Things That Bang

My grandfather was a talented storyteller. Every night we girls would be lulled to sleep by his stories. There was much fanfare in his telling; sound effects, gestures and the weave of words that took us to the enchanted worlds unseen and unheard of. But when it came to him talking about partition the twinkle in his eyes glimmered a little less and the upward swing of his lips fell.

I was about thirteen when I asked him about his escape from Lahore. My grandmother and her children had left for a wedding by train before the violence broke out but my grandfather had to wait back in Lahore for his brother, a stubborn cop who wanted to hand over the chain of command to his Pakistani counterpart before leaving for India.

I still remember the sitting with my grandfather in his cool room on a hot June afternoon. Instead of taking his usual afternoon siesta I pulled him back to memories he wanted to forget and but spoke about for he was a storyteller.

Violence, he told me, lives in the hearts of men and so does bravery. Lahore burned around them, screams echoed and men pillaged and raped. Man killed man- Hindu and Muslims alike killed smothered in the junoon of hatred. My grandfather paced the floor of the Police Chowki (police station) and his brother sat on his inspector chair, a stubborn man as always. The windows of the Chowki were barred and the mussalman hawaldars guarded the doors with their rifles.

My grandfather remembered his mouth being dry and his palms sweaty. They were sitting ducks. Two hindus guarded by mussalman hawaldars who could in passion turn on them. He pleaded with his brother that they should leave but obstinacy and idealism sometimes makes a man courageous and foolhardy, so he told me.

They waited and time ticked by. The world outside burned and the sun peaked and baked the blood drenched land where he remembered walking in peace and greeting people who looked just like him. It was a land he had come to call home away from home. A place where he had brought his bride, seen movies along with her and made babies with her and now it was not home but enemy territory.

He continued to pace and the mob around the Chowki increased. The brothers held rifles in their hands. Death was assured and yet there wasn't much that could be done. They waited and the Mussalman officer kept his word. He came and with him more hawaldars.

He expected the Chowki to be left unmanned and plundered by the mobs instead he found a Hindu officer waiting for him to hand over the command. They shook hands and wished each other luck.

The muslim officer offered his loyal guards. He gave his word that they would be safely escorted. My grandfather and his brother stepped out of the Chowki and found themselves surrounded by a blood thirsty mob.

The mob asked the hawaldars to handover the hindu men but the answer they received was the barrel of the guns. Shoots range out and the crowd dissipated. My grandfather and his brother were pushed into a Tonga and with police escort they moved towards the Hindu neighbourhood.

The story gets blurry in my mind beyond that point. Suffice to say they survived the ordeal and made it back to India. My grandfather's brother's wife and her three children too managed to cross the border but they walked it. The family got separated and the cause of the separation are like pages ripped out of a novel. Those are the blanks that my memory cannot fill in.

But I do know she suffered. The mob caught up with her but they found her dark and ugly and let her go. Her children had taken refuge in the fields and escaped the wrath of the mob. They managed to cross over the border. I looked at my uncles with new eyes. They had seen so much.

My grandpa told me that they initially had gone back to their village in Himachal Pradesh but then came to Delhi and refused to take compensation or land from the government. He told me it was a matter of principle – how could he be a refuge in his own land?

Unlike some who continued to harbour animosity caused by the partition my grandpa believed in seeing the good in all. Even a thug, he once told me, will come to your aid if you remain on amicable terms with him. Such was his constant advise.

The story is itched in my mind. On the one hand there was bravery and honour proven by the hawaldars and their officers and on the other hand sheer violence and brutality. Both had nothing to do with religion but with basic human nature which is both noble and barbaric.

The partition is a sore that continues to fester and the hatred like a generational feud that refuses to abate. Political parties on either side continue to fan hatred across the border and yet we are of the same blood and the same heritage.

Lahore was the land of happiness for my grandpa and grandmother before the dominoes came tumbling down and they spent most of their young lives in hardship. And the tales of Lahore being the hub of all commercial and cultural activities during the 30's and 40's brings the yearning in my heart to see the land as if I may find some part of my grandfather and grandmother there.

Its a pull of the roots, a curiosity that would probably remain unfulfilled at least in my lifetime. I hope our successive generations will be able to see Lahore and maybe feel a time in their souls when we were one.

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There are places one can frequent more than once and still be enchanted by what those regions have to offer. My love for the Niligiris, or Neelghiris as it was known during the colonial times, endures.

Last Friday early morning we drove to Ootacamund and stopped for breakfast at the famous Kamat restaurant for Banana leaf covered idilies and chow chow bath.

After a filling breakfast we drove through Mysore, Bandipur, Madhumalai and by lunch time found ourselves driving on the 36 Hairpin bends that took us up the gentle hills of Nilgiris to Ootacamund.

Much of Ooty remained the same except it was greener, less tourists, prone to drizzling and extremely cold. We dropped our bags at the club and headed out of lunch. Much to our disappointment the Holiday Inn wasn't serving outsiders since they had some sort of massive family 'convention' going on with a loud man accosting a hired girl half his size to put the biggest garland on the head honcho of the family and ten girls shrieking their delight ten paces away from us.

We beat a hasty retreat to land up at Mithun Da's famous Monarch and were again disappointed. The place held the smell and look of the socialist era. Mammoth in size, it wore a deserted look as if it was already hit by the swine flu pandemic.

We waited around for a few minutes and headed back into the town to have Chinese food at the famous Shinkow restaurant. Kids loved the food since it was bland and salt less. Aaman and I were disappointed. Nostalgia sometimes tastes like saw dust.

After a short siesta back in the club we headed back into the city and checked out Mohan's Rose and Teak furniture shop. Mohan's Rose and Teak shop has furniture which is way cheaper than the stuff available in Bangalore and they are very honest about the material their furniture and figurines are made of.

Most of their furniture is made of Teak or Rose wood and are very honest in their transactions.

We also visited the main shop where we bought some regular stuff and then headed towards Coffee Day next to Modern store where the service was at its lowest levels. But since we were in congenial mood none of us protested.

Next we headed towards St Stephen's church opposite Mohan's. The Reverend of the church was kind enough to give us a tour of the church. The church was consecrated on 1829 and despite its beautiful homely ambiance I felt immense sadness at the church. The Reverend was kind enough to take us to his back office where he apprised us of the church's history and told us that the survival rate of the British who came to Ooty was quite low at the time.

The cemetery behind the church had graves dating back to the 1800 and most as usual most graves were of young soldiers, wives and even babies. The price of colonial rule was paid by the British by their young.

It was close to dusk and the weather became exceedingly cold and after thanking the Reverend for his warm welcome we headed back to the Club for dinner.

On Saturday we visited the Botanical garden which was breathtaking. They had little nooks and crannies with gorgeous flowers and exotic trees from all over the world. The sales counter however turned out to be a disappointment since they had put all their flowers in the glass house for exhibition. I couldn't take my eyes of the hydrangeas that grew effortlessly in the garden whereas the ones I own back in Bangalore barely manage to spring no more than one mophead in a year.

There also seemed to be some sort of a begonia craze as most of the flowers showcased in different glass houses were begonias and other plants were the mundane variety.

Later on, we drove to Coonoor to have lunch at the Taj. Though the hotel was gorgeous and the buffet was good but the service was lax. Plates were left on our tables and the head waiter sniffled and coughed much to the alarm of the customers. Coonoor, we decided, was a place to relax without kids since the town didn't offer much in terms of kiddie entertainment.

We drove back to Ooty on the narrow road and most of the times found ourselves crawling behind some slow truck or a bus. But the passing scenery made up for the aggravation.

By the time we reached back it was pretty late and we relaxed at the hotel. Aaman and I nursed our drinks at the bar while the kids watched cartoons in the television room. Dinner was served at nine after which we headed back to our cottage and dozed off by ten.

Our drive back towards Bangalore was comfortable and enjoyable. The roads were mostly smooth and the North Karnataka lunch with jowar rotis and brinjal at Kamat delicious. We reached home within five hours and did not feel tired thanks to the smooth drive on the NICE road (We spotted Kheny directing operations to complete the remaining stretches).

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How do we talk about death to our kids? While walking through the cemetery in Ooty my four year old and I had a conversation about death. Just like we talked about birds, bees and the weeds that grew gently around the marble slabs, under which rested the bones of those long gone I spoke about the time when we all are laid to rest.

Her small little hand rested in mine as we walked down the worn out steps. The sun was resting and the cold wind gently blew her mousy hair in her eyes. Gently she told me she was going to die there and I replied that I didn't think so. I told her that she would probably be way older than me before she died.

She accepted with a nod and asked if she was going to die somewhere else and I answered truthfully that I had no idea when and where she would die but probably not here.

We walked out of that sad little place and that was the end of our conversation till I spoke to my mom and my daughter happily related to her grandmom that she had visited an old cemetery.

Today, while watching the news my 7 year old son pointed out there there had been more swine flu deaths, one in Delhi and one in Bangalore. He opened up his science encyclopaedia looking for H1N1. Obviously, it had no information on it yet, so we had a conversation about the flu and again I found myself talking about death in a matter of fact manner.

I told him if diagnosed at the right time, most people get well but then sometimes people aren't that lucky. Sometimes death happens. He looked at me and nodded, put his book back in his cupboard and that was the end of the conversation.

These are harsh realities that we cannot deny.

I know it can hit me or my loved ones, my friends, my neighbours or my entire world any time. We live on borrowed time or in a dream when all that was no longer exists except for the present moment that we live in and that too dies and another ticks in.

Death is a greater teacher than life for death makes most of us love life.

In my daughter's class there was a child who had swine flu. The school shut down for fumigation and Monday classes will resume. Our kids will return to school. Death is a fear every parent leaves unvoiced in their hearts. A reality given in this uncertain world.

At the cemetery, I picked my daughter up and kissed her soft cold cheeks and told her she would see me with white hair and bent over and that death would have to wait for us a long time.

A hopeful wish, my heart whispered, knowing death was non negotiable. My kids would also know this reality some time in the near future and there is no way of sugar coating death or skirting around it.

Like all things, it needs to be talked about when kids ask questions.

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I hate to hit the panic button but it seems there should be mandatory checks when people suffer from upper respiratory disorders. The death of a young child in Pune has led to a lot of finger pointing in the medical community. The horse, however, has already left the barn. A child died and if we do not take proper precautions this could become an epidemic of extraordinary proportions unseen since the time of Black Plague and the sole responsibility would lie in the hands of our government.

There should be compulsory checks at airports for those returning from international travel. All hospitals and not only the government ones should have the testing facilities and treatment. In villages too, the hospitals should be well equipped to deal with the flu. NGOs should be hired to work at the grassroots levels.

Children in schools with even common colds should be sent back home with parents being told to get their children tested. Schools in area where flu clusters are found should be closed until the risk subsides. The government should also ensure the antiviral drugs are subsidized to whatever extent needed and high risk categories like pregnant women, the young, etc., are given priority, instead of the usual VIP prioritization.

The Indian government has enacted new guidelines in the wake of Rida's death, like forcible quarantines, and states like Maharashtra, West Bengal have invoked British-era Quarantine Acts. 

The tragic death of young Rida is fundamentally due to the general unpreparedness of the public health system, the government, and society at large to epidemic scale diseases, and the H1N1 Flu in particular. The World Health Organization has been cautioning world governments on the H1N1 pandemic for a while now, and even the additional guidelines issued today by the Indian government fall short of the concerted response needed to address this problem before a dismal worst-case future, with over 2 billion people likely to be infected by the H1N1 flu.

Posted by Deepti Lamba at 10:33 AM Stumble It! digg this del.icio.us Fark It | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

The movie Dark Knight is playing in the background as I write about my views on Ajmal Kasab and his pending fate.

The Joker in the movie had no love for humanity. He killed because he liked to. He had no good side to plead to but the common citizens of Gotham and the prisoners did- they did not push the button to blow up each other.

That happens to be the difference between us and them. Do I sound like George Bush? Maybe but there is a us and there is a them. The them are those who have lost their souls, who no longer believe in the sanctity of life and for whatever reasons ideological, religious or just for the love of it don't care about taking lives of the defenseless.

The Joker certainly didn't care, those who gave Kasab the gun and training didn't care and Kasab who sailed into our country in his designer clothes and gunned down people didn't care. But what makes Kasab different from the Joker? Unlike the Joker who in his madness had lost love for his own life Kasab turned out to be a coward. He squeals for compassion, for leniency and with his sweet words and with his good looks tries to needle his way into our civilian hearts.

We, like the innocent lambs of Gotham want to believe that Kasab has a human face. But it is a demonic front no different from the heinous smiling face of the Joker. Hand him a gun and chances that he would throw the gun aside, cower to a corner and call upon Allah are slim. In all likelihood he would shoot like any criminal from the Batman graphic novel to escape and spread his tyranny in whatever little form he can.

You see like any hardened murderers found in real life or even in violent graphic novels its in their blood. Like the Joker, Kasab is damaged goods and once that far gone peace means weakness to them. A trait that is used to exploit, to subjugate and to kill.

We don't have superheroes like Batman to save us from the baddies and the baddies unfortunately keep coming. It is the fight between good and evil, good and bad, the compassionate and the savage, it is eternal and long drawn. The fight, unfortunately, is us against them and we cannot put a human face to the Joker no matter how handsome or how sweet his laments may sound.

Kasab is what evil is all about and there is only one way to deal with evil - respond with righteous fury and just sentence.

Hang Kasab.

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