From Ocean to Sky - Part I

“You have to go for this camp. You cannot pass the NCC without attending any camps,” our furious NCC officer told me.

“Yes Sir. I will go,” I said staring at the black tiles on the floor.

I never really liked NCC. Going for the NCC parade every Saturday afternoon while the others played cricket or just lazed around was so “not cool”. Then, why did I join. Must have been the NCC perks. “It helps in admissions to degree courses.” “You get free snacks after every parade.” These were some of the reasons. No one talked about “it instills discipline”, “gives you an insight of the armed forces” or “it helps in getting admissions to the defense colleges”.

Nevertheless, I joined NCC and went to the parades once in a while. Many camps were organized throughout the year but I did not go to any. It was November 1998.The year was about to end and the Goa camp was going to be the last camp for the year. Many boys wanted to attend the Goa camp. The word Goa would conjure images of - beautiful beaches, alcohol and semi-nude girls and there was always a prospect of finding one of the fabled nude beaches of Goa. It was synonymous with fun then. Not that it is not fun now. How many parents would allow their kids to go to Goa on their own ?

It was going to be a 14 day camp in South Goa. It was called “Ocean to Sky”. I had no idea what the name meant then. I was going to be accompanied by two more guys from my school. One of them was a very good friend of mine. His name was Arjun. He had lent me his Moral Science textbook and we had become friends since then. Our parents had come to see us off at the bus stop. Arjun was crying as the bus started to move. He was going so far without his family for the first time. I consoled him for a while until he felt better.

We reached Goa in the evening and a army jawan had come to pick us up in an army van. We were put up in the corridors of the Madgaon Cricket Stadium. Thousand guys from all over India had settled in the corridor which ran around the stadium. Guys from Kashmir, Tamil Nadu, Assam – I had never seen people from all over India together and that too “live”. It was a little scary. There were no rooms to sleep and the bathrooms were too filthy to be described here. The next morning we were divided into groups of 50. We were put together with some seniors from the Belgaum Military School. I was happy to know that we were going to be with guys from our hometown.

“Hi, I am Rohan,” a very friendly me said putting my hand forward expecting a handshake.
“B**** C*** Maine naam pucha tere ko?” said one of those guys. My smile vanished and to say that I was shocked will be an understatement. The only apt way to describe my feeling is “Meri to phat gayi thi”.

“We are going to be the leaders of this group and you all will do as we say. Nahi karoge to nanga kar denge. Samjhe !”

The Power of a Poster

“Grandma is not well. Can you come visit her?” the voice on the other end said. I took the next available flight from NY to the sleepy little town of Sangli in India.

“There are rumours about a riot breaking up,” My dad who had come to pick me at the airport told me. Now, my grandma lived alone in a ramshackled building located on the west side of the town. It was a small house with a bed room, kitchen and living room with cow-dung flooring. I reached her house and spent some time talking to her. All my relatives who were there to see Grandma were glued to the TV in the living room.

“Riots broke out between two communities last night. The communal clashes erupted over a huge poster during Ganesha festivities yesterday. Curfew has been imposed indefinitely,” the impassive reporter read out. Images of burning vehicles, people hurling stones at cops & Gods, the cops dodging them with their shields and the huge poster of Shivaji stabbing Afzal Khan followed. The town which always moved in slow motion had come to a complete standstill. Indeed, great heroes inspire generations that follow. Which were the two communities was anyone’s guess.

While people looted shops, burnt vehicles and killed people, I sat beside my grandma massaging her legs. She was bed-ridden for months now and she complained about numbness in her legs.

The breaking news flashed on the TV screen. The curfew was extended for 4 days and only people who wanted to get shot were allowed to venture outside. I had just one week vacation and my return flight was 4 days later. I had started worrying if I would make it.

In the evenings people came out on the roads and created and spread more rumors.

“Do you know 4 people were killed today?”

“It’s all a game of the politicians. The elections are nearing.”

“The cops. They let them do it. They watched in silence while their jeeps burned.”

“What does curfew mean?” a child asked his father. “4 days holidays beta. You can play Pokemon all day,” came the reply.

I could sense a never before seen excitement in the people in my neighbourhood. The sleepy little town had suddenly come alive. Their town was in the national limelight, but for all the wrong reasons. They spoke of curfews and riots with such fervor as if they never wanted to end it.

The next day more shops were looted. Vehicles and people of all types were burnt and killed. I wanted an end to all this madness for all obvious reasons. Most importantly, I did not want to miss my flight.

Link to the poster : http://tiny.cc/ghjrr

The Trip

Arjun began to question the wisdom of this journey as they rode to Mysore in all darkness. It had been 5 hours since they left the hostel. A bike ride to Mysore should have taken them not more than 2 hours.

Arjun was a senior at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bangalore. With his small built and baby face he could easily pass off as a high school student. He thought that he was a genius and his friends agreed with him. After all, he was the only person from his district to ever go to the prestigious institution. And his people skills were commendable too. He was always popular with his friends.

He loved his friends, but he had begun to love her more than anyone else. Her name was Ananya. They happened to meet by chance, 6 years ago, at a literacy awareness program. Slowly and steadily they had gotten close to one another. As Forrest Gump would say, Arjun and Ananya were like carrots and peas. Arjun got through his IIT entrance examination and moved to Bangalore, leaving Ananya behind.

Sometimes getting away from people helps you understand your relationship with them.

Over the four years Arjun was in Bangalore, they kept meeting during their vacations. The distance made them realize that they had become more than “just friends”. College was about to end and Ananya’s parents would have started the groom hunt after her graduation. Arjun thought it was time he proposed her. Ananya was visiting Mysore for a cultural fest. He saw an opportunity in meeting her alone there. It would take him 4 hours by bus and 2 ½ hours if he could get a bike ride. Going by bus was his only option after his bike was consumed by a truck last month. He never accepted his mistake of riding rashly. His dad who was a middle class bank clerk swore to never give him a bike again.

The vintage clock in the Electronics Lab showed 2 p.m. Even if they could make the 3 o clock bus he won’t be able to come back that day. He asked his room-mate Rohit if he could accompany him on his journey. That way he would have some company and could get a ride on Rohit’s bike. Rohit had his dad’s old CD-100 which barely worked, yet he obliged. They finished their lab assignment early and hit the road by 3. They had just one helmet and they decided that the rider will wear it. They were very excited but scared as well. The Bangalore-Mysore highway was a two lane road, notorious for sharp curves and accidents. It looked as though it was designed to keep the accident rates from dwindling.

Rohit was a little wary about the loose breaks. He hadn’t really worried about it as he never intended to take a long road trip.

“ Let’s stop at some mechanic shop and rectify the brakes.” he told Arjun.
“ Why waste time. There is hardly any traffic. We will not need brakes,” replied Arjun, “ Can I ride for some time.”

“No way. Don’t even think about that, after what you’ve done last month.”

Bike trips can be a little boring in hot weather. There’s no AC, no music and you have to shout for the other person to be able hear you. Arjun was making efforts to strike a conversation. The usually reticent Rohit was aided by the helmet now, making it difficult to hear or speak.

“ Ramnagar !!! Look at those huge boulders. It’s the same place where the movie Sholay was shot”, Arjun shouted hoping Rohit could hear him. “We should come here for a hike someday”.

“Keep looking for a mechanic shop. We need to get the brakes checked,” Rohit said.
The bike began to wobble. Rohit took the bike to the road-side to inspect it.

“ Oh No ! It’s punctured”, Rohit said. “We will have to walk back to the nearest mechanic now.”

“Don’t worry. Give me the bike. I can push it for a while”, Arjun said.
They took turns pushing the bike for 3 miles when they spotted the board “RAM PANCHAR SHOP”.

MYSORE 90 KMS.
The milestone near the puncture shop said.

They resumed their journey after the tyre was fixed. They crossed small towns and villages on the way. Channapatna, Maddur, Mandya and then they reached Srirangapatna, the historic capital of the great warrior Tipu Sultan. They stopped there to fill some petrol.

“ Can I ride now. It’s only 20 minutes from here. I don’t ride so badly,” Arjun said.

Rohit was very bad at saying no. He allowed Arjun to take over. There was not too much traffic and Arjun was pushing the limits of the old “about to die” bike”. He kept thinking about her. What if she says yes and her parents don’t approve of him. Will she go against them ? Should he have informed her about his plans ?

“Brake !!. Take it to the side”, Rohit shouted. And before her next thought could cross his mind Arjun had slammed the bike into a white SUV. They fell down with the bike. The SUV stopped for a moment and then sped away. Rohit got up and helped Arjun who was lying under the bike.

“Are you hurt ?” asked Rohit.
“A little bit. Some bruises on the forehead.”

The bike was reduced to half. The head-light had broken and flown far off into the trees. The front tyre-guard was bent and the tyre was brushing it.

“ I am sorry. I couldn’t stop. I pressed the brakes as hard as I could,” Arjun said.
They broke a twig from a nearby tree and pushed the tyre-guard up. The sun was about to set and it was not safe to ride without lights.

“Let’s ride to Mysore. 10 kms to go. We will not need lights if we drive behind some vehicle”, Rohit said.

Rohit rode the bike to Mysore and Arjun sat behind questioning the wisdom of this journey.

They found a repair shop on the outskirts of Mysore. The mechanic told them that they can pick up their bike the next morning. They left the bike in the repair shop and stayed at a motel for the night. In the morning when they were on their way to meet Ananya, Arjun got a call from her.

“Hey, where are you? Come out soon. I am right in front of your hostel”

I am pretty good at finding things...

Every evening I return home to find it in such as state as if an elephant had run amok. Three pairs of shoes, clothes in all possible shades of blue and white, used bowls, mails which should have been discarded years ago and various other stuff lie scattered around the floor, making the house more lively and wild. The utensils lying in the basin become self contained eco-systems, with all kind of bacteria thriving on them.

Though I cite depression as a reason for not keeping my surroundings clean, the fact is I never really developed the cognitive skills essential for cleanliness. I think the chapter on cleanliness was somehow missing from my kindergarten course.

Cleaning, I have heard requires a lot of patience and hard work. Patience is a virtue and why waste it on something as mundane as cleaning? It can be utilized to better things like playing Age of Empires, an online strategy game.

Somehow things just keep wandering and they never go back to where they came from. A highly developed sense of smell helps me identify the clean clothes from the heap of clothes on the floor. I just clean the plate I need to eat and leave the other eco-systems to flourish. Every day I get a feeling of adventure and discovery. Be it searching for the TV remote or for the box of cereals. Or it could be the belt, shoes or the telephone bill that was due yesterday.

And when I have to clean, time suddenly slows down and I feel like clearing up the battle-field after a war. I scrub each utensil as if we were arch enemies. I pick up each thing on the floor and keep it where it was supposed to be, all the while keeping a poker face.