Santosh

I always wondered why people turn violent, why they want to kill somebody, knowing very well that it is going to ruin their life as well. Life gave me a first hand experience to explore the answer or should I say that enlightened me with answer.

As usual, I went to my home town on weekends and after spending weekend I was returning by Gwalior Mail (From Barauni to Gwalior). The train was already 10 hours late when I boarded it. But since I had reservation in it and could not manage to get reservations in other trains, I was helpless and had to board this delayed train. Though most of the trains were running full, this train was empty (at least the AC coaches). Probably due to its history of late running for me it was always an option  when I dont have any pre-reservation made and have to go home, as I easily get place in this train.

So we were only three persons in whole AC three tier coach. We reached a small station called Bhatparrani, a station near Gorakhapur. Though the train was not scheduled to stop there, it stopped and seemed stopped for eternity. Hours went by but the train did not move. I asked my coach attendant, what's wrong?

He replied " There is some problem at the next station, so train will go once the problem is cleared. Actually, people are burning train at Gorakhpur Station in protest of arrest of Jogi jee."

My heart sank. How can people do this?

I asked “What happened to the passengers?"

"They were asked to vacate."

My conversation with attendant was going on and we heard loud voices near by which were coming to us filtered by closed doors of coach. We looked out of window. A crowd of around 40 people was coming armed with sticks, swords and what not. Mostly in the age group of 12-30 years, but the biggest section was of 12-20 years old.  They were shouting something, which we could not figure out. Hurriedly I put the curtains on the window and even before I could finish putting on the curtains a big stone crashed on the other window of our coach. Then come another.

We three just made ourself safe from these stones by moving away from window. We looked at each other. Me, a student of Scindia School who was going to attend his school at Gwalior after vacation, and a person accompanying him.  They started knocking the doors. Luckily the attendant has locked the doors. They tried unsuccessfully. We gathered our luggage and decided to move to AC 2 tier coach, where we had around  6 more passengers. We moved to AC 2 tier. A six-eight month old baby was crying endlessly, probably sensing his mothers uncomfort and panic.

The mob went on crashing windows of the standing train. It went on for around 30 minutes. After that there was a pause, for ten minutes. But we could not muster the strength to come out of train and look for something for drink or eat (the train was standing there for more than 4 hours and it didnot have any pantry car.)

Then again the noise began. Same people returned and starting banging our doors again. Probably passengers traveling in AC coaches were easy meat as our windows had no protection only glasses and that too were broken, shattered by them.  We were standing in one of the corners. All together. Praying. Suddenly a sword came through the window. Looking for something. Now voices were coming clearly to us after the glasses were gone.

"Arre phunk dente hain salon ko.. darwaja nahi kholte hain to.." (Lets burn them, if they dont open the door.) Somehow I managed to get a glimpse of this brave man who wanted to burn us alive. A boy of 13-14 years old. With a big stone in one hand and a flag in another. His opinion was supported by many.

I badly wanted to have a gun, one shot and you are dead. To make tomorrow morning headline. An innocent kid shot by an irritated passenger. Innocent!! I was becoming restless. No future, no ideology, no compassion everything was taken over by this pang of hatred. Suddenly I saw a person (around 30 years old, dressed in Khadi, I wondered if Gandhi could see his Khadi being donned by these maniacs). Here in the coach, the baby was crying endlessly. And his parents could do just nothing. Probably he needed some milk or water.

While the person was talking to the mob, stones were coming to the train.. suddenly some men in Khaki appeared and crowd started to move hither and thither. Shouting slogans. We got some relief.

After 30 minutes, the people were no where to seen. I looked at a tea seller on platform. Invited him in the coach, as we were too afraid to step out of the train. He came in and we got some tea for us and lots of question for them. We came to know that the idea to burn the train was dropped as some politician ask them not to burn the train.

I was shocked, so they were being controlled!! Controlled by some politician. The guy who wanted to bomb our parliament, should have been successful.

Now look at the picture published in Dainik Jagaran, one of the leading dailies of India. The caption given is “ People protesting ….” Look who are the people. We should be proud how our kids have become mature, the have developed strong sense of political and social scenario and now actively participating. If you look carefully, you can figure out who are the people at front and equipped with stick and stones. Invariable in mobs the theory of “Leading from the back” applies.

Consider if police tries to control the crowd and in order to control them if they have to resort to laathi charge (they have to, if not to control the crowd then to protect themselves). What could be the morning headline is anyone’s guess.

First of all my delayed new year wishes to all who visited the blog, commented, mailed me and  inspired me to keep on blogging. Wishing you all Happy New Year.

Though I am not a staunch believer in numerology, astrology or such other sciences, but some incident have tempted me to believe somethings. So numerologically me being a number 9 person, this year 2+0+0+7 = 9 , is a very significant year for me.

Anyway, even you take out the numerological factor, this is going to be crucial and eventful year.

1. Probably this is going to be the last year of my golden bachelorhood. Even thought of losing this makes me feel uneasy.

2. This year will decide, where I am heading to in my professional life. Professionally the most crucial year of my life. This year will decide whether I am going to be somebody or nobody.

3.  After 4 years, I would be visiting my native village this year, It would be a nice experience to spend some time where I was born. I still have very fond memories of the school which I attended for 5-6 months. The school which had no desk, no benches and no proper place to study in the rainy season. The teachers who wielded stick better than pen.

4. Some friends are bound to be lost in this concrete jungle, riding on the unruly behemoth of personal ambitions and professional compulsions (or professional ambitions and personal compulsions), probably scraps on Orkut would be the only thing to remind us of golden days. It has already started with everyone stepping into professional life.

5. In all probability, after using Windows XP for so long, I am going to chuck this out and try new Vista or Mac OS X.

6. By the end of the year, I would no longer be able to flaunt my back kick or side kick. No desire to practice and no need to show off.

7.  Karmic balance is going to be tilted negatively as I am bound to gather loads of bad karma.

8. The list of unfinished poems and stories would increase this year, as I am assuming that this year the weekends would be at my disposal.

Another Sunday morning and as usual my time to take a look on whats going on and where I am heading. Now its a habit to sit aside and take a note of happenings of my life and future path. Nope I am not making a statement or declaring that I am en route to something big or intend to make something big. It is just the fact that I love to think whenever I have time. Since my student days, I have been toying with some ideas and ’the time’ decided at that time to go for implementation of those ideas has arrived. But nothing concrete so far. Reasons, I believe in giving sufficiently long gestation period for any idea (though sometime it is dangerous and while you are thinking over the idea, somebody has started implementing / executing), but I am quite aware of the fact that any idea in beginning looks like ’the brilliant once a life time spark which is capable of catapulting the world’, start thinking over it and you will find that idea is just a myopic thought or impractical imagination or already implemented / existing stuff. I am still having those ideas alive, giving them ample time, discussing with people, reading their face while discussing (just to guess that their comments are genuine or not as I discuss most of the time with my close friends or people supposed to be closed friends and I have all the risk of getting biased opinions). So what are those ideas or what were those ideas and plans

• Being a social entrepreneur or development entrepreneur is surely very high on my list and there are two-three ideas that can provide the launchpad. Somehow whenever I think of success, it is always related with making unexpected (as per the perception of people) happen and these ideas are no exceptions.
• Becoming an author - my childhood dream and the one thing is bound to happen sooner or later. I am not claiming that I would be a successful bestselling author but I would be an author for sure. Both of the above are very much possible. And at the moment I am just looking for enough background work that guarantees that the ideas do not fail due to poor execution, which has been the major cause of failure for brilliant ideas. Secondly, I need people who have similar dreams.

But all these will take some time, and right now the focus is time management, so I can optimize my output on professional (being a consultant/researcher surely not an easy job as it seems) as well on personal front.

Time to say bye bye to Ivory Coast.. Short but memorable stay that help me understand my priorities and interests better. A lot of learning to take forward.

Exploring Ivory Coast for a few more days. a very very good guy.. always worried about ‘Patron’. I am finally done with Olam and now going back to India. My driver is aware of this and he is disappointed. He has very high opinion about me and spoke nicely to his colleagues about my kindness.

Every day, when my car stops at the red light, 3-4 small children start hovering around my car, spreading their little palms, and invariably I give them 100 CFA (African Currency) to each of them. It has become a routine for me. Yesterday I asked my driver to get change for a 1000 Cfa bill, and he gave me an all-knowing smile and a look which was clearly indicating that I am stupid. Wasting my money on these kids. Am I? Noway, I enjoy the look on the face of children, when they see my car. They know that they are going to get something. I don’t want to disappoint them. I just pray to God that don’t make me disappoint them any day. Amen.

Got one year older last week. Though no celebration, got some calls from friends, some scraps, SMSs, and that all. Though it reminded me of my IIFM days, when got numerous kicks on places you need not mention. People settled their account book, by hitting as hard as possible and the result was … a tough day in classroom. Kept on changing positions on the chair to adjust myself in some comfortable position, without any success.

On the professional front, the financial year ended on 30th June and the following week was all about documentation, ensuring everything is in order. Still managed some time to think over the blog I initiated IIFMights which is surviving on contributions of Nitin and occasional contributions from this guy. Though there are many contributors who have contributed in past, now they are dormant. So now the onus lies on me and Nitin to keep this blog alive and I have put my thinking cap on for that.

Books and movies have taken backstage.. no time for that. But, yes did a lot of surfing and got some cool sites, which I ll share in my next post. Actually planning to write some regular stuff on technology and computer, so it might be the first installment.

After letting the DVDs gather dust for more than two weeks, I took pity on them and watched three movies this week. Three movies from three completely different categories.

• Out of Africa - A beautiful movie, portraying the life of a female storyteller, who goes to Africa and falls in love with a hunter. 
• Showgirls -  This movie shows the life of Las Vegas girls and the director does not leave anything to the imagination. A lot of T&A. Elizabeth Barkley makes sure that you get so much of flesh to show that you lose all interest for some while.
• Pirates of the Caribbean - A journey into fantasy land. Good entertainment.

Also got some good ebooks so have started reading them, but lost interest as reading them on a laptop dilutes the interest. But, when you have something on a personality like Gurdjieff, you can resist it. Right now reading about Gurdjieff.

Professional life demands the top attention, so a lot of thought into planning the week, increasing productivity, and time management. How much it works, is to be seen.

A quick trip to Assini beach. One a few weeks in Abidjan so still trying to figure out things. Not easy to manage with limited French skills but have many Indian colleagues and driver who doubles up as translator. 

After being away from blogging for more than 20 days once again back (as if my return was awaited worldover, but nevertheless it seems nice to write). Just joined Olam Ivory Coast and was surprised by this city called Abidjan. Its completely different from my imagination of an african capital. Though i spent only a few hrs here but it seems a great place, irrespective of the security concerns.  So check out this space for some more info on Ivory Coast and Abidjan..

I cannot just thank IIFM enough for whatever it has given. The Director’s Award for the best student, the best orgaizational training award and the best placement (this one I am not sure but if we consider the compensation it is the highest offered at the campus)… but more than all of this.. IIFM made me believe in myself. I had walked in IIFM with lots of apprehensions and questions about my own abilities. I had never been exposed to such kind of academic rigour and competition.. At the time of joining all I was hoping for was able to complete the course and get a job.. I have done much better than that.

Only 23 days are left of my stay here at IIFM Bhopal. And probably 30 days in India. While all my friends are happy that they are going to spend some time with the family, I am feeling a bit low as I will get less than 10 days to spend with my family. But looking back, it gives a mixed feeling, when I joined the institute in 2004, there were a lot of dreams and uncertainties, today I feel lucky that I got what I was dreaming of.. its not exactly that, but that’s damn close to it. And uncertain, about where the future will take me. It’s a proud feeling when you have placement offers come pouring down on you and you are facing the problem of plenty.

But, you have to make a decision and I took a bold one. To go to a country, which name gives a very different feel altogether. Ya, I am going to Congo. The war-prone country in Central Africa. I could have easily opted for a cozy job in one of the leading banks in Mumbai or Hyderabad. But, I could not resist Africa (or US dollars!!). I am trying to get hold of French (Congo is a francophone country), as I had a tough time there during my summers due to having no knowledge of French. Life is a bit different right now after that decision. Some changes I could feel right now.

• India seems to be dearer than it was earlier. I never knew I would miss India that much.
• Indian movies… though I did not watch much in my last 2 years of stay here at IIFM, Bhopal, right now I am not letting any opportunity to see some good movies.
• A regret that I could not see places around Bhopal and now I am leaving Bhopal. But really I loved this city. I’ll back to explore.
• I feel scared thinking of a life where I have to search to get some good English books (what I could find were only French books.). My god.. how will I survive. Let’s see whether Amazon.com has a shipping facility there or not.
• People are saying I would be a changed person in Africa.. I don’t believe them. An Ass will be An Ass anywhere.

Going to miss a lot my friends .. and student life.. I

Some personalities really baffle you. There are so many greats, but this post deals with three personalities, whom I came to know through their books. And all three have one thing in common, whether you like them or not, they are going to leave their mark on you, once you go through their books.

Che Guevera

The Cuban hero of liberation and socialist revolution has been a fascinating and enigmatic persona. After his execution on October 9, 1967, he became a youth icon world over.. The picture (displayed here) became the most popular photograph of the century and the photographer became a legend. His autobiography still shakes you from within. Some of his statements throw ample light on his philosophy and beliefs.

“Many will call me an adventurerâ?? and that I am, only one of a different sort: one of those who risks his skin to prove his platitudes.”

“We must carry the war into every corner the enemy happens to carry it: to his home, to his centers of entertainment; a total war. It is necessary to prevent him from having a moment of peace, a quiet moment outside his barracks or even inside; we must attack him wherever he may be, make him feel like a cornered beast wherever he may move.”

“I know you’ve come to kill me. Shoot, you are only going to kill a man."(His last words.)

I would have loved to spend few days with him and ask a few questions.

• Was it true that you ordered the killing of children and when their mother asked to end their suffering they were also put to the same treatment?
• What did you consider your prime motivation to take up arm?
• I know you have written a lot on this, but was there no personal motive, was it totally for the principle of socialist movements and for the people of Latin America?

Paramhansa Yogananda His autobiography “Autobiography of a Yogi has changed the life of millions and put Indian spirituality into a new context. The book introduced the world to Mahavatar Babaji. The book is full of miracles and happening which are hard to believe. Still, the book made me believe everything.

Paramhansa Yoganand wrote in this book:

“A yogi through perfect meditation has merged his consciousness with the creator perceives the cosmic essence as light, to him there is no difference between the light rays composing water and the light rays composing land. Free from matter consciousness, free from the three dimensions of space and the fourth dimension of time, a master transfers his body of light with equal ease over the light rays of earth, water, fire or air.”

Spending a few days with him and talking to him would have been one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life.

Osho One of the most controversial godmen of our time. Put India on the global map of spirituality and meditation, with his mix of super marketing skills and super-natural oratory.

Osho claimed to have read more than 100,000 books and has written more than 500 books (actually most of his books are tapes of his teachings, and lectures delivered on different topics, which were later put into book form). If I could have got an opportunity and some magical power to get truth in form of answers to this questionsâ?¦.

• Did you believe in whatever you have written or preached, as you have contradicted your own teachings many times?
• Your statements created a lot of controversies and it seemed that those statements were just made to create controversy and had no other purpose.
• You lambasted all the existing sages, philosophers, and saints as well as other all-time greats, openly. Though your teachings and philosophy have primarily been based upon writings and teachings of these sages and classic literature.
• Did you put focus on sex, primarily to attract western followers and put something new , a new form of spirituality, where all acts were beyond guilt and people can justify their activities, live a restrain free life, and consider themselves pure and chaste?