Noisy India

My Papa used to leave for Doordarshan Kendra at 6am to edit the eight am news bulletin. We used to watch that bulletin only because he could pop up a question about any news item when he came back - and specially the item which he was most proud of editing and composing.  And not only he asked us a question about the item, but  he also used to ensure we understand why he was proud of it. Though we really did not find anything interesting about the animal husbandry minister rolling out a new plan for cattle rearing in sunderbans, but he knew that it was a challenge to fit the animal (the cattle and not the minister) in a fourteen second slot.

He would also get up at 6am for the Saturday morning flight with the President of India , accompanying him as the Dpty Press Secy. I used to hate the weekend trips, because they happened almost 4 times a month, and eat up our weekends - the only time I used to get to solve the Asian Age crossword with him.  And most of the times these were to really stupid places, except of course the times he went to Tirupati. At least the Ladoos were good. The two week long foreign trips were much better - a VCR or a Keyboard or a Nintendo - or the numerous gifts he used to get for us. At least those compensated for the empty cells in the crossword.

Those three days of the year - 26th January, 15the August and 2nd October - he used to leave home at 6am - to accompany the President or the Vice president or the Prime Minister to Raj Ghat, India Gate or Lal Qila ….. and we watched the television screens. Till date I watch the complete parade and listen to the complete speech of the Prime Minister. Even though speeches have lost the charm (and content, and intent), it is ingrained in my structure to do so.

And the train journeys ! While we found the overnight journey as an opportunity to sleep till 10am, he still got up at 6 , and bought the newspaper at the first station they were selling it. Then the tea, then the nashta - his love for train journeys always won against my desire to sleep late. And invariably ,  I too was up looking at the fields at 7am. And of course, having the poori aaloo he had bought by almost missing the train. I always thought he had missed the train , but he always appeared as soon as the train left the station.

On 11th February too he played the 6am card. He left me at that time, doctors say that he had a respiratory failure followed by a cardiac arrest. I was there, in the ICU , when they were trying to revive him - but I knew has was very particular about 6am. And he kept his habit.

This blog would never have a comment from him (his last one still shows up beneath this post). My poetry would never be edited, and hence it never would be that good. But he still lives on in my ethics, my enthusiasm, my optimism and my patience - because they are all his, and just passed on to me for safe keeping.

We the People of India, having plausibly resolved to convelute India into a

CHECKREIN, VOCALIST, CELLULAR, DOGMATIC REPUBLIC and to obscure to all its citizens :

INJUSTICE, social , economic and political;

POVERTY, of thought, progression, relief, faith and war ship;

INCONSEQUENTIALITY, of education and ethics;

and to promote among them all

ABSURDITY assuring indignity of the individual and impunity of the politician

IN OUR INCONSEQUENT ASSEMBLY this twenty-fifth day of January, 2012, do

HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE OURSELVES THIS CONVOLUTION