Is it me, or is the world losing it?

The world is indeed a strange place to live in...

We Indians believe in God, a lot, mostly out of fear. We believe in dedicating each day to a God. And we believe in celebrating every festival possible. All good till here? Well, mostly. Unless like me, you find this undaunted staunchness in religion weird. Now comes the stranger part.
To honour the Gods and Goddesses, we don't play hymns or bhajans at the make shift pandals in Calcutta. We play the most raunchy Bollywood songs available! From Sheila to Fevicol to Munni.. You just have to name it!

News came in today that there's been a meteorite shower in Russia. All these years whenever the papers carried news of prospective showers, they never were actually visible. And look today what hit the unprepared Russians! Way to go NASA and similar organizations!

Oh and the main traffic signals of Calcutta have songs of Rabindra Nath Tagore being played all day long. Like the honking wasn't enough! But that is the change our Honorable Chief Minister believes in bringing about. Are we obliged or what?!

Oh! The Gods have a new song to listen to... Hookah Bar is being played now!

Durga Puja fervour in Calcutta!

It was 4:30 in the morning. The birds hadn’t even started chirping. Something disturbed my sleep. I awoke with a start. I could hear the dhak (drum beats). Durga Puja had arrived!

Covering my ears with the pillow, to muffle out the sound, I tried sleeping again, a smile on my face.

The Pujas had come! The next five days Calcutta would swirl and dance in the revelry of worshipping the Goddess, the city would shine bright through the night, people from the nearby towns would come to visit, sell, and soak themselves in the merriment!

One could see people anywhere, anytime! At 7 am, there’re people on the road. At 1 pm, again people. At 10 pm, still there! At 3 am, no the crowd doesn’t thin out!

These five days — dusk or dawn, morning or evening, noon or midnight – you just couldn’t make out the difference. The city didn’t sleep!

On the few tours made of the various pandals (temporary bamboo structures to house the Goddess), it was hard to miss that the traffic police personnel were having a tougher time manning the crowds than the vehicles!

One of the parks near my place had set up rides along with the pandal. Giant wheel was the hot choice! Not only did it give me the much needed adrenalin rush, but when I looked towards the sky, while my capsule was on the upward journey, I could almost feel myself reaching out to touch the moon. Those few minutes symbolized freedom more than anything! And then came the reality check. As soon as I stepped out of the dark and seldom used back gate of the park, I saw myself staring at a family of a mother and two children. Lying on the footpath, with tattered blankets barely covering them, the mother was trying to put her children to sleep amidst the din of celebrations in the land beyond!

The Pujas mix all hues of reality and of the realms beyond. They mean a lot of things to a lot of people, but to me it’s the time when my city looks and feels surreal!

The Pujas define Calcutta, its old-world charm, its people, its warmth, its serenity, its culture, its madness, everything!

As I sit here writing this, the roads outside are unusually silent! I hear the distant drum beats occasionally as the idols are being taken to the Ganges for immersion, marking the end of Pujas. A year to go, before She comes again!

May the Goddess bless us all!

Murdering the Messiahs?

Until recently the headlines would read about the killings of common men, thugs, state MLAs, terrorists...

Last week, they bore the news of the gruesome murder of an IPS officer, Narendra Kumar. An officer of the 2009 batch, he was young, honest and very promising! And whats more he was doing his job rightly! In relation to the sand mining case going on in Madhya Pradesh, he was trying to stop a tractor to check its contents. He even lunged on to the tractor to stop it. But the driver, simply drove on and crushed Narendra under the wheels! How inhuman can they get just to earn a little more money! His wife an IAS officer, is on maternity leave, as the couple was expecting their first child! Yet I saw her talking to journalists the other day recounting the lukewarm response of the politicians towards the shocker. One of them even dared to call the incident an accident! What kind of a country are we living in? Where the law does not withhold anyone, where wrong deeds have no repercussions, where the makers of law themselves break them?! The driver definitely has strong political and financial backing, or else how could a mere driver have dared to kill an IPS officer. What hurts more is the stir it has failed to create in the junta of India. Had it not been for the constant reporting by the media and the questions being raised by them, all sand mining activities wouldn't have stopped in Madhya Pradesh for the time being.

Another such incident came in the light two days ago. On the day of Holi, a constable in Calcutta, Ashim Kumar Dam, was beaten up and stabbed, at his own house by youths of his own locality, for trying to stop them from forcefully smearing colours on his niece. He died of cerebral haemorrhage three days later. What is worse is that the police officers at the nearest police station refused to lodge a complaint against the eight youths who had murdered a fellow of their own ranks!
The complaint was accepted the next morning. As it happens always, the men are absconding and our police hasn't been able to find them yet. As for our Chief Minister, Ms. Mamata Banerjee, who calls all rape and assault cases to be shajano (planned), there has been no comment from her in this case, yet. And the other politicians? The CPM says the youths are Trinamul supporters and The Trinamul calls them CPM activists!

Such is the curious case of India...