Confessions of a job seeker

I was in a well-paying and comfortable, albeit unchallenging and unexciting job for two years and 4 months. Each time ennui set in (and it happened many times), and I thought of quitting, I reminded myself of the good money, the convenient hours and a hassle-free work environment. I had become an example of a classic govt employee who logs in, fills in the day with the mundane to be finished for the day and head back home each evening. And then came a time, when I lost all motivation and put up my papers. To begin with, there was a huge sense of emancipation, the day I stopped working. Thankfully my partner is the main breadwinner so financially I am sorted. After a month of travelling and another of just languishing in the house, I started my jobhunt, switched my LinkedIn profile to active, went on to naukri and timesjobs sites and well, there were jobs in scores for my skill set, if not in hundreds. The flip side however, was that while there were positions I could fill in, the salaries were only a fraction of what I used to draw.

There were a couple of interviews/meetings too, though none through any of the mentioned sites. An ad agency, where I would have loved to work as a copywriter, and who would have equally loved to have me on board, had financial issues of its own to sort out. Another food company, a start-up, which hired me as a digital content writer and PR person, even had me reach the office on 1^st of March, only to tell me that they are holding up all recruitment till the end of the financial year and would be keen to take me if I am available after that. They sure took me for a sucker, I guess. Another political management company was open enough to say they couldn’t afford me. And while I have featured in 57 searches over the last fortnight on LinkedIn, there ain’t any tangible offers happening.

Am I frustrated? No. Am I dejected? No. Do I regret having quit my stable job out of sheer boredom? No. I am certainly restless, because I miss stepping out of the house, having a structure to my day and meeting people and doing something that keeps my neurons kicking and agile. I miss a purpose to the day. However, I am convinced that had I not stepped out of a job which had become my comfort zone, I would not have had fire enough in the belly to look for something more creatively gratifying, more intellectually challenging and more vigorously consuming. So while the days are long, and there seem to be the same old unviable jobs spamming my inbox, there is one out there, which in due course of time, with active looking out, networking and reaching out to the right people at the right time, will reveal itself. A job where my energies, creativity and skill will whet their appetite in abundant measure. And so I keep going until I find what I am looking for.

When ECHS sounds like ACHES

My buoyant pride and (psst) part surprise at the alacrity and efficacy of MH in handling an emergency case I was accompanying on Friday night, was soon to be deflated with my experience at the ECHS on Sat morning. It seems that all govt establishments feel they would be rendered redundant in terms of importance if they don’t make you run around in circles for signatures. I mean how can it be that you leave the place without getting your taste of babudom and moving from window to window, part seething, part pleading and questioning how they have perfected the art of making simple things most complicated. And it doesn’t matter even if it’s the medical specialist at the MH who’s sent you with the papers for the patient in ICU to be referred to a private hospital.

So we arrived straight at the OIC’s office, a retired officer, who was sharp and receptive and told us that the med specialist had put his signature but not the stamp. Thankfully he was reasonable enough to tell us to get all the signatures at ECHS first and then go back for this stamp. But this was our first and last stop where sharp and receptive and reason ended. He told us to go to A office, get a stamp, then go another counter for an online registration and get back to him for his signature. He even told us that we wouldn’t find him there but another officer would sign the papers. And here started our campaign to get those precious signatures on the referral papers. 

We stepped out looking for Cabin A, there were no signages or boards and every room that we saw had a forbidding board saying, do not enter. Much against that I got in and asked where ‘A’ was, and was pointed to the next room, where a harried old man was sitting at the desk. He asked us, “Kis doctor ko dikhana hai?”

“Doctor ko nahi dikhana hai, bass sign chahiye. We went to the OIC and he told us to get a sign from here.”

“How is that? Doctor ko toh dikhana hi padhega?”

“No, our patient is in ICU since last night, the med specialist has already signed asking for a referral.”

“Oh, ok. Ok”

Now it seems that he’s got the plot. He enters the ECHS no, patient’s name and even goes through the case sheet, even though he’s not a doc. He types A-24 on our paper and tells us our number is 24 and we can go, see the doctor. We tell him again that we do not need to see a doc at ECHS. We go through the whole explanation of patient admitted last night, ICU, med specialist referral, what OIC ECHS has told us and that’s when the penny drops.

“Ohhh, doctor ko nahi dikhana hai. Thheek hai, thheek hai, you go the online counter now.”

“Where is it?

“Well you will cross this aisle and there you have the medical labs and then you will take a left and enter a big hall where you will see patients waiting, cross that hall and you will reach that counter.”

Now this seemed like a distance of 150 metres if not more. And we have no clue where these labs are and what hall he is referring to. The patient’s wife, Mrs Murthy, who was with me said that we haven’t got any signature here and the OIC had specifically asked for some stamp/sign. We enter a small room within Cabin A, where another man with snow-white hair is sitting. We ask him what signature we needed from here. He doesn’t answer and starts going through the case sheet. Point to note, he ain’t a doctor. Now he asks us questions like, “Kya hua thha, kab hua thha, abhi patient kahan hai” and he also points out that med spl stamp is missing. Again we tell him that we will get that stamp once we get the signatures needed here. He puts one stamp of the OIC there and tells us to go to the online counter. We ask for directions again because we do not trust the first set of directions that we got and the man just points to the building that we can see from his window and says, “Yahan chale jaiye.” 

I persist and ask ‘uss counter ka koyi naam hai, kaise jaana hai wahan tak,” and he shouts saying, “YEH BUILDING HAI SAAMNE.” I am absolutely taken aback with his shouting and I tell him that I was told aisles and med labs and halls and so I asked. He realized his mistake and said “who toh kuchh bhi bahut lamba kar ke batayenge.” And now it is my turn, I ask him calmly, “aap chillaye kyun mujh pe,” and he says, “Main kab chillya.”

“Right now, you shouted, “YEH HAI”.

“Aap baar baar pooch rahe thhey kahan hai, kahan hai, isliye.” 

I realised the futility of taking it any further than this. So much for labs and halls and right turns.

We are at the online registration counter in no time, but much to our despair they are a dozen people at the counter waiting for their registration. After some time we request the bald, very serious looking man at the counter that our patient is in ICU and if he can take our papers next, and without even as much as raising a brow, he takes the papers and says in his flat trite voice, “ICU mein hain toh le jaiye hospital, baad mein paperwork karaana.”

We show urgency by mentioning how it was a case of seizures and patient being in ICU and he again told us, absolutely unperturbed, “ICU mein hain na. Bed per toh hain. Baithiye, aapka number se karunga.”

I was livid on hearing his apathetic response and his attitude of “I know that without my help, you can’t get this job done. So either suck up to me or buzz off”. Sadly, we couldn't do anything and held our patience while he entered each detail on another form with such studied slothfulness that I wish there were some sort of current we could pass through him to spark him up. If he had to enter a 10 digit phone number, he would look at the form, mumble one number and then type the number. So the whole process was like turn right, see number on form, turn back to keyboard, type number with index finger. Imagine seeing him do that with all the details on the form. And then lo and behold the patient whose details he was typing in did not have the doctor she wanted on the panel. Then another senior guy is called from an inside room, a phone call is made to the doctor and asked if his empanelment was cancelled and this doc said that he will text on the number that he has got a call from but unfortunately his screen is damaged so the ph no should be dictated to him. And there we all are, a dozen minus one, waiting for this conversation to get over and the mahuratam for our form to be queued up for ‘online’ entry.

Mercifully Mr Sloth at the counter takes our form next and then comes the big roadblock, we don’t have the aadhaar card number of the patient. The patient’s wife, Mrs Murthy, who is with me has no one back home to tell us the number, we can’t go back and get the card, because the MH has told us to hurry back and shift the patient to the recommended hospital ASAP. Despite pleading, Sloth refuses and tells us to go to OIC and get his sign to say that he approves of entry without Aaadhhar. We beseech him saying we have already been to him, but Mr Principled Sloth refuses to budge. We go the OIC’s room but he is not there, we are told to go to G cabin, thankfully a lady peon goes with us and we enter the doc’s cabin. He does not even look up, runs his pen over the case sheet, taps on the Med spl’s sign and tells us the stamp is missing. Need I add here that we give the whole explanation again of getting the stamp once ECHS bestows its grace on us. He says something in Telugu to the lady and we leave not knowing what’s happening. She goes to Mr Sloth , tells him to enter our details without the Aaadhaar number.

By this time arguments have broken out between different patients who have been standing there. One retired officer is trying to be the voice of reason there, telling Sloth that we have an emergency and he should deal with us first, and another young guy is being belligerent saying his mum and he have been waiting for over an hour. Sloth meanwhile is absolutely unfazed and is busy doing his act - 'turn right, mumble number, click on keyboard, repeat'. I have by now taken a chair, lest I lose my cool at Sloth, while Mrs Murthy stands at the counter, waiting for her chance. And then our turn arrives but what a catastrophe, the computer refuses to take the entry in the absence of the Aaadhaar no. Someone suggests, “Koyi bhi Aadhaar no daal doh.” I give mine, but no luck. Finally Mr Senior, from the inside room comes in and voila, with his sorcery at the keyboard, we are registered online. Mr Senior was like God Almighty at that moment of time.

Now that we had crossed two of the three milestones - Cabin A and online entry, in this momentous journey of ours, we were more than halfway done. Again we go to OIC’s office, the OIC is still not there and we are told to go to G cabin again. We try to peek in but the lady peon there tells us curtly, “Baahar wait karo,” in her best condescending voice. We wait but after a minute or two, just walk in, and put our papers on the table. The female peon picks them up and puts them under the papers that she has in her hands. After Sloth, it is her vs us. The doctor still doesn’t think we deserve a glance and when our paper finally sees its moment under his eyes, he once again taps on the med spl’s signature, mentions the stamp again, and still has his head and eyes fixed to the paper as we give whole explanation for the nth time now. But glory be to the heavens that he signs and stamps the papers. 

What a miraculous happening! We did it! From OIC to Cabin A, then to Cabin A’s smaller room, then to online counter, then to OIC’s room, then to G Cabin, then back to online counter, then OIC’s office and then G Cabin, we finally had those precious signatures on the papers.

And believe me those people are lying when they say that they take the whole day to get those signatures at the ECHS, we just took over 2 hrs 45 mins. But of course, you see we were lucky, we didn’t have to queue up as A-24 to see the doc there. LUCKY US! God bless the systems that have been put in place to ease our lives, but just happen to make them more warped than ever. And ECHS will sound more like ACHES, everytime I hear of it next.

Literature aficionados dissect my poetry

My first poetry reading session.

The ambience - 10 pm under a tree, a bonfire, the only artificial light being the streetlight some 10 metres away and of course the phones' flashlights, and the real light - an audience of 25 evolved learners of the English language at EFLU (eng n foreign languages university).

The reading - Wind and the Leaf was my most plausible choice for being the first read as it had a story, a dialogue between two elements of nature and could well be a situation between two people. Interestingly there was no applause, just a quiet pause as the poem ended. So I engaged with the audience and the answers were ambiguous. Some said that the theme of wanting to break away surfaced. No one really spoke of the intensity of the wind and leaf engagement.

Sea and the Sand, a favorite among many of my friends was next. It did not evince the same quality of 'Wow.... what romance' as it had done earlier with a non-lierature audience. In fact this literature students audience dissected it with the poetic techniques that they learn in the class. While one felt that the rhyming pattern took away from the real flow of the poem, one said that it was the 'metric' rhyming technique that appealed to him.

 One was candid enough to say that some of the verses were too good and others, stark ordinary. And another said that the line 'they have never ventured beyond certain doors' made him think of the Tsunami and that the sea actually raped the earth.

If was the third poem, and I guess it hit bull's eye with its typical question flow. Most of this 20 something crowd could identify with the strain of self-conflict that runs through the entire poem and at the end of this, a lot of them said that they felt it could be the narrative of their own lives. I questioned a person who  looked to be a little away from her surroundings, and she said she was herself going through a low point and this poem was a sort of extension and she spoke of her transition from a reticent small towner to a typical university resident.

The next 2 poems were smaller in length - Melancholy and Them vs I. My young judges felt that both passed muster and one said that she was particularly moved by the lines 'Could be love/could be a wound of the heart/ lavished and inflicted on the same spot.

I asked them if they wanted me to end or else I could read one last one. In a big boost to my poetic ego, this rather laconic audience urged me to continue. Satiation beyond sensation seemed a good bet. Non rhyming, high on the imagery and euphemism quotient and something of a higher order for this really high on literature listeners.

A set of mix reviews,  some said it flowed easily, some asked the reason for the title Satiation beyond Sensation, one said that one line 'I am breathing on the oxygen of imagination' was what stayed with her,  another said 'I am weaving a shut eye tale of distant fantasy' made him think of the fact that I was actually talking about the process of my writing a poem. One said that she found the poem to  be profound and asked if the 'I am listening to the music of the sound of stillness' was something that came with natural quickness or something that I had labored over to conjure.

 At some point of time someone asked me where I was when I wrote the poem 'If' in terms of my situation and mental state. This led to a few personal stories flowing out which were met with understanding  nods. And some real life anecdotes provided more energy to the session as the reality behind the poetic version made the words more lucid.

My take - Most poetry readings are about publicity and enhancing sales. This particular reading session had nothing to do with that.  For me it was more about moving souls with my poetry which is so much a part of my soul. The advantage that I had was that this was a crowd which relishes poetic expression. The disadvantage was that they had already had so much experience being exposed to different writing styles and genres and techniques that they were absorbing my poetry from very seasoned perspectives.

They were critical without being brutal, at times they used words to describe my poetry which is the exact essence of the writing therein, which made me feel successful in terms of having made a reader arrive at that feeling, and lastly both sides - the poet and the audience - connected on a certain level of love for words and their representation that added so much beauty and wonder to our 1hr 30mins of engagement.

Like the girl who wound up the program with the quote said - Writing is a tool that you can use your whole life, to help people, elevate them,  to make them laugh, to change their minds. You can do it for those in faraway lands, For those who haven't been born yet. Writing is a way to live forever.

For me it has been a moment of truth,  a moment of judgement, a moment of a longing coming to fruition.

Literature aficionados dissect my poetry

My first poetry reading session.

The ambience - 10 pm under a tree, a bonfire, the only artificial light being the streetlight some 10 metres away and of course the phones' flashlights, and the real light - an audience of 25 evolved learners of the English language at EFLU (eng n foreign languages university).

The reading - Wind and the Leaf was my most plausible choice for being the first read as it had a story, a dialogue between two elements of nature and could well be a situation between two people. Interestingly there was no applause, just a quiet pause as the poem ended. So I engaged with the audience and the answers were ambiguous. Some said that the theme of wanting to break away surfaced. No one really spoke of the intensity of the wind and leaf engagement.

Sea and the Sand, a favorite among many of my friends was next. It did not evince the same quality of 'Wow.... what romance' as it had done earlier with a non-lierature audience. In fact this literature students audience dissected it with the poetic techniques that they learn in the class. While one felt that the rhyming pattern took away from the real flow of the poem, one said that it was the 'metric' rhyming technique that appealed to him.

 One was candid enough to say that some of the verses were too good and others, stark ordinary. And another said that the line 'they have never ventured beyond certain doors' made him think of the Tsunami and that the sea actually raped the earth.

If was the third poem, and I guess it hit bull's eye with its typical question flow. Most of this 20 something crowd could identify with the strain of self-conflict that runs through the entire poem and at the end of this, a lot of them said that they felt it could be the narrative of their own lives. I questioned a person who  looked to be a little away from her surroundings, and she said she was herself going through a low point and this poem was a sort of extension and she spoke of her transition from a reticent small towner to a typical university resident.

The next 2 poems were smaller in length - Melancholy and Them vs I. My young judges felt that both passed muster and one said that she was particularly moved by the lines 'Could be love/could be a wound of the heart/ lavished and inflicted on the same spot.

I asked them if they wanted me to end or else I could read one last one. In a big boost to my poetic ego, this rather laconic audience urged me to continue. Satiation beyond sensation seemed a good bet. Non rhyming, high on the imagery and euphemism quotient and something of a higher order for this really high on literature listeners. A set of mix reviews,  some said it flowed easily, some asked the reason for the title Satiation beyond Sensation, one said that one line 'I am breathing on the oxygen of imagination' was what stayed with her,  another said 'I am weaving a shut eye tale of distant fantasy' made him think of the fact that I was actually talking about the process of my writing a poem. One said that she found the poem to  be profound and asked if the 'I am listening to the music of the sound of stillness' was something that came with natural quickness or something that I had labored over to conjure.

 At some point of time someone asked me where I was when I wrote the poem 'If' in terms of my situation and mental state. This led to a few personal stories flowing out which were met with understanding  nods. And some real life anecdotes provided more energy to the session as the reality behind the poetic version made the words more lucid.

My take - Most poetry readings are about publicity and enhancing sales. This particular reading session had nothing to do with that.  For me it was more about moving souls with my poetry which is so much a part of my soul. The advantage that I had was that this was a crowd which relishes poetic expression. The disadvantage was that they had already had so much experience being exposed to different writing styles and genres and techniques that they were absorbing my poetry from very seasoned perspectives.

They were critical without being brutal, at times they used words to describe my poetry which is the exact essence of the writing therein, which made me feel successful in terms of having made a reader arrive at that feeling, and lastly both sides - the poet and the audience - connected on a certain level of love for words and their representation that added so much beauty and wonder to our 1hr 30mins of engagement.

Like the girl who wound up the program with the quote said - Writing is a tool that you can use your whole life, to help people, elevate them,  to make them laugh, to change their minds. You can do it for those in faraway lands, For those who haven't been born yet. Writing is a way to live forever.

For me it has been a moment of truth,  a moment of judgement, a moment of a longing coming to fruition.

How NDA converted me to a new faith

There are ‘institutes’ and there are ‘institutions’. There are ‘corridors’ and there are ‘pathways to glory’. There are ‘batches’ and there are ‘courses’. There are ‘alma maters’ and there is ‘THE NDA’. I made a journey of converting my beliefs last weekend. This ‘journey’ actually requires a more powerful, weightier, impactful description – it was a peregrination. 

For the longest time I had been the most acerbic critic of whatever I found mindless in the Forces and wondered what was it that makes my husband so deeply passionate and motivated about what he does in the army. What is it that holds his belief intact that THIS is what he is meant to do and there is no better place than THIS for him to live his life, live his dream? Why is his profession his raison d’etre, his sense of identity and pride?

The journey to NDA (my husband’s course’s silver jubilee of having passed out of the Academy) answered these questions and even as an outsider I realized the umbilical cord that still binds the individual to a place where he came to as a boy and left as a man.

BAND OF BROTHERS

At the 2-day event, even as we drank and danced and laughed, what stood out in gleaming prominence was the bond among the band of brothers. Stories flowed, nostalgia hung over like the smell of wet earth after the showers, excitement among 45-year olds seemed to belong to 17-year olds and wives and children hung on with wonder and fascination at the extravaganza of emotions that kept going in a loop over and over. 

The Cycle up position

THE FURNACE There was the bicycle and the NDA furnace – a manhole surface blazing in summer heat, on which the cadet would be asked to put his hands as a punishment. How being punished for finishing food late was acceptable over eating less in a limited period of time and how ‘sugarcane stealing’ and hiding 3 kg of jalebis and 8 milk

packets within the dungarees was easy until the ‘ustad’ caught you and asked you to get rolling. And then the benign ustad who would let you go, once you told him why you wouldn’t get rolling because of the jalebis and milk. How appetites were that of famished leopards and how the lowly 2^nd and 3^rd termers got even by sucking the gulaab jaamuns (on their way from the kitchen to the Mess) and putting them back for those in the higher pecking order.  And gulaab jamuns, by the way, were only for the higher species – the 5^th n 6^th termers. 

THE ROLL UP STAIRS

SMOKING JONES

                                                      

There was the tearoom and the smoking hideout, and the iconic wooden stairs which were never climbed up but 'rolled up'. And the hierarchy was clearly marked even in the 'pissing' department. The urinal in the

THE CENTRE PRIVILEGE

centre was only for the GODS - the 6th termers of course. As backslapping and embraces and loud shouts were exchanged, it was evident that there is bonding and there is friendship and there is camaraderie. But like I said earlier, just like there are institutes and there are institutions, there are ‘friends’ and there are ‘coursemates’. What gives these guys a higher pedestal is what they have been willing to do for the other guy who runs, sweats, does ‘ragdha’ and bears the torturous sadism of what the intrinsic character of training is all about. The training is about subjecting iron to flames to get steel. And so when 2 guys are seen from a distance breaking some rule, but only one is recognized and called for punishment, he refuses to give away the other’s name even if that means that he will have to go for 2 Singhadhs (this is a run up a steep climb to the Singadh fort in full rig weighing 22 kg. You start at 6 am and a drill ustaad is waiting on the top with a token which is evidence of your having 'peaked' and then you come down by 12.30pm). Now that is when I put ‘coursemate’ notches above ‘friend’. And I bow in all humility to what the coursemate spirit actually means, and what it manifests itself as, even years after having left your training ground.

Even though honour, pride, patriotism and glory remain intangibles, I felt them as real sensations as I heard my husband and his squadron types recall their NDA Prayer. If simply, on hearing it once, as an audience I felt this level of pride flow through me, I can only imagine that the sentiment runs as blood in the veins of the guys who repeat it day after day for 3 years as their minds and bodies undergo a series of physical and mental extremities which is like an inoculation for any kind of onslaught they may face in their future. And so when a man with his comrades shouts his lungs saying the following prayer, my belief is, that this becomes his belief for life.

O God, help us to keep ourselves physically strong,

mentally awake and morally straight,

that in doing our duty to Thee and our country

we may keep the honour of the Services untarnished.

     Strengthen us to guard our country

from external aggression and internal disorders.

Awaken our admiration for honest dealing

and clean thinking, and guide us to choose

the harder right instead of the easier wrong.

     Kindle our hearts with fellowship

 for our comrades at arms

and with loyalty to the men we command.

 Endow us with the courage

which is born of the love of

what is noble and which knows no compromise

or retreat when truth and right are in peril.

     Grant us new opportunities of service to Thee,

to our country and to the men we lead, and ever help us to place such service before self.

ONE OF THE POSITIONS TO SAY THE PRAYER

80^th course NDA Sliver Jubilee was indeed a moment of celebration, exultation and exaltation for each of us who experienced the spirit of what the Academy envisages and how it burnishes each raw, rugged individual to step out as a flag bearer of the country’s pride and honour. And like mentioned at the start of this write-up, for me, beyond the moment of jubilation, it was a moment of epiphany. When I told my husband that I was moved to the core as I heard the NDA prayer, and he asked me how, I replied, “It made me wish I were a man (and I am a feminist by the way) and I had gone to NDA too, to feel every ounce of the camaraderie, patriotism and honour that you guys are feeling right now.” But alas not all of us are men and not every man goes to NDA to become the MAN that only NDA can churn out. Cheers to you 80^th course and a bow to you, National Defence Academy.

We, the valiant; at Char Minar, a day before Id

Okay, so we got a little adventurous, a little more than what our usual sense of risk-taking would allow. We cancelled a Saturday evening at the club to go rub shoulders with what constitutes, “the basic, native hyderabadi”. Being labelled ‘outsiders’ at most places and bearing the yoke of prefixed notions the town population has (or does not have) of an average fauji, most of us endeavour to mingle with the spirit of the place if not get totally mixed in it. With that emotion, two cars with three couples and five children set out on an expedition to the Char Minar at about 9.30 last night.

We had heard about the ‘raunak’ that pervades the entire place just a little before Id. And it was Id just a day later, just the time to go and see the fervour peak. We went with expectations of naked light bulbs on ropes, food joints on ‘thelas’, the smell of perspiration mingled with the aroma of mutton kebabs, haggling with vendors, all kinds of clothes and cheap toys vying for the customers’ attention – it was all of these and a little more, well perhaps a lot more.

To begin with, we kept going around in circles with the GPS on phones and the ‘guides’ on the road. One of us was wise enough to park at least a kilometre away. The friend who drove the car we were in was adamant about taking it all the way up. He felt, where there is a will, there is a way. He had the will, and there was a way, unfortunately this way was clogged with people, people on motorised contraptions, just as helplessly stuck as he was behind the wheel. We must have landed in one of the most densely populated places in the world. However, our friend was convinced in his mind that despite established, logical reason of bad traffic in the last kilometre, the law of averages will apply and we will get a parking space. Since he’s rather new at learning statistics, I dared not ask him about any law or any average. There was no place to set foot on, leave alone place to set a small car, but this intrepid warrior was convinced that there is nothing better than self-belief and so he charged on. Three adults walked, while 5 kids, my friend who was driving, and I sat in the car.

We were like ants foraging, waiting at every step – asking the paan wala, the footballers, the old maulwi, young newly-weds, how far the place was. Each one smiled and told us the same – just a little ahead.   The road was milling over with vehicles – smoke spewing giant buses, cars of all makes and sizes, bicycles, scooters, motorcycles and even mopeds which I thought had become extinct in today’s time and age. The place was as abuzz as Vegas at midnight. Teenage eyes looked at us with open curiosity from within black burqas in the auto, pedestrians moved between the microscopic space between the vehicles, ‘haleem’ joints on either side of the road worked stoically, sweat poured down the drivers’ foreheads, traffic policemen tried to manage the maddening onslaught of vehicles from each direction – it was action at its best.  One of the auto drivers kept moving alongside within kissing distance of the car. He even struck a conversation with the kids on the rear seat!! Good idea at companionship, considering we were covering about 1 metre in 5 minutes on an average.

We waited every step; and got the same ans, “Go ahead and cut to the right.” My friend and I talked, “All this was expected, this is the real experience, the real flavour of the place, the real India”, trying to pep ourselves up. Inwardly we groaned and outwardly the kids of my friend gave him hell about why they were here.  Thankfully my daughter slept through it all and my son is still young enough to be dazzled by lights and new situations.

And then life came to a standstill. At a chowk, when we were so close to our destination, all the vehicles stood still. Where roads converge there is generally a gol chakkar, this ‘standstill chowk’ had a little masjid where there were roads going three-way.  Two harried policemen tried ineffectively to clear the roadblock, using hands, conversation, eye contact, all possible gestures, using every bit of their training and common sense. Except for them, nothing else on the road moved. Nobody switched off the ignition in the hope that we might move…. ‘now’. Well that ‘now’ came more than 15 minutes later.  It was for an interminably long 15 minutes that all of us sat exposed in full vulnerability to the noxious fumes being discharged in alarming quantities. There was a palpable cheer, as accelerators purred, but the cheer didn’t last even a few seconds. There was no space on the road to the right – remember the right cut we were to take.

We inched ahead and found three rotund middle aged men sitting on a small slab protruding from the wall of the little masjid. I was amazed at their equanimity as I studied their languor, feet dangling, sitting in this gas chamber, looking on at the traffic as if enjoying the sea view from a high-rise condominium by the Mediterranean. These men advised us not to take the ‘right’ route. Well my friend and I knew no other route except the ‘right’ one. So right we took. The silver lining of my friend’s self-belief, albeit a little unfounded, shone through the dark cloud of traffic and our car moved. Whew! Victory! This little gali afforded us some mobility and magically we found a parking space some three hundred metres away from the Char Minar. Self-belief, I tell you….Incidentally our companions who’d walked, were already at Char Minar a good twenty five minutes ago.

We placed ourselves right at the base of the Char Minar, the kids excited about the policeman on top of the Minar. Announcements blared on megaphones – lost and found people, warning to beware of pickpockets, advice to keep children close. There were police cars, fruit vendors, and not to forget a sea of people. These people were moving about, asking us for space to pass. The place we are at is not even a road or a passage. But what the heck, it’s Id and I guess people around us believe in making their own road. Then began the mad dance of finding who was where. Phones rang but no one picked up. When connection was finally made, neither our companions nor we understood our respective geographical locations.  Advertisement hoardings high up were exchanged as points of reference when suddenly, movie-like, I spotted them moving towards us from within a maze of people.

The Jab We Met moment over, we jumped into the vortex of the buzz. Each adult held on tight to a kid’s hand as we automatically got sucked into the human mass that moved as one unified whole. Our lives were not in our hands now. We were part of a greater plan. As the poor children’s view got reduced to various pairs of legs draped in different colours, we craned our necks to look ahead and back, to ensure our team stayed together. On a narrow road, there was a whole line of carts and vendors running through the middle like an aorta. And it wasn’t as if they’d become a divider for people to move only from the left. In the width meant for four people to walk at one time there were at least 12 jostling for space and they came from both directions. At one time I felt that the earth is spitting up humans from within its bowels. I thought I had stopped breathing. There were people everywhere, an aerial view would have shown heads inches apart, maybe like a cross-section of a bee’s hive. As I smelt the oil from the head ahead of me and a lady’s salwar got stuck into my kid’s feet we sought refuge in one of the by-lanes – our eyes popping out at the assortment of bangles here. The array of size, colour, variety, material, craftsmanship – the bangle-world was a kaleidoscope. Getting our breath back as we foraged the bangle shops, we once again charged into the lane. We like the adrenalin rush you see.

The carts in the middle of the road were the lifeblood of the market. Their wares and lights made the market a large Christmas Tree.  The permanent shops could do nothing to match their prices and bling.  There was jewellery of varied colours and varieties, the vendors using their vocal chords to optimum for on the spot advertising. There was mehndi and skull caps; bags – clutches, potlis, jholas, et al; bangles; laces selling for as cheap as a roll of thread; plastic lamps and toys; we were overwhelmed, to say the least.

The kids finally compelled us to go on a road less travelled (read less crowded), our team now split into three familial units. The daughter bought trinkets, clips and jewellery – only the ones that had all gold on it, the son bought tops that let out light when they spun and then we sat at a shop full of semi-precious stones, waiting for our friends to turn up. The husband went on a rescue mission to get everyone together. The son went off to sleep on the counter. The daughter stayed bright and chirpy as she scrutinised the colour of each stone. I saw each possible colour and variety of stone, asked its name and origin, and the wait proved pretty expensive as I ended up buying some stuff, of which I had no clue in terms of its value or price.

Thankfully two families converged at one place. The third one walked down to the place of parking (the one a kilometre away). We ought to have headed towards our car. But you see, for us women, our gender gets the better of us and even at 2 in the morning, with sleepy kids in our arms, we snoop around a bit, pick up some more fruits, click a few pictures (much to the chagrin of the males) and ask the lady selling mutton chops, how she’s cooked them!!! Curiosity killed the cat, our snoopiness asphyxiated our partners.

Finally crammed in a small car – 4 adults and 4 children, we made it to the parking spot where our wiser friend had parked. In a floodlit open area, there is a football match in progress. The men have ‘haleem’ and do not dare to analyse the just-ended arduous expedition. Enervated and a little staggered with our discovery of the place, we are relieved to head back. We’ve been there, done that. We have been declared (by our own self-established committee) as brave people, who dared to become a mere speck on the huge human map who walked these roads just a day before Id. We have etched our place in vestibules of time – the only people who dared to venture into a place at a time when no one from Dhruva Enclave could. But before I end, I must tell you all, ‘Valour is the better part of discretion’. Please use discretion before you become valiant enough to enter a place you might not be able to get out of. 

Travelling cattle class

Travelling ‘cattle class’, if I may dare use the demeaning epithet, is definitely illuminating in more ways than one. It throws open a brilliant case study of what constitutes the great Indian reality show.  It has been some years since college when I last got into a bus (doing the Delhi-Dehra Dun-Delhi circuit) on a rather longish journey. Yesterday I travelled from Gaya to Ranchi in a ‘coach’, classified such only because it had foam seats which could get into a semi-reclining position with the touch of a button. Otherwise it had the smattering of the erstwhile DTC bus that seemed to be bursting with its passenger load.

There was a diverse mix on board – a student busy on his cellphone talking about the state transport getting reduced to a local bus, population sensex workers talking of BPL cards, a father asking his son what he did with the money that his ‘mamu’ gave him, a little boy dozing off standing, the propreitoral jhola owner who wouldn’t let the sleepy kid sit on his bag (his veggies would get crushed), the lawyer who kept convincing his client on phone that he won’t let anything happen to the latter, a middle aged man busy playing painfully archaic Hindi songs on his cell with few voices saying, “collecsionva achcha hai”, a couple with three children of different sizes – each individual represented a different world altogether.

 The six-hour journey had the classic shades of people jostling for space, adjustment of three in a seat for two, conversation cursing the terrible state of transport, the ticket collector luring in people with the promise of a seat after a certain distance, the driver competing with the other bus close at its heels, the conductor tapping on the rickety tin door to signal start and stop of the moving bus to the driver – all becoming a fight to the finish because of the scarcity of buses at the end of the Dussehra holiday.

I had a ringside view to this fantastic spectacle sitting on the first seat with my two children. The ‘conductor-sahib’ was an apparition from a Hindi  movie of the ‘70’s, buck toothed, with soda glasses resting on the bridge of his nose, constantly pulling up his pants to the chest between counting tickets and convincing people that there really was space inside the bus. He promised seats after Hazaribagh (a good 3 hours away) and when passengers were doubtful about boarding, he said the bus was ‘special’, one that would not stop anywhere between Gaya and Hazaribagh.

 No sooner did we start  than the bus driver braked a few hundred metres away to pick up a stream of people and the conductor kept on his motivating act, assuring the ‘climbers’ of seats after Hazaribagh on the ‘special’ bus. I was appalled to hear two boys striking a bargain with the conductor, paying him Rs 60 per ticket instead of Rs 80. “Chaliye aaap saath hi dijiye,” the conductor reconciled, with no trace of embarrassment, as he pocketed the money without issuing a ticket.

We must have made at least five to six such stops in the first hour despite the aisle and the driver’s cabin being full. The no-ticket transactions and full-blown haggling continued at regular intervals. Twenty rupees were traded in lieu of thirty, fifteen for twenty and in some instances passengers just handed over a bill and despite the conductor asking for more, maintained a muted silence! The bus kept getting crammed and I could only marvel at the conductor’s faith in how much his bus could take and the people’s tenacity in climbing on board despite the numbers.

Every time a passenger got on, he would crane his neck at various angles above the heads that obstructed the view to the rear, make some comment on the terrible rush and finally found a footing to add another number in this already stuffed-to-capacity  space. As the sounds of ‘khisko-sarko, aage badhiye, thoda jagah dijiye na,jagah banaiye, arrey bhai bahut jagah hai, samaan kinarey kijiye, kahan badheyn, kidhar jagha hai,’ came from within and without, by some sheer force of push n pull, the elbows over my head kept moving a micro-inch away and people on the door step got elevated to the top. People remonstrated with each other on not allowing foot space, clumsy management of luggage in the aisle, the buffoon conductor who kept taking on passengers and so on.

In a crowd where people were literally breathing down each others’ necks there were some interesting observations that I made. For one, in a state and amidst a class of people considered crass and unruly, I didn’t hear an expletive even once, not even the mildest one. Two, there weren’t any smoking Joes. Three, politeness reigned supreme in this shift and shuffle of the population that seemed to implode any moment.

When my son wanted to get off for a pee break, a couple of hands got him off the bus and back again. When someone shouted from the rear about why the bus had stopped the conductor said, “bachchey ko bathroom laga hai”; that seemed to silence the objection and before long the front section of the population jumped off commenting, “ek doosre ko dekh kar lag jaata hai”. And a couple of voices concurred as if it were a comment as banal as, “I’ve had a rather long day”!!

At Hazaribagh a whole bunch of people disembarked, but still there was no seat for those who the conductor had promised. Several voices came out in support of the people who had been promised seats. The hapless conductor simply threw up his hands and once again asked people, “thoda adjust kijiye na”.

Despite the discomfort and the chaotic cacophony that characterized my travel, there was a distinct humour and worldview that was part of the experience. How people travel regularly under these trying conditions with an easy calm, how the fortunate ones with a seat are willing to share the space that they own presently, how what seems virtually impossible to me is practically possible in a country that knows deprivation and hardship only too well, all of these came as big learning to me.

We had to get on to the bus because our train tickets could not get confirmed. I was none too pleased about travelling in the bus but sitting on the first seat, looking at the people who spent the entire journey standing, I realized that the person with no slippers is better off than the one who doesn’t have a leg!!

The journey to Gaya was to see the Mahabodhi temple and the Mahabodhi tree under which Gautam Buddha got enlightenment. My enlightenment fell into a different category of sorts. I’ll remember it more for this bus journey than for the guided tour that we undertook at Bodh Gaya.