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Category: Excerpts

What would you include in the menu of your life?

Posted on by vanyajaiswal

50 Toughest Questions of Life invites people to have a conversation about themselves with themselves. Deepak Ramola’s quest began after he was inspired by the life lesson of a young girl who said, ‘Life is not about giving easy answers, but answering tough questions.’ Over the years, Ramola has amassed life lessons from inspirational sources across the world: from the women of the Maasai tribe to young girls in Afghanistan and sex workers in Kamathipura; from the lessons of earthquake survivors in Nepal to Syrian refugees in Europe, among many more. The book is a collection of fifty such questions that made him pause, along with a bouquet of answers, anecdotes, stories and notes from his journey of teaching human wisdom for a decade.

From these strikingly fresh, tender yet searing questions, we are bringing you one that made us pause and reflect on our lives and how we could lead it more meaningfully.

 

**

If you could design a menu for your life, what all would it include?

Every time I ask someone this question, two things happen: First, a smile breaks out on their face, and second, they ask me to break it down further and explain.

It’s quite simple, though: If you could curate a metaphoric menu for your life, what all would you include? What would brighten your breakfast, what would you have for lunch, what would dinner be, and, finally, what would dessert comprise of? You guessed right—I am not talking about food here.

I ask this question as an exercise to look for what is most important to you. What truly matters and what can you have more of?

Meaningful conversations, poetry, time with my kind of humans, writing or being in the back seat of a car, listening to a favourite music playlist—all these things soothe my soul. Therefore, the menu of my life would include some soulful personal time at the start of the day, lunch would comprise conversations with people I love, dinner would be peppered with poetry recitals, and dessert would sweeten the deal with a long solitary walk or a quick drive on empty roads with a loved one.

front cover of 50 Toughest Questions of Life
50 Toughest Questions of Life || Deepak Ramola

 

Swimming in the morning, sunbathing, drinking a cup of tea with my grandfather, reading a nice book, meditating, taking short naps, long walks, cooking for the family, daydreaming, playing a game of cards, writing letters, receiving handwritten letters, chatting with my partner, wine tasting, hanging out with friends, watching a gripping movie on the Internet—these are the responses I get from people when I ask them what is on their life’s menu.

Only when you filter the best in your life, take note of its worthiness, can you truly encourage yourself to let go of what doesn’t serve you anymore, or as Marie Kondo, the Japanese tidying expert, says ‘doesn’t spark joy in you’. The question of deciding your menu is an act of gratitude for what exists, and it helps you realize that certain nights should be full of more than the usual. Some days leave you only when you hum your favourite songs as a lullaby or let an old tune fill up the silence. Or you reflect back to the glory of old memories with close ones in full force. A conventional curation runs the risk of making a new ‘hello’ taste drab in the mouth of adventure, while ‘goodbyes’ will undermine the potential of all that you should hold on to. So think aloud and wild.

You know, if I could sit down with you in a café that has white wooden chairs, green walls and small plants cupped in recycled glass bottles, I would tell you that the universe is ready to deliver. It’s you who hasn’t placed the order as yet. And to do so, you often have to ask for a menu or create your own. Weigh your options, see through your choices. You are worthy of being coddled. So sit back in a sunlit patch of your room. Unbutton your happiness. Create your menu. This time!

Your heart, my love, is hungry.

**

 

A reckoning with humanity: The Homecoming and Other Stories

Posted on by ashmita

Sri M’s writings are not concerned with doctrinal teaching; instead, they explore the core of humanity, looking at the nurturing dimension of spirituality. Get a glimpse into his captivating new book The Homecoming and Other Stories with this excerpt.

 

~

 

The well-built, curly haired young man of medium height, dressed in blue jeans, red T-shirt and brown ankle boots, carried only one piece of luggage—a small-sized, glossy black Ecolac briefcase.

Krishna, with his twenty years of experience as a licensed porter at the Bengaluru City railway station and given to watching all kinds of people with all kinds of luggage, noticed that not once since he had entered the platform had the young man put down the briefcase. Unusual, because from the way he carried it there was little doubt in Krishna’s mind that the briefcase, though small, might be heavy.

‘Gold ornaments, may be even gold biscuits,’ Krishna said to himself. He had carried what he guessed was gold many times. Bangaru Chetty, the well-known jeweller, always engaged him to carry his luggage. Chetty trusted him.

Trust. A lot of people trusted him but what had he gained? Nothing.

He rubbed his fingers across the brass badge pinned to his red T-shirt which proclaimed that he was a licensed porter, licensed to carry other people’s luggage all his life, while he himself possessed nothing other than life’s burdens: a heavy load which he knew no one else would care to share. So much for trust and honesty.

Krishna wasn’t the type who coveted someone else’s property but under the prevailing circumstances, in sheer desperation, he was willing to deviate from the principled life he had led thus far. What had his high principles given him, as his wife once said, ‘except poverty, misfortune and eternal sorrow?’

Excerpt from The Homecoming and Other Stories
The Homecoming and Other Stories||Sri M

‘Just this once,’ he said to himself. ‘Let me give it a try. Must be a smuggler. The loss would be nothing to him.’

The station was crowded. Armed policemen stood outside a special coach of the Chennai Mail, guarding some politician, an ex-minister of Tamil Nadu who, for some strange reason, had decided not to spend the taxpayer’s money flying and go by train.

Krishna steadied his nerves with great effort and walked up to the young man with the  briefcase who was standing outside the second-class sleeper coach adjoining the minister’s VIP coach. Hardly ten minutes left for the train to start and he was still outside. Perhaps waiting for someone.

‘Porter, sir?’ said Krishna and gestured towards the briefcase.

The young man said, ‘No,’ and turned his face away.

Under normal circumstances, Krishna would have gone and found another traveller but that day he just stood beside the news-stand nearby absorbed in his own thoughts.

‘Krishna,’ he said to himself ‘You are not made out for that kind of stuff, see? You certainly can’t snatch the briefcase and run. Crime is not your cup of tea. You can’t do it. So, suffer. Be an honest man . . .’

…By now the train had gathered speed and had moved out of the platform. The ticket collector was at the other end and no one else seemed to give any serious attention to his movements. Taking advantage, Krishna jumped out of the train, adjusting his gait to avoid falling…He stood still for a while, briefcase in his hand, taking stock of the situation. It was clear that he couldn’t walk out of there or go home carrying an elegant, new briefcase. He would have to transfer the contents into his old worn-out airbag in which he carried his uniform and lunch-box every morning when he came to the station…He collected the bag from the shelf and walked back to the shed to collect the briefcase, which was locked, just as he had expected it to be. He decided to break it open after going

home, if it could somehow be fitted into the bag.

…He pushed open the door and went in. Apart from the tiny kitchen there were only two rooms. In one of them was an old hand-operating sewing machine his nineteen-yearold daughter used to earn a few rupees doing simple stitching and mending jobs for the neighbours. She had fallen asleep on a floor mat, waiting for him. Beside her was his dinner: Ragi balls, beans curry and tamarind chutney. Meenakshi was smiling in her sleep. Her dream world was perhaps happier than the real world he had brought her into. Tears came rolling down his eyes as he saw her torn skirt, plastic bangles and imitation gold earrings. Perhaps it would all change now. How lovely she would look with real gold ornaments! He was hungry but decided to eat later. First, he had to open the briefcase and he had better do it without waking them up. There was no light in the other room where Ambuja, his wife, seemed to be sleeping soundly, thanks to the sleeping tablets he had managed to get her in the morning. Carrying the briefcase, he tiptoed into the tiny kitchen. The electric light wasn’t working because the bulb had popped. He lit the kerosene lamp, softly pushed the door shut and sat on the floor. Holding the briefcase in his lap he examined the locks, trying to figure out the best way to pry them open with the least noise. That was when he heard the peculiar ticking sound coming from inside the briefcase. What happened next took only a split second. A fire-orange, dazzling flash, followed by an ear-splitting blast! Krishna couldn’t complete the scream that rose in his throat.

 

The same night, just as the train moved out of the station, the young man emerged from the canteen, walked up to the public telephone booth and dialled his boss’s number. ‘Okay sir, all done. Too much security for the minister, sir. Didn’t want to risk getting caught, so planted the briefcase in the next compartment. Range more than enough, sir.’ ‘Thank you, goodbye,’ said the man on the other side and hung up. Then with a smile on his lips, he poured himself a peg of Old Monk rum and drank it up straight, celebrating in advance the death of Enemy Number One.

 

~

 

The Homecoming and Other Stories is a collection of short stories by Sri M that explore the impact of human behaviour and the nuances of spirituality.

The beginnings of a friendship and a business idea

Posted on by vanyajaiswal

Harpreet Grover and Vibhore Goyal met in college and then spent the next decade of their lives building a company before exiting successfully.

One way to tell their story is this: they had a dream, they followed it and, then, through perseverance, they made it come true.

But that’s not really the truth. Like everything in life-at least everything worth having-it wasn’t that simple. There was blood, sweat and tears, there was loss of capital, loss of friendship and even a loss of faith along the way. This is a tale of grit-of a company built in India by two Indian-middle-class-twenty-somethings-turned-entrepreneurs-written in the hope that you can avoid the mistakes they made and learn from what they did right.

Here’s an intriguing excerpt from Let’s Build a Company that reveals how the duo’s entrepreneurial journey started.

**

I started my first business in the fourth standard—with no funding, in my dad’s scooter garage.

 

Back in 1990, four-storey buildings in our neighbourhood in Pitampura, west Delhi, used to have scooter garages; small spaces that could just about fit in a scooter and a cycle. All my pocket money went into renting Super Commando Dhruv, Nagraj, Bankelal and all the other Hindi comics that were popular then. I had a friend who was couple of years older, and we would rent comics together and then swap them. Once a month, our parents would also let us buy some.

 

Between the two of us, we had about fifty comics, which, we soon realized, were more than what the shopkeeper had in stock at any given point in time. An idea hit us: why not give out our comics on rent and make some pocket money? The shopkeeper loaned them out for Rs 1 a day, and we could charge half the rate. We had no bills to pay, no family to feed. We just wanted some pocket money. So I asked my dad to take his scooter out of the garage and thus began our comic- book business! We had almost every kid in the neighbourhood coming to us to rent comics. It went on well for about three months. Then my dad got transferred to another government- bank branch in Patiala and our business had to shut down. That was my first taste of what I would later realize is termed ‘entrepreneurship’.

 

While I was growing up in Patiala, Vibhore was failing seventh-standard maths. His parents decided that he needed to get coaching to ensure he cleared his exams. They also wanted him to learn the value of hard work. So Vibhore started working in a garage, repairing bikes to earn pocket money. As he grew older, his fondness for computers grew and, along with school, he started teaching C++ in a local coaching centre. (By the time he got to college, he knew more coding than final-year computer science graduates. This would really come in handy when he helped me clear our first-year course in Fortran.)

 

front cover of Let's Build a Company
Let’s Build a Company || Harpreet S. Grover, Vibhore Goyal

Cut to 2000, when I was accepted into IIT Bombay, a letter came home stating that all first-year students would have to share a room. I thought it would be a good idea to reach a couple of days in advance and take the best of the two beds. When I arrived, I found this geeky guy already there with his trunk placed below the better bed. Vibhore Goyal had beaten me to it and set the tone of our friendship for years to come.

 

Both of us had enrolled in the five-year dual degree civil- engineering programme. While Vibhore was disappointed with his rank (he had hoped to crack the top 100), I was delighted just to get in.

…

The five years at IIT Bombay were eventful and we ended up spending a lot of time together. From the second year onwards, Vibhore had a bike, which I would borrow—only to slip on the road and smash the headlight. We would then go together to get it repaired. In the third year, Vibhore got an internship in Pune; I went to meet him on the last day so that we could lug his computer back together—he drove the bike back to the institute while I sat behind holding a big CPU between us on a wet highway. Another thing we always did was go to the station to drop the first person who was going home at the end of semester. Vibhore’s parents would send him an AC first-class ticket, and he would find someone to sell it to. He would then buy a general ticket to go to Jaipur and pocket the rest. I always found this funny, not to mention enterprising.

 

By the time we graduated, Vibhore had spent time working on a high-tech start-up based out of IIT Bombay and landed a job with Microsoft’s research division. Meanwhile, I had tried to start a brand for fresh fruit juice with my classmates Ritesh and Rahul, and failed. We bought a mixer but trying to figure out the economics of how many carrots provided one glass of juice proved to be too much trouble. I finally landed a job in Inductis, a data analytics company. After the final interviews, the company took us to a five-star for a buffet. There, they asked me if I already knew all the questions they had posed in the interview. Apparently, I had the highest score across interviews. I said no. They said, then you are quite stupid, because we asked the same questions we asked last year. That got my mind buzzing and I spent most of my final year creating a document titled ‘BePrepared’, which was a compilation of interview experiences of final-year students.

 

While together in IIT, Vibhore and I had discussed starting a company, but our ideas were always up in the air. Also, it was clear in our minds that we wanted to get a job after graduation. After all, that’s why we had come to IIT in the first place.

**

 

 

 

Poems to keep us going

Posted on by ashmita

‘Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.’

― Leonard Cohen

 

Time and again, in many known and unknown ways, poetry has saved the world. Singing in the Dark does the same. We want to share with you some poems that keep us going through the worst of days:

 

Dawn of Darkness – Ngugi wa Thiong’o

I know, I know,
It threatens the common gestures of human bonding
The handshake,
The hug
The shoulders we give each other to cry on
The neighborliness we take for granted
So much that we often beat our breasts
Crowing about rugged individualism,
Disdaining nature, pissing poison on it even, while
Claiming that property has all the legal rights of personhood

Murmuring gratitude for our shares in the gods of capital.
Oh how now I wish I could write poetry in English,
Or in any and every language you speak
So I can share with you, words that
Wanjikũ, my Gĩkũyũ mother, used to tell me:
Gũtirĩ ũtukũ ũtakĩa:
No night is so Dark that,
It will not end in Dawn,
Or simply put,
Every night ends with dawn.
Gũtirĩ ũtukũ ũtakĩa.
This darkness too will pass away
We shall meet again and again
And talk about Darkness and Dawn
Sing and laugh maybe even hug
Nature and nurture locked in a green embrace
Celebrating every pulsation of a common being
Rediscovered and cherished for real
In the light of the Darkness and the new Dawn.

 

Front cover singing in the dark
Singing in the Dark||Nishi Chawla, K. Satchidanandan

 

Apocalypse – Annie Zaidi

Waves do not come dashing against the noontide
They tiptoe in
and out with the smallest dose of pain
taken from the cabinet you left dusty
on purpose
so nobody guesses how much you hoard
The wretched manage to show up
across the shatterproof glass of time
to class office factory godown
boat ocean horizon end time
with a slouch and a glower of expectation
Your eyes are fleet
testing
weighing
catlike
on nights when the tide rises
and rises and the rain quietly falls,
as promised, it comes
It sits
gleaming on the roof
with creature eyes
offering no sign
no pause for breath
no cause or rules
about arks: no ones or twos
it offers no map
A thing
squealing its lack of defence
mouse like, it comes to nibble
the cheese of your world

It arches
head and back
now signals: here
I am
Take me at this flood
or there I go

~

Bumblebees – Amanda Bell

There was no need to fret about the bees—
their fragile nest, unlidded
as I pulled weeds beneath the apple tree,
their squirming larvae naked
to my gaze and to the sun.
They watched me from the border
while I hastily replaced the roof,
before returning to rethread
the fibres of their grassy home.
In the cleared weeds I see
their entrance and their exit,
how their flightpaths sweep
the garden in an arc, stitching up
the canvas of this space, as if
they could remake the world
which lies in shreds around us.
The dome moves, as I watch it,
the stretching of an inchoate form—
when morning comes
it glistens with white dew.

~

Singing in the dark is a beautiful anthology of poetry that comes at a time when we need poetry more than ever.

An introduction to reading Amartya Sen

Posted on by vanyajaiswal

Nobel laureate Amartya Sen is one of the world’s best-known voices for the poor and the downtrodden, and an inspiration for the proponents of justice across the globe. He has contributed almost without peer to the study of economics, philosophy and politics, transforming social choice theory, development economics, ethics, political philosophy and Indian political economy, to list but a few. This book offers a much-needed introduction to Amartya Sen’s extraordinary variety of ideas. Lawrence Hamilton provides an excellent, accessible guide to the full range of sen’s writings, contextualizing his ideas and summarising the associated debates. In elegant prose, Hamilton reconstructs Sen’s critiques of the major philosophies of his time, assesses his now famous concern for capabilities as an alternative for thinking about poverty, inequality, gender discrimination, development, democracy and justice, and unearths some overlooked gems.

**

What can we draw from Sen’s ideas as we struggle to deal with the present crisis and try to remake our world following it? In bringing out Sen’s main contributions to economics, politics and philosophy, this book distills his groundbreaking framework for a new form of political economy, the need for which a crisis like Covid-19 brings sharply into focus. This political economy would be based on freedom-enhancing capabilities’ analysis and public action focused on specific injustices within revitalized democracies. Sen’s work, and that of his collaborators, especially Jean Drèze, is thus vital for the future of democracy in India (and elsewhere).

 

The best way to ‘read’ Amartya Sen, I suggest, is as a series of courageous theoretical and practical innovations regarding how better to solve instances of injustice via the support, revitalization and reform of democracy, especially in India.

 

India, the largest democracy on the globe and the oldest in the developing world, is rightly proud of its postcolonial achievements in terms of formal democracy. Yet, this record has not translated into substantive democracy, that is, the kind of achievements in quality of life across the board that would empower all of its residents to take advantage of both its growth in GDP terms and the successful maintenance of formal democracy.

Front cover of How to Read Amartya Sen
How to Read Amartya Sen || Lawrence Hamilton

 

The Covid-19 situation in India is a powerful illustration of this lack of empowerment. India’s associated abrupt and severe lockdowns have accentuated the inequalities and deprivations of its massive population. Although the highest infection and death rates are still in the wealthier megacities of Mumbai, New Delhi and Chennai, the virus is now spreading fast in more rural areas in the east and south of the country. And it is the urban and rural poor who feel the full force of the three-pronged crisis. The abrupt loss of livelihood due to associated job losses is creating a very dangerous mix of viral spread and impoverishment. The poor, migrant workers, for example, who make up a huge proportion of the Indian population and economy, come from historically disadvantaged classes and castes and work very low-paying jobs without legal contracts. They live hand to mouth. The original decision to abruptly lockdown India left them marooned far from home, without shelter, work and sustenance, bar the incomplete coverage provided by the public distribution system (PDS) and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). Overnight, this generated a mass migrant exodus, which has been compared to the great migration during Partition (Deshingkar 2020). And, as the disease spreads east, for example, it is those who eke out basic subsistence in the poorest states, such as Bihar and Jharkhand, with high population density and much weaker medical infrastructure, who will be under the most severe threat of food insecurity and infection (Drèze 2020).

 

All told, the poorest, most precarious and least powerful sections of India’s population have been largely abandoned by the Indian state in their time of need. The arrogance and indifference to the plight of these lower caste, uneducated, labouring people brings into sharp relief the extreme inequities Sen has fought for more than half a decade to overcome (Mander 2020).

 

In the second edition of Drèze and Sen’s magisterial account of the various things that have plagued public policy for development in India, especially in areas such as health, education, social security, environmental protection, economic redistribution and so on, they argue convincingly that these components of development depend on public action. Effective public action is not possible without significant change to how it is thought about and implemented in India. It depends on high standards of governance both in the determination of where and why extreme deprivations exist and how best to keep corruption at bay and accountability to the fore. It is an indictment on successive Indian governments over the last two decades or so that, despite high levels of growth, its latest social indicators are still ‘far from flattering’. China may have been less successful at keeping famines at bay, but in terms of social progress – from ending poverty to the provision of decent education and functional toilets – it has been far more successful than India. Moreover, as regards most relevant social indicators, India is still worse off than many of its much poorer south Asian neighbours, such as Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Sri Lanka. With the sole exception of Pakistan, India has the lowest life expectancy, the highest child mortality rate and the highest fertility rate. In terms of sanitation and child nutrition, India fares worse than all of its neighbouring countries. Its rates of female literacy are amongst the lowest in the region. And, staggeringly, over 40 per cent of India’s children are underweight, compared to 25 per cent in Sub-Saharan Africa (Drèze and Sen 2020).

**

 

 

The ego and the victim complex

Posted on by vanyajaiswal

The universe has bestowed limitless powers and infinite siddhis on the human consciousness. Along with being effective and successful in the personal and professional spheres, the purpose of human life is also to ensure the complete blossoming of the individual consciousness. In Celebrating Life, Rishi Nityapragya shares the secrets that can help you explore your infinite potential. He offers an in-depth understanding of how to identify and be free from negative emotions and harmful tendencies, and how to learn to invoke life’s beautiful flavours-like enthusiasm, love, compassion and truth-whenever and wherever you want.

Here’s an excerpt from this profound book about overcoming the negative tendencies of the mind.

**

On the basis of past events, many people have the habit of blaming themselves. Small mistakes they have committed in the past lead them to form strong judgements about themselves, resulting in a sense of guilt, regret and self-blame. The exact opposite of that happens when some people develop the self-pitying tendency of blaming others for their miseries. They believe strongly that people are doing things to deliberately hurt them. This is called the victim consciousness, self-pity, the ‘poor-me’ attitude. The ego that makes you blame yourself is guilt complex. The ego that makes you blame others is victim complex. Both these flavours of the ego are extremely harmful—they are impediments to the blossoming of your life. Realizing your mistake is good enough; you don’t need to keep blaming yourself. Turn that pinch into a sense of commitment and resolve not to indulge in the same mistake again. Guilt is a wasted feeling. In the realm of consciousness, if you want to be free from any harmful habit, from negative tendency, from klisht vrutti, you need inner resilience and a sense of commitment connected with intense shakti (power), almost like a space rocket breaking the shackles of gravity by acquiring escape velocity and plunging into outer space. The guilt makes you feel bad about yourself, drains your energy, breaks the strength of your resilience and commitment.

 

People keep falling into this vicious cycle: they make mistakes, indulge in negative tendencies, feel guilty about them and blame themselves, but in a little while commit the same mistakes again. In order to attain freedom from negative tendencies, what you need is a strong, unwavering commitment, maintained for a substantial amount of time.

 

Guilt plays a counteracting role in this process. It destroys the strength of your commitment, which is necessary for you to break free of harmful tendencies.

Front cover of Celebrating Life
Celebrating Life || Rishi Nityapragya

 

The game of the victim ego is exactly the opposite of this. But before we go there, I want to remind you to be non-defensive and urge you to courageously look at the truth of life. Nature, existence, the universe, the Divine has given us so much. Let us take an example of this lifetime alone. From the time you took birth till today, in the so many years that you have passed in this physical body, look at how many wonderful things have happened to you. How much abundance has been bestowed upon each one of us! From getting the beautiful tool of this physical body, through which we are experiencing this wonderful life, to our family members who trigger so much love and a sense of support and security in us. Look at the variety of colours, flowers, fruits, vegetables, grains and spices nature has given us, for us to enjoy them all. Look at how the sun, the moon, the seasons, the seas, the wind and the rain have played their magnanimous roles in making your life so rich. In the ups and downs of this rollercoaster ride called life, look how the unseen hand of the Divine has always protected us. In the most challenging situations too, through different sources and in the form of different people, help has always come for you. But this extremely dangerous flavour of the ego, the victim consciousness, the sympathy-seeking, self- pitying, poor-me attitude, does not allow you to celebrate, appreciate or even acknowledge all these gifts of life. It tends o magnify your losses. When extraordinary benefits come your way, your victim ego never asks, ‘Why me?’ But as soon as something goes wrong, this poor-me runt starts cribbing and makes your life miserable.

 

In comparison with the positives of life, the negatives are minuscule, but the victim ego focuses on the negatives and puts on the glasses of self-pity and blame, through which this beautiful world begins to appear ugly, manipulative, almost demonic. People act according to their own tendencies, preferences, likes and dislikes, but when the victim ego colours your vision, viparyay takes over. Random, unintentional, insignificant gestures by people around appear to you as intentional and manipulative. These two flavours of the ego, guilt and victim complexes, have one thing in common: they thrive on blaming. This tendency to blame takes away your ability to respond to what is happening now. It does not allow you the freedom to drop the negativities and be free. It takes away your openness to celebrate life. In the process of blaming others, one completely disregards this basic, fundamental principle of life: ‘To keep your mind happy, pleasant and positive is your own responsibility.’

**

 

 

 

The trappings of an unconventional life

Posted on by vanyajaiswal

Saeeda Bano was the first woman in India to work as a radio newsreader, known then and still as the doyenne of Urdu broadcasting. Over her unconventional and courageous life, she walked out of a suffocating marriage, witnessed the violence of Partition, lost her son for a night in a refugee camp, ate toast with Nehru and fell in love with a married man who would, in the course of their twenty-five-year relationship, become the Mayor of Delhi. Though she was born into privilege in Bhopal-the only Indian state to be ruled by women for four successive generations-her determination, independence and frankness make this a remarkable memoir and a crucial disruption in India’s understanding of her own past.

 

 

**

 

front cover of Off the Beaten Track
Off the Beaten Track || Saeeda Bano

Why did I think of writing the story of my life? Well, the entire credit goes to my friend Sheila Dhar, whom I met during the most eventful time in the history of our country, back in September 1947. When she saw the unusual situation I was grappling with during those tumultuous days of Partition, it made a deep impact on Sheila’s impressionable mind. She was quite young at the time; I came across to her as an unconventional woman – one who had chosen to take the road less travelled.

 

As time went by the circumstances I was dealing with became more exceptional. Sheila was witness to all this. She was older now, mature enough to understand what was happening in my life. Perhaps that is why she encouraged me to start writing. 

 

…

 

Little did I know that one day my circumstances would change so dramatically that by 1947 I would become famous as the first Indian woman to read news for All India Radio’s (AIR) Urdu service. And bless Sheila Dhar, she got me to write this book.  

 

…

 

On the 13th of August I was to reach office by 6am and read the 8 o’clock bulletin in Urdu. Mrs Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, sister of Independent India’s first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, had been a frequent visitor to Lucknow. She was Beevi’s good friend and because of that I met with her quite often. She treated me like a younger sister. During one such meeting I mentioned I had sent a written application to AIR Delhi for a job. Mrs Pandit was a keen supporter of women’s rights and immediately asked me to give a copy of the application to her. ‘I will try and see what I can do.’ She then sent the letter to a certain Dr Syed Hussain in Delhi with instructions that ‘the work should be done.’ And so it was. How could Syed Hussain not honour Vijayalaxmi Pandit’s orders? That is how I came to Delhi. 

 

I was ready to deliver my very first news bulletin on air on the 13th of August 1947. Prior to this, no woman had been employed by either the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) or AIR Delhi to work as a news broadcaster. I was the first woman AIR considered good enough to read radio news. Of course they had to train me and I was taught how to first introduce myself on air with my name and then start reading the bulletin. The quality of my voice was appreciated. The feedback I got was that listeners were quite impressed by the style in which I delivered the news. The Statesman newspaper even published a few words of praise about me. I believe some people said I must have planted this story. But that’s pure conjecture. 

 

…

 

I am always grateful to the Almighty that people were eager to hear me read news on radio and appreciated my work. But I never gave this public acceptance undue importance. Hundreds of letters would pour in from various parts of the world in praise of my voice. Several gentlemen even expressed a desire to marry me! Though some of the listeners went as far as to curse me, asking that now that Pakistan had been formed why was a traitor like me still living in the enemy state? From this side of the border, some my own countrymen would write in saying, ‘Get out of our country, go to Pakistan.’ 

 

After a while, this continuous barrage of reproach ended, but hordes of letters continued to arrive regularly. I didn’t give them too much weightage nor did they get to my head. I met and mingled with everyone but I did not know how to tell witty jokes or interesting anecdotes, sing or even make delightful gossip at a social gathering. 

 

…

 

We were in the midst of our discussions when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru saw us. He came over to where we were and asked, ‘What are all of you doing? Have you had breakfast? You guys have to get here so early in the morning, you must be famished. Come over to Teen Murti House… I will give you brown bread to eat… homemade brown bread.’ 

 

Who could refuse the Prime Minister of India? We reached Teen Murti House (former residence of the first Prime Minister of India) and were made to sit in the front veranda on the top floor. Spread out in front of us were the verdant Mughal Gardens and sitting next to us, Nehruji himself. He was busy giving precise orders to the waiter to bring brown bread, cheese and God knows what. Though we were in seventh heaven my mind was preoccupied. I was worried sick and kept wondering where Asad and Saeed could be. Panditji buttered the warmly toasted brown-bread himself, then he sprinkled it lightly with salt added a dash of pepper and asked, ‘Have you ever eaten bread like this?’ 

 

‘No I haven’t,’ I replied, thanking him politely as I took the slice. 

 

He then made another toast for me, which I ate as well. But by now I was extremely anxious. Here was the Prime Minister of our country, being hospitable and there I was worried sick with thoughts of where my children could be. Panditji saw the concern on my face and asked, ‘What is the matter? What is bothering you?’ 

 

‘My son is lost.’

 

‘How old is your son?’ 

 

‘Eleven.’ 

 

‘Eleven year old children do not get lost… he will come. Have your tea, it is getting cold.’ 

 

In my heart I so wished Asad and Saeed could have been with me. They would proudly remember this moment, when they ate toasted brown bread prepared by the Prime Minister of India, who made the effort of sprinkling salt and pepper on it himself before handing it around to us. These thoughts were racing through my mind as we finished breakfast. Then we took permission to leave. As we were walking out, Panditji said, ‘An 11-year old cannot get lost. You’ll find him.’ 

 

I did a courteous adab and thanked him for his reassurance. As we reached YWCA I saw Asad and Saeed sitting there waiting for me. 

**

Worlds apart but together with love

Posted on by sanjeeta

‘We are full of stories’, writes Ravinder Singh as he opens up his collection of love stories from vastly different lives. Stories create empathy, they open up the seams of our capacity for wonder and compassion, and broaden our understanding of the vagaries of human lives. In You Are All I Need, twenty-five authors share their stories and their worlds with us. Today, we bring you a few of those:

 

‘Something in the Rain’ by Kaustubhi Singh

I take a little walk in my cubicle for one last time because I’ll be given a clearance today. I sit on the brown wooden chair I used to kick when I was so miserable that the doctors had to tie my hands up. Alcohol was my escape. The idea of alcohol was not pleasure but an escape, because when that warm liquor burns your throat, it starts dissolving the hurt stuck down there and slowly numbs you so you don’t feel the hurt. Heartbreak isn’t beautiful; it isn’t some literature; it’s not listening to sad songs or something like that. It’s feeling okay for a minute and then starting to feel their ghost around you, their touch on your skin. You miss them, you miss them so much that you choke on your memories with them.

Dr Mayank Sharma, my shrink, almost my age, tells me that it will always hurt, and it will make one cry and scream till one’s nose is blocked and eyes puffy; that hurt is inevitable but it will hurt less, and I will see and understand why someone did what they did. And I think I understand. When I look back to the day Robbie left me for another woman, he said he had grown out of love and I stood there thinking: Where did I go wrong? But thinking about it now makes me realize I did everything to truly belong to Robbie. I changed myself for him, I changed my ways and choices for him when I should have let him love me for who I was, because that’s what love is, that’s what love is supposed to be—loving someone for who they are.

 

‘A Tender Ray of Love’ by Nandita Warrier

She was six; he was eight. He found her irritating and called her a ‘complaint box’; she found him obnoxious and called him a ‘monster’. They fought in every get-together.

…She was twelve; he was fourteen. He secretly detested her scholarly attitude; she was swept by his charm and wrote about him in her secret diary.

…She was eighteen; he was twenty. She aspired to be a doctor; he was determined to be one of the ‘Men in Blue’.

Their paths were growing apart, just like their personalities. They rarely met, and when they did, she was more awkward than before. He didn’t seem interested in her and she was torn whether or not to share her feelings with him.

And then something happened. He did something terrible—unforgivable! She had held him in such high regard all along, loved him with all her heart, but he had treated her like trash. She was shattered.

…She was twenty-seven; he was twenty-nine. She was a bright, young surgeon winning people over; he was a lost and bitter soul, spewing venom at everyone.

She was twenty-eight; he was thirty. She was full of dreams; he was broken.

Front cover of You Are All I Need
You Are All I Need||Ravinder Singh

That night, she slept early because she had a morning duty in the ICU. That night, he slept late after emptying a bottle of sleeping pills.

Just as Ramya reached the hospital, she was summoned to the OT for an emergency procedure. ‘Suicide attempt,’ someone whispered. Dr Iyer was instructing the team when Ramya joined them in her OT scrubs. She threw a casual look at the patient and immediately recoiled. It was Rohan! Oh no, how could this be? Memories from her childhood, locked away in some corner, defiantly barged in, making her want to sob.

He looked so pale and pitiable—a mere shadow of the handsome young man she remembered from their last meeting years back! Rohan had had everything going for him—what could have possibly gone so wrong? Sensing her discomfort, Dr Iyer enquired, ‘You know him?’

‘Family friend,’ she uttered nonchalantly, hiding the wave of sadness sweeping over her.

 

‘Love in the Times of Marriage’ by Aparajita Shishoo

When Adil saw her across the room, his heart skipped a beat. He couldn’t take his eyes off Meera’s radiant face. He decided to walk up to her.

‘Hi,’ Adil said.

Meera was standing alone, enjoying the party her friend, Kanika, had thrown. Meera turned to look at Adil and smiled back at him with a soft ‘hi’.

Adil continued, ‘You seem to be the arty-farty type. What are you doing at a filmy party?’

Meera was a bit tipsy by that time, so she retorted, ‘I am definitely farty, but with some arty. What about you?’

Adil laughed out loud at her candour and asked her again what she was doing at such a party.

‘I am fishing for some juicy stories for my publication. You?’

‘I am trying to make some juicy stories!’ Adil winked at Meera.

Meera laughed and asked, ‘Are you flirting with me?’ ‘Are you noticing?’ Adil said.
Meera shot back, ‘I am ignoring . . . I don’t flirt with boys who have just entered puberty.’
‘Oh! That hurt . . . really hurt!’ Adil said, imitating a heartbreak. ‘By the way, I am twenty-five, well beyond my puberty years.’

Meera laughed again at Adil’s dramatics, and they continued their conversation.

Adil was a cinematographer in the Hindi film industry and the camera was his first love, but right now his own lenses were fixed on Meera’s face. ‘So what brings you to Mumbai?’

‘Change,’ said Meera, after a pause.

…At the other end of the room, Kanika noticed the chemistry between the two and was happy that her friend was finally enjoying flirting and chatting up guys.

 

Lose yourself in stories that will stay with you for a long, long time. 

The comfort of a bunker

Posted on by vanyajaiswal
Insomnia || Rachna Bisht Rawat

A retired General is haunted by voices of dead men.
Soldiers from two enemy nations manning posts in freezing Siachen form a strange connection.
A young Lieutenant dying in the jungles of Arunachal is watched over by three men, one of whom would have his destiny changed forever.
What is the dark secret held by a Major and his men operating incognito in Kashmir?
What surprise is a train bound for Agra bringing to the all-male bastion of 13 Para?
Who are the invisible people a little girl awaiting brain surgery in the Lansdowne Military Hospital talks to?

From the bestselling author of The Brave, 1965 and Kargil comes a book that will take you into the olive-green world of army cantonments, through stories that will delight and disturb in equal measure.

Here’s an excerpt from this perceptive collection of army stories.

 

**

One morning, Satyapal told Javed that he would not be on guard duty the next day. He and Rifleman Ramesh had been detailed for a routine check of communication lines. Every ten days, three soldiers were sent to check the wires that kept the telephone connection, between the post and the company headquarters about two kilometres away, running. The post and the HQ each had the responsibility to maintain 1 km of the communication line—to ensure the wires were intact and working, not broken or buried in the snow. Since their very lives depended on it, the soldiers carried out the task with complete sincerity.

The empty jerry cans that had been used to cart kerosene to the post were put to good use here. They were filled with snow, which would quickly freeze into hard ice. The heavy jerry cans were then used as support for the telephone lines, which were tied on top of them, so that the wires would not get buried after heavy snowfall.

‘We plan to leave by 8 a.m. and return before noon,’ Satyapal told Javed, who nodded. Every soldier on Siachen knew that the weather usually turned late afternoon, so all activities were planned in such a way that the soldiers would be back in their bunkers by lunchtime.

Javed had received a letter, brought by a new soldier reporting on duty from leave. His daughter was unwell, he told Satyapal. ‘I can’t do anything for them from here. I feel so helpless,’ he said. He sounded sad that morning.

‘Don’t worry, saathi, she will be fine. Children keep falling sick all the time,’ Satyapal consoled him. Soon after, Satyapal told Javed he would now see him after a day.

‘Khuda hafiz, saathi,’ Javed called out to him. ‘Apna khayal rakhna.’

‘You too, Javed Bhai. And don’t worry so much about your daughter. I am sure she is absolutely fine by now,’ Satyapal reassured him and, with a casual wave of his hand, stepped inside his bunker.

**

The next afternoon, a sudden avalanche took the soldiers by surprise. Icy winds screamed outside their huts, as they huddled together inside their bunkers, drawing comfort from each other’s presence and from the warmth of the kerosene stove.

Around 2 p.m., Javed was in his sleeping bag, rereading his wife’s letter. Omar, the designated cook for the week, was cooking rice to go with the meat tins they planned to open for lunch. Their four other soldier comrades were playing cards, and radio operator Rifleman Faizal Sharief, quiet and withdrawn by temperament, was, as always, sitting in a corner by himself, listening to Skardu Radio. ‘Do Hindustani sipahi Siachen Glacier ki Rana Post mein baraf ke neeche zinda dafan,’ the newsreader was saying. None of the soldiers was paying attention to the news but the moment they heard Siachen mentioned they all started listening.

‘Aawaaz unchi kar, Faizal,’ Javed called out, placing the letter under his pillow.

The woman reading the news in her crisp Urdu was not giving many details, but she clearly stated that three Indian soldiers had been caught in an avalanche that afternoon. While one had been found, two were reported missing, presumed buried in the snowpack created by the avalanche.

For a moment there was abject silence in the bunker. Then, one of the card players spoke: ‘So we have two less enemy soldiers to fight. The glacier got to the bastards before we did. Achhi khabar hai. Miyan, tum patte baanto.’

The four of them chuckled loudly and got back to their game. They did not notice the disquiet that shadowed Javed’s face, but Faizal was watching him thoughtfully. ‘Apne niche wali post ke bande lagte hain,’ he said to Javed. ‘Isn’t that Rana Post? Javed bhai aap toh baat karte ho na unmein se ek se?’ Faizal sounded concerned. Javed just nodded.

Javed remembered that Satyapal had to go and check the communication lines that day and desperately hoped that he was not among the men missing.

**

First love, first heartbreak and a slice of life

Posted on by vidhi

Love, heartbreak, family complications and the nuances of relationships – Jennifer Niven tackles it all with her captivating prose. Through reminiscence or present lived reality, Breathless resonates with us all. Relive your own special moments with an excerpt:

—

I stand for a long time, staring out over the water, black and endless except for the glow of lights in the far distance. And this, I know, is the mainland. It might as well be light-years away.

I wait for a boat to appear. I wait for Miah to come.
I wait.
I wait.

Suddenly, I don’t feel the rain on my skin or my hair or my clothes because the only thing I feel is the ache in my heart. An ache like I’ve never felt before. It’s both terrible and beautiful. And it fills me. It fills me.

We were supposed to have more time.

We’re always supposed to have more time.

I sink onto the bench, which is damp and which leaves me damper. At some point the rain stops completely. I look up and the stars overhead are a carpet of light. There’s this feeling I have here. Miah’s a part of it. But he’s not all of it. It’s the summers of childhood when I was eight, ten, twelve. And those kinds of beautiful moments where everything is full of love and light and possibility.

I rest one hand on the wood of the seat and my fingers bump into something cool and smooth. I look down. A shark tooth. The largest one I’ve ever seen. And there, drawn around it, a circle.

***

I turn back up the path and walk toward the inn, shark tooth in my pocket. Through the trees, the porch lights shine like beacons, like lanterns illuminating the way to the world beyond. I go up the steps, feet splashing in the little dips inthe wood. I slip on my shoes, brush the hair off my face, but otherwise I don’t bother. This is me, take it or leave it—wet and rumpled and missing Miah.

“Claude?” Mom’s voice calls out to me from the end of the porch. She is perched on the edge of the swing, as if she’s been watching for me. I walk over and sit down beside her, a lump in my throat as large as the ocean.

“Everything okay?” she says. And she knows. I can see it in her face.

Breathless Front Cover by Jennifer Niven
Breathless || Jennifer Niven

“It will be.” But my heart doesn’t believe it.

She takes my hand, and the swing rocks back and forth, back and forth, as we listen to the rain.

At 9:53, I feel it. The island is emptier because he’s no longer on it.

I don’t want to go home yet, so I head to the beach, not caring if I run into alligators or snakes or wild hogs. Under the trees, over the dunes, onto the sand, until I’m beneath the moon and all this sky. I’m too restless to sit. I drop my bag and kick off my shoes and walk. The tide rolls in like thunder and I’m the only one here.

I walk for at least a mile. I’m trying not to look at the lights in the distance, the ones that are the neighboring islands. Because beyond those islands is the mainland, and on that mainland is Jeremiah Crew, who didn’t say goodbye.

***

 

Breathless is a beautiful celebration of the joys and pangs of stepping into adulthood, and moments that are uniquely memorable to us all.

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