many people were using the latest electronic gadgets. A plan to set up an India-based Neutrino Observatory was being discussed. India was firmly resisting China in Doklam. I saw INS Vikramaditya, the 45000 tons Indian Aircraft Carrier cruising the Indian Ocean and also Su-30 fighter jets into their flight.

While this excited me, I was more concerned about the social development profile. I saw that large multi-specialty corporate hospitals were operational. The Indian External Affairs Minister was granting medical visas to people from neighboring countries and was promoting India’s medical tourism. Stem-cell research was going on. Most of the riches and the policy makers were extremely concerned about health and daily visited gyms. They were using latest hand gadgets to monitor their calorie intakes. Seeing all these, I was assured of healthy initial years of my life with Aasha.

And then I was born into Aasha and brought her to life. Somewhere in Gorakhpur. The delivery was not institutional. Her parents were daily wage earners with barely 10,000 Rs monthly income. Her mother suffered from malnutrition. There was hardly any sanitation around the hospital. Most of the times, Aasha was bitten by mosquitoes. Vaccinations were not administered. Very less nutritious meals were available. She suffered from anemia and AES. The primary health center (PHC) was hardly 70 kms from the district headquarters. But it lacked adequate numbers of doctors and other facilities. This 70 km distance could have been covered in those 70 years of independence even with a speed of one km every year. But this PHC was neither Moon nor Mars. Had it been any of the two, the government would have reached here by now and hoisted the Indian Flag. I thought the Indian Government should give names of planets to these PHCs; at least ISRO would reach here then, if not the bureaucracy.

Aasha’s parents did not have any health insurance. They had to come to the government hospital in Gorakhpur. They found some space near the toilet where they laid their bedsheet. Mosquitoes chased her here also. Her mother had to wake up all night to administer cold sponge to her.

The doctors said that she will be put on oxygen supply. I felt a bit comfortable as soon as Aasha was kept on oxygen cylinder. Though a few thoughts of leaving this body crossed my mind, I resisted. I wanted to be with Aasha and see her grow into a well-educated citizen. I wanted her to enjoy her childhood and play with toys, just like her richer counterparts. I wanted her to study in school and read about India and the world. I wanted her to become someone who can help many more such Aashas in future. I wanted to grow old with her.

However, as I was vividly imagining all these things, suddenly I started feeling suffocated. I guess the oxygen supply stopped. Before I could understand the reason, the suffocation turned strong enough and unfortunately, I had to leave Aasha. She was sleeping then. She could not notice me leaving her. I could not even bid good bye to her. Before she slept the last night, I promised her eyes the next morning. I couldn’t keep that promise. Before long, I could see her body being burnt in flames. She was innocent. She did nothing to deserve this.

Unfortunately, I was not alone that day. I saw many more souls leaving the bodies of children and moving back to heaven.

I couldn’t juxtapose this image with what I saw about India on my way down here. I struggled to find the reasons. Who was at fault? I thought people of this country would discuss this grave issue. However, Aasha was a child, not a cow, worthy enough to be discussed and debated. Her parents were also from India only, not lucky enough to be foreigners to be eligible for medical visa. How could they get medical visa in their own country. Political parties kept blaming each other. Supporters of these parties were blaming each other. A news anchor openly told on live media that this discussion is not as important as that about singing Vande Mataram. Those who were aloof from politics were busy with Game of Thrones and Sarahah. Facebook was silent. Google Doodle was silent. The CCTVs which could have been installed at PHCs to monitor their functioning were being installed at some other places to see if Independence Day was being celebrated. India was celebrating its 71^st Independence Day.

But, celebration? For whom? By whom? Till when?

Amidst all this, a new Aasha was being born, somewhere.

About Social Acceptability, Desirability and Pressure

There is a scene in the movie Tamasha when a guy asks the male protagonist Ranbir a simple enough question “How are you”? Believing that the guy seriously wanted to know about him, Ranbir goes on to explain the various issues he is facing in life. Irritated, the guy scolds him and then Ranbir delivers this line “Jab matlab he nhi tha toh pucha he kyon”?

This line has been resonating with me ever since I watched the movie. It exposes the sheer hollowness of most of the conversations today that we indulge into. We have become so used to asking such questions like “How are You”, “What’s up”, “What’s going in life” that we don’t even know whether we seriously want to know these things from our heart when we ask. I guess in most of the cases, we don’t want to know. We have become programmed, like a robot, to ask a particular set of questions when we see other persons.

The problem is, if there is an individual who believes in the inherent goodness of all the persons, and thinking that the person is asking earnestly, goes on to explain his problems, he is branded as ‘weird’ or ‘awkward’ (writing these words because the abusive word that is most commonly used for them cannot be written here).

These are the individuals whom the society tags as being socially awkward, introvert, shy etc etc. Their only issue: that they have not yet learnt the nitty-gritties of behaving “normally” socially. And the normal social behavior says that when you are in a DJ party, you have to compulsorily talk to another people, and, of course, dance. Society does not give the option of enjoying the party and music sitting quietly. The normal social behavior also says that when you are out for trekking in a group, you have to keep talking to all other people, click selfies, do gossip and other usual stuff. The option of enjoying the nature, looking at mountains and realizing the smallness of humans, appreciating the flow of rivers and the beauty of the woods, or simple gazing at the stars and remembering that quote of Carl Sagan about the pointlessness of human existence, desires, wants, passions, relations, fights, wars is simply not there. If you do any of these, you are weird, awkward etc. The point is simple: when with people, do what the people want. Period.

The definition, and the pressure, of being “socially normal” manifest in other forms too. There are people who behave in a particular way believing that all other people are also selfish and trying to maximize their own benefit. The result is that all of them start behaving in a similar way and this then becomes a “social norm”. And then there are people who have a slightly different understanding of society and situations, and form their opinions and moral/ethical standings accordingly. But since these positions are different (may be ideal), they are not acceptable to a large audience.

One example of this was the movie Rocket Singh Sales Man of the Year. The business of business is business, we all have been hearing since always. And for succeeding in business you have to compulsorily cheat on your suppliers or customers is often the acceptable thing in society. But this movie suggested that the business of business is not just business, but investment in customers, and their happiness. And that you can very well follow all the ethical principles and succeed in business. Yes, there will be problems initially because out there, most of the people would think that your way of doing things will fail. But, patience, persistence and a firm believe can achieve more than that can be achieved by the socially acceptable way. And this can be more sustainable also.

Another example of social pressure comes from the classroom. If a class is going and a person is genuinely interested and asks some questions, he is different and “ajeeb”. Who asks so many questions in the class? If you really have some doubts, you can go outside the class and ask. And blah blah. And I thought the entire point of a class was such simple: the professor will explain something, if anyone has any doubt, ask. Debate, debate, we keep saying this. But if there is a debate between a prof and his student in class, others say “itna kya ho gya yaar”.

In civil services training academies, such persons are being branded as “being KTPs, Keen Type Probationers”, who are keen on asking questions and clearing their doubts. And not even class probationers, even the visiting senior faculty members sometimes ask at the beginning of the class “who is the ktp of the class”. In my entire training, I could see only one prof who made efforts to sensitize others and the academy to stop using this word. The irony is that in the IAS academy the statue of Sardar Patel stands with these words written ‘You will not have a united India if you do not have a good All-India Service which has independence to speak out its mind’. Leave out the actual field environment where there will be opposing forces from political and executive bosses, the class is one of the simplest places where an individual can ask questions. And the “socially normal” result of this is “being a KTP”.

Collectively, we have a framework about the behavior which is socially acceptable. Any deviation from that invites rebuke, not socially, but in closed group discussion about a particular individual in rooms or parties. That is when the true feelings of most of the group members about any such individual are exposed. And people will have their judgments about how such particular individuals will perform in field or actual life. However, they tend to forget that there judgments may not apply to all. Also, judging someone else suggests that you are 100% sure (and often rigid) about your own thinking/opinions and way of working and are not amenable to change in case any need requires. Basically, any judgment of any other individual based on his social behavior suggests all of these: arrogance, rigidity, egoism, ignorance and a feeling of superiority.

My own observation and experience suggests that all such individuals who are normally made fun of in closed social gatherings are more honest, transparent and innocent in their social behavior and conversations. They have not changed themselves to better fit into the society. And they are the persons who can prove to be more “Rocket Singhs” at the end of the drama of life.

However, if they change, it will be a collective defeat of the society which could not accept diversity, and forced them to fall in place and “behave properly”.

Bharat Darshan - Travelogue

Writing about the experiences in a journey is never an easy task, especially when the journey is across the Indian landscape, a country too diverse to be described in set frameworks. This country has been home to many a visitors, across time and space, who have struggled with words to somehow describe their experiences and present in palatable form to their home audiences. Though names of travellers like Ibn Batuta and Al-Biruni come to the fore, many a times the kings decided to write on their own, foremost being Babur in Babarnama who ended up describing coconuts trees as a tree with the shape of a human head, for lack of a better word. The British also tried to write about the country, for it was too big and diverse to be understood by a few men and written records about it were essential to pass on the information across generations.

My journey across the length and breadth across India started against this backdrop through the opportunity given by the Bharat Darshan, also described as Winter Study Tour.

The first station was the army camp in Northern Sikkim. Though it snowed heavily throughout my stay there, I was able to explore the surroundings, which apart from the official visits included a visit to the nearby monastery. An unfortunate incident occurred in the same area when an ITBP jawan of a nearby ITBP camp lost his way in forests and was found dead the next morning. While coming down from 9000 feet, the mini-truck carrying his body, which was accompanied by four jawans, was moving right next to us. How unfortunate that the mountains returned the body of the jawan to the family after taking the soul out of it. That body, those four jawans, that truck, that terrain, that whole scene had the potential to push oneself into thinking about life. That jawan must have had a normal family with normal aspirations, but little did he know that the soul carrying those aspirations will be left in those mountains. No wonder that the color of those mountains was white; they must have had many souls wandering amidst their valleys, covered under that white snow, with unfulfilled dreams, seeing that the body they once resided in was now converted into ash, and the same snow melted and took that ash to the sea. That puts the whole meaning of life to nothing.

The next few days included a visit to Pobitora wildlife sanctuary, Arunachal Pradesh and seeing four Su-30 fighter jets taking off right before me. Though the Su-30 flights were fascinating, with that purple exhaust flame shining in the dark night while take-off, it was also a stark reminder that since the time that Babur brought cannons, most of our defense equipment have been procured from outside.

The ten days district attachment provided an opportunity to visit the Mahabodhi temple at Gaya. Though Buddha was ambiguous on the existence of god, and was against making a god of himself, his followers did the same thing as other religions and erected a temple at the very place that he attained Nirvana, fighting against these worldly attachments of glory and fame. I wondered what Buddha might have thought about this if somehow he could see this.

The remains of Nalanda University were a paradox: while pointing to the excellent state of higher education in ancient India, with even the gatekeepers so empowered and educated that they conducted the screening test for students by asking questions, they also force us to think about the current status of Indian education system.

The visit to Murshibad in Bengal was truly historical, in the literal meaning of the word. The office of DM was in the same building which housed Robert Clive and was used by him to plan the Battle of Plassey. This made perfect sense: we are using the same administrative structure as left behind by the likes of Lord Clive. I also happened to visit a palace-like house. As I was looking at it and lost into the vintage feeling that its high roof and thick pillars radiated, the person accompanying me suddenly shouted “oye nawab, idhar aa”. Here came this man, around 75 years old, barely able to walk, with broken voice, introducing himself as belonging to the lineage of Siraj Ud-Daulah. I talked to him for a while, still coming to terms with the feeling that I am talking to a person with direct, though distant in time, connection to that dreaded Battle of Plassey. I couldn’t resist myself to think how the sands of time level out the glories of humans across generations; from being “The Nawab of Bengal”, to being called “Oye nawab, idhar aa”, the house of Siraj Ud-daulahs had completed its sojourn with fame and fortune.

After brief visits to Durgapur and Calcutta, it was time to fly to Andamans, a place in the wish-list of every Indian. The Radha Nagar beach in the Havlock island is rated as one of the best in Asia, and for all valid reasons. The crystal clear blue water shining against the dark green forests and the red hue of the setting sun was a treat both to the eyes and the camera lens, allowing me to shoot some memorable images there. Sunset at sea provides some of the best frames to photographers.

The best of Andamans was however yet to come: in the form of Scuba diving. There is a fascinating, beautiful world out there, at the bottom of the ocean, hidden (though not now) from the most dangerous animal of this planet. There are colors: purple and green to violet; fishes: transparent to star-shaped; and other sea creatures floating around those corals. If only these could have remained completely hidden from us humans, they would have been of unparalleled beauty; the human touch comes at the cost of bleaching.

The visit to these distant seas ended with a trip to Chennai. The Rath temples of Mahabalipuram and the Shore temple were a window to the glory of the ancient India. Standing tall against the ferocious sea, the Shore temple has had innumerable waves with full force striking its base, for nearly 1300 years, only to return without damaging the temple. Such was the skills of those who created this.

The next few destinations involved Kasargod in north Kerala and Karvar naval base in Karnataka. Karwar also provided an opportunity to go deep inside the sea and watch dolphins, with their force and flexibility, playing with water. The trip ended with  3 day stay in Goa exploring the beautiful beaches and also the famous “Dil Chahta Hai” spot on Chapora fort.

Between the two flights of going out of Delhi in January to flying back to Delhi in February end, a lot had changed inside me. Yes, I had studied a lot about India, had written about it in places and seen it through the eyes of photographers and filmmakers. But to see it through own eyes, from the heights of mountains to depth of Coral reefs, from the landscape of Arunachal to that of Goa, from the house of Lord Clive in Murshidabad to the streets of South Delhi, from Andamans where only a few people live to Chennai where a lot of them live, India has a lot to offer. To eyes, to brain and most importantly: to the soul.