For those who came in late

Disclaimer: The characters and incidents depicted in the following post as well as the one titled ‘A Hero is born’ are fictitious. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental and unintended. The information on the Santal community in this post is factual.

To make any sense of this post, you need to first go back to the post titled ‘A Hero is born.’

Eleven years before the wild goose chase on the streets of Dhanbad.

It was a bleak and sunless day over the Diamond Hostel. Mid december is not the most cheerful time at Dhanbad. The reddish walls of the building that had witnessed the suns of pre-independence India were cold and dry. The Red Fort of the School. The lone figure on the courtyard stood motionless, his tired eyes fighting to remain open. His unshaven face and matted hair and his lips twitched into the familiar smoker’s curl did not need an eagle-eye to deduce his lifestyle. His body ached after facing the ordeals of the previous night and it made standing a painful experience. I am the birthday boy. To avoid using his real name, let he be known as Shaant for calm. Presently, his eyes were fixed on the object before him. From the sleek handlebars to the state of the art fenders and heat deflectors and down to the red framework, the bike before him was every young man’s dream. Shaant picked up the card neatly folded on the bike’s seat: ‘To our dear son on his 21^st birthday.’ The card had come in an envelope that bore the stamp of South Africa and the logo of a global oil and energy giant. He kept the card carefully in his jacket pocket and stared back at his present. Happiness served to me on a plate. Quietly, Shaant turned on the ignition and rode the Harley out of the hostel. He brought it to a stop at the dilapidated Former Army Camp near the hostel. The Army Camp had probably been built by the British and was long abandoned and was not frequented by the students of the School. ‘The bike must be hid here. I hate cynosures.’ He pushed against an old wooden door that creaked and gave way and took the bike to the room inside. ‘Stay here my birthday present. Maybe, when I leave this place, I shall find use of you. Till then it is goodbye.’ He secured the door by a weight which could act as a lock and returned.

“Hey, Shaant, we have another mining excursion tomorrow to Jharia. The booze is as usual on you!” This was a branch-mate termed as a close friend. “Yeah, sure man. But it is you who must hide it at the back of the bus,” replied Shaant. “Ha! Ha! Mining rocks. Look at those CSE guys. They think that being the second batch here through JEE, studying like dogs would make MNCs recruit them! This is ISM man. School of Mines! When would they realise?” This was a rhetorical question from a third companion. They may be birds of a feather but not I. “Why do you care about MNCs? My dad heads one and I can tell you what it is like. They just don’t care about development of an area. For them it is just the profit. ISM is for Indians. There is so much to change here. Even Dhanbad can be developed if we put our mind to it,” retorted Shaant.

Next day at the Jharia mining site, Shaant decided to take a walk while the instructor was busy explaining the intricacies of an equipment. Nothing intrigues me now. The wave of procrastination had taken its toll on Shaant and now he didn’t know what he wanted. He was dying to make the change but he couldn’t tell how or what. He wasn’t even sure about why he had come to the School in the first place. He wandered around the slums of Jharia desultorily. I am the last man alive on earth.

The aborigines of this part of the country are known as Santals. The belonged to the largest tribal community in India and are said to be the descendants of the humans who first came to India about fifty thousand years ago. The present state of Jharkhand is supposed to be an exclusive state for the Santal community. Shaant was always intrigued by the mysterious and rich culture of the Santals and would often spend hours looking for conclusive evidences in the articles published in local newspapers about how the Santals still believed in witchcraft and black magic.

“Please! Do you have some water? I am thirsty.” Shaant knocked on to a nearby hut. An old lady of about sixty came out with a pot of water. Shaant gulped it down faster than a pelican. “What is that building?” He asked pointing to a desolate and wrecked structure that once would have been a grand manor. “Oh! That is the old library. No one goes in there. Soon the municipality would have it razed. It is completely wrecked from within.” Shaant coaxed her to take him in to which she reluctantly agreed after a while. She replied: “Ok, for you may be the last one who sees it.”

Inside the building was a mess. The shelves and the books were badly infected with lice and all kinds of pests. The plaster had crumbled off long back and the stench of long accumulated water dripping from the ceilings filled the place. Shaant gave a quick glance across the central hall of the building. There were more than two hundred volumes with several in hardback and calligraphic cohevers. He brought down a couple of them from the lower shelves onto the floor. The script in which all these books were written was no way similar to anything he had seen before. The strange alphabets did not fall into the well known Devanagri or Dravidian categories. Baffled, he looked at the lady for assistance. “Ol Chiki,” she replied, “the ancient script of the Santals. Here give it to me. I shall help translate.”

The first volume in a thin red cover turned out to be a practical implementation of the Atharva-veda, the most ancient text on medicine. It was written by some medieval Santal priest. The other volume cased in black hardbound cover with ornate golden letters on the top bore the title “Looking beyond the moon.” It was a scientific text on the stars and planets and their effects known to the tribes. Shaant was thrilled. “These texts are priceless. Diamonds in the rough.” Seeing his curiosity, the lady laughed: “I have tried some of the techniques that were taught to us by our parents. Most do not work or one can’t figure out what they mean.” Shaant was not hearing. He opened another book. The heading translated into: “On the greatest gift to man from God.” Clearly it referred to the Brain. Agog, he flipped around the pages, momentarily stopping to ask for translations. The book talked about the seemingly infinite power of the human brain and how to harness it for good as well as evil. It introduced the definition Psycho-sorcery which the book claimed could control the weakness of another human’s brain and magnify it to enormous proportions. The Spell of Procrastination particularly caught his eye. Casting it by a straight eye contact would cause an opponent’s brain to procrastinate involuntarily activities that it is subjected to perform –from muscle contraction to even heartbeat. The effect would largely be dependent on the prowess of the sorcerer.

Shaant had seen enough to understand the power he held in his hands. ‘It may be cock and bull but why can’t I give it a try,’ he thought. He bagged the couple of texts under his arm and thanked the lady for her help. On his way out his gaze transfixed on a strange device next to the door, that he had missed earlier. “What is that?” He asked curiously. It resembled a huge chain with serrations all over it and a solid metal handle at one end. “It is the weapon of the warriors during the times of our forefathers.” Shaant instantly asked: “Can I take it as a memento that I visited this place.” “You are insane!” was the reply. “You bet I am!”

Shaant returned to Dhanbad. This wasn’t the first time he has bunked an excursion or training. However, his steps were firmer this time. He had formed a project. Learning Ol Chiki topped his list of priorities now. Back at the School, he sprinted to the Former Army Camp. I need to bury my treasure. Pushing aside the door, he took a long gaze at the Harley. Red is definitely not my colour.

To be continued.

On the next instalment: ‘Back to the streets.'

My heartfelt thanks to all those who read, loved and appreciated my modest creation. Your comments and criticism are most welcome.

A Hero is born

The black Nissan X-Trail raced across the silent streets of Dhanbad. It was past midnight and as usual, there was not a single living soul in sight, except of course the occupants of the SUV. Four men on a secret campaign. The night was darker than usual today. New moon. The SUV crossed Big Bazaar with a loud screech that echoed into the night.

High atop the Big Bazaar complex, a silhouette gazed at the dark vehicle. It definitely had aroused his suspicion. This complex was his outpost, the one of the few hotspots of Dhanbad. It was his personalized watch-tower onto the Dhanbad crime world. For two years now, he had been tracing the source of arms smuggling into Dhanbad that made its way into Jharkhand to the hands of the Maoists. He had always had this suspicion that seemingly peaceful district of Dhanbad was a safe passage for the allies of the Maoist party in Bengal and that the seemingly dormant Coal Mafia of Dhanbad had a role to play in it. Now finally, today his informant, had come up with news that he hoped better be good. It was time.

He put on his black ballistic armour and the red cape that hid partly hid his face and thus his identity from the world. Black and red where his favourite for they together symbolized the spirit of Jharkhand-coal. The golden single stick of dynamite on emblazoned on his chest represented the name he had given himself: Dynamite. How Dynamite came into existence is a story of another time but let this be known that he was once a frustrated student of the School of Mines and he had dropped out midway to make Dhanbad a safer place for its citizens.

Dynamite had made up his mind to chase the vehicle for he suspected that this could be a lead onto the case he was looking into. He made his way across the rooftops and jumped onto the nearby eucalyptus tree and made his way down to the pavement where his faithful black Harley Davidson XL-1200 waited patiently for him. It was custom made with a 1200cc V-twin engine and a 6-speed gearbox, capable of reaching speeds up to 150mph. Also it had the best silencer to shun the engine noise thus making stealth chases a reality.

Dynamite rode the behemoth into the night, his every gearshift bringing him closer to the cruising X-Trail. They had already crossed the School and were on the road towards HIrapur. Dynamite overtook the SUV, past the windshield and brought the bike to a halt with a masterful ninety degree swing before the vehicle, blowing gravel and sand on the newly constructed road. The X-Trail stopped and the jittery voices from within that came through the partly opened window made it clear that he had taken them by surprise. “What is that? We will be late. Why have you stopped”, cried one from within. “The funny looking guy is stopping the car. Tell him we don’t have time for dramatics!” another impatient voice replied. The door opened and four men came out, their holsters clearly visible. It was an old age philosophy for Dynamite: let the opponent make the first move. With a height of just 5’7’’, he wasn’t the tallest of heroes and hence this was also the smartest of the things to do. “What do you want?” cried the tall and dark man, his fingers crawling towards the holster. “Step aside.” Dynamite’s voice was ice cold. Don’t mess with me. “You have no idea what you are dealing with here. We do not hesitate to shoot.” The third guy pointed his gun at Dynamite. It was a strange looking gun. I would love to examine them at leisure. There was a silent swish as Dynamite’s arms made a strange movement and the man holding the gun was on the floor. The foursome stared wildly at the weapon in the hands of the dark crusader before them. It was a long whip-blade with razor-sharp spikes all along it. It had been wrapped to his belt all this while. Dynamite hated guns and projectiles. Too noisy and too risky. This melee weapon went well with his mastery in martial arts and acrobatics. The three others leaped towards him and grabbed him by the neck. Too strong yet too weak. The surprise was yet to come.

Dynamite stared into the eye of the brawn holding him from the front and muttered something indiscernible. Mumbo-jumbo. His captor was soon on the floor with his hands on his head. Acute headache had seized him. There was no time to waste. He landed a back punch that cracked the jaw of one and staggered back onto his feet. A final swish of the whip-blade tore open the neck artery and brought the final man down.

Dynamite walked back to his bike. His Psycho-sorcery had once again saved him from tight corners. His ability to control the neuron impulses of the opponent always served him well. He had simply casted the spell which he called ‘The Alcoholic Charm’, had caused his opponent to go into an intense hangover after drinking too much of alcohol. Psycho-sorcery had its own disadvantages. For one, the more powerful the spell was, the greater would be the caster’s physical weakness on the aftermath. Also, it could be casted only on one person at a time and required eye contact.

The toolbox in the bike contained an assortment of military equipments. From lock-picks to silent EMP granades which could disrupt a security system, he had everything. For now, all he needed was a lock-pick and some rope to tie his captives to the divider. In the morning, Prabhat Khabar would report how the Dhanbad police had successfully captured armed robbers and foiled their plan to rob some bank. Anonymity was Dynamite’s identity and Stealth his greatest bet. Dynamite picked the back padlock of the vehicle and stared at surprise of what lay before him.

The back of the car contained boxes after boxes of ammunition and state of the art handguns. The goons that lay groaning had held similar handguns. He closely inspected them. Stealth handguns from China. There use by the Maoists would bring in guerrilla warfare on the streets. However, Dynamite’s glance was now transfixed onto another interesting object: a sheet of rolled paper. He brought it out and spread it out on the street. It was a blueprint that looked like the map of a building. There were two maps on the same sheet, one marked Main Building and the other: Basement. Dynamite glanced over the Main Building’s map and could predict from its architecture consisting of hallways and arches that there were only two such buildings in Dhanbad: the Main Building of the School and the DGMS (the Directorate General of Mine Safety.) The other map clearly indicated the whereabouts of some underground storage facility in one of these buildings.

This would be another of those sleepless nights. When he was a student of ISM, Dynamite had mastered the art of undertaking successive night-outs. This night had just begun.

To be continued.

Note: This was my attempt to create your own ISM’s superhero. This might well become a series if I get your encouragement and ideas. On the next instalment : ”Who is Dynamite?”

Non Trivial Observations on New Year

Just two more years until the world comes to an end, if the said predictions are true. Therefore I must hurry with this post. My life so far has spanned slightly more than two decades according to the earthly calendars (I would be an old man if I lived on Venus, the most erotic planet.) During this time, I have accomplished several difficult and dangerous tasks like taking birth and completing 15 years of school life and so have most of you. Congratulations to our generation for these feats. Now, returning back to my life; after I completed school my parents thought that I need to accomplish more and felt that it was real important that I go to college and process myself into a postgraduate. This and some more irrelevant stuff is what essentially the previous decade of my life comprises of. So as the world gathers to celebrate the onset of another decade which will be followed by another one and yet another one, (if the initial assumption of this post is found incorrect) I try to ponder as to what characterized the previous decade and what expectations one could have for the next one.

• Landing of aliens on earth: No, this has not taken place in the previous decade. This is much the same as in the past 4.55 billion years of earth’s existence. I really hope that in the years to come, our earth becomes home to greener and wrigglier intelligent life-forms from the entire universe. I am tired of moving around the carbon and silicon based mundane bipeds that I come across daily.

• Damage to buildings: The past decade’s inception was celebrated by the blowing up of tall towers in New York. This was followed by returning the favour to Afghanistan and Iraq. We too celebrated the occasion by renovating our house in Gorakhpur. This time, I really hope to see World War 3. Let us give the next generation some more dates to remember.

• Rise of cryptic terms: Terms such as ‘Global Warming’ and ‘Energy Crisis’ became immensely popular in tea-stalls and public transports. Several serious steps such as inclusion of Environmental Science courses in school and college textbooks were taken to resolve these problems. Let us pledge to riddle the next decade with creepier terminologies.

• Mobile Technology: I remember gazing in awe at a man with a mobile phone with a flashy monochrome display. A wink comprising a decade later I was gazing at another cell-phone with GPS technology and a laptop with a quad-core processor. If the past decade was the age of mobile technology, I really cross my fingers for an age of nanotechnology. The future with wall size displays and microscopic computers is now.

• Nonlinearity in life: This is a personal observation. So far my days have been almost linear. I skip breakfast, bunk a few classes, attend some, weep about not having a girlfriend, watch movies, chat until 3 AM on GTalk and go to sleep. My new decade resolution is to develop more nonlinearity in my life.

Well, I must take leave of you now, my patient reader. Wit Within completes a year of existence after four days. So, you may call this one a sort of an anniversary post. Thank you one and all for being attentive to what The Other Devdeep has to say. Happy new year!

Three Stories

It has been a while since I wrote down on this space and hence, I try to conclude an extremely dull and unsatisfactory day by penning down this piece which I must add, was promised to my brother to feature on my blog more than a month ago. It was he who narrated to me what appears next in this post.

Now, my dear reader, before you try come up with enthusiastic questions as to why my day was unsatisfactory, let me quickly summarise what this post is all about. What follows here, are three stories (very short ones!), each having a moral from the corporate world. Remember that you will enjoy the stories even more if you try o figure out the moral yourself before reading the same, described after each story.

· The First Story: A wild turkey was sitting on the top branch of a tree. A rabbit spots it from the ground and curiously asks: “Hey! How can you sit continuously for so long and do nothing.” Before the turkey could reply, a hunter spots the rabbit and shoots it dead while the turkey flies off.

Can you guess the moral of the first story? If you want to sit and do nothing, it is better to be on top.

· The Second Story: A rabbit asks a cow: “Mr. Cow, I want to climb up the tree. Can you tell me how to do it?” The cow cheerfully replies:”Sure! Just eat my dung and you will gain enough energy to climb the tree.” The rabbit eats the cow’s dung and is able to climb the tree. Moments later, a hunter spots the white rabbit in the tree and shoots it dead.

This time, can you guess the moral of the second story? If you reach the top after gaining favours from others and then do nothing, you are sure to fall.

· The Third Story: It is freezing cold. It is so cold that a cuckoo sitting on the top of the tree freezes and falls off the tree. A cow standing next to the tree feels pity and drops some dung on the frozen cuckoo. The dung is warm and it melts the snow on the cuckoo. The cuckoo becomes so happy that it starts singing. A cat, on hearing the cuckoo sing, pulls it out of the dung and eats it.

This story has three morals:

i. Not everybody who drops dung on you is your enemy.

ii. Not everybody who pulls you out of dung is your friend.

iii. If your life is in deep shit, do NOT sing about it.

Well that’s it for now. I hope you enjoyed the stories as much as I did.

Not a part of this post but as an aside: Folks interested in visiting the state of Jharkhand may like to visit www.traveljharkhand.com before making their plans.

Before the Arrival

This is going to be a hurried post. The entire campus is going wild. There is excitement everywhere with the ever dozing administration turning into perfectionists overnight. There is just one topic of discussion everywhere: “Rahul Gandhi is coming to the School.” From state party leaders to a mess worker, it is the same utterance everywhere.

Here’s what different sections of the society had to say before His (‘the almighty?’) arrival.

· S State party G.Sec.: “Mr. Gandhi thinks that by coming over here and probably sleeping in some tribal homes and eating there bread, he can fix their problems.” (The state needs Godfathers like us!)

· I Institute’s Administration in a meeting with the students: “How can you even think of calling a politician to a technical institution? No wonder why we are always reluctant to support you.” (We are reluctant to construct a hostel in a year and now we have to construct a helipad overnight!)

· T Teachers to students: “Oh! Mr. Gandhi is coming. Will he talk to you? Please convince him to change the name of this institute.” (Yeah! A light in the darkness for you.)

· S Students to administration: “Postpone the examination scheduled on that day and leave the rest to us. We will find a way to get things done through him.” (The true master minds.)

· C Canteen worker: “Rahul Gandhi to congress ke liye aa rahe hain. Wo is hostel canteen ka kya, main canteen hi halat nahi sudhaar sakte.” (True words of wisdom.)

· M Mess Worker: ”Aamra o oke shunte jaabo. O kon bhaasha e kotha bolbe? Hindi na Bangla na Ingriji? (We too want to listen to him. What language will he speak in? Hindi or Bangla or English?) (The one truly interested!)

Feel free to add your reaction as comments.

Alternatives galore

I observed him carefully again. Here was a boy sitting on the opposite birth to me. My age. Hair reaching up to the shoulder, shirt unbuttoned to the waist and jeans folded up to the knees. I assumed he too was going to Delhi like me albeit with a very different purpose. I was on a mission. I was the elite. I guessed, he must be returning to his college. I didn’t venture to bother him and continued day dreaming about what lay ahead of me. A while later, my eyes fell on him again. This time he was reading from his diary. I observed that it was some handwritten notes in Hindi. Examination then; last minute preparations. I couldn’t help smiling. Poor dude is suffering from nerves. However, the fact that the notes were in Hindi aroused my curiosity. “Where do you study?” I asked after some hesitation. He told me. I looked at him with utter disbelief and amazement. I was curious and asked him to tell me more.

He told me that he was one of the twenty successful candidates to be selected from a hundred thousand applicants. He told me that his institution was one of its kinds in the country. He told me that his institute’s alumni included great names like Nasseruddin Shah and Anupam Kher. He told me that he was a student of the National School of Drama.

He too had a viva-voce during his entrance test but he was asked ‘what lights would best suit the stage while staging a murder scene.’ He too has internships to worry about but those include ‘training schoolchildren to stage famous plays.’ Finally, he too is tensed about his placements but that depended upon choosing between the theatre and the screen.

I flipped through the pages of his diary. It countained notes on the types of the modern stage, stage lights, latest costume styles, a list of all oscar winning movies and dramatis personae of plays he had directed in the past.

I asked him: “How? How could you build up the courage to choose such a different track?” His reply was: “I knew I was born for the theatre. I have been acting since I was eleven and staging plays in the town since I was fifteen. I knew I had to do this or else I do not know what I could have done.” Such was his confidence, his zeal to do things differently.

I wondered how many of us had unique talents that suffered in the hands of compulsion and stereotyped professions. I have known great actors and lyricists masked as engineers, authors and painters left craving as unwilling technocrats. Will we ever realise that we do not know what we want to actually do in our life. Quoting the play ‘Love in December’: “Most people do not know that they do not know what they want to do in their lives.” How true. I still believe that there is still time to seek what our heart seeks. I still believe that we ought to keep looking. The alternatives galore.

The Rename Game

I desperately wish to write something. Blogging is a great way to relieve tension and bring up the calm. As usual, I have nothing to write but the motivation is high and the night has just begun. So here I am; hunting for a topic to pen down my thoughts. My last presentation of one aspect of college life seems to have gone well with my scanty bunch of faithful readers. Therefore this time I try to explore another fun aspect of college life: the renaming. It can be easily said that you enter college with your pleasant and sweet name and you go out re-christened with a cryptic acronym drafted out of your name. I and my friends have been victims of this weird tradition and I am sure my dear reader, if you be from some other college, you have been too. That’s how, Siddhant becomes Sid, Nilesh becomes Nilu, Gyanendra becomes Gyani and Vijit becomes Biju (this one in paricular reflects the creativity of a professor.) As far as I am concerned, I have been DD since time immemorial. I think it must have been sometimes after my birth that much to my annoyance, I have been stamped by this acronym which has now become my identity and has replaced my name which could have reflected my parents’ creativity.

However, I consider myself luckier as there are worse victims. There are people, who are almost unidentifiable if you call out their true names. I often wonder who the hell Ashish Yadav is for he is Haria/Harry (for his friends decided to rename him to make his name sound like that of a manservant) or who is Satyendra Aggarwal for he is Boss (for his dominating style.) Nor can I decipher the name Shubham Shankadhar for he is better known as Kholu (for he holds the best JEE rank among all the ISMites of my batch.) Then there is the case of Telly who is called so because of his exceptionally poor eyesight. I am sorry but I do not know his real name.

The rename game runs high in college life and most names stay even after leaving the institute. There is hardly anyone left out whose name hasn’t been transformed into something creative. My message to all those who believe in the statement: “What’s in a name?” Well, at college your name may not just identify you. Beware! If you have a bunch of creative friends, it might just reflect your entire personality or even peculiarity.