Drone Acharya

He doesn't do penance high in the frozen landscape of the Himalayas nor does he wear scant clothing and live the life of an ascetic. He is not the cool guru (Kul Guru) of the Pandavas and Kauravas who shaped their destiny nor does he bear the stigma of unfairness to Karna and Eklavya. On the contrary he has a degree in aviation engineering from a renowned Indian technical university and weighs a little over 80 kilos and uses his i phone only to call his mom (for those of you people who are clueless- ‘i ‘ is mother in Marathi). He was in the team who developed the first predator drones. Although his real name is Sid Acharya, his colleagues call him Drone Acharya.
Some say he was part of the brain drain from India but he insists that he came to the US for making his country proud and as a natural byproduct of that noble work, earn in dollars and buy real estate in rupees back home. Moreover he valued his individual freedom and this was a land that guaranteed it. When he was headhunted, he was told that the flying machines they were building were for the sole purpose of unmanned reconnaissance. He gladly took the offer believing that his work is going to prevent wars. Later as the war on terror expanded, he got the orders to see the possibility of attaching some kind of payload for targets. By that time he was already famous as Drone Acharya among his colleagues and he took as a matter of respect to look into such possibility. When the initial trials were successful, his friends in Pentagon and White house appreciated him for the work he had done to save countless American lives. The drones were killing terrorists without having to risk the lives of fellow Americans in combat.
Later when the new President assumed office, the number of missions per year also increased. Some douche bag journalist published a report of civilian casualties in drone attacks. Droneacharya was concerned but his mentors quickly provided an antidote for this sudden rise in conscience. It was a word called collateral. It was a beautiful word that had the ability to absolve anyone of anything. Those civilians-men, women, children were collateral for the war on terror. Droneacharya and his team had no personal animosity with them and slowly the drones would be upgraded for precise attacks. These dead civilians provided vital test data that would help in precisioning of this weapon system. Sometimes he thought he owed a lot to these dead people. They died an unsuspecting and impersonal death. One moment you are doing your daily chore, the next moment you are struck by a missile without any warning. All because your next door neighbor had featured up in somebody's most wanted list.  It was like the wrath of the biblical God striking the immoral in Sodom and Gomorrah. Sometimes he would get nightmarish dreams. He would see dead people-their limbs splattered and blood spewing out of their exit wounds. Probably this was because of too much CNN.  He would then turn online to Facebook for seeking a way out of this melancholy. Once he went to a nearby Dunkin Donuts and met his old friend Ankur. He discussed about his condition and his desire to move to some other project or go back to India to his family and start some new business there. Next day when he reached office he was surprised to see a bottle of champagne and a letter from the director of his department stating that he was a valuable resource and that they cared about him. They would also increase his paycheck.
He was moved by this warm gesture and had already started feeding numbers to the currency converter software to measure his increase in wealth. However something felt amiss. This expediency of his department in understanding his expectations was unnerving. It took him few hours of grueling interdepartmental phone calls and accessing some restricted documents to unearth the information that drones were now also being used for doing civilian surveillance for homeland security. This was a being beta tested by another unit of his department. He went to the nearby window and looked up at the sky, as if he can see one flying by.

The Garuda Paradox

This was his first week in Dallas. Prem Daha had come on a L1 Visa to US. He was a Bengali of Nepalese origin or the other way round. No one knew his origin with certainty and he too was never keen on divulging it. He liked himself to be known as citizen of the world instead of being associated with any particular place or culture. So much so that his friends and colleagues believed he was one of those rare creatures who could not be divided back to its origins.
In order to keep his expenditure low and create a sizeable saving for investment in real estate back home Prem Daha had brought in his own assortment of food items-lintels, rice and the five necessary spices.He planned to eat rice and lintels on weekdays and prepare some fresh vegetable during the weekends.It was the first saturday and he had to find a local vegetable store.

He walks through the broad streets. The evening wind outside has a rawness in it and so are the people.On the 66th street he sees a vegetable mart-Fresh veg. He walks briskly to the entrance.It has a revolving door. He gently presses the fibre glass with his palm-the action reminiscient of a plaintiff taking oath in the name of God in a court of law.While he is entring the revolving door there passes a man diametrically opposite to him for exit.For a brief moment their eyes make contact. The man smiles at him. He holds a carry bag containing snake gourd.Prem passes to the security section only to be stopped and frisked. Indian-asks the security guard.
Yes

The guard smiled and let him proceed. Inside there were rows and sections for different kinds of vegetables.Seemingly all farm fresh, organic and high priced. Even after ten minutes of digging into various rows and almost bringing down the tomato section, he was not able to locate the object of his desire-the snake gourd. Now he had to do what he did not want to do-ask the location from the supermarket staff. He was very aversed to asking directions from the supermarket staff in any supermarket. He felt that made him look less knowledgeable, a person who has not subsumed the details of his environment.Still he mustered the courage and approached the black lady staff standing nearest to him. He was barely able to say Mam when he lost his speech-as if some adhesive had hadrened in his vocal chords. The lady thought he had some speech impediment and brought in speaking kit for the vocally challenged. He nodded in such a way that it was difficult to say either it was a yes or a no. After a few seconds of inertia he pulled out his cell phone and said excuse me for a sec. He hurriedly keyed in his screen unlock code and called up Ank-his childhood friend and currently studying physics in a neaby college.
Hello Ank.
Hi, how are you? How is you fist weekend in US coming up?
Fine, its fine. I have in Fresh Veg and am in a problem.
Cash?
No not cash. I wanted to buy snake gourd but couldnt find it. Now i have to ask the staff for direction.
So whats the problem. Last i knew you had A plus in English.
No its not about the language. My folks back in India used to say that we should not utter the word snake in the evening. Otherwise we might encounter it. And you know i dont want to schedule a meeting with those spineless creatures.
Really? And what if somebody had uttered the word snake. Is there a counter utterance. Some kinda antidote.
Yes i think there is. But i cant remember. Can you google it for me?
Offcourse i can. Give me two minutes.

Even after twenty minutes his cell phone did not ring. Prem grew restless. He could sense that security personell were watching him and it could be anytime they called homeland security. He had almost dropped the idea to buy snake gourd and started walking towards the exit, when he heard a familiar voice.It was Ank. He darted inside almost pushing the entrance security person.

I tried to google it. But could not find any references. So i called up my granny in India. She said that people living in the western part of bengal belive in this snaky thing. The antidote is to chant the name of Garuda thrice as he is the arch enemy of the snake.
Dude, that you could have told me over the phone.
Yeah, but you forgot that speaking over the phone also counts as an utterance and you have already utterd the word snake many times. So in order to avoid all this confusion i boarded the bus to speak in person.
Good.So now all we have to do is utter Garuda for all the instances when we mentioned snake.
Yeah. Including this one.
They both cacluated and uttered the word Garuda Garuda requisite number of times.The black lady staff was looking at them all the while like some audience watching a magic trick in amazement.

Both had the look of calmness in their face as we find in a person who has just finished his first crossword puzzle.

So Prem all i need to do now is ask for the snake gourd section and utter Garuda after it.
Man i have been thinking all this while and maybe you dont need to do that.
Why?
See the word snake gourd itself is a paradox as it contains both words snake and garuda.Its both-the dote and the antidote. So i think as soon as you utter sanke gourd you are already neutralising the effects of the bad one. I wont utter the word now in order to avoid counting.
Ok. I will do as you say.

They both came back to Prems appartment. Prem cooked dinner which included snake gourd. After drinking beer and watching some episodes of Parks and Recreation they decide to hit the bed.Completely drunk and half asleep they talked about the years bygone and laughed and were contended that they had managed to ward of a potential danger.

He dreams. He sees his grandmother sitting by his side on  a moonless night and telling stories about snake bites. He sees the monumental snake statues like the Easter island monuments, extant even after centuries. He finds himself wearing a lab coat and reading a dozen or so X-Ray reports of a person. Each of those reports were of  spinal cord section of human body and had the name Ank written on it and distinctly visible was the missing spinal cord.

Dont shoot strangers on a picnic

K Ray always had a passion to see the unknown and if possible to capture it in his camcorder. Sometimes that amounted to transgressing private space. On a cold December day he went to a picnic on a lake with a group of people. He had taken his cannon camcorder to do some sight shooting. But instead in no time he was shooting people that were not from his party. This was the result:

Even after that eventful experience K Ray's passion for the unknown was undeterred and analysing the whole situation, he reckoned that the only thing that could have caused that incident was the lake. Stagnant waters are resemblance of a stagnant culture. Maybe the strangers hitting him would have acted differently if it was another location-a vibrant location-resembling an open and vibrant culture. Armed with this eye opener and off course his camcorder he headed to a nearby waterfall. And this was the event that unfolded:

He felt at least his reflexes have certainly improved.

Dum Dida

One Saturday morning as Bokreshor(aka Boka da) was immersed in watching reruns of his favourite TV shows which he had missed the entire week, he received a call from his uncle. His uncle said in a sombre voice that his grandmother was no more. Boka da was stunned and few seconds passed before he could use his vocal chords to make some sound.

How did this happen.

Well as you know she was not keeping well for quite some time. For past few days she stopped eating as well. The doctor said there was no hope. Every morning she would ask for me. Today when that didnt happen i went to her bed and found she wasnt breathing.

Ok. Did you call the doctor?
Boka da just wanted to make sure she had indeed died. There had been previous instances when she had suffered fits and most people thought she was dead-but she would rise up again and give that lost look.

Yes, he pronounced her dead.

Boka da wanted to be there for the last rites but his uncle said it would be impossible to wait that long. She was already a thin and whatever was left in that bare bone structure had to be immediately cremated.

Boka da had to let go.

As he kept his cell phone his mind wandered to the memories of his grand mother. He was not sure whether she actually knew he was her grandson. She had lost touch with reality quite some time ago. She belonged to a well to do family in erstwhile east Bengal. One night she had to leave everything behind in a mass exodus. Then started the endless journeys from one refugee camp to another. Her sons and daughters adjusted with relatives where they were barely able to sustain a living. Somewhere in between she lost her husband, and also her connection to reality. Her mind refused to believe all that had happened. Gradually her schozophernia reached high levels and she lived in her own utopia where everything was as before.People called her dumb.

Its not that she wasnt taken for medical consultation. Shock therapy was also used. But it got worse. She completely went out of sync with the present. For people taking care of her, it was good in way. She didnt complain.Ate a meager meal and kept talking to invisible neighbours and people. Every cry of child was one of her own. Her sons and daughters didnt age.

But sometimes she would be in a fit of rage and go out of control. and start abusing some people of betrayal. This could be triggered by a simple thing like a wheat bread or a dark skinned person.

However Boka da's memories of his grandmother were rather fond. She would call her by a different name and sometimes would say he was her son . Other times it could be grandson. She would recite some poems to him and would caress his face with those wrinkled hands. When Boka da was a kid, he would be very eager to visit her during summer holidays. She was his best playmate as she would always relent to whatever he said. Later in his life when things would go wrong with him, he would wish he could develop the same kind of world his granny created for herself in which difference between the real and unreal ceased to exist.

*****************************************************************************************************************

The brahmin was chanting the mantras. Words that said the departed soul of his granny to go to God, and live in holy places and the holy rivers.As the brahmin in the ghats chanted those mantras to Boka da, the mantras that ask the soul of the departed to relinquish any attachments with the loved ones and be with God forever instead of coming back to earth in new incarnations. Boka da didnt want to do it. He didnt want the soul of his beloved granny to be lost like that, to be part of God or live in holy places and holy rivers. He didnt want to sever the attachments. He wanted his granny to come back to him-to live the life she rightfully deserved- the life that was changed when few people decided the fate of an entire generation-the life that she made believe in her distorted reality. He wanted her to live a fulfilling life and not in deprivation...

He didnt repeat those mantras completely. When the rituals got over he switched on his cell phone. There was a message from his wife. She had tested positive for the pregnancy test.

******************************************************************************************************************************

Remembering Mr Bose

A song from a new movie-Delhi Belly has been occupying continuous bandwidth-be it FM or television. The producers of the album claim it to be the next youth anthem. On a closer look or shall i say hearing, i heard that phrase wrapped in a punk rockish music. Bhaag DK Bose..bhaag.

This immediately set me back to seventh standard. Being a convent school run by the strict disciplinarians-The Brothers as they liked to be called, we the students were not allowed to utter an iota of expletives. But as the old adage goes-you can take out the boy from the country but cannot take out the country from the boy-so were we so much influenced by the society around us, it was impossible not to have an urge to bring out the unspoken from the mouth. But in school, any swearing was treated like blasphemy in the dark ages-if the teachers or brothers came to knew about it you would be made to face the Khandwa friend-which was akin to burning on stake of the dark ages. And no matter how hard you tried to be conspicuous you would get snitched. But as they say necessary is the mother of invention so we did develop some unique phrases to bring out what was forbidden. This particular expletive we are taking about, referred to female genitalia and was on a common usage. On reversing the expletive it became a common bengali name DK Bose.So the guys who at best could say idiot and stupid and same to you inside the school walls now would say- Shut up you DK Bose or Whats up DK Bose. This started a revolution of sorts and people came up with more innovative phrases to disguise the expletives. These are few of them that i can recollect now:

Jha saab Tu Saab-Disguised as calling someone with respect this actually referred to pubic hair. Other variations of this included jhandu balm and jhand muraina.

Kaun dam de raha hai- Although translated from Hindi this would mean who is threatening you but a closer look will reveal this referred to condom.

You cant do-although plain looking this referred to sodomy.

BC-A historical distortion of Before Christ to refer to someones sister.

As we learnt biology we came up with a peculiar way to pronounce Mitochondria that sounded like an expletive referring to someones mother.

Then as information technology took over we hashed Mother board to sound like the worst of expletives.

So when i heard this new youth anthem i figured this is not new after all. My generation has already grown up on it. If this is the measure of the creative ability of our movie industry, i must say we were more creative than this in seventh standard. Back then we thought this was all useless stuff but it seems people are minting money out of it. There are so many more creative things we did but now we have no track of it in our memory. If only we could have documented them...

A last word of caution to Prem-Going by what Bollywood is serving us, next you may hear a song about Ganpat Rai- a character created by you and etched in our memories forever.

Deikha Lomu Toray a.k.a Revenge is mine

Modna as he liked to be called himself, was absorbed in the latest video gone viral in the internet. The explicitness of the acts performed in the video made Modna less and less aware of the environment around him. He felt he was very much part of the video-as if he was in it. He was so engrossed that his senses had numbed. All of a sudden a pinching sensation in his ankle brought him back to the world he was living in. A mosquito bite. Although he had been bitten by mosquitoes in the past but this time he felt a surge of anger. As if an ancient hermit had been disturbed in his penance. He wanted apt retribution. Kill ..Kill ...Kill that was all that was coming in his mind.

The seething built up of anger was overwhelming. Modna was an open admirer of Donald Rumsfeld and believed in Rumsfeldian doctrine of proactive homeland security and wanted a hot pursuit for the perpetrator of such a dastardly act. He did a visual reconnaissance of his room to find trail of the blood sucking creature. The trail led him to the north west periphery of the room. A dark coagulation was visible there. A closer look confirmed it to be a herd of mosquitoes. Although Modna had taken every protection against these creatures. But it appeared there was a big security lapse. A window was left half open and it was enough to invite these malarial beings. Modna closed the window. He came back to the north west corner of the room. It was apparent that one among them was responsible for committing the crime. He wanted to bring the perpetrator to justice but had no idea how to single out the one who had committed the act from the rest of the herd. He took out his cell phone and punched the number of his good friend Prhaem . The call was picked up in exactly three rings . Modna narrated the incidence to him. Prhaem said that it was inevitable that justice be met to the creature who had done the act. His religion and years of being a member of the anti death penalty lobby forbid him from coming to such a conclusion but he believed that the case was rarest of the rare and had to be seen in that light. However the toughest question for both of them was the identification of the perpetrator. Was there a scientific method available that would conclusively single out the perpetrator from the innocent. A blood test perhaps that could tell whether there were traces of Modna's blood in those blood suckers.
Unable to decide they decided to bring another of their friend into the conference. He was Chuck. Hearing the gravity of the situation he abandoned the 'tadka'(an ancient method of adding additives to pulses) he was about to perform. He articulated the following points post discussion:

Obstruction in the flow of information was a serious offence in itself and the mosquito had committed it when it bit Modna as he was helplessly surfing the internet.
Taking blood from a person involuntary was an unpardonable crime and the mosquito had committed it.
The culprit lies hidden among a group and there was no precise way of identifying who committed the crime and even if they could google the process, the time and cost factors would be roadblocks in application of such a process.

Chuck said that the only way justice could be met was by liquidating the entire group. This would also set an example for the creatures who could be potential perpetrators in future. This also went well with Rumsfeld's policy of proactive homeland security. Phraem still felt that punishing an entire race for the act committed by one was genocide but he had to take his wife to the mall and hence didn't wanted to discuss further.

Modna brought the flit gun from downstairs. He made sure he was wearing the correct gear before he proceeded to do the cleansing. He tiptoed to that corner and in one large push sprayed the entire area with pesticide. There was nascent hushing sound and as the droplets spread, the mosquitoes fell to the ground, dead, like the dead leaves in autumn. As Modna stood beside the area where the mosquitoes had fallen, he felt content in his heart for he was able to avenge the wrong done to him but at the same time he felt remorse for the slayed creatures .

He suddenly remembered that it was quite some time now since he had kept the chicken marinated in his kitchen. He aimed to prepare yogurt chicken today.

*********************************************************************************
Photography: Ankur

CWG Mess-age

Although the CWG have ended quite sometime back, still we hear its echoes. Like a counterfiet coin it keeps coming back. Still many people, native and foreign,in the political circle and sports circle are crying foul about it. Me and my distinguished friend Ankur( who is an expert in current affairs) once got the opportunity to jam up on this issue. Here are the list of things we came up with:

1. CWG stands for common wealth games. So if it has increased the common wealth of the organizing commitee members its nothing unusual. The fact is all the people from top to bottom involved in the organizing commitee had their fortunes turned.

2. Some high profile CWG officials were worried about the slow pace of the infrastructure development. We think they are unaware how things are done in India. We like to do everything in the last minute. Gives a kind of adernaline rush. Ask any Indian IT professional about the buffer phase in the project plan and he/she will tell you gladly that most of the work related to the project is dne during this phase.

4. Some officials and players from other countries cribbed about the poor living conditions in the games village. We think they have never travelled to an Indian village, let alone living there. They should not forget that they agreed to live in the games village, an Indian games village, and not in some swanky hotel. So if some furnitures wre broken or there was a slack in cleanliness or an accidental cobra loitering in the vicinity, thats nothing compared to the living condition in a village. Ask any Indian farmer and he would happily trade places with any of the atheletes in the games village. Those foreign atheletes and officals totally missed the village part of it.

5. Some people said CWG was a discmfort to general public due to the closure of certain routes and the diversions in traffic. Thats a complete lie. Every one in Delhi, from children to adults enjoyed the games. Children got their holidays and adults got a reprive from travel to office by working from home.

All in all the the CWG message was if you are in India, expect things to happen the Indian way. That way and no other way...