Silhouette - I

Khushi - In the sweltering hot Mahnar Summer.

महनारनामा

बिट्टू!! उठेगा नहीं? अबेर हो गया है. गंगाजी जाना नहीं है निहाने के लिए? - दादी मच्छरदानी खोलती जाती है और मुझे उठाने की भी कोशिश करती जाती है. 

मैं अनमने भाव से करवट बदलता हूँ और तकिये के बगल में पड़े मोबाइल में समय देखता हूँ. साढ़े ४ बजे हैं अभी सिर्फ .. सुबह के साढ़े ४. बाहर छत पर धुंधलका अभी भी पसरा हुआ है. 

अब दादी की आवाज़ बगल के कमरे से आ रही है .. वो अब प्रयत्नशील है ख़ुशी और बुन्नु को बिस्तर से बाहर निकालने के लिए. 

कुछ देर बाद मुँह-हाथ धोकर हम सब गंगाजी की दिशा में रवाना होते हैं .. अँधेरा अभी भी पूरी तरह से छंटा नहीं है, पर गंगाजी की तरफ लोग अच्छी-खासी संख्या में मुखातिब हैं. 

पर गंगाजी हैं कि वो अब खुद पहले वाली गंगा नहीं रहीं. जो सड़क हमारे घर से गंगाजी की ओर जाती है उसके गंगाजी वाले सिरे पर पीपल का एक बुढ़ा पेड़ काफी दिनों से खड़ा है. करीब ७-८ साल पहले तक गंगा का विस्तार इस पीपल से मुश्किल से करीब १५-२० मी. की दूरी पर हुआ करता था. पर अब गंगा इस स्थान से करीब ३-साढ़े ३ किलोमीटर की दूरी पर बहती है. पता नहीं यह बदलते हुए मौसम-चक्र का दुष्परिणाम है या गंगा ने मात्र अपना रास्ता बदल लिया है. 

पहले जहाँ गंगा बहती थी, वहाँ अब बरसात को छोड़ बाकी सारे वर्ष खेती होती है. हाँ, बरसात के दिनों में यहाँ भी लबालब पानी भर जाता है .. पानी का इतना भयंकर विस्तार - सोंचकर ही कपकपी सी हो जाती है. पीपल के पेड़ की छांह में बैठे बूढ़े बाबा ना जाने कैसे हमारी बातें सुन लेते हैं और पीपल से कुछ दूर एक हलकी सी ऊँची जगह की ओर इशारा कर खुद-ब-खुद कहते हैं -  जे दिन एतना पानी परतउ कि ई ऊचाई तक छू जेतउ उ दिन समझ ले पटना दू-मंजिला इमारत तक डूब जेतउ. 

गंगाजी में नहाने का कार्यक्रम हर दिन का है. हम रोज़ सुबह ४-साढ़े ४ बजे तड़के उठते हैं और गंगा तक की साढ़े ३ किलोमीटर की यात्रा सम्पन्न करते हैं. छोटा सा दल है हमारा - दादी, छोटा बाबू, मैं, ख़ुशी और बुन्नु .. पहले दो-तीन दिन निशु और नितिन भैया भी साथ थे. हर दिन स्नान के दौरान छोटा बाबू ख़ुशी और बुन्नु को पानी में ले जाकर छोड़ देते हैं.  कहते हैं - जब तक डूबेगा नहीं, हेलना कैसे सीखेगा? और वाकई, ख़ुशी १०-१२ दिनों के अंतराल में  में ही तैरना सिख गयी है .. अब बस आवश्यकता है तो थोड़े-बहुत अभ्यास की. स्कूल खुलते-खुलते आशा है वो एक ठीक-ठाक तैराक तो हो ही जायेगी .. स्कूल खुलने में अभी ३ सप्ताह  बाकी भी तो हैं ..

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दूकान से घर और घर से दूकान करते-करते महनार में दिन किस तेज़ी से बीतते हैं  पता ही नहीं चलता. एक दोपहर जब मैं  और ख़ुशी दूकान पर अकेले हैं तो हम जोड़ने की कोशिश करते हैं कि कितनी सारी ऐसी दवाइयां हैं जिनका स्थान हमें पता है और जिन्हें हम छोटा बाबु की अनुपस्थिति में भी बेच सकते हैं .. जोड़-जाड़ के ब-मुश्किल २५-३० माल ऐसा निकलता है जिसके स्थान के बारे में हमारी जानकारी पुख्ता है. अगर इस बात को ध्यान में रखा जाए कि मैं साल में मुश्किल से दो-चार दिन ही महनार आ पाता हूँ और ख़ुशी भी पढ़ाई के लिए पटना में ही रहती है, यह अंक भी शायद एक बड़ी उपलब्धि ही है. 

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घर से जाते-आते रास्ते में लगभग हर कोई मुझे यहाँ पहचानता है .. मगर मैं लगभग किसी को भी ढंग से नहीं जानता. लोग हैं जो अनायास ही पूछ बैठते हैं - त? महनार अब अईसे ही चलतउ? ज़िन्दगी बम्बैय्ये में गुजार देना है या घर भी कभी आना है?

एक शाम लावापुर वाले दादाजी घर आते हैं, मुझे देखकर कहते हैं - महनार आते रहना. ज़िन्दगी में कुछ रखा है? कुछ नहीं रखा. 

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महनार से निकलने वाले दिन तय होता है कि मैं छोटा बाबू के साथ ही मोटर-साइकल पर पटना चला जाऊंगा. दोपहर तक हमें निकलने की बात है, मगर दूकान बंद करते-करते और निकलते-निकलते रात के नौ हो जाते हैं. रास्ता लगभग सुनसान ही है .. बस बीच-बीच में दो-चार बाज़ार हैं जहाँ अभी भी चहल-पहल है. इसके सिवा मौसम लगन का है, इसलिए कहीं-कहीं इक्का-दुक्का बारातें भी मिल जाती हैं .. इसके सिवा हर तरफ अँधेरा पसरा हुआ है और ख़ामोशी है जिसे बस हमारी बातचीत और गाड़ी की आवाज़ ही भंग कर रही है. छोटा बाबू मोटर-साइकल काफी संभल कर चलाते हैं - ३०-३५ की स्पीड से गाड़ी कभी ऊपर नहीं जाती .. मैं बार-बार कोशिश करता हूँ कि हाथ की मुट्ठियों में महनार को जकड़ लूं  मगर महनार है की ३०-३५ की स्पीड से ही सही मुट्ठियों में कैद रेत की मानिंद फिसलता चला जाता है .. अब फिर से एक लम्बा अंतराल होगा ८-१० महीने का इसके पहले की मैं वापस महनार आ सकूँ ..

छद्म किसान का असल परिवार - मैं, ख़ुशी, दादी और बुन्नु - गंगाजी के रास्ते में - पृष्ठभूमि में पसरी सारी ज़मीन कभी गंगा का अभिन्न अंग हुआ करती थी. आज भी बरसात के मौसम में यह हिस्सा पानी से लबालब भरा होता है.

मैंने हल भी चलाया - ज़िन्दगी में पहली बार.

बुन्नु बाबू की ख़ुशी तो देखिये - हल क्या जोत लिया मानो दुनिया की सारी खुशियाँ इनके झोले में आ गयीं.

दादी और मैं - गंगा स्नान के बाद गंगा को पूजते हुए.

P S - ये सारे घटनाक्रम जून, २०१० के प्रथम दो सप्ताह के हैं. काफ़ी दिनों से यह पोस्ट लिख रखा था, पर लैपटॉप के अभाव में तस्वीरें मोबाइल से लैपटॉप पर ट्रांसफर नहीं हो पायीं थीं. 

Poachers in the train!

Simba is sad - With their paws selling for as less as Rs. 500, how many Simbas will ultimately grow up to rule the jungle?

Train Number - 2142

Journey - From Patna to Mumbai

Date - June 12th, 2010

The train is somewhere in the border area of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, (most probably in the territory of Maharashtra, although I am not 100% sure of it) when this hawker comes into my compartment S10. She is a lady, looks tribal, is obese and is carrying a home-made, dirty, cloth bag on her right shoulder and is trying to sell a white colour round object that she claims is the nabhi of the Kasturi Hiran (Musk Deer?). I have just woken up after my afternoon sleep in the Side Upper berth and am still sleepy. But the name of Kasturi Hiran is more than enough to jolt me back into the world of reality. I ask her to hand that over to me so that I could see it for myself.

The object is pale white, is very-very soft due to the fur that surrounds it and has a small dark spot on one side. And it does smell great.

Kahan se late ho ye sab? I ask the lady.

Jungle se chunte hain. Hiran ke pet se nabhi gir jaata hai. Wahi hum uthate hain aur bechate hain. She replies.

Hiran ko marate bhi ho iske liye?

Nahi. Jo gir jaata hai khud-ba-khud wahi uthate hain.

I remember hearing a number of childhood stories where Kasturi Hiran keeps running all over the Jungle in the search of the sweet smell that surrounds it, but is never able to find the source of it, which in fact lies not outside it, but inside. This is often compared to the search of man for God wherein he keeps looking all over the world, builds temples, mosques, churches, et all for the said purpose and wages bloody battles on those who follow religions different from his own, never realising the fact that God resides inside him and not outside.

But this is for the first time in my life that I am actually holding the body part of the said deer which is responsible for the restlessness of the beautiful creature.

The smell is so great that I am tempted to purchase one for myself. But I am not very sure of her claim that they just pick up those pieces that fall out naturally from its body and do not kill the animal in order to acquire it. Moreover, I am not sure whether the nabhi does fall naturally at all.

Thankfully, no one in my cubicle buys the stuff either.

But wait! The lady has other things to offer as well.

She fishes out a small plastic jar from her bag and offers nails of some animal to the public. She claims they are the nails of the lion cubs whom they catch in the jungle, take the nail out from the paw of the baby and then leave it alive. The object that she is offering for Rs. 500 a pair is a single small, very sharp nail covered by soft, brown fur and in order to actually touch the nail, you have to remove the fur that is surrounding it.

Suddenly all her claims about not killing the Kasturi Hiran to procure the nabhi seems dubious. After all, how can you simply catch a baby lion, take the nails out of its paws and leave it back in the jungle? What are the chances that the poor creature will survive the injury which is bound to get infected and cause greater harms to it especially at a time when its natural immunity is still not properly developed? And why only take the nails of the cub, when you can actually take the complete skin which will no doubt fetch you a far higher price in the black markets of the wild animal body parts? Why be so generous to the baby cub?

She persuades me to buy a pair which I refuse continuously. However, the man on the upper berth opposite to me seems interested and bargains on the price. I try to persuade him not to buy. I try to put across my point by saying that there are only around a thousand tigers left in India today and that we should not buy the body parts of wild animals and encourage their poaching. But he hears me not, goes ahead and buys a pair for just Rs. 50!

Ridiculous! What peanuts are we ready to kill non-human species for?

However, the whole incident did have a lesson for me. It showed how easy it is to write blogs and forward emails to your friends asking them not to buy stuff made of body parts of wild animals and how immensely difficult it is to persuade even a single man from actually buying it in the real world. Especially, when all that you have to pay for the prized possession is just Rs 50.

Going at this rate, how long will it be before we lose all our tigers and lions and other beautiful creatures for all times to come?

Mithilesh Maharaj in Mumbai/Muzaffarpur Hospital Project

"Bihar ko aage le jaana hai ki nahi?" - Mithilesh Maharaj said from the back seat of the Fiat Mumbai taxi. He was telling me and Satyanshu about the Hospital Project of the Muzaffarpur Center of the Ramakrishna Mission. I was so engrossed in the matter being discussed that although I was sitting in the front, I had almost completely turned backwards, folding my legs on the seat.

"When was the last time I had heard such a statement regarding development of Bihar coming from an official of the Bihar Government?" - I wondered. Probably never. And here was a monk, owning almost nothing material, so passionately discussing his plans for the Muzaffarpur Center and how one day, three years down the line, this project will, by the grace of Thakur, be bringing a gamut of cheap yet quality medical services to the people of Muzaffarpur and its surrounding areas.

Mithilesh Maharaj was in Vidyapith during my time there. He was transferred from Deoghar to Patna before I passed out of Vidyapith in 2002. I had stayed with him for one year in Subodhananda Dham, of which he was the Dham Warden along with Kanak Da. Later he was transferred to the Muzaffarpur Ashrama, which has been running a small charitable dispensary there since 1926. He plans to turn this dispensary into a big three storey multi-facility partially charitable hospital. The project has already been given green signal from Belur Math and it was in order to raise the funds for this massive Rs. 8 crore project that he had come to the financial capital of India.

When Brajesh called me up last Saturday to tell me about his presence in Mumbai, I was in the office. It was instantly decided that the following day we will be going to the Khar Ashrama from where we will pick him up and show him a little bit of Mumbai. He had, after all, come to Mumbai for the first time in his life. Tudu and Satyanshu were also to join us.

"Main aajkal Muzaffarpur Ashrama mein hoon, aur aapko ye jankar aashcharya hoga ki main wahan ka Mahant (Secretary) bana diya gaya hoon."- Mithilesh Maharaj said and started laughing at the joke made at his own cost. The four of us joined him. It reminded me of the beautiful informal relationship we shared with our teachers in Vidyapith.

I don’t remember Mithilesh Maharaj taking many of our classes. He was more involved with the carpenter section of Vidyapith that looks after the numerous wooden material needs of the institute. However, I do remember the Sanskrit examination that we had taken in either class V or in class VI. If I remember it correctly, it was he who was our Sanskrit teacher at that time. That exam is probably the most unique examination I have ever taken in my life. There was no question paper at all and the instruction given was simple: “Write what ever you remember. And then just sprinkle the ink on the paper from your pen.” The sprinkles were supposed act as the bindus and halants and give a touch of Sanskrit to the matter written in the Devanagari Lipi. It goes without saying, no one failed in that examination.

Vidyapith really had some innovative ways of teaching and made an otherwise boring education a bit of more fun. Visits to the Aam Bagan and Gaushala under the supervision of Lal Da to get a practical feel of the biology at work in nature and screening of the movie Battle of Britain by Vishwaroop Maharaj during the course of teaching 2^nd world war in History are just some of the examples.

We went to Nariman Point and Colaba and had lunch at a Chinese Restaurant in Worli owned and managed by the descendants of the Chinese population that settled down in India during the British rule. We had discussions on a number of topics ranging from religion, Vedanta, Upanishads and Swami Vivekananda to the current state of affairs in Vidyapith. Later we went to Brajesh's place for some time where we had a small bhajan session comprising of the bhajans that we used to sing in the morning prayer in Vidyapith. Sadly, we realised that we have forgotten a majority of them and needed active support of Maharaj in recollecting them. Brajesh was so enthusiastic about the session that he had in fact purchased a Mrindang from a road side vendor at the Gateway of India for Rs 500.

In the evening I and Tudu went to drop Maharaj at the Khar Ashram, where he asked us to wait and attend the Evening Aarti. Two of our seniors, one each from 1989 and 1991 batches, were coming to meet him after the Aarti.  We were sitting in the small Ashrama dining hall when the seniors joined us. Over the simple snacks of biscuits and tea, we discussed the various possible ways of raising funds for the Hospital Project. The two seniors have a good experience in the corporate sector and they gave inputs and shared contacts as to from where we could start. It was decided that first of all the information about the project must be spread in the Vidyapith fraternity all over India and abroad.

It was a different feeling altogether being a part of a discussion of such a massive project.  After all,  it is not very far back in time that we were just simple little kids in Vidyapith. Also, it reminded me of the numerous discussions that I and Brajesh have had as to why does Vidyapith takes children from the better-doing sections of the society and not from the lower strata that needs its services more than us. After all, don't most of us just comfortably slip into normal routine life once we are out of Vidyapith? How many people are out there in the world who will ultimately gain from our life? Isn't investing so much time and effort in raising us actually a wasteful expenditure on the part of Vidyapith? We often use to ponder.

The ongoing discussions that evening in the Ashrama were important for me as they also gave me the answers to these questions.

My batch was the first +2 batch of Vidyapith. I remember, when the idea of starting +2 was mooted by Secretary Maharaj, the school had zero infrastructure to support it. But then, not only was the required capital of  Rs. 1 crore raised in a small place like Deoghar, but the complete infrastructure was ready within a record time of 1 year. A huge part of that 1 crore must have had come from the ex-students of Vidyapith. That evening I realised that somehow today I am attached not only to Vidyapith but to the whole Ramakrishna Family in a manner more intimate than I had ever thought of. And somehow, even though I may not personally be able to benefit even a single person in my life directly, Thakur, just by giving me an opportunity to be a part of Vidyapith, has given me a reliable and sure-shot way of contributing back to the development of India in particular and the whole human race in general.

Last Sunday was one of the best Sundays I have spent till now in Mumbai. Not only was I blessed enough to be a part of such a serious and mass-impacting discussion, it was the closest that I could have come to Vidyapith while staying in Mumbai. I just hope that someone or the other keeps turning up from Vidyapith in my city of stay. Such meetings not only keep reminding us of the higher purposes of life, but also inject some sanity in an otherwise mad rush to make as much big bucks as one can.

 

Satyanshu, Myself, Mithilesh Maharaj and Tudu in front of Gateway of India. Brajesh is the one who clicked this photo. Satyanshu came with us in-spite of having a fracture in his leg. 

P.S.:

1. The incidents described here took place on 7th of February, 2010, Sunday.

2. All the donations made to Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama, Muzaffarpur and Ramakrishna Mission Vidyapith, Deoghar are exempted from tax under Section 80-G. To have more information on the Hospital Project, please keep visiting the Ashrama website. The complete information is expected to be uploaded soon.

The Morning Ride to Colaba.

“Why don’t we go for an early morning ride to Colaba?,” Santosh came up with the brilliant idea. It was 4:20 in the morning. He was over with his drinks, and I, in spite of putting in a lot of efforts, was neither able to write down any of my thoughts nor was able to get any sleep.

I had been awake since 2 a.m. It was a Monday morning and I had to go to the office.

“Man, I need to get some rest at least, if not a proper sleep. Have to go to the office,” I brushed aside the suggestion.

“Office? How can anyone not go for such a beautiful early morning ride to Colaba, and choose instead to go to the office? And, in any case, you leave for the office only by 9:30 a.m. Right? Don’t worry, we will be comfortably back by that time,” he retorted, looking at me in such a manner as if I had just committed an inpardonable sin.

I still looked uncertain. So he added, “And obviously, me being drunk, it is you who is going to ride all the way.” He had come up with the trump card. My good friend is obviously aware of the intoxication that I am going through these days in the matters related to bikes. “And I can show you a little bit of fast and efficient gear changes as well,” he added further.

Needless to say, it was such a nice proposal that going to office fast became a distant second thing in my mind. I am still left with one sick leave for this financial year, and suddenly it occurred to me that I could always  use the same in case I did not feel like going to office after coming back from the ride.

So, we got ready. Fast. By 4:50, the Honda Unicorn had already been brought to life.

It was Santosh, who rode at first. When we were at the Western Express Highway, he showed me how fast the gears can be changed and how they can be put to other uses like slowing down the bike and providing it with additional power as and when required. It was against the back-drop of brightly illuminated dome of Hotel Sahara Star that I took up the front seat.

And then it was a smooth ride. The bike is in an urgent need of servicing and makes a lot of protesting noises in the city traffic where it must be kept in the lower gears. But soon, we were in the fifth gear, and it was moving smoother than a hot knife can move through butter.

Except for a few trucks and four wheelers, there was little traffic on the road. However, whatever little vehicles were there, they were all in good enough speed. The weather was cool and we could feel the early morning chill. The helmet that we use has long lost its plastic face cover and hence I could feel the air directly in my face.

Soon, we were cruising at a speed of around 78 kms/hour, my highest till now. And although I could not maintain it for long enough duration, it was still an exhilarating experience.

We would have reached Marine Drive in less than next 20-25 minutes, in case we had decided not to stop to have a chai and sutta break at one of those night-time mobile bicycle-shops that are so common in Mumbai; and in case we were not stopped at the early morning police naka, at a place somewhere near the Ray-Road railway station.

We had almost crossed the naka safely, when the hawaldar gave us the signal to stop. He asked me to show my driving license and the papers of the bike. When handed over, he looked at the license and asked, “Patna ka hai?”

Yes dude, agar Patna likha hua hai to Patna ka hi hoga na? “Saala. Ab to fatka lagne hi wala hai,” I said to myself.

When he had gone through the license and the registration papers of the bike and found them to be satisfactorily in order, he asked for the insurance. Paisa agar lena hai to le hi lega, bahana chahe jo bhi ho.

Forget insurance papers, Santosh has been riding the bike all over Mumbai for the past half year without a driving license. There was absolutely no chance that we could have carried that extra burden with us. Ultimately, it was only after he made us pump up Rs. 200 into the already over-sized Indian black economy that he let us go.

Soon we were at the ultimate end of the Marine Drive, the Land's End. We had reached the place fast. It was still dusky and the sun was yet to smile upon Mumbai. 

                                              

The Marine Drive. Sorry, the early morning Weapons of Mass Destruction were still to arrive. We were probably too early :-(

                                             

Santosh had Keema Pao at the Al-Rehmani Restaurant in Byculla (Close to Sewa Niketan). Even though he came here after a gap of almost a year, the head waiter still remembered him. May be, it was because of Vincent, the French guy we grew close to at the hostel. Vincent must be the only white guy that this restaurant has ever been host to and will ever be.

                                                    

In front of Sewa Niketan. Pay your respects Mumbai! The new biker is in the town ;-). Santosh rode the bike from Marine Drive to the hostel, and I took it up from here till our place in Andheri. 

P.S. -

1) The journey on the back had nothing much to write about. Ultimately, not only did I have my longest ride till date, I also managed to reach the office well in time.

2) The incidents mentioned here took place on 1st of Feb. To read the story of the first half of the night, click here.

I have lost my Rhythm with Pen.

Thoughts were easy to come. Words - even they were not a big deal. It was the sentences that would simply not take their desired shapes.

It was 2 a.m. when Santosh woke me up. He was drunk. Both the booze that we had purchased in the evening and the Arsenal-Manchester United match that he was seeing had finished. He needed some more booze for the night. And for that, he needed some cash. And so he woke me up. So, in the pretty late hours of the night, we went to the Citibank ATM at the Tunga restaurant near Udyog Sarathi.

On our return with the needed stock, I went to bed. I really needed to get myself some sleep. I had not slept the whole Friday night due to the pain and the whole day of Saturday had been spent in the hospital. Worse, tomorrow was Monday and I had to go to that hell which corporate morons so euphemistically call office.

But sleep was not going to oblige. So, after struggling in bed for around an hour or so, I gave up. I woke-up and decided to write something for my blog. There have been quite a number of thoughts in my head lately that I must pen down, unless I am comfortable risking their complete loss.

Now, the problem at Santosh’s place is that these guys don’t have a proper laptop. Santosh had one. But he had to submit it back to his office. Remember? He has resigned and is enjoying his days of complete freedom these days. Manoj’s laptop, I discovered, has most of its keys dysfunctional and hence the best use that it can be put to is watching movies and other craps that you might be interested in. As for Sibin, this bhai sahab has gone to Cochin and as it appears his laptop has gone with him as well.

So, at last I decided to jot down my thoughts on a sheet of paper with one of the pens that I could find lying around.

It was here that the problem manifested itself. The sentences would simply not come out. The pen, it seemed would simply not run on the paper in any meaningful manner whatsoever. It seemed I had lost my rhythm with the pen.

It must have been at least two years since I last created something innovative and beautiful with my pen. Last two years, I have been completely out of touch with that beautifully simple, age-old writing equipment. True, I have been using one of those in the office all through these days. But such use has been restricted to jotting down some small illogical pseudo-legal notes or other equally illogical numerical figures. Nothing more, nothing less.

So, in the middle of the night, here I was, discovering that I have completely lost my beautiful rhythm with my pen. And with it, I felt as if I had lost my simplicity. And innocence.

Why did this happen is a question that must be answered.

Is this the result of being surrounded too much by the modern day technological gadgets? Or is it the lack of open spaces, great expanses of sky overhead and green trees all around in a city as over congested as Mumbai? Or is it that I have been consumed completely by the illogical, money making rat-race of the corporate world (which has taken me closer to Lakshmi, but at the same time has vastly increased my distance from Saraswati)? Or is it simply the fact that I have lost the art of writing beautiful, sensible paragraphs?

P.S. - The incidents described in the post occured on the night of 31st January, 2010. Ultimately, I was not able to write down anything at all. At 4:30 a.m., I and Santosh decided that it was a nice morning to go to Colaba on a bike. And so, by 4:50, we were well on our way to South Mumbai. That deserves a separate post all together, which I will post in near future.

I am in pain.

Terrible pain. For almost the last 10 days. And the worse part is that, except for Neil and Santosh I don't have anyone to share it with.

My whole left rib, both on the front and the back, has been aching since long. And I don't even know the precise reason for that. It may be any one or any combinations of the following:

a. The fall from the bike - As mentioned earlier, I have fallen a total of 4 times till now. However, the funny thing is that while all the falls have been on the right side, the pain is completely on the left. Is there a possibility that the shock waves from the fall that originated on the right travelled through my body towards left and found themselves a place comfortable enough to settle down there? I am not sure.

b. The office job - I sincerely pray that this not be the reason. The job that I do is quite mundane as I have to keep sitting in front of a stupid desktop and keep staring at even more stupid legal documents day after day after day. Two of my colleagues have recently fallen prey to the bad sitting posture. While one has got himself a slip-disk, the other has got something with some weird name that I can't even recall. He needs a complete bed-rest for a few weeks and has gone on an unpaid leave to his home. Isn't it sad that you get all these problems so early in your life, and that too doing something that you don't at all enjoy doing? I would no doubt prefer terrible pains due to bike falls rather than even a mild one from my office job.

c. I suspect there might be a third reason as well, which I will, for some reasons, not share on this public platform.

Besides this, I have been having a bad cough for almost the same duration. Although I have consulted Chhota Babu back home and have been taking some medicines prescribed by him, the relief is not really there.

I think it is time I consulted some doctor on the matter. I have been ignoring it and relying on my natural immunity for too long and it has failed to deliver me the results yet.

My Closest Save till Date.

Yesterday, at around 8.30 in the evening, I had the closest save of my life till date.

It so happened that as most of the days, I was walking back home from the office with one of my colleagues. And as usual, I was careless enough not to walk at the ultimate side of the road, where the pedestrians must walk if they love their dear life. Now, there happens to be this bus stop just before the Chakala Junction from where we take a left turn to reach Poonam Nagar where I am currently staying. Just as we were crossing the bus-stop - I on the right side of my colleague - I suddenly heard this loud horn of a bus. I turned around and to my – I don’t know which expression to use here - I find one of these newly launched A/C buses that ply in the city of Mumbai less than a foot behind me. The bus was still in motion and I had barely enough time to escape it. But somehow – thank God - the Universe conspired and I managed to do it just in the nick of time. As the bus crossed me less than 3-4 inches away, I stood on my finger-tips and could very clearly feel the wind rushing between myself and the bus.

While we were standing on the side, my colleague cursing the bus-driver and calling him names, the bus swallowed and vomited its share of passengers from the stop and moved on. The driver of the bus had turned towards my side and was looking continuously at me for a few seconds. And although I could not see his lips moving, I am quite sure he must have been abusing me in at least equal measures as we were doing him.

However, the strange thing is that even after the incident I was neither shaking nor was afraid of anything at all. Since afternoon yesterday, I was feeling a bit depressed in the office. My mind had stopped working and had shut itself almost completely away from the outside world. It was completely in a state of separate peaceful existence. And that I think must have been the reason of my complete indifference towards the almost sinister incident that had just unfolded itself.

Since neither of us two were feeling like walking down all the way to home, we were already searching for the auto before the incident. Luckily, the first auto we asked after this agreed to drop us to our place. Although my dear friend is least likely to agree to this, looking back in retrospect, I don’t think that my decision to take an auto was in any way intensified by the incident. There are reasons for that:

a. I am learning how to ride bike since a few days back. Although I am already taking it in the Mumbai traffic now and am gradually increasing the radius of my territory, I have already fallen 4 times in the middle of the traffic. This has fetched me my fair share of injuries. I have a big enough bruise on the upper side of my right foot due to which I am not wearing shoes to the office these days. Floaters that I wear are also not friendly as they too hurt the bruise. So the moment I reach office, I get rid of them even and walk bare foot the whole day in the office. So, as I was not in a state to walk, I was already planning to take an auto back home before I was almost finished off by the bus.

b. Due to the same reason, I had taken an auto even the day before yesterday and will be doing the same for some days to come at least.

The bus-stop at Chakala where I almost got crushed.

However, the good thing, apart from the fact that I am still alive and have written this post, is that yesterday, after having a quick dinner at Santosh’s place, I was back again on the roads on his Honda Unicorn. I went to Juhu Beach and back, my longest trip till date as a bike rider and had the smoothest and most confident ride till now ;-)