It is no surprise to see opposition parties and obsessed "activists" always blaming Modi for something that happened way back in 2002 - on which not a shred of proof has been found to link him with leading a mass killing spree. Even if we believe that there was his involvement at some level, then the same villification campaign should be unleashed against communist thugs of West Bengal and Kerala. Mainly in the latter, whose cadres are now dominating the national politburo and the results are expectedly disastrous for the party. Why not go after all of them? Why single out Modi?

The argument given in favour of that is he as a chief minister became a mass murderer. Idiots like Mallika Sarabhai, who was dancing away as the state's development went haywire under Modi's predecessor, or Teesta Seetalvad, whose only claim to fame is the Godhra riots case, are nothing more than brazen troublemakers intent to salvage some claim to intellect. For Sarabhai this is the last option - respect for her was as much as you would respect a fly. Now, she can say she fought elections, without mentioning that she lost with a unheard of record margin. She can claim to be so much interested in Gujarat, which is like an exercise in buffoonery, given that the state has prospered and developed like never before under perhaps their best CM in recent times.

Now take a look at the other bunch of thugs, again communist, but this time a motley bunch of tribals who think they are the gods of the forests. Mining for minerals is needed - for long we have studied how the lack of mining has kept Bihar underdeveloped, and the same argument holds true for Orissa. Granted that legitimate processes have to be followed while giving out licenses, and that the tribals have every right to oppose if they feel betrayed, it is not fair to listen to every noise they make just because a motley bunch is firing away from WW-I era guns. Those Maoists need to be trapped through proper intelligence gathering and eliminated. The tribals live in the forests - that does not mean they can stop legitimate mining just coz their expanse of land is lost. Now we see a general disagreement against any relocation - even if the new land given to them to settle is fine.

Aiding them again, are people like Sarabhai and Teesta, only this time with names like Roy and others. And again this craving to step up against the state, and to appear like a hero to uneducated and violent tribals, is what drives them. Roy has no business writing stuff she just discovered out of the blue - she was nowhere near to being an activist till she won the Booker, and till the trophy shone. Once that was done, and she began to be forgotten by the media, she decided to launch a crazy, and brazen, series of articles.

There are people in the media, the leftist and worse, the communist types, who would support such antics and thankfully they are heard less and less. The need is not for anti-establishment troublemakers, but of intellectuals. This is where you needed the superb intelligensia of Bengal as witnessed in the original, and the only true, Naxal movement way back in the sixties. Those Naxalites were not not a bunch of illiterate and crazy tribals led by the most aggressive of them all, but educated ones who fought against landlordism and all other social inequalities and corruption. It was brutally suppressed, which it should not have been. But these Maoist gangs are not them, and it would be fine to do away with this current bunch of hooligans.

The Maoists are not interested in development. They are a gang who want land. They are fighting for themselves becoming dons, rather than anything else. So they will not kill criminals, or rogue politicians, or corrupt civil servants - they will not even touch them. They will kill some local constable or kidnap some policeman here and there, blow up railway tracks. They are fighting to grab land. Not save it.

And so we come back to those who defend anything that stops development, if you notice. So the likes of Roy, and Sarabhai etc will go against Modi, and will keep chanting his name whatever good he does for the state. The same type of egoist people, hungry to be always called intellectuals, will also fight for the Maoists. Supported by equally desperate Communists, who are either down and out everywhere you can look, or are rogues in a suit, like Chavez. Some Maoists follow Che Guevara's example. They surely deserve to end just like he did - chased and shot in a Bolivian forest. And their so called "activist" sympathisers, already sidelined, should be further ostracised.

This is my second post from Varanasi.

The last talked about the animal life. Many of you liked it, and thanks for the feedback!

There are so many things noticeable about here, but the most popular stuff to eat are those which you can get other places, but not with the modifications, the secret touches, that make is so yummy.

Take milk for example. Now would you call Hot milk a popular item? Surely, in our homes most of us have it like everyday. What is the big deal? Nothing except that hoardes of people crowd around shops in Lanka, which is adjacent to the Banaras Hindu University, Asia's largest residential campus. Now why is the crowd willing to wait around 10 mins to have that milk?

The secret is quite simple. The milk is just more concentrated, putting it midway between normal hot milk and kheer. In a huge khadhai, the milk is constantly stirred, letting it concentrate while it boils, and malai forms over it. You can choose your order size, that is a small or a large earthen cup, and he will pour the milk straight out of the kadhai, add the malai to it, and serve piping hot. I am tellng you, if you haven't tasted it, you have missed something.

All over India, people like Bengali sweets, so named because all the sweets made out of paneer have originally, and without any doubts, come from Bengal. With a large population of Bengalis here, you can get superb sweets in Banaras. But what interests me also is an item called Laongalata. Strangely named, but it is actually named after clove. It is a simple preparation again, but you get the heating wrong, or the filling less sweet, and you just make it worthless.

And well the samosas are something you can get all over India, but wherever you live, the tastiest ones are made by people from UP. That is because in any city or town or village, the recipe lives on passed on by generations. There is just that bit masala extra here, a little less there, and that makes all the difference in the filling.

Coming from the south to the north is always stepping one level up as far as cuisine goes. You can talk of chettinad and all that, but those are nothing but more spicy cuisine. Same for Hyderabad, its just that the spices are different from those used in Chennai. The cooks are not satisfied unless you are panting for breath after having their biryani. However, the Nawabi biryani, found in Lucknow and also parts of Benaras, is just superb, and you do not need to hide behind overtly spicing it up. The taste is not to make you reach for a glass of water after every morsel, but rather, for you to wish you could eat more. Bangalore on the other hand, has no cuisine of its own except for some rudimentary attempts at it.

Coming back to Benaras, you are not done here till you have the lassi. You thought the Punjabis make it the best, which they well might, but here its no less. It is just the right sugar here.

And now let me tell you the most popular breakfast time here. What would be your guess? IF you are a journalist like me maybe you get up after 7, unless you are in TV and are in some strange shift. Others among you might wake up at 6. How about having a breakfast at 6? If you are from Benaras or surrounding areas, that is no surprise at all. Stalls of Kachauri-sabzi and Jalebis open at 5.30 in the morning in many areas, and you can spot groups of people having them heartily as you jog through the area. I have never understood the reason though. I mean if you have breakfast at 6, you might be having lunch at like 11? And dinner by 3? That's ridiculous. Even in London, it gets dark by 3.30 pm in the winter, people do not have dinner just then. So I assume people have certain snacks in between. Samosas are welcome always aren't they?

There is something about Banaras that puts your mind at rest. This is, apart from the fact that it is home.

Now the thing is why should this be the case? It is so because of the atmosphere. Just as a fast paced office grows on you, so does a laid-back city. People have time to get around and get their work done. There is usually little to hurry about, and you have time to not just talk, but just let your mind wander on its flights of fantasy while sitting on the riverbank.

There are certain things unique about this city, the most prominent one being the availability of grass. It is so easily available that you are surprised to hear that it's a banned substance. You needn't get it surreptitiously like in Bangalore or Delhi. You can get it free, and openly on the ghats.

Another feature is the wide availability of moving cattle. They own the streets, and they park themselves wherever they want. If you wonder how the people handle such encroachments on public roads, you needn't worry. The people are as used to seeing them on the roads as people.

The other day there was this donkey which ran amok while I was driving to the serene BHU campus, where I spent five years getting educated. Or pretended to. The donkey made straight for a sweet shop. People sitting there first gaped at it, thought it would stop, and then ran the hell out of there and stopped a short distance away to see what the crazy donkey was upto. The donkey just stopped as if its batteries ran out, and stood that way. The people gradually came around, someone poked it with a stick, but hell it would just not budge. Feeling secure, the people sat down, and started chatting over warm milk as before. The donkey started braying all of a sudden, which again sent people outta the shop, chairs flying and all.

Such entertainment is not confined to poor donkeys. Monkeys are often funnier, and are usually to be found sitting on rooftops and scratching themselves. Quite a few of them regularly invade homes and try to rob the fridge. In my locality they try to spoil the garden, and have previously made off with flower pots, after yanking the poor plant out. The pot is then dumped on some other house. In one case the owner ducked just in time as a small flower pot went flying over his head.

Usually incidents are far less dangerous though. The other day a monkey ran off with an entire clothesline of a guy who then gave chase with an airgun. Several shots were fired and some clothes recovered, which were spread across atleast a dozen houses by the retreating, but vindictive monkey. I remember before the advent of DTH and stuff, the TV antenna would usually be turned upside down by the monkeys. They come on groups of 10-20, and can be chased most effectively by an airgun or slingshots. U can stand and wave a stick at them and all they would do is scratch their back, looking supremely bored.

Dogs are cooler, and far less dangerous than their cousins in Bangalore, who are known to kill little kids. In fact all over North India, the dogs, who grow up being kicked around, are far friendlier. Not that I support this - I am just stating a fact. Earlier they used to chase monkeys in their spare time, but now they just have learnt to accept them. Quite like the tigers at Bannerghatta National Park near Bangalore, who are quite bored at seeing humans come and gape at them. They don't even feel like celebs even after being clicked so many times.

And so my holiday, which has just begun, after a week of working at the Delhi office of ET, continues. More later. Have fun and be good. And ya, for some grass n booze, do drop in.

Cheers

Printed from 'There is continued opportunity for innovation here' 16 Oct 2009, 0422 hrs IST Anirvan Ghosh, ET Bureau Infosys chief mentor NR Narayana Murthy is currently busy giving shape to his next big dream—launching a private equity fund. In an interview with Anirvan Ghosh, he explains his role as a mentor, why some businesses fail and how to ensure knowledge creation is in sync with customer needs. Excerpts: It’s been 28 years since you started Infosys. How easy or difficult will it be to create another Infosys now? I think there is continued opportunity for innovation here, and so it will in 2050. As long as you have minds who can convert ideas into marketable products, you will be able to create institutions. But yes, raising funds is much easier these days. Yet, we see more ventures failing than succeeding. Why is that so? That is so mainly because the entrepreneur does not understand how his idea can add value to the existing system. I have met many such people myself. Has Infosys been engaged in any projects to help start-ups or small firms with its software expertise? Not in India. But in the US, yes, we have collaborated with people. For instance, DN Prahlad, who was a senior VP with Infosys, started his own risk management company called Surya Systems. We helped him and now offer that software with our financial software, Finacle. How about plans to launch a PE or VC fund and lend financial support to those with ideas? Yes, I have contemplated that. And I am planning to launch a fund sooner or later. I have had talks with some of my friends. But I have not made a concrete decision as yet. I will decide soon. What is your role as chief mentor? When we started our leadership institute, we found that professional development required classroom training, application of training to real situations, and mentoring. Among all three, mentoring is the only one which is a voluntary private relationship between the mentor and the mentee. So people can discuss problems at work and also in their personal lives with the mentor. I happen to be the first such mentor at Infosys, and when I retired the board of directors wanted me to continue the task. Do you mentor people only in Infosys or outside that as well? For the most part, I mentor Infoscions. But I have helped others too, who had good entrepreneurial ideas. Many Infoscions have become entrepreneurs. You encourage them, but you lose talent, don’t you? I believe in one thing above all, that the dreams of Infoscians who want to start on their own is as important as my dreams when I started out in 1981. So I encourage them to follow their dreams. Many Infosions put up their ideas to me. I assess whether the the person has the requisite attributes. If he does not have them, then I suggest that he first needs to develop them. Also, even if someone has left Infosys, my doors are always open for them. How do you ensure knowledge creation in sync with customer needs? For that we made our Knowledge Management System, in which were built ideas from university professors, academic research papers, our customers, and the ideas we developed while creating software for clients. We incorporated those best practices into the knowledge system. That is available at the touch of a button to every Infosys member to see and learn. As most of this knowledge emanates from customers and from our own research, it is always aligned with customer needs. And as the latter changes, we are on top of it. What are these attributes? Well, the person should have an idea whose value to the market can be conveyed in a single sentence. For example, my idea will reduce costs by this much, or it will raise customer comfort by this much and so on. Second, the market should be ready for that idea. Thirdly, the entrepreneur should be able to assemble a good team with complementary skills. Fourth, a sound value system is most important. It is all about making sacrifices in the short term and there are no shortcuts. And finally, he should be able to raise money for his venture.

Printed from

Expats set up shop here to beat the blues at home 28 Oct 2009, 2050 hrs IST, Anirvan Ghosh, ET Bureau

BANGALORE: James Sullivan, 41, has found salvation in the holy city of Varanasi. Once a master chef, he lost his job twice in one year, first in Chicago in early 2007 after working for 10 years as the hotel trimmed costs, and then in Mumbai, where he was employed by a four-star hotel. Then, on a visit to Varanasi, he realised that the city didn’t have good restaurants serving continental cuisine and saw an opportunity to set up one that would cater to the large number of foreign visitors that throng India’s religious capital all year round. When many of his friends in the US were losing jobs or money during the recession, ‘Bread of Life’ became in reality what it meant. It was helping Sullivan earn a good living during tough economic times and make plans for the future. Starting with a couple of lakhs of rupees and three waiters two years ago, Sullivan now has 20 employees and is planning to expand to Delhi and Lucknow with a Rs 50-lakh investment. He recently bought an apartment, is sending his daughter to school and plans to make India his home. Sullivan is among the hundreds of expats who have found that the severe economic crisis in rich nations can be turned into an opportunity in India. Compared to the US or Europe, where there are products and services in every segment, even niches, India is a big market, with few or no players, that remains untapped in many ways. “When you fall on hard times, you tend to prove you are tougher than others,” says John Howard, who makes solar-powered LED lights for sale in rural India. After he graduated from the California Institute of Technology in 2006, he worked for a while but always wanted to be an entrepreneur. And rural India was a big market for solar-powered LED lamps. “When I came here, I found rural India, especially in northern India, has severe power cuts. I knew solar-powered LED lights could be a solution. He trudged through remote villages in UP, using an interpreter, and managed to find distributors. Since November 2008, he launched his business with investments by angel investors in the US. “India is now the new land of opportunity and thousands of expats are making a beeline to Indian cities to nurture their dream of setting up their business," says Neill Brownstein, owner of Footprint Ventures, which funds startups by expats as well as Indians. A majority of the estimated 50,000 expat workers in India live in Bangalore and many of them are employed with multinational tech firms. A few enterprising ones, however, have set up their own small businesses. Emma Trinidad came to India’s tech capital in the middle of the recession to find herself a job after the US firm which used to source cosmetics from her decided to cut production. A resident of the Philippines, she eventually launched a spa, S2, about a year ago and is already the talk of the town. “While the world saw a slump in spending, surprisingly Bangaloreans continued to spend on luxury,” she says. With the economy now showing signs of an upswing, Trinidad is already planning to expand to other cities like Mumbai and Delhi. Across town, Italian master chef Paolo Nonino, a co-owner of Via Milano, one of the most popular and highest rated Italian restaurants in Bangalore, is also planning to go national. So is Chris Baker, a British national, who started a recommendation-based directory service to smoothen relocation into the city for citizens from his country of origin. But it’s not all a bed of roses for them. Red tapism in getting permits to start a new business is the biggest headache. And a recent government decision requiring foreigners working on business visas to have them converted to employment visas has caught many off guard. “A uniform policy, and more openness would be good instead of such sudden actions,” says Alexander Moore, MD, LJ Hooker. Chef Nonino worked for a quarter of a century with popular restaurants in his native Italy before deciding to come down to Bangalore and start what is probably the city’s best Italian restaurant. “If this had not started off, I would have been jobless,” says Nonino. He recently started a second restaurant and plans to add a couple more this year. Even the world of arts has seen its share of expats finding their place under the Indian sun. When Christopher Langford lost his job with a dance troupe due to a leg injury a year ago, he chose to remain in Mumbai, where he had come with his group for a show. He decided to give dance lessons for educational institutions and makes enough today to send his kids to an international school. His clients include top theatre groups and even aspiring Bollywood actors. Sociologist KK Mishra, who has taught at the Banaras Hindu University and Bangalore University, says the story of expat entrepreneurs in India is a dream that only the US once promised. “You can achieve the American Dream here, give your kids a decent education and live a good life.”

I'm here at TGIF, Bangalore with three colleagues whose connect with me has made them friends. I'm in the place called hip and cool, and as i enter here for the second time (the first was over a month ago) I decide its overhyped. But then most places in this city are. Still, it wins over most other so-called metros.

And so we sit, on those US style seats, so they say. Feels like any other chair. There are expatriate men and women, the gorgeous beauties sitting to the right among the two rows of seats, the wannabe beauty queens straight out of bunking classes and looking around for fun, flirting with their eyes, the middle aged ones - don't know who named them that, for are they gonna be presumed dead at 60 or 70? and here comes the waiter, hat on his head, dressed as a cowboy, but pity there's no horse for them to ride - they may well do with mares. And then the girls with straight-out-of gym looking escorts, or rather boyfriends, who sit with obsequious looks while their partner flirts and sends surreptitious looks to the hunk sitting across the bar. The college girls have their companions too - thin as rods, with jeans size 20 slipping off their waists and greased hair, long or pulled back for that impression, jerky at every reaction and desperate to please. And there are those middle agers - just nostalgic about the time they could flit in and out as they liked without having to ward off calls from bosses and family - demands that bog them down. There are some couples too, trying to understand, to look deeper, through words and eyes.

But are all are here to enjoy or to escape. More of the latter is seems going by the lack of families. Why isn't this a family place - coz it's not for kids or parents or spouses. It's to leave them back in time and enjoy with other people. Bored of nagging bosses, bragging colleagues, that college coach or teacher immortalised in Pink Floyd's "We dont need no education", that behaviour they have to put on at office and before their wives, that nature they have to fake.....

And then there are we. Four people, dressed casually, here to just enjoy, and ya also to escape. The AC is on at a temperature that would freeze the place if empty of its food-devouring and booze guzzling customers - now its chilling, and we look forward to getting our screwdrivers, and iced teas and beers. Its beating the cold, not the heat. We do the latter every day at work. We like music that makes sense, which has lyrics that fly u to the place it was written for, that we can connect to. We read books that provoke, which we can't devour like we do the steak but ruminate. We like movies that have some direction and script, not the midsummer madness that is dished out to unsuspecting, and the uninitiated general audience. We don't like to judge - atleast we try not to. We play around with conventional thinking - and levitate our imagination. We abhor blind acceptance of anything, and we dare to question the basis of reason.

Our drinks arrive. So will the food, in sometime. We like it devoid of religion, of culture or creed. We like to have fun. And our definition might be different from convention - if there is any, and we don't care a dime's worth. Two are tipsy, one of them is plainly acting just for the heck of it.

And so we eat, and we drink. And we talk about us, the degradation of politics, of the 'cool' culture and the ridiculous things it makes its followers do, the sanctimonous show all around, music, food, movies......and wonder how a guy who was in London for a year could accept its accent to end up with something thats truly a hotchpotch. We see other people around and we do comment. We like expressing opinions, but not judge. There's a difference, and we realise it.

I see my friends now as i drink, each one a character, but not unique - there are many of them out there, for people hardly remain true to themselves, subconsciously or otherwise adhering to some code, some thought which morphs some part of them into robots. I look around through the blue screen of smoke, through to the one sitting diagonally. Always in a full sleeved shirt and a clipped accent that belongs to neither India nor the land of the Queen (this is the one-year-in Britain). He acts formal, and is hanging like a spider, not sure what to do, how to be, coz his thinking actions are locked, frozen into a reverie dictated by convention.

Time for the food. It's a treat to the senses. Laughter all around, some are shouting to be heard over the inexplicable disco number, a clear crash from the earlier notes, now perhaps being belted out by some tipsy-as-liquid DJ. The cigarette smoke swirls, and curls and disappears. I feel light without levitating. I feel good.

We live among hypocrites and paradoxes. And yet you can be what you want to be, unsullied by custom, rituals, trends, religion or culture. You just have to desire to choose what you are, and what you want to accept. Atleast when you are sombre. Just be.

This is what really happened, a remaking of the past, a reconstruction of the things that live on within us as they might have happened once upon a time. suppose someone says, whar really happened. Then say that once there were people who built cities in the valley of the Indus, large teeming cities with broad straight streets intersecting at ninety degrees, like a well-made grid. There are certain things that have appeared out of the drifting sands to speak cryptically about these people. There is a statue of a sophisticated gentleman with contemplating inward-looking eyes. There is a figurine of a dancing girl, hips carelessly and confidently thrown forward, hand on waist, ready to break impulsively into movement. There are thousands of lines of beautiful indecipherable writings on clay seals; on one of these seals Pashupati sits in meditation, the supreme yogi, the Lord of the animals, the wild king of the forest who holds the universe together with his dance. There is a figure of a bull, dewlapped and powerful, repeated endlessly on these seals. There are toys, the thousands of clay animals and carts like the ones we see on country roads today. There are great baths now empty; the wind shifts dust endlessly from the desert.

Where did this richness go? Is it true that a tribe riding chariots appeared out of the western passes, filled with the uncouth energy of the steppes, worshipping a rain-god soon to be called Destroyer of cities? Were there massacres and raids and despair? Or did the river change course and leave the long streets empty and silent? Or did the cities just grow old, very very old, and collapse in on themselves like a stand of dying trees? Nobody knows, but we do know that Shiva still meditates endlessly among the awestruck animals, that the legends of the chariot-riding Aryans speak of old dark-skinned Asuras who impared knowledge of secret sciences to chosen students, that brave adventurers fell in love with the daughters of their enemies, the ones from before, the ones who worshipped old gods, that the sounds of the languages of the south seem to fit the strokes of that indecipherable writing, that Urvashi and Menaka, and other apsaras of Indra’s heaven dance in ancient rhythms, hands curving in old, old gestures that hold oceans of meaning, that bulls stride pulsating with strength across landscapes imagined and invented eons later, that thousands bathe and then sit in meditation every morning in Bombay and Calcutta and Madras and Delhi, calmly observing their breath, gathering energy.
What really happened? Suppose somebody says, what really happened? Say that Kala walks among us, in all our cities and villages and fields, awaiting his chance, patient, unnoticed and always triumphant; when he wins finally, only names are lost, only names drift away, dry and hollow, to break up and mingle with sand, but something else is left that lives, that meditates and dances and walks. Say that the wheel turns. But say that there are things that even Kala cannot touch.

The Aryans moved west and south, clearing forests for their cattle, and Indra the thunder-god, became Indra the Destroyer of Cities. But, though cities are often destroyed, sometimes they do not vanish, sometimes they become invisible and invade the heards and minds of the destroyers, who then live forever changed.

So the newcomers and the old ones collided and metamorphosed into a thing wholly new and unutterably old, fell into new orbits around new centres of gravity. In this anomie, the ones newly in power quickly created a perception that promised order, flung at the world that oldest and most fundamental of definitive statements: I and you, us and them, what I am and what I am not, white and black. More importantly, there was another perception or rather another experience of some kind of truth, being born in lonely forest meditations, in the mathematical and musical rhythms of great sacrifices, or perhaps in the heightened awareness of the hunt, this: the universe is one, there is a unity that is the boundless mother of this world and not this, and this great harmony, this oneness, this Brahman, burst into being as differentiation, is visible only by becoming non-unity, so that – are you ready? Here it comes – unity is diversity, diversity is unity. And this diversity, every part of it, is sacred, because it is one-the sky and the fields, the summer and the rains, life is feeding on life, the birds and the animals, each a part of some web: ‘everything is the eater and the eaten.’

So, it seemed, people must be different, and a story was told: when Purusha, the primeval human. Was dismembered in a great sacrifice; from his head were born the Brahmins, the scholars; from his arms, the kshatriyas, the warriors; from his thighs, the vaishyas, the farmers; from his feet, the sudras, the labourers; and each had a different role in Leela, the great cosmic play, afrom each, it might be said, according to his ability and to each, atleast in principle, according to his need, a convinient way for the uppers to make use of the lowers.

So the Brahmins made sacrifices and wrote hymns and the kshatriyas fought wars, and the vaishyas and the sudras went about their tilling and laboring. Huge herds were seen in the fields, and cities of wood were built, shining cities with gardens and lovers and good houses. The years passed, then centuries, and the words of the ancient seers, those discoveries made in solitude were compiled in the Vedas in the shape of formulae, of verse that reveals little to the uninitiated but nevertheless stirs the heart, because of the power of the goddess Vac-speech-is immeasurable; it was she who brought forth both the seen and the unseen from potentiality; the external from the immanent. The Vedas show little, but tell much, and should always be taken with a nice pinch of salt.

This day in the train has been like a blur, as I landed in Delhi from a flight from Chennai, a city that had been my home for the last ten months or so, and which I have left for the time being to set up base in Bangalore, after a hiatus at my home in Varanasi. That stay could have been longer, but for my belief that boredom would set within a few days. There was little to do, and it is going to be very hot in the day and evenings. I would miss the serene and calming breeze of Chennai that was always cool, even when the sun baked the tar on the roads and turned mud into dust. The climate otherwise was horrible, with the heat seeping into your skin and making you feel like a heated copper wire.

As I lay down on my hotel bed today, my eyes refused to close. Images of people at ACJ, the good times I had spent with them, came back to haunt me, to torment me with the pain of solitude. It’s a realization that takes time and is felt, like a stab in the chest, once u are alone. Images of the people come floating to my mind and I am unable to get rid of them. Not that I want to – I liked certain people a lot, for some the feelings were more than just friendship, which does not imply any romantic implications, but can be said to be sort of deep friends. Some adjectives need to be found, some words need to discovered to truly describe what I feel now. Its not exactly sadness, its not just nostalgia, it is something else. It is something that rakes your brain. It torments, but its sweet. As Wet Wet Wet said, if I never see u again, it will hurt so sweetly. It really does – this apparent dichotomy.

The train rumbles on, like a drunk man trudging to his destination. The AC First coupe has three other people other than me, and they are happily talking about some shopping they are going to do in Allahabad. They are going to some place exciting, they are rich, and two of them seem to be in love. For them this is a new journey, something to look forward to. At the outset when I see them, I want to change my coupe, as I thought that the empty berth in the next coupe would be more conducive company for my solitude. But then I think that probably, I am taking myself deeper into myself – leading me to being too full of myself, and less of others, and this would be unintended selfishness.

The rhapsodically chatting voices have been would have been my company in my mind and then the emptiness would settle in chillingly, and I would have found no respite at all. I would have tried to but would have not found a way out. So in the end I think I did the right thing by staying put in this coupe.

The AC gets colder, as the ignorant attendant forgets to reduce the cooling after the initial surge required. I ring the bell for him to arrive. Instead a man carrying dinner comes in and looks quizzically, factoring in the environment, and the four young people who stare at him as if he is a wonder of the world. “aap ne dinner mangwaya tha?” “Nahi”, I replied, realizing he has answered the call of the bell, and assumed that dinner would be the demand made of him. He had come prepared, perhaps expecting a commendation. But dinner was the farthest from my mind, occupied as it was, and I told him to lower the cooling and bring a bottle of mineral water.
The other three were pretty excited about Allahabad. I almost felt like asking them what was going on. The colour of the décor inside the coupe was red, with the seats being an attempt to look sophisticated, and failing at it. The floor was red, as was the ceiling, and the seats too, with flowery designs. It was sort of crazy, and I pity the imagination of the person who designed this. It seems to be a legacy of the décor in Indian palaces, which is either golden or red. The red seemed to echo, to accentuate, the atmosphere of excitement and reverie, which was broken by my sad thoughts, in mindspaces that did not cross each other.

“Gimme that diary,” shrieked one of the girls, jolting me for a second. The two girls were fighting over a diary that obviously contained scandalous information or jottings by one of them. The guy was nonchalantly switching on his laptop, which was also a Compaq. The guy and one of the girls climbed to the upper berth and switched on a potboiler, and all was quiet, like a lull after the storm.

The more beautiful of the girls fell asleep early, saying that they had to get up early the next day. The time was past one, and she appeared justified but for the fact that the attendant would surely come to awaken them to a new day. Anyways, off she went to somnolence and I continued to listen to RHCP and type this blog.

Its morning now and the three of them are panicking. One of the girls can’t find her slippers and Allahabad seems to be around the corner. In their charged minds, they are flinging the bed sheets and blankets everywhere, and finally to relief, both theirs and mine, they manage to find the little bastard in a corner below the her lower berth.

They depart, leaving a whiff of perfume tinged with elements of Adam and Eve, and in walks a pot bellied, five and a half footer, with a drooping moustache and the uniform of a TT. “hello, I am the chief ticket inspector here.” I take the offered hand, and he continues, “Arre, idhar to sab khali ho jata hai, aap hi reh gaye hain. Kahan jana hai?”

“Banaras”

“Achi jagah hai,” he says with the air of a judge pronouncing a verdict.

I make no reply. “aap kya karte hain?” he asks while happily stretching his legs on the berth which he treated as his bed at home.

“patrakar hoon”

“arre kahan? Aap log bahut acha kaam kar rahe hain – yeh sab corruption ko aap hi khatam kar sakte hain,” he said, morphing my fraternity from journalists to policemen and the judiciary, both put together.

“yeah right,” I said, not particularly eager to continue the conversation.

“to kahan hain aap?” he persisted, now lying sideways with the blanket on top of him. He kept picking his ears and teeth.

“Reuters – ek news agency hai”

“news centre? Bahut achha!” he exclaimed. He obviously heard it wrong and has a high opinion of news centres whatever they might be.

“kafi garmi hai bahar,” he said letting out a sigh of relief for the AC, its chill starting to bite. He was however very happy with it. “acha mujhe sona hai, thodi der ke liye break,” he said with a contended smile, smug under the covers. “bilkul,” I said, hoping to finally getting rid of his barrage of comments and questions.

“banaras mein garmi kaisi hai?”

I felt like asking him to shut up. “Abhi to wahin jana hai. Pata chal jayega,” I said. this seemed to have a chastening effect on him and he said “Acha phir milte hain.” I had no desire for that, and pored into my book.

As the coolie took out luggage from the coupe, and i was about to close the door, the TT woke up with a start, and asked "are Banaras aa gaya kya??"

"Haan", i said in the affirmative.

"are yahin to utarna hai mujhe bhai" and he hastily threw away the covers, managed a successful search for his specs by rummaging through the rubble of blankets, and mineral water bottles, and got up, taking a long strech, like a tired old dog. Before he could continue, I was out of the cabin.

The night’s sleep was comfortable, and the wide berths are the only advantage that AC 1st has over its less fancied compatriots like the 2 and 3 tiers. I didn’t feel like getting up yet and the book was stirring in its portrayal of the underworld and the multiple narratives, all of which kept me glued for sometime. I then fell asleep I don’t know when. I dreamt of a man running amok amidst a horde of policemen at his heels, a woman throwing a tantrum at the platform, me sitting in the Delhi airport in January…apparently unconnected events jostling for space in my mind.

I reach home, sweet home finally where my mother is the sole inhabitant for the time being as my Dad and brother are both out of town. The house seems empty, the various rooms’ walls apparently leaping at me, and seeking to devour me of my loneliness. I miss my friends at ACJ, and also the local guys, who are all out working their asses off in some of the Indian multinationals. Its time to catch up with some sleep, and get used to life without ACJ.