Gandhi ji and my Grandpa..-

Today is the sixty second death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. It has become customary to remember him on 2nd October and 30th January. Rest of the year we throw garbage nearby his statue which are installed every nook and corner of our country and try to prove his ideas obsolete for the modern world. Is Gandhian thought relevant for modern word, do we need Gandhi for a better society these questions are cliché.

Gandhi practised two things in his life Truth and Nonviolence. Entire life he worked for the betterment of the society through this tools and he succeeded in it. He was very particular about the right means for achieving the goals. The general sentiment of the people about the Gandhian ideology is that his ideas are very good but impractical which are very hard to practise. But what I feel is that even though his ideology looks extremely idealist then also it’s very useful for our life. With strong will power and self righteous path one can follow the Gandhian philosophy to make this world better.

I always used to see the glimpse of Gandhi ji in my grandpa. He died on 28th October 2008. He was a lovely old man with ordinary traits .but there was something in him which always reminded me of Gandhi ji .As he had lived in the Gandhian era; Gandhian philosophy had influenced Him a lot. I never saw him practising Gandhian philosophy in toto in daily life but he partially followed it, especially passive resistance.

I was very near to him. He gave me unconditional love, love that I shall never be able to repay. He always used to kiss me on my forehead and made me listen the old stories of his life experiences. In fact at first I understood the intricacies of rural society from his eyes. His presence used to give me a positive vibes. I always miss his tender loving care and beatific smile. I miss u grandpa.......I miss u Gandhi............I miss both of u from the bottom end of my heart.

( This blog was written two years back. )
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Ramanuj Dubey

NONSENSE TALK VII..............

Our village chaupal was agog over the news that somebody hurled shoes on Rahul Gandhi. This happened first time in   recent time when this highly excited news was brought to chaupal by Somra. Actually, somra had gone to market and when he was returning from there he saw a crowd before a TV shop. At that time, on the TV, munni badnam hui, song was coming and a good number of spectators were enjoying this song standing on the road. The shopkeeper was annoyed to see the crowd before his shop, so to disperse them he changed the channel, from music to news. Somra was also present in the crowd, when the channel was changed he waited there in the hope that shopkeeper might change channel again from news to music. But this did not happen. Yes, on news channel, he saw the news that somebody threw shoes on Rahul Gandhi.  That news was worthy enough to be known to chaupal, so without delay he left for the village. After coming to the village, he enquired about sukhia sukhvardhan and felt extremely happy that sukhia was unaware of the latest Rahul Gandhi episode. Straightway he went to chaupal and conveyed   this breaking news to everyone.

Sukhia Sukhwardhan was unable to digest the fact that somra brought this interesting news before the villages. He had still doubt in his mind. How this can happen, I have been listening news from morning at the interval of every hour on radio but I did not hear such story.  But nobody paid attention towards his doubts, as everybody knew that TV is faster than Radio!

Why he was attacked ? who was the attacker ? what was his motive ? What he wanted to gain from this act?  Chamka who had seen Rahul Gandhi in paper and admired his aristocrat look asked these question addressing Somra.

Somra was not ready to face the volley of questions from anyone. Actually he was ignorant of the answer of these questions. He saw the news and left for the village. Now he was regretting that why did not he stayed there for some times and listened complete news.

At the time of somra’s ordeal, Sajjan chacha came forward to rescue him. Turning his head towards chamka, he replied: see, those people who do such nasty things, must be hooligan. How can a respectable person do such mischievous things?

“No chacha, it is not so” satua , alone subscriber of a nation political weekly magazine in the village, entered into the discussion. He continued: no chacha, this is democracy, and in democracy, throwing shoes on the leaders are allowed.

But how? There was doubt in Sajjan chacha’s voice.

“Have not you seen the MPs, MLA’s in the house, how they throw paper, mike and other things on each other to get their work done.  They do so because by this means they can put pressure on government.  Earlier only parliamentarians used to do these acts to influence opposition but later on some journalists, some civil society members adopted the same methodology. As democracy of our country has become more mature, so, nowadays even common man also started throwing shoes on politician to register their protest”   concluded Satua. He was quite amazed to see his oratory skill. He spoke well, thought inside and gave a winning smile to Sukhia Sukhwardhan who was looking dull today.

Han, Han (yes, yes) this is democracy, this democracy, aur democracy me ye sab chalta hai (and in democracy, these things are permitted) everybody supported Satua including Sukhia sukhwardhan. As Mukhia ji was not present in the chaupal, Sukhia sukhwardhan was vociferous in criticizing the elected representatives. He was getting support from sajjan chacha and others.

“Achha bhaiya, if we throw shoes on our MP sahib, will our village get road connected to town.” Khurphatia asked this question to Satua.

“Why not, if we throw shoes on him and he acknowledges this before the world then sure we will get road.”  Sukhia sukhwardhan answered.

“Why do not we throw shoes on him, he is coming to address a rally in the town this Sunday. If he acknowledges the accident, our village will get benefit” khurpathia offered a suggestion.

Now everybody started discussing on Khurpatia’s proposal. In fact, there were no good shoes available in the village. Sajawat  singh, a retired fauji, who is well known as major in the village has boots  but he refused to give to villagers for this noble cause.  This enraged the villagers and they decided to purchase the new shoes. Second hand or used shoes are also sold in the nearby market but villager had fear that if they threw old shoes and MP sahib did not acknowledge then whole scheme would fall flat. Sajjan chacha was deciding the contribution amount for each person, suddenly he saw Fekhna sitting silently at the corner of the choupal. Twenty five years old, five feet eight inch tall, fourty six kg weight, Asthma patient Fekhna was listening the discussion with rapt attention.

Raising the voice dramatically,Sajjan chacha  proclaimed:  “just now a thought came across in my head. Now we will not throw shoes on MP Sahib, instead we will throw Fekna over him. He will not be able to refuse this incident and we will have our road.”

“Fekhna has only bones, harder than shoes, it may hurt our MP sahib and he may grant us road immediately” one said.

“Fekhna is not well these days, after the incidents he  may get attention from MP Sahib , as a result  treatment money from the government side” another villager said.

“Fekhna is a gem for our village and we villager must feel proud of him”- thundered Sajjan chacha.

Fekhna could not listen more. He felt unconscious.

Arre he got epilepsy attack, go to sajawat singh’shouse and bring the boots. Cried somra.

Somebody rushed to Sajawat Singh’s house to bring shoes.

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Ramanuj Dubey

Haiku XVII---

{1}


Reach up and heaven
Whenever I see her fresh
Gaily appearance 


{2}


Enthralling winter
How to celebrate the life
The poor wonder


{3}


Thousands years mullock
Need cleaning and cleansing in
Our dusty dwelling

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Ramanuj Dubey 

NONSENSE TALK VI..............

The news of the dismal performance of Indian team in Australia reached to the chaupal of my village. Everybody looked upset, unhappy and disappointed with the way tour has been going on so far.

“Can anybody tell me how India is faring in Australia” septuagenarian Sajjan chacha asked this question before the gathering. But everyone present in the gathering was sure that this ‘anybody’ was addressed for sukhia sukhwardhan, who always kept a small radio in his pocket and never failed to listen to commentary. It was his unsaid responsibilities to convey the latest updates about the cricket match to the villagers. He was quite happy to get another opportunity to tell the highlights of the match.

“Two days already passed chachha , and Indian team has reached in danger zone. When team got all out at 191 runs yesterday, at that time I sensed the trouble, but never knew that Australia would make such a mammoth score, 482/4. Still six wickets are to play, it is almost certain that India would lose this match. One match they have already lost, second in pipeline, I do not understand what has happened to Indian team”- there was a genuine concerned in his tone.
“ Last year, when Indian team visited England, there also they lost all matches there from the Anrez”- Added Somra, felt happy to express his general knowledge about Indian cricket at the chaupal. “But India defeated England in all matches when team England toured here”- Sukhia sukhwardhan continued.

“That I do not understand why our team loses the match when they play at foreign land” – Khurpathia put this question before the chaupal assembly. Now everybody was trying to find the right reason of our cricketers’ abysmal performance at overseas.

Mangatram , who  was denied the subsidized grains from the public distributive system last month because of some unknown reasons wanted to know whether players were getting enough food in the foren country or not ?  When he was told that Indian team was not facing food shortage over there and they are fed amply, he was not sure. When Sukhia showed the recent  photos of Indian players appeared in today’s newspaper in that some of them were looking plump and rest of them were looking happy and contended ,then only he accepted it.

But Budhiya, a skill development beneficiary, who recently left the job and came to village from Delhi was very much concerned about players’ accommodation, playing time and pay perks. “How can our player perform well, when they are made to play early in the morning at 5 o’clock, who knows they may be kept in stadium without proper bed, bathroom facility, you know these things also matter in performance.”

Somra laughed at his enquiry and replied: “you are a real simpleton, they are big players, they have no dearth of money or connection, and anywhere they can have good accommodation, food, pay perks and all facilities. One thing more, Australia timing is different from Indian timing. When here is 5 am. , in Australia it is around 9 o’clock. So their playing timing is not bad”

“You are right bhaiya,” MGNREGS card holder chamka added, “they work more than hundred days playing cricket ,then they work on television selling toothpaste soap, detergent etc. , then they have other livelihoods for rest of the year, why they will be poor or in problem anywhere”

“When they are getting good food, good accommodation, good pay perk, good working condition, then also why they do not perform well. Are Angrez, Australians more talented than our players”  Sajjan chacha asked this question to “anybody Sukhia “.

“No kaka, it is not so, otherwise they would have defeated our player here also.”
“Then” sajjan chacha was perplexed.

There was a lull in the chaupal assembly for some time. First time Mukhiyaji entered into the discussion. With his heavy tone he continued “see we have (khet) fields in all the directions but are all fields same. No, all fields are not same. The field north to our village is good for paddy cultivation but not good for gram and the field west to our village is good for gram and paddy but not so good for sugar cane. Matlab ye, ( it means ) sometimes everything is ok, you are a good farmer, you have good seeds, you have good working bulls but if field is not suitable then how will you expect good yield”
Ok, so field is not suitable for our player – ohhhh—understood— almost everybody spoke in unison.

Somra wanted to differ with Mukhiyaji’s field theory, he wanted to ask why this field was barren for India and fertile for Australian but he knew once mukhiyaji told his final opinion, it was useless to question it.  He too followed chaupal tradition and admired mukhiyaji’s wit.

Finally my villagers were able to find the reasons of Indian players’ poor performance in Australia.


[  As I was informed by my childhood friend  over the phone ]

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Ramanuj Dubey

जय हो नया साल ---

बज  रहे  नगाड़े 

मच  रही  धूम 

कही – कही 

उड़  रहे  गुलाल 

जय  हो  नया  साल 

                          

                             कही  चल रहा  व्हिस्की 

                            कही   चल  रहा  रम

                           हो  रही है  पार्टी 

                          साथ   मे सबाब

                         जय  हो नया  साल 

हो  रहे  धमाके 

मन  रहा  जश्न 

मंत्री  जी ने  दी  बधाई 

जनता  प्रसन्न 

और  क्या चाहिए  जनाब 

जय  हो  नया  साल 

                            

                                   

हर  जगह  बन रहा 

चिकेन  मंचूरियन  खास 

उस गली  का  बच्चा 

आज  भी  खाया 

रोटी  बिना  प्याज 

जय  हो  नया  साल 

                              

                    

       चमचम  गड्डी निकली 

      बेंड बाज्जे के  साथ 

     रस्ते में खड़ा  रिक्शावाला 

    दिया  हवालदार  ने 

   दो  चार  हाथ 

  जय  हो  नया  साल 

                                                           धनिया  आज  भी  पिटी

                                                          तनेसर  महाजन से 

                                                         झिड़का  उस  बनिए  ने 

                                                        शनिचरी को  सौ  बार 

                                                       जय हो  नया  साल 

अब  कतना जय  करे 

जय  की  जगह 

हर  जगह  है 

जय  हो  इंडिया 

जय हो  भारत 

जय  हो  नया  साल 

                                        रामानुज दुबे 

NONSENSE TALK V..............

Nowadays I have become nocturnal. Kudos to my knee condition and physiotherapist’s unique advice for doing knee exercise for 15-30 minutes at the interval of every four hours that make me waking up whole night. I find easy to do such medically prescribed exercise in night. In night there is less distraction, I count religiously all sets of exercise and feel satisfaction over the progress of my knee movement and muscle around it. My treatment is in last leg and I am sanguine that very soon I shall start running, jumping, dancing and doing all sort of fun which involve healthy knee.

I do not sleep whole night; this has become a well known fact among my friends. These days, generally I receive phone calls at midnight as according to them midnight is my morning and day is like night for me!

Today morning around 7 o’clock when I was going to sleep, I received a call from one of my best friends. He was apologetic to call me at odd hour.

‘No issue dear’ I laughed, what happened, anything serious?
For sometime there was no response from his side, it appeared he was sobbing. I got upset, repeatedly asked him “what happened”
“we broke up, she left me” saying so he started crying like a kid.
I was completely at a loss, not knowing how to react. My friend was in relationship with that girl since 2007 and they were a great pair. I had a very good time with them when last time I had visited Delhi. Last week I came to know from our common friend vijay that he had some trouble in relationship but it would end up in such a mess I was not anticipating.
I tried to comfort him. “Ok dear, take it easy, sometimes such things happen in our life, don’t worry, tell me what happened, why you broke up” I wanted to know the reason.
“You know, I am a cursed soul, a completely cursed soul”-
“No you are not”- I replied                                                                                                             “ya dear, I am a cursed soul so is she. We are doomed to depart. Nothing worked out here. We are destined to depart”.

He kept on telling such sorrowful sentences for some times. I did not broach this subject and he hung up after five minutes.

After that I called our common friend Vijay I and asked about the ‘break up ‘episode.
Vijay laughed when I mentioned the word ‘cursed soul’ and his explanation about break up.                   
 Vijay explained: “see when he entered into relationship, he was telling the girl that he was more cursed than girl and girl was telling, ‘no, no, I am more cursed than you’. Then sometime later, both come to the conclusion that both are equally cursed, but recently girl started saying that he was more cursed than her and he was telling that she was more cursed than him, hence, break up, ha ha ha”

I could not resist laughing on this funny explanation. Vijay has knack of finding such funny and nonsense reason for every such issue .

Anyway, this ‘coursed soul’ word still roaming in my mind. I remember last time when I was in Delhi I stayed with Vijay in his flat for fifteen days. It was 2 BHK flat and there were four flats on that floor. Vijay , being quite introvert rarely talked with neighbors. When I asked about his neighbors, he was completely clueless. He knew only one neighbor, old retired bureaucrat who was living with his wife in the adjacent flat from last seven years. Others two flats occupied by the renters so he did not feel necessary to know about them. When I insisted the importance of knowing your neighbors, he laughed at me saying “dear this is Delhi not your Dhobai (my village)”.
“But you must know about your neighbors”- I retorted                                                                              “ok, if you feel so strongly about it, why you don’t you go and enquire about them and inform me. Overall you are my best buddy like my brother”- he challenged me.                                                                         “Sure, I will do it for you “I replied smilingly.
       

Next day, I came to know that out of two flat, in one flat a Maharastrian family was residing the head of the family Jatin was working in Reserve Bank of India and in another flat one girl aged around 23-24 yrs was living. I saw her locking the door of flat in the morning. I met Jatin in the morning when he was walking on the floor, he had pleasant personality and I really enjoyed talking with him. In evening when I was coming from the market I saw the girl who was living in front of my friend’s flat. I greeted her and told her that she was my friend’s neighbor. She reciprocated my greeting and we started talking. From chat, I came to know that she was from Jharkhand, working in a MNC, living with a friend from Punjab who was a model and they were in live-in-relationship. I found her bubbly, out spoken, confident and mature. She appeared gun-ho about her live-in-relationship and newly acquired freedom in Delhi. I was smitten by her lively spirit. From that day onwards, we started spending evening together at the balcony of the flat. We talked a lot, about movies, actors, politicians, poor infrastructure of Bihar and Jharkhand, rigid patriarchal society, blah, blah. But whenever I wanted to know about her parents or sibling she would change the topic or one or other pretext leave the discussion and go inside her flat. I realized, she did not feel comfortable asking about family or personal question, so I refrained myself from doing so.  

On Saturday evening she invited me to her flat for coffee. I politely refused because I did not want to go to her flat without my friend vijay. Perhaps she understood my hesitation and invited both of us on Sunday morning at 10’clock at breakfast. When I conveyed vijay in the night about her invitation for breakfast, his response was lukewarm. In his opinion, keeping any relation with her would prove headache for him in future, so he decided not to go to her flat for breakfast. But he insisted I must go there. In fact she was our matter of talk, he too was very curious to know about her completely without being involved with her.

On Sunday morning at exact 10clock, I switched the bell of her flat. I did not get any response for some time. Hesitantly again I pressed the switch. This time I heard the sound of walking, thanks god she is awake, otherwise I was thinking of returning. She opened the door, and I entered inside. The inside view was quite queer. Everything was sixes and sevens,. Broken glass and broken wine bottles were lying on the floor, there was puke on one corner, cigarette packs and wrappers of namkins were spread over the sofa and whole flat was dirty. I saw her, her face was swollen and there were bruises on her face and hands. Her partner was half naked sleeping in the room.  She was very much embarrassed. I did not know how to react in this situation. I just asked her about the bathroom and entered into it. In bathroom, I saw the undergarments of her and her boyfriend was lying on the marble and in one corner two used  condoms  filled with semen were kept. I felt like vomiting. Immediately I came out of bathroom.

“How you stay here and what kind of life are you leading?”  it was disgusting.                                                                                   Perhaps last night she had fought with her partner. Her swollen face, torn lips, bruises all over her body was giving evidence to it. She was in tears. Whiningly she said to me “ I AM CURSED TO LIVE IN HERE”. There was pain in her eyes, excruciating pain; I felt her deeply wounded soul. I excused myself from there and came back to Vijay’s flat.

I did not know what was her problem, what was her term and condition with her partner but it was sure that she was unhappy deep inside and there was no peace in her life.

I discussed her case and her sentence “cursed to live in here” with Vijay. He took it lightly. he said : “do not worry dear, she might not have reached organsm last night ,so she felt like living there in curse, next day she will be satisfied with her partner everything will be ok, he he he”

His remark was quite funny, He always finds out funny facts about “cursed life”. Why I cannot accept or digest such thing in lighter vein like vijay.

 When an individual says or feels that he/she is a cursed soul or living in cursed situation that is the extreme state of grief, zenith of depression.  I do not know how these people will deal with it. But whenever I feel low, I remember Pollyanna and play ‘glad game’ and feel light, fresh and full of positive energy.

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Ramanuj Dubey

                                                                             

           

Haiku XVI----

{1}

Sleepless nights

Fight unfairly with

Worthless tears

{2}

Worth of home

Yet to understand

Vagabond

{3}

Your pious presence

Makes my life worthier

I go in deep trance

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Ramanuj Dubey