Swades Revisited-III-Apni To Paathshaala

The day after, while I was waiting for a local transport (now jeeps run from my village to bus stand every 30 mins) beside the school of the village.

I had to admire this school because what was earlier a dilapidated building hardly running classes till 5th class was now well bordered area hosting classes till 8th. To make matters still more circumstantially coinciding with Swades’s plot, a part of school also hosted panchayat’s meetings; and in case of disease outbreaks, it was also used as a make shift hospital.

My cousin sisters had bunked the school to see me off and were with me there so I thought of visiting the school. Each cousin was enthusiastic to take me to their class, so Mohan Bhargava approached the school. It was a typical scene in some classes wherein I could see that the classrooms were much bigger for the no. of students attending school that day. In some classes I saw the teachers had put up a veil of newspaper between them and the students, each busy in their own worlds.

By this time this Swades idea had hit me and I just smiled thinking if there might be a Gitaji too. I went to a cousin’s classroom, expecting Gitaji but I think I was expecting too much. Had I said this to my college friends, they would have said, “Agar tu Mohan Bhargava hai to woh bhi Gita se kam nahin rahi hogi” (replace the name of the characters with the name of the actors). In this class, apparently the chalk had finished so the Gitaji had drawn a typical chemistry diagram of a round bottom flask with spirit lamp, wire gauge for steam forming moisture on a glass rod. The edges of the diagram were thinning down maybe because of small, spent-up pieces of chalks were used for drawing. She told me that she was from a nearby town and simultaneously also managed to keep interrupting the students’ chat-break, quietly asked everyone to continue drawing the diagram in their science copies and everyone willingly followed. May be my cousin had told her that I am an engineer and work in Mysore, so may be she was a bit impressed and a bit conscious while talking.

I took leave from her and visited my other cousin’s class. As soon as I entered, all the students stood up folding hands chanting Namaste in unison. This took me by surprise and I laughed noticing that the same class hosted Sanskrit for class 4th and Mathematics for 5th! I talked to masterji and he told me that he is very committed to teaching these children and wished that all the 5th class children should apply for Navodaya but the students are non-sincere. If I had to name him a character from Swades, I’d name him Mela Ram.

At the end of the visit, I realized that may be women do a better job than men when it comes to social service and selfless commitment; there may always be exceptions but somehow women are able to nurture more passion than men do who most often do it perfunctorily.

I have seen my village trotting to progress; it has a big school and the electricity is also slated to reach the village within a year. So how does the village benefit from me? Well my father had promised to build a room in the school for the children. With now the plans for the school to be built till high school, I have thought of contributing to it. Although resourceless, I will contribute it in one way or the other in future.

Next and Series Finale Blog: My Expts. With Spiritualism (refer to my previous blog to know more) – Conversation with my mother on God, puja, bhagwat and spiritualism.

Swades Revisited-II

Mea Culpa folks! I wrote the last post in a hurry to save the dying blog of mine in a crunch situation so didn’t bother to edit the blog, as I normally do. So changes

• this grand puja is called Bhagwat as I came to know later


• Certain other mistakes in word usage.

Anyways, I am here to continue about my visit to my village. And while telling you about the pandits I forgot to mention that the one pandit was fighting with Guru Maharaj (as the name suggests, the supreme pandit) for share of the dakshina which was collected during the dan-dakshina and my mother eventually settled it by paying extra to the pandit.

I was very little interested in the puja, may be because at some point in my life I was a hardcore atheist and although I do believe in God but such display of worship, puja, bhagwat doesn’t appeal to me at all. So while all the time pandits were running through the mantras, I sneaked into the nearby garden to enjoy the cool wind. When my elder brother came to know of this, he (() scolded me for sneaking away from bhagwat.

Well here is the funny part; when I reached home, it got a little dark and everyone was having food, my chachi cracked the joke that Guru Maharaj (GM) had earlier said that in Bhagwats, cow-dung and cow-urine should be taken as charnamrit instead of normal milk, curd, sugar, coconut etc etc. I would have refused to take it or better thrust it down the throat of GM had he tried that. But chachi kept on laughing about it, so that made me suspicious and in the end mummy relented and said that charnamrit did contain a little of the sacred stuff. Now at that time if you give me water, in the dark (if I haven’t already told you my village is a backward village where electricity is still not there) it appeared like urine. Boy, I was furious but it was of no use now. I still smile as I think that I was nagging like a child when this news took me by surprise, although to be quite honest I didn’t feel any difference in the taste probably because of the heavy sugar to counter it. But would you agree to swim in a swimming pool, if you were told that a little boy just pissed a few drops in the pool? ((

P.S.: This incident triggered a good debate between me and my mother on God, Faith and spiritualism when we reached Allahabad but more of that in the next blogs of this series...

P.S.S.: Coming up in the next blog of this series: Mohan Bhargava in my village’s school!!

P.S.S.S.: You wouldn’t want to hear how my chachi went about collecting the urine and how unadulterated sample was tested on my two young cousins ((

Swades Revisited-I

It had been around 7-8 months since I had gone home and may be 4-5 year since I celebrated Diwali at home last so this time my mother insisted that I spend Diwali holidays this time. She had already planned a grand puja in my village called Hanna Vinaika (a village at the SW end of UP in Banda district). Infact, I think I was the last to know that the puja was to be done. The reason: my family had undertaken a mannat that they will do this puja at the end of successful completion of my two years in job life and this was hinted to my mother by some pandit of my village. And here is the catchy deal, that entire had to be on my hard earned money. The only consolation was that by the time I would reach my village the puja would be nearing its end and I would just be there in the puja for around 3-4 days.

Ok, so how grand was this puja. Well most of my relatives were coming from outside for this puja (this grand puja is called Pandit as I came to know later). The custom in my village goes that whenever you invite any relatives from outside you’ve got to bear all the expenses for their coming and going + some gifts are obvious.(Thanks god they don’t ask for accommodation, which anyways is managed by sharing house-pool of the family; I mean my house, my uncles’ house etc). The pandit also entails some dakshina to the pandits and a feast to the entire village. The pandit is done at Hanumanji, a temple some 2-3 Kms away from the village. It’s a very famous temple with lots of stories attached to it.

So when I reached Allahabad (Alhbd), I was denied my unusual rest and was asked to proceed towards the village (some 120 Kms far from Alhbd immediately). To add to my troubles was unusual weather which was extremely hot, erratic transport service to my village. I was hinted that I might have to sleep on the floor at the site of puja. Now I was furiously searching this pandit who’s giving this kind of expensive hints to my mother. And this idea, I simply refused to do this. So some religious arguments were given as to why my sleeping there won’t cause any harm.

Infact, this reminds me of what I said to one of blog-interviews, that spirituality and religion lack confidence twisting traditions and practices to modern day person’s convenience and that may be spirituality is identical to Indian Penal Court wherein any arguments for/against something is unacceptable just to justify it.

So the next day puja began, I can’t really tell you all the details but it contained all the usual things: hawan, aarti, mantra, honking bells, obeisance, chadhawa, distributing charnamrit etc etc. I was sitting just getting bored after the first round when the charnamrit was being distributed. The Pandit was distributing it and everyone was taking it with respect. He went and gave the prasad to a lower cast person from a distance, cursing them on and off. And this was all acceptable to the worshippers, pandits (who ironically sometime back were telling mantras that God loves all equally). I thought of giving prasad to them with respect but by the time I made a decision and looked for prasad he was gone.

The experience is big and space small…. To be continued in the next blog. To be out soon

God...where art thou.....?? Why have you deserted me....

I was very unhappy and asked God why have you deserted me .... why me..... why??

He replied patiently ...... I am everywhere but only visible to those who wish and strive to find me ....at this moment I am hidden in this entire blog page.... all you have to do is to STRIVE to search me!!!

See if you really want to search me, I am HERE...right close to you...IF you have found me and smiled that's my divine gift to you today.......Just hope many would make use of this opportunity to smile a little and write their blogs in enthusiastic/happy/smiling/cheerful moods.....

try harder and try to read between the lines...you may find ME!!

I establish my presence in even such games and try to make ppl smile ... why do they say that I have deserted them??

...P.S. will post the link to God a little later...I have left clues and trails to God here itself

Gandhigiri - Star Gold's version

Coming is the long weekend due to Bapu’s b’day; a week full of celebrations here in Mysore owing to Dasara as well.

Gandhi Jayanti may mean different things to different people. For school, college and office goers it may mean just another welcome weekday holiday, for academicians it may mean another opportunity to discuss the relevance of Gandhian principles in today’s society, for wine and hard drink enthusiasts it may mean cursing Gandhi because it’s a dry day throughout the country; very often a one day frenzy to do and discuss every thing closely or remotely related to Gandhi. (Disclaimer here: Remember the list is not inclusive and in no way mutually exclusive)

So govt. may hold a Shanti Sabha, politicians will garland Gandhi’s idol which else would have been gathering dust for the entire past year, very few might consider visiting a nearby Gandhi gallery and most may just be happy to watch a movie on Gandhi on one of the TV channels. It is the later part which I think has left a little distaste with me this Gandhi Jayanti.

This Dasara, yet again channels are springing to cash in on the long weekend crowd and grab the highest share of TRP’s by attracting crowd. Referring to one noticeable attempt by Star Gold, I think either Star Gold has a very poor knowledge of Gandhi (and for that matter history) or it’s just one of those typical channels driven by monetary concerns and with very less aptitude for appripriateness.

It’s very easy to guess that the program schedule is driven by business sense with no regard for what is being shown and to what degree of appropriateness and relevance. Gandhi Jayanti Spl is being shown on 1st Oct and RDB is being shown on 2nd Oct, a movie which I personally, think is a little inappropriate if not grossly unfair.




Leaving aside arguments of business sense, one might argue
· RDB does represent nationalistic (debatable) sentiments so is totally appropriate to the scene
· Gandhi Jayanti has lost its significance so screening of RDB or any other movie doesn’t make much difference
· I am being far more sensitive on this topic than one should be

But I am not for any typical leftist opinion that foreign companies should be banned because they propagate SCB (Subhash Chandra Bose) sentiments when they should be preaching Gandhigiri but I think the schedule has definitely left a bad taste on me.

I am no ardent supporter of Gandhi but to say that he didn’t have any significant positive contribution to the Indian society would be foolish and I respect him for his contributions and in fact in some ways look up to him. It is driven by this respect and probably (as some of you may accuse and I will admit as well) mine one day frenzy, I believe that Star Gold could have done better by planning the program schedule in a better way.