"I am an actor by passion and producer by necessity" - Sanjay Suri

 The Sunday Indian Magazine


Actor-turned-producer Sanjay Suri whose film ‘I AM’ won the National Film Award for ‘Best Hindi Film’ catches up with Aditya Raj Kaul on the recent accolades and challenges.

TSI: How does it feel to have won the prestigious National Award for the Best Film even when the film has got enough international appreciation?

 
Sanjay Suri: Nothing else compares to the National Award. It is the most special and prestigious award one can get as a filmmaker. Yes, I AM has travelled to far corners of the world winning awards and accolades but truly this one feels different. It’s a validation of one’s efforts in an environment where Box office is the only parameter you are judged with. Someone along the way does lose faith if things don’t turn out the way one had imagined it to, but then an Award like the National Award helps you regain that faith and inspires you to continue on a path even if it’s less travelled.  I am totally re-energized and inspired after this honour.

TSI: How special was 'I Am' to you as an actor and a co-producer?

 
Sanjay Suri: I AM is special to me in more than one way. As an actor it gave me the opportunity to delve into the mind of Abhimanyu (the character I play), an individual who was bruised at a very young age being a victim of Child Sexual Abuse. Such roles definitely sensitize me both as an actor and a human being. The same had happened to me when I had done My brother…NIKHIL. It helped me grow.

As a producer, I wanted certain stories to be told that I have experienced, witnessed or seen or read in my own life or people around me and I have experienced the story of Megha. A story of displacement, loss of home, identity, etc. The courage required to revisit a past that was once lost for no fault of all these people including me. I always wanted to try to bring this emotion and reach out to a wider audience. I narrated each and every moment to my director friend Onir and then the writer Urmi Juvekar who eventually brought it out in the form of a screenplay. The fact that all four stories found a connect with the audience including the Jury which then awarded it the National Award for Best Hindi film has made me more at peace internally.

TSI: Was 'I Am' an emotional experience since a story also revolved around your own early life in troubled valley of Kashmir?

 
Sanjay Suri: Yes, right from the beginning it was an emotional experience for me. Emotions seem to flow whenever the word “Kashmir” springs up. Most of the emotions that I felt when I visited the valley after 18 long years were the trigger off point for I AM Megha. I wanted to capture a lot more but could only say a bit in those 22 minutes. It’s not possible to capture 22 years in 22 mins.

TSI: Apart from your years in the field of acting, you've also turned into a producer now, but quite selective about choosing the projects. How has been the experience so far?

 
Sanjay Suri: Well, I always say, “I am an actor by passion and producer by necessity”. Necessity because I wanted these stories to be told, but then who would produce stories that dealt with HIV, Homosexuality, Displacement, Child Abuse, Single parenthood, etc. It’s a big no no and considered suicidal in this box office driven environment. But today I am glad that I did what I did…and wish to thank all those who said no to produce these films because it’s given me much more than what I had imagined.

TSI: What are the future projects you are working towards?

 
Sanjay Suri: Both Onir and I produce together and our next project is called CHAURANGA, to be directed by a new director Bikas Mishra. It’s a story on a young Dalit boy falling in love with a 16-year old upper caste girl in a part of India that is not so shining! The script has been developed with the Binger Lab, Berlin Talent Campus, Film Bazaar Lab and has also won the Gotterborg International Script Development fund.

Besides this there are 3 more projects that we are pitching and developing.

Muzzling the freedom of press

 Aditya Raj Kaul

Sword of perception is being hurled as a mark, celebrating journalism of courage. The Indian media cold war is out in open with the giant-old  newspaper Indian Express, led by its editor-in-chief Shekhar Gupta and reporters Ritu Sarin, Pranab Dhal Samanta and Ajmer Singh threatening a defamation suit against Open Magazine editor-in-chief Manu Joseph, publisher R. Rajamohan, political editor Hartosh Singh Bal, Administrator Hamendra Singh and Editorial Chairman of Outlook Group Vinod Mehta for publishing an interview which severally criticized the much controversial story titled ‘The January night Raisina Hill was spooked: Two key Army units moved towards Delhi without notifying Govt’ reportedly suggesting an attempt towards Coup in India published on the 4^th April. The notice by Indian Express, among other things goes on to say that, there was “no suggestion in the said news report of any coup attempt”.

 Cartoon Courtesy - Outlook

Is this a remote incident muzzling the freedom of press? Perhaps, it isn’t. But, not always does an editor object to an ‘opinion’ expressed by a fellow veteran journalist in an interview, that too in a court of law. A legitimate disagreement could have been conveyed by the newspaper in ink on its pages rather than slamming a legal notice demanding 500 crores and an apology in damages among other conditions.

It’s an hour of reckoning, for us in the media to question our integrity towards the profession. We cannot afford to be mere spectators in this clash of editors, in a democracy which associates sky-rocketing ethics and high moral standards with journalism.

In January this year, while inaugurating a book ‘The Tribune 130 Years: A Witness to History’ written by historian V N Dutta, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, reported Indian Express, asked media to introspect suggesting a "degree of self-regulation”, identifying sensationalism, trivialization, prejudiced reporting and corruption as the new lows in the Indian media.

On the "inevitable highs and lows" in the media, Singh pointed out that there was "sensationalism, driven by a desire to sell a story at any cost... there are stories without a clear understanding of the underlined issues. There is reporting which is prejudiced. There is trivialisation of important matters. There is corruption. The prevalence of the practice of 'paid news' exposed recently has come as a shock to all right-thinking people." 

Do we in the media conquer with these tough words from the Prime Minister who himself has been heading a Government which has come under severe criticism for corruption? Or, are we too idealistic to identify the new low we have touched?

Interestingly, Indian Express in its April 22^nd edition ran a story on the expulsion of a member of a minority community from Team Anna for recording the core committee meeting proceedings without consent. The story was titled, “Muslim face out: ‘Team Anna biased’”. Didn’t the headline itself reflect an unethical approach in reportage?

Not many years ago, a little known city reporter of the Indian Express in a badly drafted e-mail revealed his plan to spread false rumours against me across media which would result, according to him, in my credibility going down. At that time as a sane young activist writer, I forwarded the e-mail to the Indian Express management, which acted on it in a just manner. 

The editor, I was told later, was furious at the grammatical mistakes in the e-mail apart from its juvenile threatening nature. Have we come a long way?

Original Interview of Vinod Mehta here - Open Magazine 

Legal Notice here - Indian Express

A Ghost named Arnab Goswami

“Conceal your intentions”, wrote American strategist Robert Greene in The 48 Laws of Power, “Keep people off balance and in the dark by never revealing the purpose behind your actions. If they have no clue what you are up to, they cannot prepare a defense. Guide them for enough down the wrong-path, envelop them in enough smoke, and by the time they realize your intentions, it will be too late.”

These words perhaps narrate a story about the success of news-channels in India. The country has been witnessing a media revolution ever-since 1987 when the state offered to bend from its controlled media and expose the country to private media. In the recent years however the competition has grown stiff. 

News channels have mushroomed all over the country in English, Hindi and the regional languages. It has also given rise to news-casters and an increase in news-analysis over English news prime-time segment. While traditionally news-channels have been soft towards the government, the state domination seems to have relaxed to an extent over recent few years. At least to a common man’s eye. It however remains rare to see a journalist of spine face challenge in the spirit of the core values of journalism. 

So...When a journalist of Assamese origin feels outraged and dares to ask tough questions on the most watched news-analysis show on Indian television, fellow editors feel uncomfortable, politicians grounded and anti-state actors question his national interest. The monopoly of the English TV media in India has faced a challenge in Arnab Goswami. 

Goswami, claimed to be the most visible face on television in India today is loud and clear in his opinion and doesn’t conceal his intentions on live broadcast; instead he is quite direct in his arguments or agenda. For that very reason, he is an easy target among the critics and even the journalists. He has stood apart from the other two most visible faces and change-makers in English TV news – Rajdeep Sardesai and Barkha Dutt. Not merely because of his loud animated voice with an equally cheesy background score. The paradigm shift Goswami brought to the TV news approach is unquestionable. Yes, a thousand questions may be directed at him, in the nation-wants-to-know style but he won’t smell of a bias, least of all a political bias.

Activist turned stand-up comedian, Gursimran Khamba in his mild-sarcasm filled open letter to Arnab Goswami in 2010 wrote, “Your critics say, a one horned Rhino gets poached in Kaziranga every time you open your mouth on television. I say they are all jealous of your success.” Perhaps they are. Another reason being a letter Goswami wrote to his employees shortly after 2G scam surfaced in media and alleged tapes of Nirra Radia with well-reputed editors became public.

“This is a low point in the news business. It’s downright shameful,” wrote Goswami in an open letter to his employees, “We believe in fierce editorial independence and complete personal honesty. Our standards have to remain impeccably high. In your interactions at any level, remember that you are ambassadors of India’s number one news channel.”

“…no disrespect to the organization that you represent and the group that we are all a part of, no loose talk, no flexibility on values, will be accepted. If I hear of any, we will come down hard, and no exceptions will be made...,” he further wrote. The public letter took a stand amidst silence of almost the entire media in India. It surely would have given birth to foes with vengeance in mind. The ethics of the media however remain buried till date deep inside an ocean full of precarious silence. 

The fancy power behind an editor today is immense, which often skids on way to success. It translates to insensitivity over issues of national importance. The scathing criticism of some editors over social networking websites has only increased over the recent years. Ignorance and above all arrogance would certainly not help in a situation as grave as this in the present significance of social media.

In India, news-channels have to now cross these infant years to a more important mature stage to lead a democracy out of its lacuna. It is imperative for media in general to have a collective conscience. Yes, certainly it’s hard in the times of corporate ownership of majority media.

'Remember, for a journalist, credibility is like virginity. You can lose it only once', veteran journalist Vinod Mehta wrote in his memoir, The Lucknow Boy. The notion of credibility has long lost its value in media. Indian media cannot be burdened with this responsibility alone till we have Rupert Murdoch who won’t let the sun set easy.

Till then at least, a ghost named Arnab Goswami will continue to haunt the power-breakers, with an intention which doesn’t hold a chance to be ignored by one and all.

Aditya Raj Kaul is the India Editor of the monthly The Indian published from Sydney, Australia. He can be reached at kauladityaraj@gmail.com

Are you alone?

Do you walk alone?

I do.

I walk into the night. There is an uncomfortable silence.  I am alone. The deafening silence is choking. It pours tough questions into the thought process. It mingles with the blood inside my veins sending shivers across the body. It is the darkness of the world. With my head bowed before the evil silence I walk distraught. I walk into the congested woods. The thorns lash at my body. Tears from this journey burn all along. Yes, the pain is unbearable. The truth of this pain has been swallowed. It lies buried inside the ocean of fear, even as the moon is witness.

Am I afraid? 

Has the world left me to walk alone?

Will I be pushed to the corner forever?

Time is a great healer. I however won’t wait for time to transform into a touch of solace. I will walk amidst dark clouds. I will cross the path of fear. The frozen river of hope will have to melt in my presence.  I will talk to the devil into the eyes. The burning rage inside my heart won’t spare the evil silence. I will tear it apart alone. No, the bullet won’t be my guard. The sun will envy my patience.

I will walk alone. I will answer the silence equivocally. I will bring to light the fire of hope. I will conquer the stormy night of discomfort. The gloomy wind will cry at its fate. I will walk alone if the world turns its back to me. I will.

I will drink the tears of sorrow. I will forget the pain of separation. I will burn myself to bring the truth to the surface. I will let an astonished time stare at my actions. I will walk alone.

Batla House encounter, just an election recipe?

Published in the Daily News & Analysis (DNA)

Union law minister Salman Khurshid made a major blooper with his unnecessary comment that the pictures of the Batla House encounter brought tears to Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s eyes. After getting flak from his party, he retracted, saying he had only meant she became ‘emotional.’

For political commentators, a swift Congress strategy to lure the minority in the Uttar Pradesh elections was visible. While the comment may have been emotive for a significant part of the minority community, it raises the larger question of political discourse in India, where secularism merely has been glued to the paper of the Constitution.

On September 19, 2008, in an encounter at Batla House, Jamia Nagar, Delhi, senior inspector Mohan Chand Sharma and two suspected Indian Mujahideen terrorists, Atif Amin and Mohamed Sajid, were killed while two other suspects Mohd Saif and Zeeshan were arrested. Another accused Ariz Khan managed to flee. Sharma, who was awarded the Ashok Chakra later, had played a crucial role in cracking the Parliament attack case.

On August 29, 2009, a bench headed by Delhi high court chief justice AP Shah rejected the plea of an NGO, Act Now for Harmony and Democracy, seeking judicial inquiry into the encounter. On October 30, 2009, in the Supreme Court, a bench headed by chief justice KG Balakrishnan dismissed the NGO’s plea challenging the earlier verdict. When the petitioner for the NGO, Prashant Bhushan, submitted that the encounter had shaken the faith and confidence of a large section of a community, the bench expressed its displeasure saying, ‘You need not identify any section of society... Criminals are criminals. Why do you identify a community?’

Identity and religion have run deep in the politics of India since Partition. As the controversy over the issue died, Congress leader Digvijay Singh found an opportune moment to raise it in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh’s minority hotbed on the eve of polls in Rahul Gandhi’s presence, saying that he always believed that the Batla House encounter was ‘fake.’

Home Minister P Chidambaram, saying there was no scope of reopening the case, called the encounter ‘genuine.’ If the Congress is keen to address the grievances of the Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association and other political outfits who’ve raised doubts over the encounter, why doesn’t the party bring consensus among their own leaders? Or, is the issue a deliberate attempt to cultivate an election recipe to milk the minority vote? Muslims too are human, not to be singled out as a vote bank.

The malady of this plank has corrupted the nature of political discourse in the country. Not far from this political game, a war has taken shape as a campaign over the internet, run by JTSA as a ‘fight against state and its agencies’, since ‘they refused a free and fair enquiry into the encounter.’

The JTSA theory of a ‘fake encounter’ hasn’t had many buyers. University of Delaware’s Director of Islamic Studies, Muqtedar Khan, slammed the ‘intellectually dishonest’ representatives of Muslims who ‘live in denial.’ ‘They first deny there is such a thing as jihadi terrorism,’ Dr Khan wrote, ‘resorting to conspiracy theories blaming every act of jihadi violence either on Israel, the US or India. Then they argue that unjust wars by these three nations (in Palestine, Iraq and Kashmir) are the primary cause for jihadi violence; a phenomenon whose very existence they have already denied.’

The Congress strategy in Uttar Pradesh has suggested a broader framework to ‘living in denial’. The party is following in the footsteps of the Samajwadi Party’s formula of minting votes through minority appeasement. It was seen when Khurshid announced a sub-quota for the minorities in Uttar Pradesh, demolishing the Election Commission code of conduct.

Will we remain entangled in this cynical web of politics? The political class — both ruling and the opposition — needs to introspect on the techniques being adopted in the system. There is certainly more to elections than winning votes.

Reservations as a policy for uplifting the backward sections haven’t been effective. Prof Purushottam Agrawal of the Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2006 presented the Multiple Index Related Affirmative Action as opposed to the reservation policy. While several academicians have supported the idea, the HRD ministry has remained ignorant till date. Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, who recently aired his support to the MIRAA framework on Twitter, may bring hope for the beginning of a solution.

In India, politics has to be rescued from the clutches of the skull cap and tilak. Religion has its sanctity, which should not be mixed with politics. The implicit non-secular planks in the name of secularism only go on to demonise democracy.

The writer is the India Editor of The Indian monthly published from Sydney, Australia. 

Listed on the Best Indian Blogs Directory

Please visit

Best Blogs of India - http://indianbloggers.org/

Celebration or mockery of freedom in Kashmir?

Published in Daily News & Analysis (DNA), Mumbai

It was August 24, 2007. Independence Day was still fresh in the memory.A group of politically aware girls pursuing journalism from the prestigious Kamla Nehru College in New Delhi, in association with a youth forum, Roots In Kashmir, were about to screen a documentary, ...And the World Remained Silent, by filmmaker Ashoke Pandit to question the state’s silence on the ethnic cleansing of exiled Kashmiri Pandits. On the eve of the screening, the organisers called it off. At Roots In Kashmir, the activists, mostly Pandits, were distraught. Again their voice had been silenced.

The organisers, however, quietly invited another filmmaker, Sanjay Kak, to screen his controversial film, Jashn-e-Azadi, which had been denied a public screening certificate by the censor board. It became clear within hours how some powers had changed the schedule. It didn’t need a political analyst to guess who had silenced the voice of the Pandits in exile. Though, as expected, the Delhi police asked Kak not to break the law and the screening was cancelled.

Yet another screening of Kak’s film has now been withdrawn by Symbiosis College of Arts and Commerce in Pune after the special branch of the police wrote to it asking it to refrain from showing the film during its three-day seminar, Voices Of Kashmir. 

Activists from the local ABVP unit also objected to the film’s provocative content. The college has organised the event in association with the University Grants Commission, which also received complaints against the director.

Kak, who has raised an alarm in the media over this apparent scuttling of his ‘freedom of expression’, was, however, singing a different tune a few months ago against the first literary festival planned in the Kashmir valley. The organisers of the Jaipur Literature Festival had planned a similar exchange — Harud Literature Festival — last September. While news agency AFP described it as “another sign at easing tensions in the revolt-hit Himalayan territory”, London’s The Independent described it as the “cultural rebirth” of Kashmir and “an attempt to aid the area’s cultural renaissance.” The Times of India wrote that the “valley had turned a page” and related the event to the fact that Germany had lifted its travel advisory against visiting Kashmir.

But normalcy wasn’t acceptable to a few fringe groups, who took it upon themselves to confront the free flow of ideas among writers from across the globe who would have assembled in Kashmir. Fundamentalist groups told the media that stones would be thrown at the venue. Kak and a group of cheerleaders became part of this campaign asking the organisers to cancel the event.

Before amnesia sets in, it is important to narrate how dangerous half-truths on Kashmir came into being. It all began on the evening of March 13, 2007, at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi where Kak invited the cream of cultural and social activists who were regulars on the Page 3 circuit for the premiere of his much talked about documentary on Kashmir — Jashn-e-Azadi (Celebration of Freedom). On the front seat of the jam-packed auditorium was a frail man in his early forties. He was the centre of attention of the organiser all through the evening.

Yasin Malik had never been a film buff or social crusader. He had never been seen behind the camera either. Often, cameras were directed at him for all the wrong reasons. In 1989 he was part of a large group of Kashmiri Muslims who were brainwashed and sent to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) for training on Kalashnikovs that would later that year and the following decade be used against the minority Kashmiri Pandits, who were seen as Indian agents.

Malik’s Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), which was banned till 2000 as a terrorist outfit, had the main role in orchestrating the forced exodus of Pandits after their selective killings in the valley increased. And here was the revolutionary of freedom among an elite audience to witness a film revolving around the separatist movement. Kak, main organiser for the evening, had already ensured that Pandits were denied entry into the auditorium. As a result, several young and old Pandit scholars, professionals, journalists and activists stood outside the closed main gate.

Malik, one of the lead characters in the film, says India wants to impose Brahminical imperialism in Kashmir. Does he even know the meaning of the term ‘Brahman’? The most significant mischief played by the film is with the portrayal of statistics. It says 200 Kashmiri Pandits were killed and 1,60,000 exiled. It goes on to support the Kashmiri separatist claim that 1,00,000 Muslims were killed since 1990.

Rashneek Kher of Roots In Kashmir, who was among those asked by Kak to remain outside the auditorium, says in his account published in Greater Kashmir: “When I asked Sanjay Kak the source of these figures, he said he had obtained these from some joint secretary in the MHA, New Delhi. The movie director being a respected man, I had no doubt that he had got them from the Government of India (GoI). When I asked him what’s the source of his figures, 1,00,000 killed in Kashmir since 1990, he strangely had no GoI statistics to support his figures. Who believes GoI anyway? I have received a reply to an RTI saying only 16,455 civilians have been killed in Kashmir since 1990. Now who would believe that? If GoI would have been sacred as Kak wants us to selectively believe, we wouldn’t have the movie in the first place.”

One of the flashes in the film says “Kashmir is the most militarised region”. Maybe it is. What then explains the presence of army and paramilitary forces when, till 1989, it hadn’t even seen an armed policeman? The forced exodus of Pandits also took place in 1990. The film does not mention why the army had to be placed there after 1989. Isn’t it imperative for a filmmaker to show the complete picture and not half-truths?

Jashn-e-Azadi didn’t face protests only at its premiere. In August 2007, Mumbai’s anti-terrorism squad received inputs about a secret screening being planned at Prithvi theatre. The police raided the premises and sealed DVDs of the film. The senior officer who ordered the raid was martyred by bullets of terrorists from Pakistan in the 26/11 attack. Kak faced similar police action in Gujarat, New Delhi, and other places.

“It wasn’t a film on Kashmiri Pandits,” remarked an angry Kak when challenged by an equally angry audience at a screening at Stanford University in the US last year. There can be no disagreement on this. But why then did he use Pandits for a minute or two in the 138-minute documentary? The film gives a falsified account on the Pandits, not just by statistics but by showing images of abandoned houses for a few seconds to rub salt into their wounds.

“A good documentary does not take sides, it simply documents and presents facts as they are, the director is never seen to be endorsing or negating what he shows. When Sanjay Kak explains the meaning and essence of the term shahadat, the swell of adrenalin is clearly audible in his voice, that’s when he moves from being a director to an invisible but strong spokesperson of his concept of what constitutes the celebration of azadi. To prove his point of view he has even borrowed footage that makes it look exactly like the sexed-up PowerPoint presentation that the USA made to the UN as its premise for attacking Iraq. History is replete with neo-converts going that extra mile to prove which side of their bread is buttered, but I believe the director wants to walk all through the Safar-e-Azadi to prove his loyaltyto the only leader of Kashmir, Yasin Malik,” writes Kher.

In 2010, on Independence Day, Mumbai’s Free Press Journal carried a feature on young Kashmiris and what they felt about India. A bright girl, a budding artist from Srinagar, spoke frankly about the concerns of ordinary Kashmiris and praised chief minister Omar Abdullah. Soon, all hell broke loose. Through a Facebook group called BekaarJamaath (Idle Group), and on e-mail and phone, she was threatened and abused by fellow Kashmiris. She was so scared that she went into hiding and sought help from security agencies.

Kak wouldn’t know of such stories. He couldn’t care less. Terrorists who have changed colours to suit their careers are important for his screen space. Kak won’t ask for their conviction under the law for killings against humanity in Kashmir; he would rather showcase them as ‘Gandhian activists’.

Ordinary Kashmiris have always been overshadowed by separatists who are given space by New Delhi-based intellectual mercenaries, making it a mockery of freedom. The spin doctors have made business out of Kashmir just as self-styled activists have worked for an ‘agenda’ unknown to the common man searching for peace in the valley.Is there any spring of hope for this intolerance to end?

Aditya Raj Kaul is India editor of the monthly The Indian published from Australia.

DEATH IN SPRING

Aditya Raj Kaul

Home had been a withered dream. It was a distant memory which had brought convulsions of pain along. Yet fragments of the memory remained stitched to wander in the sphere of chaos. There was a wish a writer had once. It was the longing to die.

And today Chandanwadi was in an unnerving calm atmosphere. The sky was clear even though the air was gloomy. For once it wasn’t the sandalwood fragrance but the sea of humanity converged to fare final adieu to the man of his words. The man, who had attempted to stand on raging fire without any mark of pain, was draped in white. 

It was autumn. Crumbled dry leaves made screeching sound. Marine Lines was in a curfew like state. Traffic was replaced by mourning crowd; thousands of men and women walking alongside the railway tracks. The sea on the other side was still, in melancholy. It was too silent for a sea. 

It was an end of an unannounced journey. It was an end to an effortless flight in the vast skyline of desire. There was deafening silence which remained. Silence was where it all began, once.

***

And for yet another hour he stared in silence towards his laptop in search of words as his mind transferred into thoughts. The story was vivid in his mind, frame after frame, concise. Only the words played hide and seek with his imagination. For a journalist worth his caliber, it wasn’t a mammoth task to link characters and their quotes with the idea of the subject. To ink a remarkable, memorable story was an art worth his salt. He carved heartening stories with magical words out of nowhere it seemed. But, this wasn’t a normal 500 word byline. By any means it was no ordinary story on his desk. The tale of his longing would be narrated in no simple words. Every word had to travel a two decade long silence in search of hope. 

Samsar was under an ocean load worth of thoughts. He was a wandering shadow searching for a lost identity. His 23 winters had been spent in intense thought about his misplaced existence in an unknown land among people from different castes, regions. He was in a metropolis with varied cultural identities. Often he fumbled to question the very essence of his role here. In a rebellious zeal always, he lamented being part of a civilization of confusion. At the end, perhaps always, he stood against the tide, silent and neglected by the pace of the world inching towards a dream. And today he logged on his desk the memory which he would carry every passing minute as a burden of his ancestors; the memory, which had to be narrated before meeting a dead end in history. It was a threshold to a new journey of faith. 

The amber light of dusk had withdrawn Samsar from the worldly pleasures around the city on a regular Friday night. While his friends took over the discotheques and pubs in town, he would sit silent recollecting past anecdotes. In anxious gulps of breath, he stood, and surrendering, shut the laptop, ran towards the door. He paced in the boxed elevator, which had a toy sound in its background, all the way to the ground floor to catch an auto rickshaw to the Andheri station. As light trails of passing vehicles reflected in his eyes, Samsar thought of another journey he had undertaken, possibly, the very first in his life. The journey, was etched as a story forever within him, since the time he heard it in complete from his mother.

In this hour of dusk, time was crawling at a slow pace, passing through the ever crowded narrow passage with shops on both sides to enter the station, Samsar held his chocolate brown bag tight to make way safe through sea of humanity. He was used to the Mumbai way of life, running around with bags held in front over the shoulders only to manage a comfortable entry into the congested local trains. It had been six long months in this city of dreams. The monsoons were the worst time of the year to be here. Not just because of the scale of rainfall in this city living over a sea but because Samsar avoided using an umbrella. It wasn’t his usual lazy style that was the hurdle. He was in love with the transparent German raincoat that his mother was gifted by her pen friend from Munich. It was a 20-year-old raincoat which almost never came handy in plains of the north where rainfall wasn’t as harsh. “Or, was it 23 year old?” he wondered. Memory faded as Samsar climbed the stairs to reach platform five of one of the busiest suburban stations, boarding the Churchgate fast local train to Bandra. 

Within minutes Ville Parle passed and soon came Santacruz with an Air India flight taking off right above the train at shooting speed. After Khar Road, the train made a screeching halt at Bandra. Samsar spent these fifteen minutes standing at the door of his first class bogie holding the pole for support as the evening breeze cuffed his face. The calm chill, that the waves brought reminded him of his mother, who used to pamper him right up till his late teen years. Both mother and son often used to travel to explore new destinations, across the country. While the mother loved the unique historical and cultural insight to a region new to them, the son indulged in photography and often engaged in friendly conversations with inhabitants. He had a genteel way with people, of striking a chord even in an alien environment. Though often huddled and sporting a serious look, Samsar had a humorous side. It took his friends longer than usual to understand him. It was difficult to decipher his mind.

His mind was filled with an emotional conflict with which he grappled alone. Any interference from others wasn’t welcome, although he was never rude to curious acquaintances trying to partake the responsibility of conflict resolution through psychological mediation.  He was polite in his gesture to show them the door. 

For years there was an image he encountered in dreams. An old nailed blue door with its handle locked. A bottle green cloth hung from its top corner, partially visible to his eye. The door must have existed forever with a rusted metallic sheet covering it from left bottom. Nothing existed beyond this door. It was an image that haunted him since childhood.

Most of his early years were spent in haste; there weren’t any happy memories. Samsar was ten-months-old when his longest journey began. A journey which only his mother recounted well. The very first and the longest journey which began with no end, no destination. Just like a migratory bird travels in the sky, he undertook this journey in utter chaos. Not for food or shelter. For hope and safety across a long tunnel. Jawahar tunnel.

It was 19^th January, 1990. A wintery haze had set in. Dal Lake was frozen, so were the shaken bodies of those hundreds of frightened pigeons who were to embark on a journey. And there crawled Samsar in the courtyard of his home on the banks of Dal Lake. It was an island like formation on the river bed with houses scattered around. Rainawari, a unique mixture of a town and a village was often called the Venice of the east by European travellers. It was situated amidst the most beautiful environs overseeing the Himalayas on one side and the magnificent Dal on the other. 

It had been little more than nine months since Samsar was born. His mother, still completing her PhD in history from the University, had to manage her infant and research at the same time. For the lady worth her salt, it wasn’t a challenging burden to shoulder such a responsibility. She could handle Samsar well as he was unusually quiet child from the very beginning, but curious. 

Things didn’t move steadily for many days. It was that fateful winter night when the loud speakers uttered raucous warnings against them to leave. The warning became more unbearable than the terrible winter chill in the valley. It had been pouring snow all night. Old houses with white flakes covering their slanting roofs stood silent witness to these gory voices. The electricity went off early that night, unexpected. Sometime late into the night gun shots rang in the air. Someone on the street corner had been screaming “Thathye saeb ha morukh mandras nish” (Thathye, elderly person, was killed near the local temple), until his family members pulled him inside holding his mouth in silence. The eerie calm surrounded the valley of sorrow at night.

It was the longest night of trauma as death marched to and fro in the darkness. All through the rendezvous with death, these souls waited for the first morning rays to escape fate. Even the animals could be heard sulking on the street. That night humanity didn’t get enough sleep. 

As birds braved their way into the morning, people emerged to flee from the reign of fear. Houses were locked in the hope to return when the situation improved over the next few days. Samsar was huddled into a white cloth by his mother and covered by woolens. His mother packed few bags to carry necessary clothing, utensils and some cash along with some age-old photographs and rare paintings that were close to her heart. Never would she have imagined that these photographs would become relics in the years to come. 

Majid, a friendly milkman in Rainawari who owned an auto rickshaw helped some families escape their way with light luggage to Lalchowk. He had already made almost six rounds from Rainawari to the bus stand at Lalchowk. At the cost of suspicion by local area commanders of terror outfits, Majid made a brave attempt to rescue families risking his own life. 

“Welyiv jaldi, bus hay aasyi weny nernas tayaar” (Please come fast, the bus would be ready to leave), he screamed from the porch outside her house. It was a vast compound overlooking a giant tree that was worshipped as a deity.

Holding Samsar the white bundle that was, she raced to sit inside the auto rickshaw after locking the main door. She stopped mid-way and ran towards the tree of Vittal Bhairava which wasn’t far off. Bowing her hands in prayer with tears in her eyes, she took the basme tyok (ash formed by burning the holy lamp) slowly pasting it on Samsar’s forehead. Samsar stared into her eyes silently. Holding back her tears, his mother boarded the auto rickshaw to Lalchowk. And the journey began...
 

***

The fear of turning old had been recurring all through these last few months. Not that the grey hair would bother his ego, not even the flab of dry whitish-brown skin protruding out from calcium-less bones. Samsar wasn’t too conscious of his looks or even the ever growing beard lately. Most of his life had been without any particular fear.

As he was driving away in the dark to seek solitude, the fear grew stronger. It brought quick sweat on his face and the deep forehead, added along was a rattling effect on his nerves. His right foot pressed hard against the accelerator on this empty city road far away from the city of his thoughts. The racing heart was faster than the car. “I wish to stop and run away to my home”, he thought. Though he knew he couldn’t.

“There seems no end to this journey. The farther I travel, the more I seek to return. The time dissolves into memory. In this thorny path ahead of me, I see an identity-less non-stop journey into darkness. The journey itself begins in darkness of hope. An ironic life of a wandering soul”, he scribbled on his brown notepad.

“Most nights are spent in the ‘white and black’ of the unseen past. Past being a predicament as much as the future”, he continued to write. Samsar had a poetic touch to his intricate prose writing.

“I stare at the photograph of a rare sparrow sitting on the gate of a mausoleum with her back turned towards me; on the front is a ‘hazy green’. One of the many photographs pasted above my work desk. The haziness of this forced journey is unpredictable. In this concrete jungle, I do not long for another machine. All I yell for is my lost abode,” he concluded.

The past nostalgia was still churning itself inside him; and the hope for future burning all around.

Was it the fear of turning old? Or, perhaps of being a homeless man, which was an ordeal haunting him since years together.

“No matter how much the fear grapples within my silent heart. It’s too late now; for the journey has been halted”, he had noted on the last page of his diary.

Samsar once crept on the walkway talking in doddering tone to his own self, “Just as the withered dislocated leaf of ‘Chinar’ which narrates the agony in its fire brown tint before being crumbled, the fear in me shall pass. The silent journey alone to my home shall never end. I shall remain young forever to recount the ‘untold story’ of a forgotten tribe. The tribe that existed in their homeland, not so far long ago”, he mumbled.

“Freedom is a prison for I am not at home. I remain confined in that prison lark”, he once told Tarangini, staring into her eyes sitting at Marine Drive way past midnight.

Tarangini, who was a well-known journalist with a popular news channel, would hear his anguish patiently. His words would echo in her dream.

Samar had a strange way with words. He loved his hearth as much he loved Tarangini.

Tarangini had met him over half a decade ago on a walkway in New Delhi. It was not as silent as Marine Drive. At that time it was a sweltering June summer at Jantar Mantar, the protest junction of the country where an entire sea of humanity would converge to sing through their tears on tragedy and travesty of justice.

It was a late afternoon. Samsar in his late teens at that time was more of a crusader of justice who worked as a cub reporter. He was the focus of attention for uniting masses to protest against the police for botching up a brutal case of rape and murder. While journalists jostled for space to grab him by his arm for a quick sound-byte, his eyes fixated on a figure at a distance. The figure, restless, holding a placard in hand led the protest as a passing storm. Samsar couldn’t gather strength to look into the eyes of the figure, as he was too steady for the storm to catch pace. It was an extraordinary moment for the teenager. For a moment, he stood unaware about the cause that had led him to this place. It was a Bollywood story; love at first sight.

As loud music reverberated around Samsar stared at the figure without a breathing break. In darkness, the crowd mingled, limbs moved in all directions uncontrollably while he stood there with his hand in the denim jeans pocket and eyes still fixed in the direction of the creation, “the one created for him, perhaps”, he thought.

In the motionless stance among mechanical bodies, his mind didn’t flicker an inch. The loveless figure sat at a distance with uncomforted eyes but smile glued on the melancholy filled face; the perfect smile of a disappeared love regaining consciousness slowly.

Their path in-between still crammed by souls in tempo didn’t let them move, or was it the velocity of pain shared by them?

As a couple of years passed in their relationship, Samsar traveling through the mountains in a distant land on work assignment wrote in his diary, “Love doesn’t fade away. It griddles fine and tosses well. And, then it returns with a thud for good. Because love isn’t a relationship, it’s madness. The madness is of patience and heart-aches. It’s a revolution shaping up each day, tangled with missiles landing everywhere. The missiles are in a confused state of consciousness. It’s a state of longing for the beloved with abated heartbeats. Love doesn’t end anywhere, it only grows till eternity”.

The short span of separation from Tarangini had left him sleepless. He was restless in love. While the nights passed sleepless, during the winter days Samsar walked around the hills amidst natural green environs away from the clatter of the city.

“Your absence is a deep wound in my silent heart. It doesn’t heal. In solitary moments, it pains till I fall asleep. And find you smiling in a sweet dream”, he wrote in his diary.

Love was her innocence and his commitment; her sweetness and his gentleness; her talking, him listening. Love was her sunshine and his moonlight. 

Tarangini returning from office often stayed back with Samsar in his room at Carter Road overlooking the magnificent sea. They would talk endlessly into the night. Their stagnant bodies would meet in silence making love. Devoid of the pain they would part.

Their love wasn’t a secret anymore. It wasn’t the paparazzi filling the air with rumors but their families came to know of the secret affair. They had begun coercing both to tie the knot. It was a matter of few days.

Early evening on a Sunday, Samsar left his room to meet Tarangini at Kayani Bakery. It had been a usual day with bright sky. He took the local train at Bandra to Churchgate. On way he decided to get off a station before Churchgate at Marine lines and began walking towards Kayani. Thoughts mingled inside his mind in a joyous overtone as he thought of making love the previous night with Tarangini.

It became sultry as he walked in pace. At the Metro Cinema he halted for the traffic to stop to cross the road. He had a habit of avoiding the subway which meant climbing up and down the stairs. Escalators were still restricted to the upscale malls. He thought of taking the subway but since the traffic signal turned green he brushed away the thought. He continued walking.

Jarring sound suddenly left the road ahead of Metro Cinema in thick black smoke. Passing vehicles flew in air as wailing sound filled the area. Minutes later emergency sirens took to the street.

Samsar died. The chains of longing ended in spring of his youth. 

And, home remained a withered dream.