A Parallel Identity

The December of 1992...Bombay - a warm wintry noon and probably the best season that Bombay has and for me it is an eventful winter I have witnessed during those turbulent years of my life. I had just turned 24 in the previous month and was hopping in and out of jobs in the hope to find that firm ground on which I could rest my feet. That day I had taken the train to Pune from Thane to attend an interview in HCL at Pimpri, a suburb of Pune and an industrial hub as well. Clad in casuals in my own self-effacing manner carrying a formal attire for the next day's interview and a clean set of kurta-pyjama for the intervening night and a book to give me company in case I didn't get a good fellow traveler for talking during the journey.

The journey to Pune was a comfortable one and being Sunday forenoon there were vacationers returning back to their workplaces after the week-end. I took my seat and ran a cursory glance in the compartment and found the laid back faces of the usual travelers. I adjusted myself to my surroundings and opened a book to keep myself entertained.  It was by evening 5:00 that I reached Pimpri and stationed at a nearby hotel.  I had my dinner and slept early to wake up early for the next day's appointment. The next morning i.e. 7th/Dec, I woke up, took a shower, changed into the formal attire that I had brought with me, picked up the morning newspaper and came to the restaurant for breakfast. I ordered a simple breakfast and unfolded the newspaper to read the front page headlines: BABRI MOSQUE DEMOLISHED.

It was the first most sensational news that I had read because it was the first time I understood the gravity of a news, the subject matter was followed by me for the last few months. I cannot express my feelings of those few moments as I kept reading the column and imbibing the vastness of the repercussions it would have in the coming days. I hurried my breakfast and left the place to reach the venue of the interview where they said that the interview is postponed to an indefinite date and that we would be informed later about the new dates. Though I could see that coming, I still had that shock on my face as my mind was not at all in the place where I was standing.  I left the venue in a hurry and came back to Pune railway station from where I would be returning back home. It was already noon while I took the train ticket to return home. The train would be leaving at 4 in the evening. Little did I know then that amidst this political stage down, I was taking this journey which would eventually change the way I would be looking at the cosmopolitan fabric of the place I had been born and brought up in.

For those who have lived and witnessed that period may recollect that it was the time of great political upheaval. It was the time climaxing the movement for the Masjid-Mandir dispute. The communal divide was there even before this period but it was somewhat lying transient under the cosmopolitan and secular fabric of the nation. It was rather like a venomous snake slithering under the carpet waiting for the right moment to show itself and claim its first victim. For the past few weeks there were arrangements going on and people were moving to the disputed site. December 6th was the decided day for action. I had been following this news for the last few weeks but there was a kind of a confident person in me who said that it cannot happen. Though there had been spurious communal riots in the past in different, small towns of India but none of them were as grave and as impact bearing as this one. It had the capacity and the fire to alight the whole nation in its aftermath. I always believed that this could not happen and would never happen. But it did happen. Somehow politics and religion were like an intertwined DNA particle which is still bearing human beings which are nothing short of destructive mutants. But at that time the fact that my confidence in myself had eroded showed on my face and I couldn't hide myself.

I sat at a bench on the railway platform my eyes immersed in the book but my thoughts moving  far way from the book into its own secluded groove taking me back to those few episodes in school where the first signs of this divide were sown. Even a standard IV history class would be unbecoming when a Afzal Khan's name arose or Aurangzeb was mentioned. But somehow all these feelings were encompass in the broader cosmopolitan fabric of Bombay. The city with its huge heart was in fact the torchbearer of secularism. It made people like me what we are today - a bit more open in our approach towards all communities, as we were the answer to its benevolence and ingenuity. But that would not keep us away from the heat of any backlash our community had to face. After all every community is a two-sided coin, and the advantages or the disadvantages depend on which side of the coin one is.
With all these overbearing thoughts, I boarded the train. At around 4:30, the train moved and as it moved all I could see were images of a self-contained crowd which had turned euphoric overnight. This alerted me as it was no time for festivity but the people on every platform that the train stopped were jubilant than their usual self.
I had pushed my bag containing the clothes underneath my seat. The book and the newspaper were still in my hand. To divert my attention from my distorted and disturbed thoughts I opened the book. As I did that there came a middle-aged person and sat across me. Few minutes passed and he asked me for the newspaper. I looked up from the book at him and passed the newspaper. He opened its folds and started reading the headlines on the first page and uttered these words in Marathi, " Somehow this had to happen. There are many things that need to be changed....to be done." I raised my head to look into his eyes. He was a civilized man, speaking in chaste Marathi. I was not surprised by his reaction but by his considering me of his own community. I had no reaction to his forgone conclusion. To curtail my discomfort I gave a faint smile which was more discomforting than any other available response but I had to go with it as I had no choice or an inclination to disapprove as any initiative from my side would prove futile. In the meantime two men came and occupied the empty seats and the compartment was now full of people. I got back to the book but was not reading it. I excused myself and walked up in the compartment to check another seat for myself but couldn't find one. I could see the train was unusually full. I came back to my seat and found the men sitting there debating in favor of bringing down the mosque and justifying it as well. I seated myself rather uncomfortably and before I could reach for the book, I was dragged into the conversation. One of the boys rather of my  age sitting next to me asked me in Marathi, 'Isn't it so. What do you say Mr.....?' Trying to ask me my name and at that moment I became a part of that group; the mob which had decided that my opinion would also count. A sudden anguish ran up my spine and before I could think even for a second, I replied '....Shubhankar'.
'Where will you get down ? '
'Kalyan'
My name entailed that I belonged to the majority group in the compartment and my opinion was that of the group and that killed all hopes or desire, if any I had that moment to differ from them, and somehow after this my anguish subsided. I looked out of the window for a second or two and then moved back to the group that was no different than the crushing moving sound that the train was making. They conversed with me for a while and I allowed myself to be included in them. Wherever the train stopped I saw similar scenes of some festival that was being celebrated. My mind wandered for a while to images that I would get to see near my home. That unnerved me a bit. I now realized that the cosmopolitan fabric that I was wearing for so long had been torn to pieces. Or may be all these years I had been covering myself with something that was never mine. It was difficult to decide this then. Nobody knew my name, my identity in the train back then, but it was during the same journey that I had acquired another identity, even if it meant to protect myself out of the fear of the unknown or unseen or just to seek timely refuge. That night I reached home but was far different from the person who had left a day back.
A name is an identity but how does one define this identity. Now that there were two names, it still had to be one identity but that identity had been compromised.
Time passed but I could never forgo those events of that winter. It was an identity that somehow stuck to me and would come to the forefront when the time arose. I knew that it would always run together with me where ever I went, though it would not meet me but would still be there like a parallel identity.

A human need of a desirous man.

There are some episodes in life that define people through their travails. They also define how they will be remembered by you for the rest of your life. There is one such person for whom I have a certain amount of respect and regard. It was the winter of 2010 and the evenings were passable providing respite from the punishing heat of the summer. As usual, I'd leave office at 4:00 and come to the bus stop and catch the bus back home, a journey which would take 40 minutes at times and sometimes more than that. Usually a few colleagues would also board the bus and there were some strange faces which had become quite familiar to evoke a smile and a silent hello. I don't know when this routine broke, as a sexagenarian colleague started regularly using the same bus from office to back home. He would get down one stop ahead of me, which meant that he would be accompanying me for the greater part of the journey. He would invariably take the seat adjacent to the middle door and I would usually take his immediate front seat. He always kept to himself and to his rosary. This went on for a couple of days, we greeted each other and kept to ourselves. One day I didn't have the exact change to take the ticket and he paid for it. I think that broke the ice and my journey had company now. He would eat a chewing gum immediately as he sat and would give me one. I don't know when we fell into the comfort zone and started conversing at ease during the journey. We would talk about many things. He would share some Urdu couplets and poems, past experiences, his childhood memories, about his deceased parents and his children. I would also share such matters with him but with a certain sense of dignity that his age required and also because familiarity breeds contempt. Both of us would go down memory lane and talk about our families living in our respective native lands. One Thursday, as is the week-end here, I shared with him a humorous incident about a friend who would say that it is weekend and with a mischievous smile, cheekily say that his better-half is waiting for him at home and he'll be having kebabs. We both laughed at the hidden innuendo in the humor. From then on, on a Thursday, I'd say: "Today is Thursday and there will be kebabs" and laugh ourselves to our homes. Looking at his mood, one such day I joked that he must also be bracing himself for kebabs. He just laughed it away and said that at his age kebabs are not easily digested. That weekend he bought some carrot halva from home and gave me. The halva was delicious and I said that his wife really cooks well. He said that his daughter and he had made the halva and that his wife is in fact bedridden for the last many years. She seldom walked and nobody knew the ailment she was suffering from. In a very dignified way he expressed his desire for a woman's company, a desire that every man rightfully has. That day he spoke at length about his inner anguish and I lent a mindful ear to his soliloquy. He said that he had expressed this to his friends who were of his age and they suggested that he should get remarried, as being a Muslim this is allowed and can be done. I knew that his health was being compromised by this self imposed celibacy. I said that if the need be then it is not wrong to do so but he should get his daughter married first as she may face some problems because we all come from a society which sometimes blames a person for just being a human being. All through the journey we spoke about the matter and he kept on repeating that some how he was uncomfortable with the thought. It was the last signal before he had to alight from the bus when he said: Yaar, you know there is only one thought that comes to my mind when I think about another woman. If I tell or ask my wife that I want to get married, she will agree to it. She knows what I am going through and she knows her own plight as well. But I have lived my life with her and I still care for her; her health, her life and I want her to live. And even if she gives me permission or agrees to my getting married, she may not tell me but surely a feeling will cross her mind and she will think at least once, that it is better for her to die before seeing such a day in her life." Saying this, he called for the bus to stop as his destination had arrived. I looked at him as he stood and alighted from the bus. He was a simple man but a superior human being. It was the desire of a man that he had sacrificed and defeated to allow a more human need which is nothing but compassion and love, to triumph.