Achche Din Kaise Aayenge

What i appreciate about PM Modi is, he has intended and mentioned that he wants to bring everyone together - opposition, bureaucracy, CMs - to the task of nation building. The other thing that is noticeable is staying away from religious / communal polarisation, by not commenting either way. The interesting thing in the last one month is, barring a few leader who insist on stoking secular/communal flames, the discussion has moved to development and governance with Modi 2.0 and everyone is hoping that is a good thing. 

IMO, most political parties have understood the religious card, dividing us on communal lines, objectifying us as vote banks, is not working anymore. The next logical step should be to weed out the criminals, bring in more candidates of diverse backgrounds, include more women and make governance at grass-root level a mandatory for leaders to rise. 

There is one thing that is troubling me though. How do we evaluate the core campaign promise of "achche din" in the next five years? It might mean many things to many people - employment, (sense of) security, inflation, rising stock market, larger part of the GDP on health and education, reduced corruption, transparency, tax reforms, police reforms, land reforms, sanitation, cleaning up rivers, FDI, foreign policy, affordable housing, retur of black money stashed away in tax havens - and many more. I'd say each Indian will have an unique wish list and set of expectations from PM Modi and his government. 

However, that still doesn't answer the "achche din" definition and i will tell you why: On any day, in any city of the country - just observe the beheviour of our fellow country men at traffic signal for few minutes. There will be late lateef's who will speed thru a red light, there will be those who are inching ahead from the left, there will be the bold ones who will break away when it is not their turn. Now don't let me single out only those with vehicles... There are jaywalkers who will ignore red / green and just walk as if it is their god-given right, and those who prefer walking on the road instead of the footpath. There will be pedestrians who take their own sweet time to make up their mind where they want to go, while standing in the middle of the road... 

For me, the "achche din" comes down to the small things in life. The unnecessary traffic jams at railway crossing, when impatient idiots go on the wrong side of the road, and choke oncoming traffic. The careless bus driver who stops the bus in middle of the road, instead of at the bus stop. The greedy rickshaw-wallah who refuses to take short distances. The asshole who honks while the signal is still red. The careless person who is talking on the mobile phone while driving / riding, or cradling the phone between shoulder and ear and speeding away. 

These and many more people like this are constantly gnawing at my day-to-day peace. They are the ones who cause road-rage. They are the thorns as we hopefully land up in to the "achche din" democracy. 

Now that the political discourse is changing, i think it is time for the auxiliary organisations of political parties to focus on other things too. These auxiliary bodies have long-guarded our culture and religions and languages, which are as old as time itself. They have used their better judgement to censor what we should read / watch / listen / do - instead of letting us choose for ourselves. They have used fear and intimidation and destruction to force us to see things their way, without trying to chat, reason and see the other side. 

These auxiliary bodies will do the nation a great disservice and to the PM himself, if they continue to increase the nuisance value and not be a part of the "achche din" initiative. 

They need to stop "creating news" and indulging in hooliganism / goondaism, and focus on being a part of the constructive system. Won't it be wonderful sight to see the volunteers of these organisations partnering with traffic police and manning understaffed signals? Just like they go door-to-door canvassing votes, why should they not go to houses and mohallas and hold camps to educate people on how to cross roads? Or how it is important to make way for an ambulance. Or not spit in public. 

I think it is time for them to re-invent themselves, as their larger political masters are taking the direction of growth and governance.

Those who think that Civics is a school subject, and not to be followed on the street need to wake up! The long arm of the Law will catch up with the criminals. What about those who are super busy doing one little transgression at a time?

Well, i don't know how the turnabout is going to happen, but i hope it does. For me, the "achche din" initiative will be reality when we follow traffic signals on the day signals are not working. When people wont shamelessly declare - India mein gaadi chalyi, toh duniya mein kahi bhi chala sakte hai.

That, will be "achche din". 

Columbidae Colombiformes - The Scary Flight

Don't let the title of this post rattle you... Last week, I had a horrific experience with a "Columbidae Colombiformes" that shook me up pretty bad. As I struggled to get my adrenaline levels back to normal after fighting a prolonged one-on-one with a Columbidae Colombiformes - a.k.a. pigeon, hundreds of questions came to my mind - What purpose does the pigeon serve? Why is it not on the "soon-to-be-extinct" list? Why did Noah allow them on the ark!?

My earliest memory of these birds will be that of a kabootar-khana. Before Pune woke up to the gains of concretisation we had a huge playground where 3 cricket matches could happen simultaneously, without the wicket-keeper of one match and the third man of the other, having to rub their asses together. In one corner of this huge playground, there was a wooden rack with cheap aluminum netting... you know the hexagonal design which keeps things inside. Or outside, whichever way you prefer to see things. This shack housed a roost of pigeons. There were close to two dozen pigeons of all variety and colours. Two local boys from our area, who gave up education after taking the X exam head-on multiple times, ran this kabootar-khana. To put it loosely, it was their hobby. Yes!! These were pet pigeons and these two characters - Shankar and his mate - dedicated a considerable amount of time and money to feed and fly these pigeons. I don't know what the gig was, but I suspect it was to increase the size of their flock. They took great pride in the different call signs that these domesticated pigeons responded to during their flights. Sometimes a stray pigeon would join the flock and will be immediately fed and made a part of the roost. 

Last week it was deadly hot and humid in Pune. It was cloudy all day and night, and the anxiety of when it is going to rain was as unbearable as the humidity. It was nearing midnight, and I was catching up on pre-recorded seasons of Homeland before the new season began. My mobile was in the other room, and when it rang, I paused the set-top box and went inside. It was a brief chat, followed by responding to a few SMSes and WhatsApp, and when I returned to the living room, I saw a fully grown pigeon sitting on my sofa. It was staring at me, unflinchingly. From my first-hand experience of living in Mumbai, I knew that I could not let the pigeon spend the night on my sofa. I was in no mood to wake up to a house full of feathers or worse, pigeon potty. At this point when I was making up my mind, the pigeon too was getting resolute about not leaving the sofa. I tried to startle it with a jump. No reaction. Nothing at all. I switched off the ceiling fan, fully opened the doors of the balcony and changed my angle of attack. I tapped on the sofa a few more times and got its attention. When I beat two pillows together it flew off... into the kitchen. To my horror, it was perched directly above my moderately stocked bar and a lot of glassware. This was fast turning into a crisis. I chased it from that shelf and it settled down a few feet away in the washbasin. Quickly, I took all the bottles and glassware and kept them on the dining table. 

I was losing on multiple fronts. First, getting the pigeon to lift off from the basin was getting very tricky. Second, since I had switched off the fan I was drenched in sweat. And finally, I was getting sentimental about the enemy - what if it is scared of the dark? Or of the dark heavy rain clouds and it somehow knew they were going to pour that night?

Quickly I put these thoughts at bay and renewed my attack inspired by the scene from The Hulk. I switched off all the lights in the house and switched on the ones on the balcony so that it can fly out.  

The steel of the basin helped in creating enough din for the pigeon to lift off without damaging anything else on the counter. Unfortunately, it decided to go back to the other platform and found a nook between water bottles and some plastic hold-alls. It was impossible to get it out from there. Clearly, there was not enough room for it to waddle backwards or fly off! My only option was to move the plastic boxes, which meant going to the bird's extreme proximity. I was just hoping that there is enough time between my moving the box and the bird taking off. Now, remember, I was doing all this in the dark as I expected the bird to fly off to the balcony. 

Luckily for me, the pigeon didn't try any stunt when I created room for it. I returned back to the corridor leading to the bedroom, hoping the pigeon turns around, take flight and exit from the balcony. Things went according to plan and the pigeon flew from the kitchen!! But my happiness was short-lived, as the damn bird decided to attack me! Yes, in a dark house lit only by the yellow light of the balcony streaming in, I was engaged in a one-on-one with a pigeon in a narrow corridor. It was flying at my face level, claws directed at me. I was armed with a hand towel and my free hand, but my arm movement and hence my reach were restricted due to the walls of the corridor. I was cornered with a closed bedroom door behind me, and I did what Sun Tzu had predicted hundreds of years back. 

It was not simply a battle between a pigeon and a man. It was a war for the occupation of the house. It was me fighting to make sure the message goes out loud and clear - that this house will be a human domain... that the pigeons were not welcome to squat here... that they cannot carpet bomb my house. 

In a fight for good vs evil, I drove the evil out of the house. The aerial fight and hand combat lasted a couple of very long minutes. I could make out the outline of the enemy and hear flapping sounds to target my attack. Those two minutes were sufficient to establish my speed of attack. The pigeon understood it was quickly losing this battle despite having the advantage of night vision. After one last flight above my head, it turned around and swung out of the balcony door and sat on my clothesline. I immediately closed all the doors and windows, put on the lights, and switched on the fan. As I sat down on the chair, trying to get my heartbeat to normal, I took stock of the damage done. The water bottles were lying around the counter, and the cocoa powder which I use to make my potent rum cake had not survived the fall and was all over the kitchen floor. There were a few feathers scattered around the house. It looked like a battlefield. 

As I stepped in the shower, I wondered if anyone other than Prem Choudhary from MPK and Raj Malhotra from DDLJ - both fictional characters have benefited from these birds... I felt acute anger towards that woman in our society who throws grains for pigeons in some misplaced sense of good deed of the day and expects the society to clean up the pigeon droppings from her terrace. I felt anger towards the people who built kabootar-khana in Dadar west. 

When I switched off the lights, I thought of the darkness I had created and the victory I had claimed. I was ready to put this experience behind me and call it a night.