In the name of cow

In the name of cow

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I did my schooling from Dehi. We were teased by North Indian friends for eating fish. Those days in Delhi Bengali meant fish eater and madrasis were the south Indians whose staple food was idli ,dosa  . I have not seen any of my north or south Indian friends eating non-veg, it was kind of taboo. Yes, all my Bengali friends were eating non-veg. During those days i never heard anyone eating beef. Come to think of that during our school days’ meat meant mutton and not chicken. During  one of our biyearly visit to maternal place in Bengal I witnessed sacrifice of a goat during some puja, that ghastly scene made a lasting impression in my subconscious mind and I stopped eating mutton, may be from class two or so. In our house those days whenever mutton was cooked then my mother would prepare separately egg curry for me. Of course I started eating mutton and chicken when I joined IIT,Kharagpur. Now I am more comfortable with aloo paratha than with mutton curry.
I remember "Cow"was the very popular subject for essay in all vernacular schools and almost in all languages.

Those days in Delhi we had seen sadhus coming with cow and declaring those as very holy , one could ask any question to those and those cows would reply by swaying their heads either sideways meant “no” or up and down meant ‘’Yes”. So the question has to be objective type with yes and no answers. Someone would ask, “Will I get a job?” obviously the cow would nod it’s head meaning ‘Yes’’. If someone asked ,”will it rain?” The cow would move its head sideways meaning ‘no’. Nothing divine here the clever sadhu with the rope tied around the neck of the cow would make it do all those head motions. This of course I analyzed much later. Sometimes some sadhu would bring a freak cow with a fifth leg hanging from the shoulder and declare that to be very auspicious. So all the ladies of our muhalla would line up to donate rice or money to the sadhu and get blessings. Yes, in north India cow is revered and not surprising all these cow related things are happening in Northern belt of India. In connection with job I was posted in Southern and Western India and found that in Tamil Nadu getting non-veg in common restaurant in 1980s was a problem. One has to go to military restaurant for non-veg, I had gone to such restaurants in Chennai, those were not really owned by army or any such thing but because they served non-veg so were called military restaurant. Now when I go to Madurai for Windmills, the official lunch served by the host is vegetarian.

I faced extreme vegetarianism in Wanakbori ,Gujarat  during 1985 to 88, no meat or fish shop was allowed in the Electricity Board Township. I was going to a market in a slum away from the Township for meat, for fish I was travelling some 8 kms away to a small town .Only egg was allowed to be sold in the township.

Now I come across many Marwaris, Punjabis who don’t eat non-veg in their houses but relish those in restaurants. During my posting in Refineries of IOC in Gauhati and Barauni I had no problem with non-veg, like in Bengal those were easily available in cooked or raw form anywhere.
The people of Andhra are like in Bengal which i realized during my 3 years posting in Vizag Steel Plant, they are non veg all the way.
Display of carcass of cow openly in a meat shop i had seen in Shillong, Khasis and Garos go for beef in a big way. 
While in Bhopal the officer's club dinner used to be veg affair till i reached there. After my joining as Executive Director  the club  started having a non veg dish in the special dinner parties, now possibly it is back to veg there. The marriage dinners would be veg affair excepting for Bengali marriages. I can never forget the delicious kabbabs and Birayani of MrsBuniyad Ali which Buniyad would bring lovingly during Eids, i really miss those and also Aftab who too would bring home cooked biryani during Eid.
By the way within last 3 weeks i attended 2 special dinners in Kolkata and both were totally vegetarian, of course those are nonbong affair.
During my first Dhaka visit in 1999 or so Dilawar Hussain a manager of Bangladesh Electricity Board was assigned to me to show around. He took me to Chittagong Power Station and then we returned to Dhaka. While walking the Dhaka Streets i saw a meat shop and meat in the form of a tree trunk. I asked Dilawar what was that. He was looking embarrassed and requested me to walk faster past that shop. But my curiosity got better of me so i again asked him,"What was that?" He shyly stammered and said, "Beef!" I was touched by his sincerity as he did not want to hurt my sentiments so was trying to avoid the question. 

This cow or non-veg is a kind of cultural issue and varies from region to region but some unscrupulous guys are whipping up sentiments to make these as national issue and diverting from the main issue of poverty, unemployment etc. As I have noticed there are good number of citizen who worship cow and at the same time we have a section who enjoy beef, then there is that section who are part of the supply chain of beef. So there three categories of people, vegetarians and non-beef eaters like me, beef eaters and beef suppliers, it is necessary that the fine balance is restored within the framework of the constitution as soon as possible to avoid the present atmosphere of barbarism in the name of cow vigilantism.

My friend Dev D

My friend Dev D

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“I am also from Delhi,” Mrs. M informed me smilingly. She was a healthy lady in her late forties. We were having tea in my office colleague M’s flat in Vasant Kunj, Delhi. My flight to Calcutta was delayed so M took me to his flat to spend the intervening time.

When Mrs.M came to know that  I am originally  from Delhi then she informed me that she was also from Delhi.

I got curious and inquired, “Where did you stay in Delhi?”

“We were in those bungalows behind teacher’s quarter in Gole Market.”

Her above statement made me sit up and look at her closely. I was in my early fifties then and she was in late forties and also has put on weight, I was trying to find that smart girl in skirt whom I first saw on a swing in their garden. This happened when I was in school, possibly in class nine. I had gone to her house with my friend Durga. Durga used to blow away the school fees and she being his love interest used to make up for the shortfall. The visit of Durga was to collect money from her and also let out the secret to me about her being his girlfriend. Durga’s house was in the teacher’s quarter just behind her dad’s official bungalow.

Let me first confess that Durga was some kind of hero in our eyes and also he was one of my closest friends. Those days we were all fan of Devanand, for us Durga was our Devanand. His hair style was like that of Devanand puffed up and all ,his stances were like the hero, even he would dress up like Devanand. He would not miss any movie of Devanand. He had numerous female admirers because of his smart look. His mother was a teacher of a nearby government run public school for girls, we knew about girls going to his house on the pretext of meeting his mother and in turn meet the local Devanand but at no time he let us know that his real love interest was staying behind his house. That kindly chubby lady sitting in front of me that day in Vasant Kunj was that cute girl in her teens swinging merrily in the garden in late nineteen fifties.

While we would be playing football Durga would often bring his friend Zindi with him. He was another care free chap. Those two will keep us rollicking while narrating their recent adventures. Durga was a great bluffer so he was also known as Gulbaj(that's Bengali word for bluffer) Durga in our friends’ circle. In the class Durga would sit next to me and copy my notes. Most of the time he was flushed with money; often he would go out of the class with the pretext of going to the toilet , would come back with pocketful of peanuts and gathia. When we were busy in solving sum he would be busy eating those, he usually shared those with me too. I also gladly accepted his bribes in exchange of allowing him to copy the sums solved by me. Later on I came to know that all those money was from that girl who was staying behind his house...…cut to present, the middle aged lady sitting in front of me in Vasant Kunj.

He failed in class nine and thus could no longer sit next to me. Though he was not in my class but he would come every day to chit chat with me in our play field in chummeries where we were staying those days  which was close to his house in Gole Market.

I passed out and went to IIT, he somehow managed to pass higher secondary and did some kind of private course and became lab assistant in Cambridge School, Delhi.

Whenever I was in Delhi I would meet him in Kalibari of Gole Market. By that time they had shifted from the teacher’s quarter to a government flat on Reading Road near our school, Raisina Bengali. In the meanwhile we had shifted to Wilson Square which was very close to Birla Mandir, now of course those squares are no longer there.

I was told that he was a regular in Kalibari as he was addicted to three cards or was a gambler; he also boasted to me how he was making a tidy sum through gambling. He was much more matured than all of us, he had a steady girlfriend whereas we could not think beyond our studies, and he took to smoking, drinking, gambling much before we could dare to think about those in sixties.

That year I had come for Durga Puja in Delhi from Barauni refinery of IOC where I was posted then, it was sometimes in late sixties. He took me to his house and told me that he was planning to hitch hike to Europe. He showed me a map and elaborated his travel plan. The route was full of danger, he wanted to hitch hike through Khyber Pass to Afghanistan and from there find a way to reach Europe. He showed me his passport to convince me as I was laughing at his foolhardy plan. We used to kid each other a lot so I thought that this was one of his pranks which he was trying to pull on me. I wished him luck and left.

On my next visit I was told that he had left India , had reached Germany, so he was not bluffing about his hitch hike plan to Europe, i felt bad that i was doubting his intent.

After that many years had passed, I had gone to Delhi in 1973 for my first Durga Puja after my marriage and was visiting Kalibari to offer puja with my wife. My mother called someone from a tea stall and said to me , “Can you recognize him?”

A big fat fellow came out of the stall and hugged me tightly and said, “Somu, it has been years since we last met.”

Oh my god it was Durga, he had a French beard and weighing more than 100 kgs whereas I was still below 70kgs. If he would have passed by me in the road I would not have recognized him, it was completely a changed Durga in all respects. I was trying to find out our Devanand in that fat Durga, the real Devanand on the screen was still fit as a fiddle . He called out for someone in the tea stall, a foreign lady came out. She was introduced as his girlfriend and he informed us that he was going to marry her. She was a German lady. I introduced my wife to him and told her about his exploits.

Those days any one going to foreign meant he was minting money.

“You must be earning a good sum there in Germany.” I asked.

“No yar, I am just a worker. There are about 1000 Indians in Germany and I might be the one getting the lowest.”

“Did you see Munich Olympic?” In 1972 the Olympic was held in Munich, there was massacre of players from Israel by Palestinians.

“I was there but not watching the Olympic but breaking ice.” He gave a loud laugh and with that laugh I could get back my old friend Dev D where D stands for Durga.

That was our last meeting….he must have settled there with kids and all. His first love was married to my office colleague and well settled with a college going daughter in 1999.

At the Delhi airport I looked at me closely in the glass and found a man with 38 waist and a receding hair line staring back at me. But those moments in Vasant Kunj transported me back to my school days when I had hardly any pocket money but there was a satisfied complete life with my friends, parents and my relatives. Many of them are no more there. But a chance meeting like this brings back those good old memories and gives a chance to live through those past happy days.

The wise one

The wise one

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“Do you believe in God?”

He smiled at me and said, “Why, your own Ramkrishna Paramhansa Dev has said …if you believe that God is there then He is there but if you doubt or look for proof then he is far away from you!”

It was pretty strong logic as I know many believers and the same time I know many non-believers. For example at Farakka Superthermal Power station we were facing a serious problem in our 500 MW turbine.I normally don't believe in rituals of puja etc but somehow thought of approaching the divinity for solution. Me,my wife went to Tarapeeth with two of my colleagues from finance Mukherjee and Thakur.We did puja there for BHEL. Parallely of course we were putting technical efforts to resolve the vibration issue.Lo,behold a letter from our collaborator from Germany resolved the issue. As it has been often found that one who keeps on helping others gets help from unexpected source. It's the circle of Karma, " Kar bhala to ho bhala ".

I have this habit of irritating the wise one by asking him random odd questions.

“Do you believe in rebirth?”

He laughed out loudly and said,” let me quote something for you!”

Quote

As per the scriptures, depending upon his good/virtuous and bad/sinful actions, the jivatama will be taken to Yama and after judgement he will be meted out the judgement as per his actions during his living years on earth, accordingly either he will be sent to heaven or hell .Only after he has experienced those that he will obtain another body on earth.

So the answer to your question, yes it depends upon the karma. More good karma means more time in heaven and hence it will take more time until the jivatma enters another body. Only after their stock of punya is over that they fall down to earth:

Unquote;

“Are you serious, The Wise One?” I asked.

“Don’t ask me?Ask Google? Google is the present day God, it has answer for all questions. It will give you both negative and positive answers. Even if I give any answer still you will check in Google. I know people are consulting Google before consulting doctor for any of their health related problem.” He said sarcastically.

“You are sidestepping my question” I said grudgingly.

“I know that you have been going to Varanasi every year, didn’t you find any answer there to your question?” He asked teasingly.

“Yes,I got part answer there. The devout Hindus go there to get Moksha from this life cycle of death and rebirth. I mean if they die there.”

“ If this rebirth is so certain then there is no scope of increase of population. It is soul the leaving one body and entering another body, it is one to one replacement.’ He said with a twinkle in his eyes and continued with the logic,” how does then new soul get created as in reality the population keeps on increasing?”

He confused me with his logics but made his point. Not only Hindu, Jain, Budhism talk about rebirth but Greek philosophers like Plato, Pythagoras held the belief of rebirth/metempsychosis.

I thought to myself not to pursue this topic of rebirth any further with him instead asked him , ‘What rules a man, his mind, body or soul ?”

“What is this QA session with me? When you asked this question to me then it is your mind prompted you to ask. My answer to you may be or may not be acceptable to you because instantly your mind will start analyzing. Take another instance you are passing a beggar in the street, you feel pity and want to give some money, here your soul has prompted you to act. The body is our external envelope but when that envelope starts dominating more than the content inside then the woes of acquiring more worldly possession start. Unfortunately, today we are in that materialistic world where people are in a hurry to acquire so you can say ruled by the body, bodily comfort is more important than spiritual fulfillment. There are many smart evangelists who are taking advantage of this mental chaos. You find televangelists giving out sermons day and night or those enumerable gurus operating from various ashrams. I see you are not wearing any ring in your fingers with stones but if you look closely then you will find most of the people wear rings with all kinds of stones to wade off evils or for good luck.”

True,I have noticed all kinds of artists, businessmen, politicians , in short celebrities have this ring fetish. So ring gets substituted for God. The other day a political leader told me that he had shouted on some guy for some work and later on he realized that he might get a curse from that guy so to escape that he paid him 500 bucks.

At the end of the day these are all faith or belief but somehow these click.

“Any more question?”

I could see he was enjoying the session with me.

“Next time I will come with some mundane questions.”

I got up and started walking out. He smiled at me with an imperceptible wink. While going out I could hear Righteous Brother’s “Unchained Melody” from the English movie “Ghost” was playing softly in the background and The Wise One was swaying with the music. I smiled back at him and walked out of the sanctum sanatorium.