From Rampur to Pescadero

Chapter: 1

Once upon a time there was a village which was surrounded by the banana trees from its three sides. A big milky river that changed its color every season and ended nowhere flew at the foot of the village.

Kids played most of the times and ate when they had food and slept hungry when they dint have anything to eat. They looked lean and thin, thinner than their parents. Elders never worked except taking water from the river and watering banana threes. The old men sat everyday in morning at a dalan and discussed the village stuffs like whose daughter was seeing a guy who was from another village and the guy from lower caste and of course the politics. The discussion always turned hot when they talked of Congress.

Over there, in a family, a boy was born who was named Ravindra on the name of the great Indian laureate Ravindra Nath Tagore. He grew up faster than other boys. 

Next day to the death of his mother he began to go to school as this was his mother’s last wish. She wanted him to be an educated man and earn something to get some changes in his village. He took it deep into his heart and studied in the school where there were only few teachers who most of the times chewed tobacco and betel and drank palm wine and taught very less and they beat students.

One day Ravindra was sitting on the bank of the river and was lost somewhere, staring at water. He was eleven now and he has been seeing the changing color of the river. He wanted to know where the river was coming from and where it ended. He saw some white leather flowing near the bank. He walked down on white sand to reach to the leather, pulled his pyjama up with one of his hands and entered into water. He took a loaf of icy leather and smelled. It smelled like a dead rat smells.

He looked to his left and found huge loafs of white mountainous leather flowing towards him from the west. He dived into water and water closed his eyes. When he opened his eyes he was at a new place.

He opened his eyes and began to run away from the water body. An old man followed him with the same pace. The old man caught him from behind. Ravindra fell on the wet sand.

‘Who are you?’ he asked the old man.

‘Who are you?’ the old man repeated his question.

‘I'm Ravindra.’

‘I'm James Frank.’ The old man said, offering hand to the boy lying on the ground.

Ravindra grabbed his hand and he was standing now.

‘How did I come here, James?’

‘I don’t know. I saw your body flowing at the bank of the sea and dragged you here, pushed your chest. You spilled water from your mouth and then you opened your eyes and asked for some food.’ The old man continued, ‘when I returned to you with sandwich and water I found you sleeping.’

‘What is sea?’

‘What?’

Ravindra repeated his question.

‘Sea, aamm.. It’s a sea.’

‘Where are you from?’

‘Village.’

‘Which village?’

‘Rampur.’

‘Where is it?’

The boy thought for a while and answered, ‘it’s situated near a river.’

‘Which river?’

‘A river which is full of white Mountains.’

‘White mountains?’

‘Yes, white leather mountains.’

‘Oh, I see, you’re from India.’ The old man said, chuckling.

‘Yes, that’s my country name.’

‘BehenChod main kahan pahuch gya? Out of India?’ Ravindra fussed to himself.

                                         ****         

Chapter: 2

One month had passed and by now Ravindra had understood that Pescadero had become his hometown and he forgot his father and his village soon. By next month he began to go to school which was drastically different from his village school. White kids came there and teachers were also white. It became quite difficult to understand the books and language. There were many teachers who didn’t drink palm wine and chewed tobacco or betel.

James was happy he and his wife, Anne had got a kid. They were childless couple and had been wanting to adopt a kid since they came to know they would never give birth to a boy or a girl or none of them but Anne wanted something else. She wanted an Indian child as she had heard that in India many new born kids, who were results of the unwanted pregnancy or a girl child are thrown on roadside or big dustbins.

She took extra care of Ravindra because she believed that the God had sent the kid to her. She woke Ravindra in morning, gave him hot coffee and took him for a walk on the costal garden. When they came back from their morning walk, she could make breakfast, pack lunch and get the boy ready for school and dropped him to his school. In the evening James would wait for him in his car outside the school.

At night James would come to Ravindra’s room and tell him some fictions. Ravindra wished all the kids of his village would have gotten the same treatment. He visualized his village friends and slept.

The Godman

I raped a girl and lost my virginity at the age of twenty, and then it continued as an addiction, which soon grew into my need of subsistence like food, water, shelter and electricity. I had become a raping machine that couldn’t be stopped.

It was one of my birthday nights. The party was over. Everybody was gone. The darkness of the night had gulped the noisy evening. Silence had fully stretched its wings. I heard clicking sound of the switch as mother switched off the tube light of verandah. I heard her footsteps moving towards the bedroom where father might have been waiting for her. 

I was wide awake for the next two hours and had decided to elope from my house, the street, and the lovely city, where I had spent my entire childhood.    

It was the first week of January. The night had filled the area with its white foggy smoke and had compelled everybody to stay under the warm quilts. It was all silent. The city had just entered into the world of dreams and I was supposed to roam in the other world for the next seven hours.

I slowly moved out of the heavy woolen quilt. As soon as my Feet touched the icy tiled floor a current of coldness ran through my body. I shivered. I hunted the bed around my pillow in search of my jacket. I put it on, reached to my pocket which was heavy with a thick bundle of ten rupee notes and then I tiptoed toward the main door crossing the verandah, holding a pair of sleepers in my right hand.

Slowly, I wore my slippers and entered into a dark foggy unknown world. The stair case was dark. I looked for the first step, holding the railing with my left hand. Within a minute I reached to the main metallic gate. It was locked from inside. I climbed on it and jumped on the other side which was a road connecting many streets and moved to different cities with an unknown end.

Crickets were singing. Thick dew drops produced a lyrical tapping sound in the trees when they fell happily on the leaves. Dogs barked to warm up their body so that they could survive the spine chilling cold. A wind blew from the west and tapping sound increased and the barking sound paced up slowly. The cold wind hit my ears hard but failed to demoralize me. I moved my head to the right and then to the left. It was all dark. Taking deep breaths, I began to walk to my left. The dogs stopped barking as they saw me walking past them. They followed me. I stopped, turned back and bent down. I rubbed my palm on the head of one of them. And then I touched heads of other three. They were all warm. They made a similar sound of intimacy as they always made when I did the same gesture every morning. They shook their body with a feeling of separation as they knew that I was going very far from them to return never.

Recalling my past, I walked; how my father was after my studies. I never liked the subjects taught in school as my interests wandered around fictions, idea of petting stray dogs, writing about nature, animals and the people who were flying to cities away from their villages. 

Every day, by four in morning, my father would come into my room to wake me up. He would splash some water on my face to hush away the sleep and I had to open my eyes with much reluctance. Since I was a small kid in school, he was after my studies as if I was more of slave than his progeny, who had to study, clear entrance examinations, do professional course, get a job, and look after them. 

The more I thought about it the more my heart ached, my body was unrest and head senseless. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I wiped them and began to run never to be caught by my monster father. After running for more than half an hour I reached to the railway platform of the place where the lord Mahavir was born.

People were lying on the floor. Dim yellow bulbs failed to light the area properly. At a distance of some feet a family slept. All poor. Many of them were passengers and the rest were homeless. I moved to the enquiry office. I had to wait till 2 AM. I walked to a nearby tea stall. The tea maker was sleeping on the counter with his mouth wide open. Next to him lying was a dog. It looked at me nonchalantly. It moved its head into its circular body and slowly closed its eyes. I took it as an approval.

A kerosene stove, a matchbox, a tea pan, some boxes, some cigarette packets, some toffee boxes and some tobacco packets were all kept together. I took the ingredients for making tea, lit the stove after pumping some air into its small cylinder, kept the tea kettle on the yellowish blue flame, poured some water in it and added some tea leaves and sugar. The black tea was ready. I switched the stove off, poured the tea in a glass and lit a cigarette. Suddenly the tea stall owner opened his eyes wide, rose up from the counter, jumped on the ground, grabbed me with my collar, abused, screamed and fell on the counter and slept again. The dog had also jumped with him watched his drama and gradually joined him in his bed. After a short announcement, Vaishali express touched the platform and swirled like a snake beside the platform. Nobody came out of it. I walked close to the door and found it locked. I pushed it hard but failed to open the heavy cold metallic gate. The train whistled sharply and began to move slowly. I ran with it, passing some more doors. One of them was open. I jumped in.     

                    ***                                          ***                                                    

For three years I pulled rickshaw and lived my life. It was the easiest job that I could get in Delhi though an ID proof was necessary. The owner of the rickshaws never preferred any Bihari rickshaw puller as he was always cheated on by them. Some flew to their home town with rickshaw. Some sold them and had alcohol with that money. Some borrowed money to get their daughters or sisters married and never turned back. Some stole money and valuables from his home. All of them had come from the land of Gautama Buddha.

I had met a priest in a temple the night, I arrived to the unknown city. I had slept on the floor of the temple. He woke me up and his first question was ‘where I was from?’

‘Bihar.’ I said hesitantly.

He provided me food and water for a week and assured me of a job. He narrated his story and told me, that he was an engineering graduate but failed to get a job so he started fooling people by saying that he had come from Himalyas and lord Shiva had sent him to be the head priest of the temple. Every evening he used to give spiritual speeches to his audience comprising of both rich and poor. He took me to one of his disciples who had many rickshaws. I got a new rickshaw and started pulling it with full spirits on the roads of Karol Bagh.

The priest took his share from me for getting me the job, and told me never to disclose about my hometown. In the morning I woke up from my bed, which was usually the verandah of the same temple, washed and wiped the floors of the temple, cleaned my rickshaw at the backyard of the temple and ran my vehicle in morning for the worshippers of the temple and in day time I would park my rickshaw at some distance near a park and took rest inside the green garden where many couples came to enjoy the greenery and sex. I saw many people having sex there and realized that I was a man and I also needed a girl to have sex, imagining it thrice a day. When my mind relieved me from the imaginations of sex I imagined fictions and jotted them down in a notebook. In the evening I would repeat my morning work to pick the disciples (mainly obese ladies) of my priest godfather from their homes and drop them at their places after the spiritual speech was over. I was earning more than any other rickshaw puller was earning. At night I would eat my food at a nearby dhaba, drank wine and slept in the temple's verandah.  

It has been one year. The January came again with more intense cold. One day I couldn't earn much as the fog had halted Delhi for a week. Vehicles didn't show up on the roads. Office going people were invisible. Number of worshipers and disciples decreased. One of those nights, I ate less food and didn’t drink alcohol as I was cashless. Sleeping seemed the toughest task that night. I was continuously shivering on the cold tiled floor of the temple. Many beggars of the city slept there. It seemed as if their body was made up of special kind of metal which was cold proof.

At midnight I heard some noise at the backyard. I thought the priest might have woken up to relieve himself. When I heard the sound of opening and closing of backyard gate I became doubtful and got up. I wrapped my body with a blanket, wore a woolen cap on my head, grabbed a bamboo stick and tiptoed parallel the wall and reached the backside. I expected a thief. When the shadow became little visible in the fog, I was astonished,  I saw a lady in a pair of jeans and jacket, her mouth and nose were covered with a stole and she was walking behind the priest cautiously.

I hid myself against the wall and decided to spy the scene. The lady first entered in the room which was owned by the priest. He looked here and there and rushed in quickly and I heard the bolting of the door. I ran with heavy feet and reached to the door and cupped my right ear which heard well than my left. All I heard was the creaking sound of the bed. I did nothing and waited outside at the side of the wall from where I saw the lady entering the temple premises. The lady appeared, kissed the priest on his lips and walked out of the compound. Two strong lights lit the opposite side of the temple. I heard the ignition of the engine. A big car moved in the dark world of fog and vanished somewhere.

‘What the fuck you were doing?’ I asked, blocking the path of the priest.

‘What?’ He said with a tone as if he was unknown of everything.

‘I saw everything.’

‘What did you see?’ he pulled me in the same room.

‘And I heard the lady’s groaning and the noise of the bed. Look at my groin, its hot and erect.’

‘You, sister fucker, I’ll kill you.’ the priest got angry.

‘Kill me. And I don’t have a sister to get fucked by you.’

We made an agreement that I would be his assistant after a month in the temple society. Only two conditions were there. Firstly I had to let my beard and hair grow and the secondly I never had to open my mouth about that lustful night.

Very soon the head priest was thrown out of the temple and I took his seat. I had also begun to give treatment to my disciples. And the lust arose when women came to get their treatment done. 

The Confusion of A Voter!

Whom to vote?
Which button to press?
Anyone?

BJP?
BJP is communal. It focuses on hindu only and that too on upper caste people. But the leaders are great in this party. But why people dont choose them. Why should I then?

LJP, BSP?
They sing the song of SC/ST. They dont have to think of upper caste people. They are criminals. They simply sucks when it comes to rule.

SP, RJD, JDU?
They plant communal voilence & support muslims only. And the support is too fake to hide.

AAP?
We're young we should push the button before Jhhadu. Its a party of young people. But the leaders are too infant to rule the capital city. They're not experinced. Who knows, they are criminals?

Congress?
We hate this word. Its like a henious stigma on the fair face of Indian society. It has done the biggest corruptions on this earth. They should be hanged and not voted for. They support muslims alot. Am I a muslim? Muslims are not humans? But...but..they have developed the capical city. The long highways, the smooth roads, the metro, the tourism, the 24/7 electricity supply, the nonstop water supply, the homes of jhhuggi jhopdi people, and many more. But they're the most corrupt.

None of the above?
What?
Three party people have given us some cash and wine bottles.
Whom to vote then?
Why should I vote?
Why am I not a leader like them?
Why am I standing in a big queue just to push a ballot button?

I'm still confused.

Our Elders!

Every second or third day an old man or an old woman stops me outside a park where I go for jogging and exercising.

There is a big temple at a corner of it. The place is a well known posh area of west Delhi. Only elders are seen there, worshipping and singing religious songs.
In morning, rich people offer tea and biscuits to poors. The quality of tea is the worst. Like water!

Well, the old people stop me and ask me where I'm going.
'Where do you want to go?' I answer.
'To my home.' They say.

I ask them to sit on the back seat of my bike and tell them to adjust and sit comfortably and grab me tightly so that they cant fall. They do the same and adjust their yellow sticks that is their only helper to walk, nicely.

On the way I ask them many questions. I know they love talking to people.
They say they have to walk to the temple everyday to meet gods and enjoy bhajans and have to come back on feet.

It really feels painful when they say their own kids dont have time for their old parents to drop or pick at the temple or to talk to them. Plus their grown up children give them some works like; getting milk & curd & green vegetables at this hour.

On the other side I see middle aged men and women walking out with hybrid dogs.

They love dogs more than their parents!

I can still remember the time when I was a small kid and lived in village. My mother used to teach me, 'son, you should respect and lov your grand father & mother because one day you'll also be a grand parent and you can what is happening all around with the old people.'

Even today, when I visit my parents I see them taking care of my grandma and realise the great difference between the life of old people in metros and small town.

One day everybody will grow old and get the same treatment!