Feral Men

There are some nights when everything goes wrong. It was off from the beginning. Her flight was delayed by a good hour. And then of course, the traffic. We couldn’t cancel the plans; for old times sake. It had been far too long since we had done this. And the future was far too uncertain; no one to say if this could be done again. 

All in all, it was about 11 when we sat down to dinner. Catching up and reminiscing followed. So by the time we were done with the food, we were faced with the prospect of walking back home at an unseemly hour.

When it comes to safety, there are two rules I adhere to quite religiously. When alone, don’t stay out too late. And never venture into isolated spots. 

We weren’t exactly breaking either of these rules here. I wasn’t alone and we had to walk past a famous public park, which while not exactly teeming with people at this time of the night, didn’t qualify as a lonely spot either. Plus we’d walked back from this very place scads of times. Not at this hour, but still - scads.

Now I don’t know if all these thoughts running around my head that set my teeth on the edge. Or if it was the sight of that man jerking off. Right besides a busy road. He was standing, hand busy at his groin, half turned toward the dark foliage. He saw me see him. And he turned towards what is a fairly busy road, keeping his eyes on me and my friend. There were other people around a little ahead. But no one saw him. Not even my friend. Like the coward that I am, I hustled her along and he thankfully melted into the darkness.

We kept up the pace for a while, crossing the park, and walking along the same road, past small by lanes. While crossing one such by-lane, we saw approaching from the other side a homeless person. He was dirty, or rather – filthy, and had the definite stagger of an extremely drunken man. Between us was a board announcing the name of the street. He looked as if he would cross it on one side, both of us instinctively took the other. Then suddenly he stopped and changed directions. So, we did the same. Then he did it again. Now angry, both of us stopped this game of peeka boo and stood right at the center. He did the same. Then he said, “ Arre, ja na. roka hai kya kisi ne.” we crossed quickly, while he stood where he was. My friend whispered to me, “he’s just drunk.” At this, he turned around, and said with a look of utmost contempt “Drunk bolti hai.” Then he walked off.

We must not have walked a hundred feet, when we saw another person just like him. This guy deliberately bumped into a man who was walking about 15 – 20 feet ahead of us and tried to pick a fight. At this point I groaned, “what is it today?” and my friend agreed – “Mumbai was never like this.” So then we steeled ourselves and sucked our breaths in and walked past this guy, right at the edge of the pavement. He walked past us. Just like that. Not even a glance towards us, nor a hint of trouble. Leaving us looking foolishly at each other.

There are some nights when everything goes wrong. This was not that sort of night. It was off at the beginning, but it ended with a lesson for me. That night, I judged two men because of their class, their state(read- drunk) and most shamefully, because of the actions of another. Decency isn’t the inheritance of the rich/middle class family men with regular access to female companionship. There are decent guys everywhere, just like there are indecent ones. Unfortunately, even today, if I see someone like that fallen by the side of the road, I won’t check on them to see if they are ok just out of the fear that one of them will pounce on me. But then hopefully, when I write something more public than this blog, like I don’t know, a newspaper column, I hope I don’t judge the feral men too harshly. :|

Once upon a time, long long ago...

News is so dreary nowadays. There are always discussions on who didn’t do what, or if something was done then what exactly was wrong with what was done. Rapes, murders, lies, scams, random acts of perversion(yeah, I saw the video of asaram bapu dancing too :( ), defeat at the hands of the aussies – these are the depressing things that fill our news nowadays. So today, I was pleasantly surprised when I turned on the news and some minister called his predecessor ‘Sheik Chilli.’ Now of course, this is in relation to one of the aforementioned depressing categories, but I am still glad because that one name took me back to entirely another era.

I don’t know how many people know about that simpleton named Sheik Chilli. I heard about him for the first time when I was about three or four from an old man who used to carry them around in his head. They were like pacifiers; when we troubled him too much, he’d start with one

‘ Aaj kaunsi sunoge?’

‘Sheik Chilli wali!’

or

“Rana Pratap ki kahani’

Or so many many more to chose from. This all stopped when I was about 9 or 10, but then the stories are still there in the back of my head somewhere. Because bits and pieces of nothing keep triggering these memories. A while back, i came to know that the Bhopal airport is called the Raja Bhoj airport and that sent me back to the exploits of Raja Bhoja. An incredible man, among whose many achievements is the beautiful city of Bhopal; and yet in our lovely NCERT school books, I don’t think even a single page is dedicated to him. But I have him from my stories. Same as with Sheik Chilli, Birbal and countless other characters, who would be all but lost except for the lovely tradition of story-telling. That is how I know my Ramayana, Mahabharata. That is how I know countless things.

This is where my love of history comes from. This is also where my love for literature comes from. The understanding of our (in)significance, the understanding of life’s subtle irony, the understanding of the roundabout nature of things; all this I got from the storytelling. And this is what I want to be. A story –teller. That is my one burning ambition.