The Lost Summer

Yesterday as I walked down the road, in the middle of a scorching afternoon….I saw a bunch of kids riding bicycle past me. In fact bunch is an understatement. It was a herd of kids. It kept me guessing that why the heck were so many of them out on the road, that too on such a hot patch of the day.
My contemplation over this fact lead me to a realization that, It was not just a 38 degree centigrade day but a summer day. A day in the middle of a vacation. A day in the middle of a lazy stretch of time between two schooling years. A day clustered amongst many of it’s brethren termed as a holidays, some lost and some yet to loose.
As I walked on, I chewed over the event with the teeth of my thoughts. The kids on their bicycles formed a film on my retina and moved in the light of my memory before my eyes whenever I closed them during rest of the day. And maybe still.
The dust blown by the rubber tyres of their bicycles stretched in a cloud over my crammed full brain with the botherations, plans, plots, desires, ideas and every such thing that could gather in it. And in the cover of a thought I am spending the lingering moments.
When was the last time I rode a bicycle in the middle of the day, in scorching heat with my friends……
And along with it came a stream of questions from the seal packed box of my childhood memories.
When was the last time I rode a bicycle in the middle of the day, in scorching heat with my friends……
When was the last time I flied a kite in open sky to challenge a few others in that same blue.
When was the last time I tried to hit a ball that tossed towards me, to send it beyond the boundary, missing it several times before finally hitting it actually and sending it into the fielders hands.
When was the last time I caught tadpoles in polythene bags from the gutter beside the street…….
When was the last time I dragged the juice out of an ice ball dipped in a combination of varied flavoured colours…..
When was the last time I squeezed the sweet yellow paste out of a mango instead of cutting it into tailored pieces of sophistication.
When was the last time fed a stray dog and expected him to shake hand with me…
When was the last time I let a chameleon in the compound smoke a left over beedi of the watchman to see him go crazy…..
When was the last time I discussed ghosts after dinner sitting on the compound wall and felt the waves of fear running through me as I climbed steps to my house……
When was the last time sowed a die cast metal car in the garden to grow a tree laden with them…..
When was the last time brought things mother asked me too from the nearby general stores a thousand times in a day and boasted to father about it at night at the dinner table…..
When was the last time I pestered my sister stealing her toys…..
When was the last time I pestered my poor little mother for a chilled glass of nimbu paani after returning home from a so called cricket match in the supervision of afternoon sun…..
When was the last time I heard a story from my grandparents…..
When was the last time I stayed at my native place for a month, made friends there and went swimming in the river, searched for fallen mangoes and caught fish sitting in their fathers’ dinghies……
When was the last time I was scolded for being home late from play…..
When was the last time I suffered hypertension when my wrist watch showed seven….
When was the last time I missed the vacations on the day before the school…..
When was the last time I did many more things than I remember now in that small interlude….
I go down tracing the time when I did it the last……and I am not able to find out when…..
In the years that followed, I have lost my summer…..



(Maybe this is my nostalgia…pardon me for it……but I long for the time of freedom and pure joy…..which I have lost…. as I kept running further.)

Jai Jawan!!!Jai Kisan!!!Jai Vigyaan!!!

Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan (Hail to the soldier, Hail to the Farmer) – Lal Bahadur Shastri, Prime Minister Of India(1964-1966, vacated the office due to death)
Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan, Jai Vigyaan (Hail to the soldier, Hail to the Farmer, Hail to Science)– Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Prime Minister Of India (2000-2005)

Jai Jawan

Kaaheka Jai Jawan……..Last war I lost a limb. Army sent me home. Who wants a half limbed soldier. But it was a lot generous of them to grant me piece of land. A good price for what I’ve lost. Maybe more than that. How well does a piece of land repay for lost limb….after all both of them are just pieces bhenchod!!!! Ha Ha Ha!!!! Also in the outburst of generosity, they granted me a pension, which they were going to do anyway….but let me add it to their credit. Not to mention that it is meager enough to keep the ends apart. Sometimes I feel that it is spent completely on my medication, and not a penny I left for my family and we have to look up to our friend, the village sahukar for economic support, but it does not seem so. At least I shouldn’t feel so if it does. After all it’s government’s gift to me. And the land that they have granted me is a bit hard to find. Since it only exists on paper. And gets lost quite often, so that I have to go finding it to government offices. And sometimes even they are unable to find it and I have to wait there for hours till they do.
Earlier I used to think that after owning the gifted piece of and, I would sell it off and turn my ‘ex-serviceman’ship to entrepreneurship and start a…yes you guessed it right……a business!!!!. Like a tailoring shop or a laundry or a flour mill or something of that sort…..come on….what else do you expect to get selling a government gifted land in a remote village. Bhenchod gareeb ka majak udate ho kya saalo???!!!.....
But later I had a different plan. Because later there were an intervention enough to this plan of mine, forcing me to change it. I wanted to get my daughter married off with that money. Well….my daughter attained he marriageable age yet tha land did not shift from papers to soil. So I got her married with the financial aid of my dearest friend ….guess who??!!1….Yes…the sahukar.
And now that my daughter is married, I m drowned in debt, my dearest friend send men knocking at my door, who eye my other daughters(I did not kill my girl child being an responsible citizen of this nation) with clear lust, hoping that I would never be able to repay the debt, most of my pension goes into my….you guessed it right again….medicines….I am having a new plan….I will kill myself, so that my pension goes to my family, most of which would not be spent on my medicine and they can repay the debt….and if at all they get the land….They can start a business to support themselves. Liked the plan….I loved it….and now I am going to implement it…..wish me luck…..Yes…and don’t forget…….Jai Jawan!!!

Jai Kisan

It is quite a land I must say…………. For years it has been letting its bosom to the seeds sown to hold root on and still it does possess potent for abundance. It has walked down from generations to generations with the same prowess. Of course, It needs to be rejuvenate. Just a single year of barrenness brings it back to it’s fertility. It belonged to my great great grandfather. Then to my great grandfather, then my grandfather, then my father and then me…..we have spent each and every day, each and every moment with it. Each generation of our fatherhood has grown with it. It is our mother, lover, wife…..don’t tell this to my wife…she’ll come hunting me down to catch me red handed…dumb cow she is. What else does a farmer have to love more than his life.
It feeds us. With life, with hopes, with dreams. It is the source of our existence.
Along with it, it also does posses another additional quality It makes a good location for a Special Economic Zone or SEZ as we call it out of our unending love towards it. No doubt the government is so keen to raise an SEZ over it. It’s fertile soil will no longer yield a crop but a contribution to the economy through the genital tract of some multinational, which will empower the nation, which with the contribution of my land will turn out to be the next economic superpower and I can proudly say that I have contributed to make my country one. Isn’t it a dream worth seeing But my eyes are too small for it.
I have a different dream. I want to cultivate crops every year so that I can feed my family. Educate my children and live a secure life, Such that I don’t have to look up to and wait for someone for providing me a living. Not that I don’t want my country to progress, but please not at the price of my kin’s tomorrow. I will contribute to it with my crop, which nobody is seeming to take seriously nowadays. But I beg to you to please not snatch away my only source of livelihood from me. My dream may not be as big as yours, but many such small dreams as mine together do make a big dream, please don’t forget that. Whilst You talk of skies, I talk of earth. But my words aren’t that meaningless.
Have you hear what I said???.....Wait I’ll come closer to you so that you can hear it….what???!!!....You still can’t hear my voice??!!....Let me step a bit closer….Still not clear???...I’ll shout for you…now???...No???!!...okay….I am shouting at the top of my voice….Come one…don’t do this…this is infuriating….why is your policeman pointing his gun at me???....What exactly is going on…I just came so that you could hear me…..I just……………………………………………………….
‘Police fires at farmers protesting against land seizure by the government for SEZ, some dead, some injured’ – Jai Kisan.

Jai Vigyaan

Vigyaan rahasyo se bhara hai….Science is full of mysteries…..My science teacher used to say. The line still revolves in my head. Later it were the mysteries of human body that lured me into the wing of medical sciences. I went further and further entangling myself into these mysteries. Still were were mysteries which seemed far away. I stepped up each step of education that could take me to those mysteries. I passed my secondary and higher secondary examinations with best marks. An aspiring candidate, but coming from a remote interior of the nation and lower side of poverty line, my father had to sell his piece of land for me to acquire my medical education, with hopes stuck to it, that my days of yielding will come if tat of the crop have gone. An wizard with a power to heal, I slowly turned into. A degree was conferred upon me with an oath to serve. But the mystery was still a step away.
Family had sold the only piece of land, that served as an income. I needed to earn to feed a family, educate siblings and repay the years old debts that accumulated over the string of hopes that was tied to my future. And hence. I fervently began earning whatever tid bits I could, many of my type being all around me. Yet, the mystery and the step amongst us always haunted my thoughts. And the day I was prepared to set my foot on it, a reservation policy by the government slipped it away from below my feet, and I fell on my face. The mystery then seemed to have looked at me and laughed. A little more effort, that was tied to my process of earning, could have taken me to the step. But necessity was a priority. Going near the step never seemed possible to me later. Earnings found newer drains, new earnings had to be poured in…..in a cycle was I caught in…..The cycle still continues. I live a life of mediocrity. I still come across the mystery at odd and even times. Unable to solve it, I keep staring at it and recollect the moment the step was snatched away from my feet and surround myself with a constant gloom. Everything goes dark……and in that darkness I see nothing. Nothing of today. Nothing of tomorrow. All I see is darkness. It sometimes tempts me to be a part of it. This darkness is a mystery. A mystery of tomorrow. One of the mysteries of science I suppose. A mystery about happens to science itself. And those who love it. Vigyaan rahasyo se bhara hai…….Hail to it.…………… Jai Vigyaan