my heroes

This is what I wrote based on an event that occured sometime around in Dec 2004.
I submitted this piece for the college magazine too but it never got published.
Thoughts expressed reflect my state of mind then. Narration is true.


“ With due respect to all you connoisseurs, Devdas is not my hero.
Nor is Tughlaq of Girish Karnad. No O Henry character either”. This was what i argued when it was his third story. My partner was on with his third narration of something that was of high literary value and was what i thought – pessimistic. I admit that i am not an expert of Sharat chanda,O henry or Karnad literature,so the above comment may look illiterate. 'I have very childish notions of a hero' , I say , so my hero may be Mithun in his typical movies,or may be like Hamid of Idgaah (by premchand - the story in class 8th syllabus) or may be like Morpheus in The Matrix.

What goes against this is that there is lot more real than what my child perspective can notice.Can we have heroes like this in real life? Reel or literature appeals if it can draw parallels with life apart from entertaining.

Much of this the literature movie thing.Let me come straightforward to it. I do believe and state that there exist real heroes.
I have seen and met them.

Location : A small station called 'Laar Road' ,where the train is waiting since we woke up. Because of some disruption ahead it is already delayed by some four or five hours.Amod and me, moving around on the platform, are having some mundane discussions.

Time: Mid December – damn chill morning.

I thought someone is indicating or perhaps calling me,but didn't care to find out. The next time I pass that very location,someone from inside asks me to look at that very thing. Its a human body , a human being , an old lady, shivering badly, so much so that she is unable to speak. Just trying to raise her head up and making some squeaky kind of sounds .She has one cloth on her body , that also not wrapped properly .Nearby she has her belongings – one or two utensils,some hay,a plastic bottle etc.She is in a viable-diable age and the cold knows this.But it seems she wants steal a little more life.

To be honest , I have had the habbit of escaping situations like these, attributing the escape to some sound reasons/logic or excuses.
I tend to get disturbed because I have had a very few such encounters.
And perhaps that is obvious.I have seen people who have faced 'lot of life' and are numb enough to have a nice night's sleep after this.The actual thing that makes me sick is not the truth before me but the dilemma within me.I have been installed with the lofty ideals of compassion,responsibity,courage....within me . All these stand together and condemn the child in me who needs security, comfort and a bed-of-roses-kind-of-life .This time ,owing to the equations and equilibrium of the two halves within ,I stop and decide to do something. “We should do something”, I say, though it means “Please tell me what to do”. This because my head cannot find logical ways to do it but it believes that there must be somehing that can be done.

Amod says “The question is not what should we do. The question is what can we do.?”

The question is genuine enough in itself. But the fact that this question arises is pathetic.We are getting perhaps the best education in the country, are physically and mentally sound and economically – not in a crisis at least ( if not too independent to spend our fathers' money). Still we cannot save a dying person if she is destined to. There are things beyond our control. We can feed her-OK, but we cannot take away her poverty .We could give her clothes ( though this would be highly awkward ) , may be she will survive the cold, but who will protect her from disease.Our powers are limited and this is real word .

We two, standing near her make other passers by curious. I see people people gathering while all this is going on in my head.I decide that I will keep standing. At least that will attract a crowd and may be someone will come up with an idea.This works.

Every onlooker has something to say. Everyone showing that the commentator is more manly than the previous one .More numb. Numb,number,numbest.

Two among the crowd – perhaps students - a bit elder than me are different – dynamic and courageous. It doesn't seem that they might have given as much thought to all this as i have done.Active enough, they get a matchstick from somewhere, gather the nearby hay, and iginite. In the meanwhile , I ,(thinking its time for me too to act) ,cover her limbs properly with her cloth .Everybody concludes now that she will feel better and at least not die .They (the two guys) offer her some tea, which she does not accept perhaps because she is still scared and confused. They share a laugh with the lighthearted comment - (translated as) “This happens only in India”.

These are my heroes. No warriors, not leaders, not celebrities either. They are common people with uncommon attitude. They inspire us. They give us hope. This is all I (if not we) need .Give me a hero who gives me hope. Give me hope .

i killed him

I don't remember exactly but it was sometime around the monsoon of 1999 or 2000. The area surrounding our house equals roughly two football fields and is a low lying area. The lack of municipal drainage in my locality makes it a basin for all the extra water during the rains. It gives our house the romantic island-in-the-river look, especially when the logged water has lilies and fishes and all kind of flora and fauna you always like to see.

And as I hav always believed, romanticism, like all other ambience never comes alone. So some adventure was added to my rainy romance of the season that day.

It was a snake. I don't know what variety and it doesn't matter too until he bites. He lay beside the small strip of connecting road left un-drowned. On one side it had my boundary wall protecting/blocking him. And there was the grass he thought was camouflaging him. But he was spotted before he could really know of it and a strategy for killing him was formulated before I could really know.

These young girls and the children were afraid of moving across that road because they had seen him. They had also earned success in gathering the elders from their own families and the neighbourhood. All reasonable and logical elders and the reasonable and logical youngers had decided that the only reasonable and logical course of action now was to kill him. The only catch was who in the world could be reasonable and logical enough to do this.

My mom was the second last to reach the spot, I was the last. Its tough to remember what prompted me to bring that lathi. Perhaps someone asked me to or it was my own enthusiasm of grabbing this chance of becoming a local hero. There was nothing on stakes because i was not at all scared. (As our class 9th bio book said most snakebite deaths can be attributed to heartattack than poison)

So i begin pounding the end of the lathi on his face. I keep doing it as a neighbouring auntyji is instructing me to. I concentrate because the way she instructs has an element of urgency. But I know how easy it was. He was already quite frightened. Only a few correct blows (five-six i think) end all the challenge he could put forward. I raise him with the same lathi and give him a flight so he lands direct in the water as far as possible.

And look at mom. How proud she is! Alright there are people of all ages and strengths and nobody but her son has taken the courage to do it. Alright. But boasting so directly? That comes out of over-excitement. Being over-excited for something like this? May be i'll understand this someday when i am myself a parent!

But i had another thing all over my head. So i leave her with her excitement and boasting and run to the puja-place. He was frightened and didn't fight back at all. Nor had he harmed anybody, not me at least. He could just as easily have been made to run away. He was killed because some reasonable and logical people thought it was never wise to leave a snake alive in the neighbourhood. He was killed because he could turn up anytime anywhere to bite and kill some human beings who obviously happen to be more innocent than snakes. He was killed because there exist men who like to kill to earn local-hero-reputation.

I went to the puja-place, join my hands in front of the idols and pray for forgiveness. These are the same idols and the same Gods who had suffered my constant criticism and denial. For years i had found self-respect in claiming myself an athiest and involving in reasonable and logical discussions over the issue. But at that moment i felt no insult in kneeling down.

I don't know where to end this. I am still an athiest. Still as likely to kill a snake however frightened and harmless. My neighbours are still reasonable and logical. My mom still gets excited over my small herogiris and continues boasting in front of the people in the other world. I know not what happened to the Gods .. the idols are still in the puja-place.