Whispers from the Past!

 Whispers from the past ! 

I was zipping past College Street in Kolkata , when suddenly the driver showed a  name which brought me halting there ..He was showing me The Presidency College, Kolkata. The building was imposing and the legacy of the college was well known, but what really brought me to halt was the memories the name brought to me suddenly from the bygone era-memories of the stories I heard from my father and aunts … this was the alma mater of my grandfather, Pandit Jamuna Karjee , one of Bihar’s prominent freedom fighters and leaders of Kisan movement, back in the 1930s and 40s! Whispers of the distant past came back to me .. stories of my illustrious grandfather … 

My grandfather came from a family of scholars of some repute in their village and the surrounding areas. Unfortunately my grandfather lost his father in his infancy and I heard stories that all the land and properties were usurped by greedy relatives and neighbours . But one thing which nobody could take away was his mothers determination in getting her son educated in an era when education was sparse and hard to come by … the son lived up to his mother’s expectation . He used to walk all the way to school in Dighra, a good 10-12 km away. The family scholarly genes showed that it had survived all the hardships ..student Jamuna earned scholarship to the only high school in the  area at that time (sometime around 1910) ,Northbrook Zila School, Darbhanga! He shone in his academics there and earned scholarship to study in presidency college , Kolkata , at that time probably the most well known and prestigious college in India ! 

 

His academic prowess shone through his years in college as well and it seemed imminent that he will be joining the elite civil services of the British government or some other prestigious government job. But, fate had other ideas - during his college he came in contact with leading luminaries of India’s freedom movement like BC Roy and Rahul Sankritayayan and also the great peasant leader Swami Shajanand. He sacrificed what looked like a promising career in government and jumped into the Freedom movement. He started a weekly by the name Bharat Mitra in Kolkata highlighting the freedom struggle. He participated in the non cooperation movement and was jailed several times by the British Government. His overall intelligence, networking skills and organising abilities very soon made him a leading figure in the freedom movement in BIhar. Later he became the leading associate of Swami Shajananad Saraswati in the Kisan aandolan of 1930s and was also its President for some time. In Bihar he started weekly newspaper called Hunkar to highlight the Kisan movement and the freedom struggle . The weekly came to be the mouthpiece of the prominent voices of that time like Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Sri Krishna Sinha and others. He was close to Sri Krishna Sinha who later was the first Chief Minister of Bihar. It is said that the best things come with a short life span-in mid 40s he was diagnosed with cancer which quickly spread to his entire body and by 1950 he was bed ridden. He  breathed his last in 1953! 

In short lift of 55 years he shone like a shooting star , contributing to the freedom struggle of his state and the country immensely and faded away as quickly!

All these memories flashed by me as I stood by the imposing structure of the Presidency college feeling dwarfed by the mammoth building and its worthy alumni! 

Post script : My grandfather went a bit too soon but his legacy still continues in the region. His contribution to the freedom struggle was noted and found mention by the honourable Prime Minister of India, Mr Narendra Modi during his speech in Samastipur in 2020! 

I am Fifty!

I AM FIFTY!

Older the fiddler , fitter the tune
Now that I am fifty, I am over the moon!

I may be a bit older , a bit greyer
But boy! I feel good that I am in your prayer!

Fifty?!! I am more nifty, and for sure thrifty
I am gritty, a bit more naughty and but not haughty
A bit flirty, sometimes minty, for sure more HEFTY

So hear me out, you whole lout!
My best years are just about!

I had a fulsome first fifty
Sure to follow with a handsome next, in my kitty

I will see you around, when I am at my century
Give you something to cheer, no, not with my obituary!

A Quirk of Fate

....And how much does a quirk of fate matter... in History or for that matter everybody's life? 

Can you imagine what would be the history of India had a wild and aimless arrow from a clueless soldier not suddenly hit the Great Hemu's eye and snatched victory from almost a certain defeat by Akbar whom we now acknowledge as the greatest of the Mughal kings? 

Or for that matter, what would have happened if Columbus had not believed that world is round and he could reach India but travelling west instead of East? Probably the American continent would have not been explored for the next couple of hundred years!

Fate?? What is that???Is there really something like that?! How often have we heard this? Deep down in our hearts probably all of us have some lingering doubts 

But even as we hear this, even the most atheist of us have at one point or other given up the happening to the destiny or fate. 

Let me tell you my own experience with quirk of fate- and I am sure if you dig into your deep hole of faded memories you will have one tale too many to tell of your own! 

If I am not mistaken, it was the year of 1991 . My life was meandering like an aimless mountainous spring - full of energy but with no idea where it will end up. My parents had gone numb trying to imbibe some sense of responsibility into me- " be serious in looking for your career, else you will end up begging on the streets" kind of statements failed to evoke any reaction from me. I was more interested in the beautiful girl who had just joined the college instead of these heavy stuffs.

Going with the flow of the times and just to stop hearing long lectures from my elders, I started filling up the application forms for MBA entrance exams - IIMs, XLRI etc ...even though the normal MBA courses hardly interested me at that time!  One day in the college one of my friends asked - did you fill up the BHU Management entrance exam form? They have also started an International Business programme! My eyes went wide- International Business ??!! That is the thing which actually evoked some interest in me ! But, I didn't have any idea of this course! He said that he had seen the advertisement in the news paper some time back but did not have the paper cutting! I went back home and started looking into the newspaper- I found it finally - in the "Times of India" of about one month back! I quickly went through it- Alas! the last date for filling up the form had already passed - it was 31st January ! Nothing left but to rue my lack of alertness!  I started to go through the advertisement again...I noticed a line in very small letters at the end of the ad- the forms can be filled till 15th March with a penalty of Rs 20! Hope! This was still about 10 days to go! I immediately ran to the bank to make the draft (with the fine off course!) and sent the form duly filled and draft the same day!

As luck would have it, the entrance exam had one paper of International Business awareness- probably the only thing which I diligently read in the news paper apart from the sports news! That was the only paper apart from logic reasoning where I must have scored in the entrance exam- good enough to be declared as the topper in the Entrance exam!

If this isn't a quirk of fate - what is??

What is My Password!

My Password

Groggy Morning! One of those days when I have to make my payment- It has to be groggy and dreadful morning! I try to pay for my credit card bill online. The moment I tried to key in my password, I see the red blinker "wrong password" ! No Not again!! My struggle with the new age security continues!  

My problem is- first of all, finding or inventing a password which is seemingly secure. No I cannot simply type in "password" as my password! If I do that, a message blinks- "the password is very simple and easy to hack, use a password which has some capital letters, some alpha numeric (wonder what is that?) some symbols - blah blah!! By several permutation and combination I do finally create a password which is acceptable to the computer - Success! Similarly I create password for my demat account, my old bank (which has all of INR 10,000 in balance, password for my office account etc. (I thought I will create one password for all accounts but again the caveat- do not use the same password for two different accounts!!! Boy, why do they have to put all these caveats thinking that poor souls like us have all the money in the world- the reality is starkly contrasting!!!). 

But, now I have another problem- remembering the damn passwords! No I cannot simply write it in my diary for there is a caveat with the password- "always store your password where  it cannot be accessed easily" - so no diary! It is the digital age so I go the digital way - I store it in the digital locker in my mobile which has to be opened by guess what! another password!! Poor me!! I really cannot blame myself for forgetting this password. So now all my passwords are locked in a locker whose password I cannot remember! 

Decision time !- I read somewhere that a man's mind is 1000 times more smarter than the best super computer, so I decide to trust my brain and remember all my passwords! But what my smart brain didn't comprehend was that it said " it is 1000 times more smarter" - it didn't say that it can remember 1000 times more than even the stupid tablet -forget the super computer!  I try remembering it and think that I have remembered all the passwords. I try logging in to my office account - the darned message comes - "wrong password, try again". I try again- same result! Since it is already the last date of bill payment I keep trying! After the fifth unsuccessful attempt the accounts gets locked out! Now I try using my other account , the whole process gets repeated and the end result is the same - I get locked out of my own account! Very soon I have locked myself out of all my bank accounts and demat accounts!!! 

Time for the next stage- I try creating a new password. The bank asks for all kinds of question just to make sure it is the right guy creating a new password...all the security will one day kill me! The question asks "who was your favourite teacher in school" . The funny thing is that I didn't really love any teacher ( with due to apologies to my teachers) for the simple fact that they asked all kind of difficult question which I could not answer. So I try putting all the names I could remember of my school teachers and at last in the 10th attempt, finally the bank accepts one name- now I remember she was the teacher who had stopped asking questions from me after I had slept in her class! 

So finally the computer asks me to type in a new password. It also prompts "do not use the same password which you had used the last time" . So this is easy- I simply type in a password I had used to log in but could not since the password was wrong. After typing in and waiting for a few minutes (thanks to the slowest internet we have on the earth!) , a message comes in - "This is the same password you had used the last time, so use a new one!) This cannot be real!!!  I am on the verge of crying now! The world as usual is conspiring against me!!! 

I feel like smashing the laptop and then I stop myself- I don't have the password to make payment for a new laptop! 

Guess I am not made for the new digital world!! 

The Mystery of the Missing VIP- When Bombkesh met his match

Finally Bombkesh the famous detective met his match!!!

Bombkesh the famous bong detective was approached by some of the concerned country men to find out the whereabouts of the country's prodigal son- the रो howl God-i. (the last surname being given by the people of Amothi)

After all it is surely a matter of concern when the most indulged and feted son of the country suddenly disappears before the all important budget session! At the first instance people thought that probably the poor (pun intended!) boy was only bunking the budget session because maybe it might be beyond his grey matter to understand the Economic mumbo jumbo being doled out by the Finance Minister- Now, everybody cannot be a SRCC graduate like Avon Jet-ley. Days passed..., then weeks passed... , still  no sign of the prodigal son! At first there were small murmurs by some usual suspects- the political opponents - they were the first to notice that they did not have their favourite boxing bag around. The murmur started becoming a drone and then after a fortnight the drone turned into a nasty chatter! Finally when A-nob Gogomumy  said "The Nation Wants to Know where is रो howl" some responsible denizens of the country decided to approach the most talked about detective of the country- the venerable Bombkesh Bigshi..

Now Bombkesh, thought this puzzle to be a trivial and set the deadline of 24 hours- Not for nothing Bombkesh had a reputation of solving the most difficult of the problem in a jiffy! He made the usual rounds of the Italian hangouts, the Colombian dens, being disappointed in these,  he checked out GB roads, Kamathipuras, the sonagachis . Alas, Bombkesh's initial efforts really proved his name sake- all of them bombed!

For the first time in his carrier Bombkesh was a bit worried- he asked for extension of the deadline which was duly given- what other choice did the Nation have?It was the question of its future! Bombkesh sounded his pals in Switzerland - with all the noise on black money, maybe the "blocked" money was being wired out ! Still no news. Next he checked out on Porkistan- it was  rumoured that रो howl has some good friends there- again disapppointment! He was told that although his friends in Porkistan had invited रो howl there, the poor chap could not stand the AK 47 s or any of its elks (there was this big story of a AK 49 flattening रो howl in Delhi)

The reputation of Bombkesh was at stake!! The furrows on his forehead were getting deeper by the day! A-nob was still shouting at the top of his voice for the country "The nation really wants to know"!! Finally it seemed that Bombkesh had met his match in रो howl

Just when all seemed hopeless, the proverbial quirk of fate brought Bombkesh's sister to his house- she was really worried about her brother. With her came her five year old son. The young boy heard all the hullaballoo and enquired what this was all about. His mother told him about  रो howl. Oh how the kid was upset! All the kids in the country loved रो howl. They loved the way he spoke- very much like they speak and the best part was that they could make sense of his speeches which the adults in the country could not! Poor kid was was almost crying, then suddenly he remembered what his friend had said-the friend had just returned from the amazing new Wonderland near Pataya! He had mentioned about a old guy who spoke and behaved just like kids! There was this new game in the wonderland where they had to choose the President- and how this guy howled and cried for becoming the President!! - This just matched the description!!!

Bombkesh did not lose a second, took the next flight to Pataya and sure as eggs are eggs, there he was -  रो howl, howling in the wonderland, still crying for becoming the President in the wonderland! Bombkesh heaved a sigh of relief! रो howl God-i was found, his mother pleaded to the wonderland management to make रो howl the President in the wonderland game to which the management thankfully obliged. After this रो howl agreed to come back and so finally रो howl was back in the country!!!

A Hurrah for Mediocrity!

There is one thing which I can claim to be perfect at! Yes I am a perfectly mediocre person- cent per cent! You will not come across a more mediocre person than me- Mediocre in height, mediocre in looks, mediocre in school, mediocre in college and university, mediocre in my career and you can name it.....!

and who remembers a mediocre guy? Do you remember who was the topper in your class? Off-course you do! Do you remember the guy who came last- I bet you do that as well! But do you remember a guy who was somewhere in the middle? I can bet my last penny on it, you do not. Ditto with the guy who was the best looking guy and well, the one perhaps who was really not good looking, but well the guy who was average looking, I am sure you are already whacking your head on it!

But guys (and girls) I guess after tolerating the obscurity for centuries, I guess somebody has to step in for the mediocre. And who better to do it than the self confessed Mr Perfect Mediocre! Yes I am taking the gauntlet - the first time for the Middle guy!

If not for the mediocres who would remember the super achievers? If not for them the murkiest of the deeds of the bad guy would go unnoticed! For how do you remember the tallest tree in the forest? If all the trees were the same, how would the tall ones stand out? The Ferraris of the world out stand out due to the fiats of the world! The Aishwarya's and Katrinas of the world owe it to the most average looking girl next door! The greatness of theNapoleons and the Nelsons, the Pattons and the Rommels, were nothing but to the average bloke in the army slogging their asses off for these greats!

Now that I have made the case for the mediocre, I am really feeling good about myself. There are guys who betray the cause of the mediocre and take a leap into the level above or maybe fall into the abyss of the level below, but, one thing you can be sure of, I will never let the mediocre down!

A hurrah for the Medicore!

Time Machine

Salt and Pepper! Was it really me in the mirror with all the greying hair?! And what are those-small wrinkles appearing at the corner of the eyes? Ooooh how time flies!

The vagaries of life- this is the ultimate truth- how true is the management mantra "change is the only constant"! At least something which I remembered from my management studies- Ha!

Knowing this ultimate truth we keep on indulging the individual egos which somehow always dominates the id. Brother going after brother, wife manipulating husband and vice versa! Laughing at somebody's miseries! How we are consumed with all things puny and petty.

Then one day comes- like it came today, when you suddenly find out that your youth is fading away. And then suddenly you find that the people whom you used to look upto are not there anymore! Emptiness!

But then tomorrow will be another day- going for the meetings, running after fulfilling your egos and then you lose it again.

...Till you again find yourself standing in front of the mirror in another time, another age

Time Machine!How I wish it was not just a fantasy!!