The Prologue
It was just another day for Anjali, a day that was not much different from the one that just passed and more or less the same as what could be expected of the coming one. As she stepped into the last tube that would take her home, Anjali prepared herself for the flood of memories and thoughts that always accompanied her on such journeys, which she otherwise was quite lonely on.
Ever since Anjali joined her first job, she had been independent and on her feet. When her company asked her to go on-site, the repressed software engineer in her found the opening that was so much required. She never thought twice about leaving India as she was not leaving behind any one of any import. She was quite alone...but never a loner. Popular amongst friends and foes alike, right through school and college, Anjali was feeling left out, after quite some time.
The journey begins
It always started with this, the Mela of thoughts, from the first day on foreign soil for Anjali. As she waited for her luggage at the squeaky clean airport terminal that she could never have seen in India, Anjali's eyes looked up to the monitor near her. They were showing the news and it was about India, about Delhi, the city she had just left. The reporter, Shrikanth, was talking about the blasts in Delhi and public's indifference to the same. Anjali, too, was indifferent...but then, she was not from Delhi anyway and neither did she know anyone who lived in Delhi.
A couple next to her was looking at the news, too. They were Indian like Anjali, probably on vacation or their honeymoon, for all Anjali cared. As they started discussing the news item and noticing Anjali, they began trying to include her in the coffee table conversation which Anjali studiously avoided. She did not have to try too hard and as Arzan points out, she just needed to avoid eye contact which Indians tend to do anyways when they meet each other outside the country.
She could not succeed however for Anjali was, by nature, quite polite and it was just not possible to avoid the couple who, like Cynical Nerd, kept talking about how this sort of an event should wake up the media elite and lead to a change in attitude about handling terror amongst the Indian intelligentsia. Karan was, in fact, an officer in the Indian Army and Anamika, his wife, had just joined the Tatas as a manager whose duty included overseeing the latest low cost car that Tata is going to come up with.
Like Anjali, Anamika seemed relieved when Karan changed the topic of conversation from a bleeding Delhi to her company, Tata and how, as Parsi Khabar says, they were one of the few companies deemed to take India to the next stage where modernity and concern for things will go hand in hand instead of the situation today where in the never ending quest for money, people have become indifferent to the very meaning of life.
But, Anjali had thought at that time, like Sunil did, what was the point of being good, of thinking more than one is strictly required to. She always believed that it is not going to be that her thoughts or actions would be capable of changing anything or making any difference to the ocean of mismanagement and lack of logic that the news item and others like it spoke of.
And then, of course, there were so many different kinds of terror that Anjali had already seen in her past life. The most horrific of them to Anjali was the quasi-fanatic religious fervor, which has always been a part of India but as Sooraj would have said, which does not probably pose as much danger to the fabric of India and its democracy as some might think.
Anjali had long since buried herself in her own little alcove, coding away in her claustrophobic cubicle, sweating it out to be miles ahead of others in geekiness. Like Vulturo, she laughed when technology was misunderstood by novices and silently said a prayer when her umpteenth attempt at optimizing her code resulted in a page load time of one second less than the benchmark.
It was not enough, however, and the couple, who had by now taken quite well to Anjali, were making it clear to Anjali in no few words. Right from terrorism to cricket, they were talking about everything under the sun and kept waiting for Anjali's inputs every once in a while. As Karan talked enthusiastically about Dhoni's latest knock, just as Gaurav does, he rated it as the best ODI knock ever..."the best ever?", Anjali thought. She was surprised at the use of superlatives but not unduly so for it had been only one day that she had been away from her colleagues back in India who never ceased to amaze her with their own superlative usage.
Anjali was above these superlatives and she had reasons to be so. She had faced so much in her life that she had stopped believing in superlatives...the negatives were there as much as were the positives and whenever someone talked about the best and the worst, she knew that there were higher degress still waiting for her. It was always like this for Anjali, like the wedding Ravi talks about, a riot of things unrelated, good and bad, without any logic and yet happening...truly happening.
She has always bounced back, she tries to make Anamika understand, and so would Delhi and the people affected by the news they had been discussing. Karan does not agree and talks about what Dhiraj says about the things never having affected Delhi at all, and how there is no question of surviving or bouncing back for the junta.
Anjali nods her head and as if in a daze, says good bye to the couple as she sees her luggage arrive after an atypical delay of nearly an hour. As she walked out of the airport building, Karan's enthusiasm and Anamika's quiet confidence kept her company as she looked at the back of the head of the taxi driver. Remembering Karan talk about Saurav with as much passion as Arnab, or thinking about Anamika rather passionately discussing the merits of coffee and in Govar's words, of outlets like Cafe Coffee Day.
The Epilogue
Trying to make herself comfortable against the hard chair of the subway train, Anjali closed her eyes as she realized that she was close the worst part of her memories, the part when she reached home and swtiched her TV set on. The first thing she watched on TV after the news item at the airport was another news item and this time, like once much earlier, she was not indifferent. It was about a couple who got mugged and killed on the street, a couple that Anjali had just left behind, hale and hearty.
It was as if history was repeating herself. It was as if she was Munni once again, watching from the corner of the dingy room that her own Postman Unlce had locked her in before selling her off at the Meena Bazaar (which is another story, of course). Once again, she was watching her brother Pappu being fed the lies about her being lost in the Mela at The Truth Laid Bear's UberCarnival.
She could not even cry out to Pappu that she was being held against her will by Postman Uncle for she did not know about it herself. It was a game to her, as was the hour she had passed with Karan and Anamika at the airport, never realizing on either time that a lifetime of hatred, filth, and despondency awaited her on both occasions...but Anjali remained hopeful, of the next time, of the next tidal change in her life, the next Mela when she will meet Pappu and perhaps pray together for the souls of Karan and Anamika.
Ever since Anjali joined her first job, she had been independent and on her feet. When her company asked her to go on-site, the repressed software engineer in her found the opening that was so much required. She never thought twice about leaving India as she was not leaving behind any one of any import. She was quite alone...but never a loner. Popular amongst friends and foes alike, right through school and college, Anjali was feeling left out, after quite some time.
The journey begins
It always started with this, the Mela of thoughts, from the first day on foreign soil for Anjali. As she waited for her luggage at the squeaky clean airport terminal that she could never have seen in India, Anjali's eyes looked up to the monitor near her. They were showing the news and it was about India, about Delhi, the city she had just left. The reporter, Shrikanth, was talking about the blasts in Delhi and public's indifference to the same. Anjali, too, was indifferent...but then, she was not from Delhi anyway and neither did she know anyone who lived in Delhi.
A couple next to her was looking at the news, too. They were Indian like Anjali, probably on vacation or their honeymoon, for all Anjali cared. As they started discussing the news item and noticing Anjali, they began trying to include her in the coffee table conversation which Anjali studiously avoided. She did not have to try too hard and as Arzan points out, she just needed to avoid eye contact which Indians tend to do anyways when they meet each other outside the country.
She could not succeed however for Anjali was, by nature, quite polite and it was just not possible to avoid the couple who, like Cynical Nerd, kept talking about how this sort of an event should wake up the media elite and lead to a change in attitude about handling terror amongst the Indian intelligentsia. Karan was, in fact, an officer in the Indian Army and Anamika, his wife, had just joined the Tatas as a manager whose duty included overseeing the latest low cost car that Tata is going to come up with.
Like Anjali, Anamika seemed relieved when Karan changed the topic of conversation from a bleeding Delhi to her company, Tata and how, as Parsi Khabar says, they were one of the few companies deemed to take India to the next stage where modernity and concern for things will go hand in hand instead of the situation today where in the never ending quest for money, people have become indifferent to the very meaning of life.
But, Anjali had thought at that time, like Sunil did, what was the point of being good, of thinking more than one is strictly required to. She always believed that it is not going to be that her thoughts or actions would be capable of changing anything or making any difference to the ocean of mismanagement and lack of logic that the news item and others like it spoke of.
And then, of course, there were so many different kinds of terror that Anjali had already seen in her past life. The most horrific of them to Anjali was the quasi-fanatic religious fervor, which has always been a part of India but as Sooraj would have said, which does not probably pose as much danger to the fabric of India and its democracy as some might think.
Anjali had long since buried herself in her own little alcove, coding away in her claustrophobic cubicle, sweating it out to be miles ahead of others in geekiness. Like Vulturo, she laughed when technology was misunderstood by novices and silently said a prayer when her umpteenth attempt at optimizing her code resulted in a page load time of one second less than the benchmark.
It was not enough, however, and the couple, who had by now taken quite well to Anjali, were making it clear to Anjali in no few words. Right from terrorism to cricket, they were talking about everything under the sun and kept waiting for Anjali's inputs every once in a while. As Karan talked enthusiastically about Dhoni's latest knock, just as Gaurav does, he rated it as the best ODI knock ever..."the best ever?", Anjali thought. She was surprised at the use of superlatives but not unduly so for it had been only one day that she had been away from her colleagues back in India who never ceased to amaze her with their own superlative usage.
Anjali was above these superlatives and she had reasons to be so. She had faced so much in her life that she had stopped believing in superlatives...the negatives were there as much as were the positives and whenever someone talked about the best and the worst, she knew that there were higher degress still waiting for her. It was always like this for Anjali, like the wedding Ravi talks about, a riot of things unrelated, good and bad, without any logic and yet happening...truly happening.
She has always bounced back, she tries to make Anamika understand, and so would Delhi and the people affected by the news they had been discussing. Karan does not agree and talks about what Dhiraj says about the things never having affected Delhi at all, and how there is no question of surviving or bouncing back for the junta.
Anjali nods her head and as if in a daze, says good bye to the couple as she sees her luggage arrive after an atypical delay of nearly an hour. As she walked out of the airport building, Karan's enthusiasm and Anamika's quiet confidence kept her company as she looked at the back of the head of the taxi driver. Remembering Karan talk about Saurav with as much passion as Arnab, or thinking about Anamika rather passionately discussing the merits of coffee and in Govar's words, of outlets like Cafe Coffee Day.
The Epilogue
Trying to make herself comfortable against the hard chair of the subway train, Anjali closed her eyes as she realized that she was close the worst part of her memories, the part when she reached home and swtiched her TV set on. The first thing she watched on TV after the news item at the airport was another news item and this time, like once much earlier, she was not indifferent. It was about a couple who got mugged and killed on the street, a couple that Anjali had just left behind, hale and hearty.
It was as if history was repeating herself. It was as if she was Munni once again, watching from the corner of the dingy room that her own Postman Unlce had locked her in before selling her off at the Meena Bazaar (which is another story, of course). Once again, she was watching her brother Pappu being fed the lies about her being lost in the Mela at The Truth Laid Bear's UberCarnival.
She could not even cry out to Pappu that she was being held against her will by Postman Uncle for she did not know about it herself. It was a game to her, as was the hour she had passed with Karan and Anamika at the airport, never realizing on either time that a lifetime of hatred, filth, and despondency awaited her on both occasions...but Anjali remained hopeful, of the next time, of the next tidal change in her life, the next Mela when she will meet Pappu and perhaps pray together for the souls of Karan and Anamika.
1 comment:
Nice narrative. Good work. Thanks for a another good mela.
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