Makings of a Writer 

(Author interview - newbooks.space) 

https://newbooks.space/author-interviews/01a0cebb-5fbe-7132-b71e-14aa8f8aed87

1) What inspired you to start writing?

In a way, while my letter writing was a companion of my voracious reading, my creative writing was an extension of the same, inspired by an examined life of over forty years. But the spark was a story idea and Benign Flame got lit as Saga of Love. 

2) Can you tell us a little about your latest book?

In the creative sense, Of No Avail – Web of Wedlock, completed my cycle of fiction broken in between by non-fiction and translations.

Here’s its Blurb: 

Lured by the pitch - All marriages are made in heaven but some are delayed on earth: We endeavor to hasten them all - Priya goes to Renuka Marriage Bureau.

Scanning the prospects, when she spotted Venu, whom she slighted long ago, she rushes to him to bring about a dramatic encounter.

What brought about Priya’s change of heart to seek her former suitor and how Venu responds to his old flame’s fresh overtures lend suspense to their romance in this eclectic novella. 

3) How do you create your characters?

While some of my characters sprang up from the characteristics of people I happened to know or heard about, the others were the products of my imagination conditioned by my grasp on human psychology, and either way, it’s succinctly put by Raja Rao in Benign Flame, my maiden marvel thus:

“Characters of fiction are authors’ children and critics’ neighbours, even if we perceive them as inadequate, nevertheless, we should appreciate the fact that they are the products of someone’s imagination, however limited that might be. It’s not often that you come across a book from which you could quote much”  

4) What does your typical writing day look like?

From start to finish, books of mine mostly took nine months each for completion, and it had been a non-stop writing for over fourteen hours a day, save fatigue breaks, day after day,. Well, it was made possible by my having been an independent professional, not needing to toil 9 to 5 at an office.  

5) What has been the most rewarding part of being an indie author?

No denying that not finding a mainstream publisher was frustrating to start with but in the hindsight it’s as well that I remained an indie author that too in the ebook times of ours, for,

1_ Not being subject to editorial control or compromise, my writing has been the source of mine own self-expression as well as assertion.

2_ Being an indie author, I could place them in umpteen internet sites as free ebooks enhancing their outreach to reach out to readers all over the world. If I were a published author, I had to be a rare one in thousands to make a living out of writing, and if not, it would have been a case of neither here nor there.

3_ What kept me writing regardless is my conviction that for fiction to impact readers, it should be the soulful rendering of characters rooted in their native soil but not the hotchpotch of local and alien caricatures sketched on a hybrid canvas, and my fiction, of eight books, is just that. What is more, as all my works are purely original in concept and content, penning them afforded me immense creative satisfaction, never mind the mundane deprivations they caused.

    

A Word To Milords

 

Seldom, if at all, do the proponents as well as the opponents of the vexed collegium system delve much into the antecedents of its coming into being.

So, here we go; first, in pursuance of a committed judiciary, it was Justice AN Ray’s elevation, by the supersession of three senor most Supreme Court judges in 1973, followed by the side-lining of Justice HR Khanna in 1977 for having been the sole defender of the citizen’s right to life and liberty during India’s infamous internal emergency. Then, adding insult to injury was the 1980 direct induction of Justice Baharul Islam, the jurist-politician, on the vaunted bench, all orchestrated by the dictatorial daughter of the autocratic Nehru. Yet, when Indira was alive, the successive justices conceded her executive right to appoint the judges, though in consultation with the Chief Justice (First Judges case, 1981). It was only a decade after her death that the judiciary made bold to wrest the initiative from the executive with the Second Judges case (1993). But with the disarray of successive central sarkars thereafter, in 1998, the emboldened Milords through the Third Judges Case became the Lords unto themselves in their Collegium Rings. That is fencing themselves from the executive arm, once and for all.

Now that they had long avenged their slights and had the last laugh too a decade back in negating the NJAC Act, it’s time for Milords to take stock of the untenable situation in which our judiciary has come to lay, and this word is meant just to be an aid. And what is their argument against the unanimous NJAC – the mere presence of the Union Law Minister in the selection committee of five would impinge upon judicial independence! LOL. So, by the same logic, the selected judges should be toeing the judicial line drawn by the collegium Milords, right. Oh, how specious, but they are gray-haired enough to know that independence of mind and living by the principles are the characteristics of spirited men and women, but that is just an excuse to hold on to their usurped power to further their nepotistic causes. 

With around one lakh cases lying on their own benches and sixty-five lakhs in high courts under their watch and ward, not to speak of over five crores in the so-called lower courts, if it’s not the time for the collegium lords to self-introspect, then it has only to be at the calamity. It’s but natural that their judicial time leaves not much time for attending to the herculean task of finding the right judges to adorn the higher benches, made difficult by the prevailing state of our compromised polity. So, lacking the wherewithal to venture into the discovery channel besides being hard-pressed to dispense justice in time, is like falling between two stools. Surely, Milords cannot be unaware of the fact that they have bitten off the judicial cake more than they could chew. Why, they are even incapable of filling around thirty percent of their high court benches, not to speak of speeding up PMLA proceedings! Whatever, they could not be insensitive to the abysmal state of the judicial affairs, taken as a whole, hamstrung with mundane ailments one too many.   

So, the question that naturally  arises is why won’t they untangle themselves from the tangled collegium web for personal relief as well as for the public good. Well, judges are human too, and power intoxicates them no less, made worse by our extra selfish times. If, by chance, Milords have read thus far to develop second thoughts, then they may go through further for a welcome denouement.     

 "Ay, sir. To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand"- Hamlet to Polonius.

That was then, and if Shakespeare were to revise it now, Hamlet would’ve said ‘out of hundred thousand’.

So to say, the clue to the honesty drop of our times was provided by Andy Hargreaves, “There is no morality without temptation; otherwise it is just lack of opportunity”.

However, be it in the world of yore with limited opportunities or in the modern times with unlimited avenues, the honest are few and far between but the Bard of Avon wouldn’t have meant that the rest of the multitudes were patently dishonest. The master’s intent would’ve been that rarely are men innately honest but the vast majority of them lack the conviction to be upright, regardless. In other words, the bulk of the people by nature are character-neutral and by disposition are fence-sitters. It’s thus, the ethos of an organization comes to be shaped by the upright or deviant, as the case may be, and that counts.

It is in this context that the exceptional thinking of the much-maligned Joseph Goebbels, expressed in his ‘Addendum to Adolf Hitler's Testament’ that brings forth another Shakespearean dictum , ”Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, / And vice sometime by action dignified", becomes eminently relevant.

“The Führer has ordered me, in the event of the collapse of the defense, to leave the Reich capital Berlin and to participate as a leading member in a government appointed by him.

For the first time in my life I must categorically refuse to obey an order of the Führer. My wife and my children join me in this refusal. Otherwise—quite apart from the fact that for human reasons and reasons of personal loyalty we could never bring ourselves to leave the Führer alone in his most difficult hour—I would regard myself for the rest of my life as a dishonorable renegade and a contemptible scoundrel, who, together with his self-respect, would also lose the respect of his people, which would have to be the prerequisite for any further service by me in shaping the future of the German nation and the German Reich.

Amid the delirium of betrayal that surrounds the Führer in these critical days of the war, there must at least be some who stand by him unconditionally and unto death, even if this contradicts a formal order, however well-founded, that he expresses in his political testament.

I believe that by doing this I am rendering the best service to the German people for its future, because in the difficult times that lie ahead, examples are more important than men. There will always be men who show the nation the way to freedom. But a reconstruction of our national life would be impossible if it did not develop on the foundation of clear examples comprehensible to everyone.

For this reason, together with my wife and in the name of my children, who are too young to express themselves but who, if they were of the necessary age, would unreservedly join in this decision, I declare my irrevocable determination not to leave the Reich capital even if it falls, and rather to end a life at the Führer's side that has no personal value for me if I cannot devote it in the service of the Führer and at his side.

Given in Berlin, 29 April 1945, 5:30 a.m.

Dr. Goebbels” [Emphasis supplied]

What examples the collegium benches had set for the judges it inducts into the judicial system – Not one but two Chief Justices went judicial overboard to protect a notorious woman of judicial pedigree from being prosecuted for her wrongdoings though their brother judge said that she should be hauled up as a fraudster. While some bails have become the instruments of favour, the ideological biases emanating from some of the benches even foul the country’s atmosphere. So to say, in all such cases, miscarriage of justice is not only done but is seen to be done, without any remorse or shame, not even later-day regret. But on the contrary, the fear to face the truth grips the ultimate bench in that save the honourable Justic Gogoi exception of the Ram Janma Bhoomi litigation, it is dead scared of dispensing justice in case of Kashi, Mathura etc. That successive CJIs should lack the courage to resolve the country’s cultural vexations speaks for the lack of character and the absence of conviction in the collegium benches.

Given that our society has become grossly corrupt, by and large that is, it is a matter of segregating the honest grain from the dishonest chaff that is bound to be beyond the narrow collegium vision as that is possible only through a broad NJAC search. If anything, the scandal of the burning bundles underscores this well and true – how come Justice Verma was so unabashedly unashamed is the question. Why not; he could only be cursing his bad luck that burnt all his ill gains (is it so); how fair it is to expect him to forego whatever might be in his retirement store, especially as much of his biradari continues to make merry, without let or hindrance that is.

However, I for one believe that Justice Surya Kant is better than most of the collegium-era Chiefs and as I dedicate this word to him as it’s a product of his address in the recent Ram Jethmalani Memorial Lecture, I urge him to grasp the Goebbels moment of his destiny to change our country’s judicial course. That’s by bringing the curtains down on the ugly collegium drama that is being staged for far too long. Maybe, he can give a thought to it as it comes from the maternal grandson  of  the upright C. Kameswara Rao, author of ‘The Law of Damages and Compensation’ among others, who was wont to advocate only the just causes that tended the Judges of the District Court in Kakinada, where he had practiced, to pre-judge their merit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hindus ‘n Hebrews – Contrasting Parallels

(A Case for Hindu Rashtra)

 

Desa-mante matti-kaadoi, desa-mante manushu-loi (nation is not (its) soil, nation is but (its) people), wrote Gurajada Appa Rao, a noted Telugu playwright and poet, and Hindus and Hebrews, aka Jews, validate him, though differently.  

 

True, all peoples and nations have their unique attributes but few, if any, had such travails and tribulations as Hindus and Hebrews as peoples, and India and Isreal as nations, remarkably with peculiar parallels and compelling contrasts.

 

So to say, more than any, it is the aftermath of India’s independence and Isreal’s formation that highlights the lack of Hindu hindsight and the expansive Jewish foresight. The Hindus made their part of the sundered land, a no-man’s land, in effect a dar al-harb (abode of war) for the unobligated Musalmans that stayed back in their millions. The Hebrews, on the other hand, turned the reacquired part of their promised land into a Jewish State, despite its considerable Arab Muslim habitation. While an exhaustive study of the contrasting parallels of the Hindus and the Hebrews, indeed, India and Israel, is a tome in the waiting (maybe a joint venture), this piece is but a prelude to set its tone. 

 

Much before Moses led the Jews to their promised land of Israel, the Devas enabled Hindus to make Bharat, their karma Bhoomi. Maybe by divine design to make them proportional to their populations, the former was shaped a tiny enclave, and the latter a subcontinent (Bharata Khanda). In Bharat, while its rishis and munis evolved the Sanatana dharma, aka Hinduism, the acharyas and gurukuls made it the seat of learning, visited by the seekers from all nations. Likewise, the chosen ‘Jewish’ people, nursed their promised land to shape its heritage, that’s narrated in the Torah, needing no repetition.

However, as if to prove that good things do not last forever, both these ancient people, in historical course, fell on bad times, first the chosen ones, and later, the blessed ones.

 

Being among the oldest non-proselytizing entities, they had to survive the proselytizing onslaught, from within and without: Hinduism from Buddha’s revolt, reform if you please, tumultuous Islamic assaults and the insidious Christian intrusions. Likewise, Judaism from Jesus’ rebellion, clothed in the Sermon, Muhammad’s personal animosity, crystalized as Islamic  hatred, not to speak of the despicable anti-Semitism of the Christian world.  

 

In case of Jews, first, it was the Assyrians that drove some of the them out of their land, and then the Babylonians, not only destroyed their First Temple in Jerusalem but also exiled many of them. Even their subsequent resettlement that Cyrus the Great facilitated came to naught as the Romans destroyed the Second Temple they rebuilt, and what’s worse, accentuated their diaspora, resulting in their dispersal all over. Well, that’s the price the Jews had to pay for the lack of geographic depth that still puts them on their toes in their regained State of Isreal.

 

As regards the Hindus, their first brush with the Islamic invasions was in the outlier Sindh that Muhammad ibn al-Qasim subdued at the dawn of the eighth century, and his brief foray thereafter into Gujarat to loot its famed Somnath shrine. However, it was three hundred years later that they had their first dish of Islmic savagery, served by ‘marauder’ Mahmud Ghazni in the sacking of the refurbished Somnath. Call it the Hindu misfortune or its cultural resilience, the cycle of Islamic destructions and Sanatana reconstructions continued, over centuries, at Somnath  (five each); the in situ marvel is built, post-independence.

 

Whatever, had Hindus developed shatrubodh (enemy awareness) after Ghazni’s buthshikhani (idol breaking) in Somnath, maybe there would never have been even an Islamic chapter in the Indian history.  Though badly mauled by Prithviraj Chauhan in the First Battle of Tarain, as Muhammad Ghori returned for the second one, a year later, had the fellow Hindu rulers joined hands with the former, the latter could not have established the Delhi Sultanate, the harbinger of India’s Islamic rule. Needless to say, it was a horrendous five-hundred-year medieval period for the Hindus thereafter that only ended after Aurangzeb’s vicious reign came to an end, and that hastened the decline and the downfall of the Mughal Empire.  

 

However, whereas the Jewish physical toll the anti-Semitism took in the Christian world by way of pogroms, exacerbated by the holocaust of six million of them, is  rightly remembered by the perpetrators, as a means of atonement of their sin; the Muslim slaughter of medieval Hindus was pushed under the carpet of collective consciousness of the world. That is even after American historian Will Durant in his book The Story of Civilization affirmed that the medieval Muslim conquest of India was "probably the bloodiest story in history", with varying genocidal estimates between eighty to hundred million dead, not to speak of the unspeakable atrocities against women. It’s as if the Hindu lives do not matter, even to the ‘civilized’ minds.

 

So be it, but when the Jews were forced out of their hearth and home, as some of them came to them, the Hindus welcomed them with open arms, making them feel at home ever after. Not Just that, during the World War I,  fighting on the Israeli soil to liberate its Haifa from the Ottomans, scores of Hindu soldiers laid down their lives. (It goes to the credit of the Jewish people that they have not forgotten these Hindu gestures). So to say, it’s but a demonstration of their innate fighting spirit that never waned, for some of their kings were unceasing in causing military headaches to the Islamic invaders. Even in the British Raj, though the enervated princelings acquiesced to the throne, free-spirited from all sections, more so the tribals, tended to indulge in insurgencies against the colonial masters, throughout India’s length and breadth that is, for years on.

   

Nevertheless, whereas the Islamic invaders upset the Indian social order of yore, the British colonizers undermined the Hindu minds to their eternal detriment,

 

It was Lord Macaulay that established a cult of deracinated Hindus as “a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect” that rules the roost even eight decades after British had left the Indian shores for good, that was after looting whatever they could. (I too was a decedent member for long). Surely, his legacy can lay claim to prophethood. So be it, but as if to leave an inviolable mark of their colonial rule, the British partitioned India to carve out Pakistan, as a homeland for the intransigent Musalmans. It’s another matter though that having insisted that they cannot live with the Hindus, the raison d'être of partition, yet 80% of them stayed put in the 80% land allotted to the Hindus that is Bharat. But in stark contrast, the very British allotted 55% of the contested land to 33% Jews, leaving the Muslim majority with their minority share. However, owing to their religious-hate-driven military misadventure, the Muslims lost more of their meagre land as spoils of wars to Isreal. Why, the Jews know their enemy well, and it shows.

 

It's thus, they came to define their new State of Isreal as ‘Jewish and Democratic’,  though governed by secular laws, but without a written constitution. It’s another matter that even if Moses’ Laws were enforced, the Abrahamic Arabs would have more than welcomed them but unlike Musalmans, the Jews had long since moved away from their untenable mores of yore. What is more, as if to keep their nascent nation in a wait and watch mode, they had evolved the concept of Basic Law. And for their part, the Arab Israelis, privy to the Jewish resolve to not to let anyone mess up with their promised land, not only fell in line but also fall at the front along with their Jewish mates. Whatever, the Jews, who are privy to the Islamic credos more than any, understand the consequences of a constitution that enables the Muslims to perceive Isreal as a dar-al-harb for what it is, the abode of war for the Musalmans. Hence, "the realization of the right to national self-determination in the State of Israel is exclusive to the Jewish People” formed the Basic Law, adopted by the Knesset in 2018, true, 2018.     

 

Juxtaposing it, the Hindus gave themselves a hotchpotch constitution that declared India as a sovereign democratic republic, however, governed by communal laws in civil matters, mostly Sharia-compliant at that! That’s not all, it granted freedom of religious propagation (read Christian and Muslim proselytization) that too in the immediate wake of the country’s partition on religious lines. What a memory! So, in other words, it’s nothing but an instrument of Hindu hara-kiri; yet that they think no end of it speaks for their intellectual bankruptcy. Think that their progenitors wore Upanishadic wisdom on their sleeves and Kautilya gave them Artha Sastra  that, anyway, has been collecting dust for long!

 

So, by design or by default, the Indian constitution was designed for the unfettered growth of the Semitic faiths of Christianity and Islam in India and their adherents too have not been found wanting in making the best of its provisions that serve as their proselyting tools. Well, at this rate, given their secular foolhardy, the Hindus, over time, by way of curing the Muslim headache they themselves bought for Bharat, could be conceding Islamic States in Assam, Bengal and Keralam, and part with part of their land in other parts of it as Sharia-compliant Autonomous Muslim Areas, a could be Islamic innovation. But would the Christians lag behind in demanding their share of the Hindu spoils. Why should they, as they already have most of the Seven Sisters in the Northeast under their Christian belt.

 

If that were not to be Bharat’s scary future, how the common Hindu-Hebrew fate came to be forked into differing India, Israeli destinies thus, is the subject that should engage the former for timely redressal.

 

While the unquestioning faith in Jehovah keeps the Jews united in the Judaic fold, the unshakeable belief in their promised destiny makes them persevere no end, and that at once affords them the feeling of oneness and a sense of purpose. It’s thus, in spite of the unceasing pogroms against them all over Europe, they kept intact their hope of returning to their promised land. Thus, it was this resolve to make it a reality that gave rise to Zionism, a political and nationalist movement with the goal of establishing and supporting a Jewish  national homeland in Palestine. Indeed, Israel came into being, nine months after India became independent, and  the rest is history - of the Jewish resolve to live for and die for every inch of their hard-fought land, and of the Hindu ineffectiveness in not retaining even India’s unfair share, resulting in the further loss of over 50k sqkm land to its enemies, not counting Gilgit-Baltistan. 

 

However, for the Hindus, the Sanatana ethos of ekam sadviprā bahudhā vadanti (what is right is One only, describe it wise variedly) is no sticking glue to hang on regardless. If anything, the pristine varnashrama dharma that in the later-days degenerated into the caste conundrum, has come to irrevocably divide the Hindu socially, and became detrimental to it in every which way. Besides, Bharat’s varied regionality with distinctive languages and sub-cultures, in spite of its Hindu homogeneity, deprives it of an emotional coherence, rendering it into a sort of nation of nations. Thus, unlike the Hebrews, the Hindus have no like passion for their karma Bhoomi; maybe, its subcontinental vastness also makes it psychologically unwieldy for physical possessiveness.

 

Be that as it may, if the fate of a nation is the state of its politics, the mettle of its leaders is the spirit of its people. So, it was no coincidence that Ben-Gurion came to lead the Zionist insurgency against the British in Mandatory Palestine and Gandhi became the fountainhead of the Hindu passivity, at home with peaceful protests, dubbed satyagraha (just anger). That was despite Netaji Bose revealing the revolutionary path to oust the British. Not just that; Ben-Gurion, for over thirteen years, helped the nascent Israel acquire the character of the Jewish State, but the self-serving Gandhi thrust Nehru, his weakness, upon India, brushing aside Patel the capable, to govern its destiny. And what Nehru did for nearly seventeen years, speaks as much about him as the Hindus, for they rooted for him with their votes, in poll after poll. Just to illustrate: having shunned Israel’s hand, running after Islamic grooms, he suffered no qualms in making India its mistress, when in Chinese distress. It’s a shame that his legacy became India’s foreign policy until Modi and Bibi accorded it legitimacy.

 

So, what now for Hindus, and India?

 

Before all else, they should learn to ignore the western validations of them and their desi endeavours.

  

“No country but India and no religion but Hinduism could have given birth to a Gandhi,” so proclaimed London Times, the day after his death. Then, “Oh, India, dare to be worthy of your Gandhi,” pontified Pearl S. Buck, adding that he said, “Resist to the very end, but without violence. Of violence the world is sick.” Really! It’s rich, given her own country’s domestic history, not to speak of its  warmongering foreign policy. Obviously, her advice was not meant for fellow Americans. So, it’s about time Hindus realized that the western praises of Gandhi are but ruses to keep the Hindu minds in pacifist mode even as they clamour for Dismantling Global Hindutva!

Likewise, the left-libs that romanticise Che Guevara, confine Netaji Bose on the margins of revolution, and with a purpose that our Macaulay-putra fail to grasp. Why, it’s not hard to see that Satyajit Ray is celebrated in the racist west as much for his cinematic worth as for his popularization of Hindu poverty. Oh, the Booker books tell their own story. So also, the Pulitzer Prizes, Magsaysay Awards and such.

The one thing Hindus should learn from Jews is to do what is right for their nation regardless of what others think of them, which is their real strength.

But in the Hindu majority ‘secular’ India, supposedly Bharat, the shoe is on the Muslim foot, notwithstanding the left-Islamist contra propaganda that anyway the living Hindu experience belies. If anything, Hindus prove that the peculiar strength of Islam is the indifference of those it seeks to destroy. Just the same, as the purpose of this piece is not about debunking the falsities of the detractors but to alert the indifferent Hindus, there is no detailing the same that is anyway evident to the discerning.

 

However, it is seldom appreciated by the Hindus (for the lack of shatrubodh) that the Muslim religious conditioning lies in nursing the twin aspirations of ‘all religion is for Allah’ and all the world is for Islam (dar al-Islam). Besides, it’s an article of faith for them in that wherever they are in minority,  dae al-harb, they should strive to make it dar al-Islam, Ghazwa-e-Hind in India’s case. Given that the Indian constitution has enough and more to nurse their Islamic hope and provides ample scope besides, for fulfilling their dar al-Islam aspirations, they have no reason not to be religiously aggressive in pursuit of the same. So, the remedy for India’s Muslim problem lies in removing that Islamic hope from its midst, like Israel did in its State, by turning Bharat into a Hindu Rashtra.  

 

Anyway, for the doubters, by way of an analogy, what Art 370 was doing in Jammu & Kashmir was effectively nursing the Muslim hopes of separation from India. But once it was revoked, it dawned on the Kashmiris that with it gone was the scope for their azadi, for all times to come. And that altered the Muslim behavioural pattern, if not forged an emotional bond with Bharat, that, anyway,  Islam would never allow to happen. But what really matters from the national perspective is that they have started behaving themselves, more or less that is. Thus, wiser by the Kashmiri experience, if Bharat were to declare itself as a Hindu Rashtra, ruled by raja dharma, then that would usher in Rama Rajya, a synonym for fairness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Had Nehru been a Nationalist, 

Or If Modi were the First One 

Mistaking it as some sort of an accolade by one of Modi’s so-called ‘andh bhakts’, the skeptics shouldn’t skip this for his mere presence in the subtitle.  Whatever, as a matter of fact, the historical facts vindicate his choice for this hypothetical venture, rather than that of Netaji Bose or Sardar Patel. It’s true, contrary to propaganda, Netaji caused the British-exist from India, confirmed by none other than Clement Atlee, the one who led them out. But given the turbulence of that time, he was not destined to become Azad Hind’s first prime minister. As for Patel, the people’s choice for the premier position, instead of shouldering the nation at its most critical juncture, he catered to maverick Gandhi’s wicked whim, to put its fate in the ill-equipped hands of the fallible Nehru. So, that makes Modi, who proved himself as a nationalist to the core, in thoughts, words and deeds, as the right choice to man this piece, more so, as he just overtook Nehru’s uninterrupted stint as the country’s elected prime minister.

It is pertinent to note that in his 15 Aug 1947 midnight ‘Tryst with Destiny’ address to India’s constituent assembly, Nehru had stated at the very outset - “Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny; and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially”. Well, for all intents and purposes, if it’s not an exhibition of his utter lack of ambition to lead India to its once-held preeminent position in the world, what else. Just contrast his limited thinking with Modi’s audacious vision of Vikasit Bharat and his energetic approach to realise that. So, hereunder is India’s hypothetical tryst with destiny, had Nehru been a nationalist, or if Modi were in his position as the first prime minister.  [Emphasis supplied] 

“Dear Bharatiya:

No denying that on this august occasion, though it is tempting to indulge in grandiose posturing, I would rather resort to plain speaking to outline my thoughtful vision for the eternal good of our new Bharat in the making.

I, for one, believe that there is no cause for celebrating our long-denied freedom for which we paid the price of partition, of our precious land. Besides, I dare say that we cannot remain oblivious to the fact that the spirit of our people, the soul of our karma bhoomi, came to be stymied under the alien regimens that lasted for a thousand years. Thus, at this historic juncture, as our resolve should be to lead our once-redoubtable country to the new frontiers of excellence, in the not-so-distant-future that is, so we must reckon this as a substantive moment, not a symbolic event.

Hence, it is incumbent upon us to apply our minds to nation-building, for which, first of all, we must, above all else, imbibe that spirit and induce it in the minds of our people, which Alberuni in 1030 CE characterised thus: "The Hindus believe that there is no country but theirs, no nation like theirs, no kings like theirs, no religion like theirs, no science like theirs." Thus, it is the onerous duty of all of us that happen to hold the positions of influence and power at this critical time, to reinvigorate that sense of pride in our people, with a resplendent past, distant though. So, let us all strive to create the Bharat Varsha of Swami Vivekananda’s dreams in which his Sanatani, garv se kaho hum hindu hai (proudly proclaim that we’re Hindus), refrain is on every lip.

No mistaking that for this ancient land has historically been the Hindustan, and if anything, with the creation of Pakistan for the Muslims, the India today is unequivocally Hindu, by its composition, culture, custom and character. Thus, for some delusionary applause from within and without, I see no point in singing paeans to the mythical ganga-jamni tehjeeb, which, anyway, the partition on the Hindu-Muslim fissures made fallacious. So, in the national interest, what is needed is a hard talk to deal with the ugly reality of the faith-driven Muslim disaffection of the Hindus, conceitedly called kafirs. Strangely though, having whole-heartedly subscribed to the Muslim League’s two nation theory, based on the premise of “Hindus and Muslims were two distinct nations with separate religions, cultures, and values”, over a third of the enthusiastic believers of the same, chose to remain in the Hindu India! Is it mere hypocrisy?    

Whatever, it should not be lost on them that Hindus, having been forced to cede one-fourth of their land for a Muslim homeland, did not insist upon their repatriation to it but instead, hosted them in their midst. If anything, that Hindu gesture alone, in the normal human course, is cause enough for these Muslims to rescind their separatist mindset to become the emotional ingredient of our national character. But the hitch, as pinpointed by my erudite brother, Dr. BR Ambedkar, is that “Islam can never allow a true Muslim to adopt India as his motherland and regard a Hindu as his kith and kin”, and I’m certain that he would love to be proved wrong on both counts. More so, as the onus is on the Muslims to become worthy of the Hindu magnanimity, it pays them to realize that the prejudices of their alien faith render them into square pegs in the round holes of Bharat that is India. And for that, it’s essential for them to understand that the inimical content of their faith, shaped by the alien tribal mores of the dark ages, has become redundant in these altered times, more so in the multi-religious societies like ours.

However, lest the Muslims should feel singled out on the dogmatic front, we must caution the mistaken Christians that their urge to convert the vulnerable Hindus, ostensibly for their supposed salvation, is grossly injurious to Indian social harmony, national unity and demographic health. So, they would be well-advised to desist from their ill-founded evangelism for unlike the prophet-centric prejudices of their, and the other Semitic faiths, the philosophy of Sanatana dharma has evolved through the ages, by the sages. Whatever, it is a travesty of enlightenment in that these dogmatic Semitic orders, sans philosophy, sworn to outrageous diktats of their intolerant gods, should have at all gained their cultish grounds in our land of the Upanishads. Oh, how they visualized that it’s man, who created gods, not the other way round! It’s another matter though, sadly over time, the Sanatani wisdom gave way to the Hindu superstitions, resulting in India’s intellectual decline.

Be that as it may, we must admit that Hindus have to blame only themselves for the Semitic mess in their midst for they disregarded the Sanatana ethos of Vasudhaiva kutumbakam (holds world all in one household) to denigrate part of their ilk as lesser souls, and, what’ worse, branded some others as untouchables. Sadly, though understandably, that make them all the easy prey of the evangelist poachers, equipped with false religious assertations and fake social postulations. However, wonder why it doesn’t ever dawn on the proselytizers of either dispensation that the manner in which they go about luring the others into their lot, in essence, is a dubious way of spreading, what they propagate as a noble religion, or the God’s straight path, or whatever! However, it goes without saying that before demanding the adherents of the alien faiths to imbibe Bharatiyata, the Hindus themselves must bring their sidelined ilk into the Sanatana fold, in both letter and spirit.

Last but not the least is our onerous task to reweave our tattered moral fabric, which, once, as noted by ancient Chinese pilgrims, was ethically pure in an economically prosperous setting. Why, for that matter, even at the end of the rapacious Islamic regimes, the forerunners to the exploitative British colonial rule, our GDP was over one-fourth of the global one, which sadly stands at a meagre three percent of it now. Just the same, without delving too deep into the myriad causes of our moral decay and the economic decline, suffice it say that as corruption is the source of our social scourge that plagues our country in every which way, it can be affirmed without any contradiction that it is treason by another name. It’s thus, unravelling the well-entrenched graft from independent Bharat can only be our vande mataram in its true sense.

Just the same, the problem with a problem is that until one admits that it exists, one cannot address it, and unless it is addressed, it persists. So, let’s honestly confess the problems our country faces, and sincerely strive to evolve feasible solutions to effectively address the same, collectively that is. Given the impeccable pedigree and innate genius of Bharat, I’m quite certain that our people and their progeny, sooner than later, would scale it to the formidable heights, at which our progenitors once positioned it. So, it is with that conviction, I commend this occasion as the beginning of the end of a millennial eclipse for our nation to regain and retain its resplendence for all times to come. Let’s trust our people for that.

Vande mataram.”

Now, from the hypothetical nationalism, back to the ‘Tryst with Destiny’ of the “Englishman by education, Muslim by culture, and Hindu by birth” Nehru, propped up by Gandhi, lo, for being “the most English among us all”, for the comparative record. It’s no wonder then that in its editorial, ‘India: another tryst with destiny’, The Guardian of England, opined that “Today, 18 May 2014, may well go down in history as the day when Britain finally left India”, and that was the day when its 15th Lok Sabha was dissolved to make way for Narendra Damodardas Modi to be sworn in as its 14^th Prime Minister later, on 26 May 2014.

And for record, the following is the rest of Nehru’s ‘tryst’:

“At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new -- when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India, and her people, and to the still larger cause of humanity.

At the dawn of history, India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her successes and her failures. Through good and ill fortune alike, she has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again.

The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?

Freedom and power bring responsibility. That responsibility rests upon this assembly, a sovereign body representing the sovereign people of India. Before the birth of freedom, we have endured all the pains of labor, and our hearts are heavy with the memory of this sorrow. Some of those pains continue even now. Nevertheless, the past is over, and it is the future that beckons to us now.

That future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that we might fulfill the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take today. The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity.

The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe "every tear from every eye." That may be beyond us, but so long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.

And so we have to labor and to work, and work hard, to -- to give reality to our dreams. Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can live apart.

Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom; so is prosperity now; and so also is disaster in this one world that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.

To the people of India, whose representatives we are, we make appeal to join us with faith and confidence in this great adventure. This is no time for petty and destructive criticism, no time for ill will or blaming others. We have to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell.”

Now, the rest is for your contemplation

 

The Secular Cure of India’s Semitic Cancer

Exhibiting an abnormal Abrahamic unity, the Christians and the Muslims, at odds with each other, the world over, combine themselves to jointly undermine the Sanatana dharma, aka Hinduism, in the Hindu-majority India. However, there’s nothing intriguing about that for both seek to expand their exclusivist religious footprints in the fertile fields of the populous republic with a political system that willy-nilly facilitates proselytization like nowhere else. Hence, so as to devise appropriate devices to tackle this Semitic menace that their chequered history makes them to suffer, even after their so-called independence, Hindus of the day need to delve into the cultish credos of these dogmatic faiths; especially given their unfettered demographic growths have cancerous consequences to the Indian body politic, in the not-so-distant future.

To start with, for both these desert faiths, it’s an article of faith that their mutually exclusivist dogmas, with intolerant streaks inherent to them, have universal applicability with unquestionable divinity – while Jesus asserted that “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned”, the Azan affirms that “There is none worthy of worship except Allah”. That’s not all, for the Christians, the Hindus are heathens, needing to be redeemed as their deities are fake, deserve to be ditched. What’s worse, for the Muslims, they are infidels, condemned to die at their hands, and their females, the legitimate sexual targets, all for the glory of Allah, no less, which fallacy, lo, the Muslim women take to their hearts! Thus, the demographic growth, more so of the Muslim kind, has a psychopathic dimension to it that is detrimental, even to the free speech, the foundation of, the once Hindu-achieved, human excellence, now sought to be throttled by the Islamic fanaticism - gustakh-e-nabi ki ek hi saza, sar tan se juda (disrespect Muhammad and get beheaded). So, it should be really scary to imagine the horrific effects of the cancerous growth of these converted characters, who tend to despise their ancestral culture and become implacably hostile to its ancient people, to mindlessly uphold the delusional traits of these dogmatic faiths.

All the same, the goody-goody Hindus condescend to descend to these misfits, more so to the Islamic variety, attributing their religious bigotry as well as their social aggression to their lack of literacy and their economic backwardness, never mind their highly educated fidayeen and the well-heeled terrorists unerringly belie the falsity of their fantasy. But yet, these very Hindus look the other way as, of late, the Indian corporate portals have become the frontiers of love jihad to coerce the Hindu women into converting, what with the female faithful pimping for their male co-religionists. So, the scourge of these religious conversions is not so much about the depletion of the Hindu ranks but about the increment of the demented characters that already have become formidable. But strangely, the Hindu Islamapologists are not perturbed, at least not yet, neither by the converts’ calculated demographic spread nor by their hateful behavioural patterns, and, as can be seen, there is a habit, and history, to that.

Well, Alberuni in his Tarikh al-Hind, written around 1030 CE, noted that "The Hindus believe that there is no country but theirs, no nation like theirs, no kings like theirs, no religion like theirs, no science like theirs". That the Hindus then should have gloated about themselves in like fashion that too in the wake of Ghazani’s sack of Somnath, not to speak of Qasim’s conquest of the Sind, as early as 712 CE, which was 102 years after Muhammad had firmed up Islam, belies their delusional mindset that has been persistently prevalent ever since in its profusion! It is another matter though that none of the Hindu kings ever ventured to reclaim the Sind for their Hindustan, like the Christians, who around the same time, had initiated the Reconquista to liberate Spain from the clutches of the same Musalmans. If anything, it is the telling difference between the Hindus and the followers of the Semitic faiths that proved fatal to India over the centuries. Why, even now, there’s no dearth of the woolly Hindus, who assert that the Semitic conversion sprees pose no threat to the Sanatana Dharma for, after all, it survived the Islamic Mogul Rule and the Christian British Raj, together lasting over a millennium, never mind at the end of it all, they were forced to part with one fourth of their ancestral land for a homeland for Muslims, evocatively named Pakistan.

Be that as it may, the cruel joke of India’s partition, based on Jinnah’s assertion that “Hindus and Muslims were two distinct nations with separate religions, cultures, and values” was that, out of 95 million Muslims at that time, 35 million of them that is over one-third, staid put in India, owing in no small measure to the Muslim-minded Nehru’s Machiavellian goading, to become his dynastic vote-bank by way of their innate communal outlook. Needless to say, making good of the Islamic leeway provided to them by Nehru and his dynastic successors, in what was supposedly Hindu India after the partition, they have been ever at increasing their numbers, exponentially that is, to become some fourteen percent by now that is more than the partition-inducing thirteen percent. Though for all practical purposes, the Ghazwa-e-Hind of an Islamic dream may forever remain a pipe dream for them and the hoped-for second partition, is a geographically untenable proposition, yet in time, the Muslim demand could be to declare the de facto Muslim mohalls into de jure Islamic areas, with sharia and all, within the boundaries of the Secular India. And given the Mullah-nurtured kafir hatred the Quran inculcates in them, who knows, their jihadi zeal may, at length, turn these into Gaza strips to kill the Hindu infidels in the adjoining habitats, a la Israeli Oct 7.

Thankfully though, the Hindus are becoming increasingly alive to the overtly Muslim and the covertly Christian demographic overturns around them as reflected in the recent constitution of the ‘High-Level Committee on Demographic Change’, HLCDC for short, by the Modi-sarkar, to comprehensively assess the ‘abnormal population shifts caused by illegal immigration and other unnatural causes.’ But the moot point is how things have been allowed to come to this pass, and the answer lies, as seen above, in the Hindu lacking of Shatrubodh (enemy awareness), which concept is slowly gaining the ‘right’ ground now. That is despite Chandmal Chopra’s 1985 Writ Petition to the Calcutta High Court seeking a ban on the Quran for its vile ayats on kafirs, in the wake of which Sita Ram Goel came up with his  book, Calcutta Quran Petition, a year later. That this author self-published Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A critical appraisal of Islamic faith, Indian polity ‘n more) in 2003, with seemingly none such in between, tells the Islam-naive story of the Hindu Semitic-unawareness.

Needless to say, the Quran Petition was dismissed then and same would be the case at any time in the future, unless India becomes a ‘dictatorial China’, politically, economically and militarily, to un-Islamize the Indian Muslims, as is the case with the Uyghur Muslims, without a whimper of a protest from the Islamic world. Whatever, it is true that since late sixties, assorted anti-conversion laws have been in force in various non-Congress ruled Indian states to restrict religious conversions carried out through ‘force, fraud, or inducement’, but to no avail as evidenced by the need to constitute the said high-level committee now. Nevertheless, it is seldom appreciated that religious propagation, read religious conversion, which the Indian Constitution naively treats as the citizens’ fundamental right, as detailed in the author’s article, Incongruities in Indian Constitution, per se, is a constitutional fraud perpetrated on the gullible Hindus.

Thus, it should be not lost on any that the Indian Constitution, crafted by the Macaulay-educated babus of that era and adopted by the politically correct netas, engaged in chasing the Gandhian mirage of Hindu-Muslim bhaichara in India’s ganga-jamni desert, is a cruel double whammy on the long-denied natives. That’s not all, even as the Hindu-apathetic Nehru laid its philosophical foundation, its ‘architect’, Dr. BR Ambedkar, who swore not to die as a Hindu, and indeed passed away as a converted Buddhist, built the tome that set the anti-Sanatana tone, which for long fell on the deaf Hindu ears. Now that the pro-Semitic constitutional tune is becoming increasingly irritable to the jaag utha (woken up) Hindus, by the year 2047, it may as well be the case of the good riddance of this bad rubbish, giving cause for India to celebrate its hundredth-year of independence then as Vikasit Bharat, in the true sense that is.

However, as the Semitic cancer has already reached the second stage, ably aided by the constitutional provisions and largely abetted by the Nehruvian policies, it is imperative that it should be adequately cured at this stage, without further delay at that, to prevent it from growing into the incurable fourth stage.

Here’s a prospective prescription for the same.

Rx

Diagnosed Semitic Stage II cancer in Indian body politic.

Recommended procedures for its containment and cure.

I) Preventive measures

In propagating one’s religion, faith or creed, the following actions are deemed contrary to ‘public order, morality and health’, paramount in the constitution, and as such are treated as criminal acts punishable with due imprisonment and an appropriate fine as well as life-long prohibition of the violators from indulging in any form of religious propagation/activity whatsoever.

i) Promoting one’s god, prophet, seer as the only valid god, prophet, seer, and picturing the gods, goddesses, dieters of other religions, faiths, creeds, customs as false, fake or inferior for denouncing or demeaning the latter.

ii) Positioning one’s religion, faith, covenant, creed, custom, convention as the only divinely true one and that the other religions, faiths, covenants, creeds, customs and conventions are false, fake or inferior.  

iii) Asserting that one’s religion, faith, covenant, beliefs, customs, and conventions as superior to those of the others that lack the divine sanction / approval or are irrational.

iv) Highlighting only the palliative aspects of one’s religion, faith, covenant, custom and conventions, all the while hiding the regressive and obscurantic features and characteristics of the same in ways to make the prospective converts perceive that the other side of the fence is greener.

v) Luring the others into one’s religion or faith by theologically picturing the same as caste-free, contrary to its widespread prevalence among its converted peoples in the Indian social setting.

vi) Seducing the socially, educationally and economically weaker sections of people as well as the emotionally vulnerable ones, of other religions, faiths and communities, to enter into one’s religion or faith with financial inducements, fake promises, alleged miracles and such dubious tactics.

II) Curative methods

In professing and practicing one’s religion, the following are deemed contrary to ‘public order, morality and health’ and hence treated as criminal acts, punishable under the law.

i)  No recitation, preaching, recounting, propagation of such verses or anecdotes from the holy scriptures, religious books, historical accounts that derogate other faiths and inculcate enmity towards the followers of the same, can be undertaken anywhere, even in religious places, under any circumstances whatsoever. 

a) Any violation of the above by ordained priests, religious propagators, social commentators et al, entails imprisonment and fine besides a life-long ban on such to reassume the same or similar religious roles.

ii) No preaching, teaching, lecturing or discoursing, rooted in the religious scriptures, tenets, books or historical accounts in the educational institutions of any denomination that induce disregard, hatred, enmity etc. towards other religions/ faiths or their adherents should be resorted to.

a) Any violation of the above carries due imprisonment and permanent disablement of the involved teacher(s) from such an occupation.

b) Should any such institution continue to indulge in this prohibited practice with different characters, then that facility would be disbanded and the members of its board or committee, would be collectively and severally barred from establishing such or similar outfits to undertake such or similar activities for the rest of their lives.

Note – Seek a second opinion from HLCDC, just in case. 

 

• 

A Providential Encounter 

[A poignant story about the villainy of vanity exemplified by the lives of a middle-aged woman and a grey-haired man, involved in a providential encounter.]

Stepping into a sprawling park nearby, Latha headed towards a lonely bench to sit on the horns of a dilemma. Soon, as if they got wind of her morose mood, the monsoon clouds began to engulf the setting sun to sync the environs with her gloomy demeanor.  But yet, unmindful of her bereft state, the charm of her middle-aged form enlivened the surroundings, emanated by the eyes of the beholders. If anything, enhancing that sense of espial, the romantics among them envisioned her maiden frame entwining her man as an ever-eager creeper. All the same, lost in her thoughts, she was oblivious to the goings on around her enchanting presence.

However, as her mind began muddying her thoughts, she grasped the note she had tucked in her blouse, closer to her heart, and hardly had she pulled it out to review her plan of revenge, a gust of wind snatched it from her hands. Nonplussed though, she readily recovered her wits to pursue that ariel piece for its retrieval before it landed in alien hands. So, not losing sight of that self-incriminating thing, she ran with the wind till that dropped into a secluded portion of the park. Then, holding her breath for a while, she hurried her way into that nuke but upon seeing a semi-gray-haired man engrossed in going through her outpour, missing a heart a beat, she stopped in her tracks. However, gathering her wits in time and having weighed her options - reclamation or abandonment – she headed towards him.

“Excuse me, it’s mine,” she said embarrassedly pointing to her note that he began to pocket.

“How am I to know that it’s yours?” he said questioningly. 

“You know that it’s not yours either,” she said argumentatively.

“True, but what if I were to put this damned idea into the wrong head,” he said without taking his eyes off her.

“I’m Latha,” she said lowering her face

“Have it,” he said handing it over to her.

“Thank you,” she said with a sigh of relief.

‘It’s Okay,’ he said thoughtfully. 

‘Oh, what would he be thinking about me?’ she began to envision, leaving him hurriedly. ‘Whatever it is, what difference does that make for me? But isn’t something more in his stare than mere desire? Whatever it is, probably that could have held him back from befriending me. Could it be contempt for my character? So be it, but how do I care. Oh, no, he’s privy to my plan and could imperil me when the chips are down. What if I seduce him into becoming my accomplice? But looks like he’s too level-headed to get into a vulnerable position to compromise himself. So what, I’ve nothing more to lose by way of trying. Even otherwise, his semi-grey eminence is worth courting.’

Looking back over her shoulders and seeing his stare, she walked towards him.

“Sorry, I forgot to ask your name,” she said upon reaching him.

“Is it the cause of your comeback?” he said with a smirk on his face.

“What else do you think it could be?” she said making it evens stevens.

“So, you’re smart as well,” he said wearing his admiration for her on his sleeve.

“As well as what?” she said teasingly, pleased with herself.

“I’m Mohan,” he said invitingly.

“Thank you, Mr. Mohan, but that’s no reply for my query,” she said coyly.

“Well, but there’s no prelude for that?” he said expectantly.

“May I sit, as a prelude?” she said, slipping out of her slippers.

“Oh, I’m sorry for being unchivalrous,” he said, standing up.

“Maybe you’re overawed,” she said coquettishly as they sat together. 

“Looks like you’re unnerved,” he said for a repartee.

“What rubbish?” she said mawkishly.

“Never mind, I’m no blackmailer,’ he said sincerely.

“Thank you for not making it worse for me,” she said suggestively.

“Now, you’re free to call it quits,” he said tentatively.

“But I’m not done yet,” she said seductively.

“With what?” he said anticipatively.

“I’ve another side of my ‘scandal sheet’ to show you,” she said enticingly. 

“I suppose it’s a fair offer,” he said assuming an attentive posture.

She was barely thirty when her husband, a Major in the Indian Army, laid down his life in a counter-insurgency operation in Kashmir. So as to wholly devote herself to his ageing parents, to whom he was the only child, she gave up her schoolteacher job, and came to lead her life with them in the shadows of the martyr’s memories. However, after their death, in quick succession, to overcome her ennui, she took up teaching all again. That was five years back, when she turned forty.  Soon, as it happened, she was drawn to a twenty something colleague that set up their passionate liaison in which she was on cloud nine all again. But ever since her lover, that was a week back, broke with her to get engaged with a young woman, she has been left gasping in the pit of despair. 

“Why spare your boyfriend and spoil his betrothed?” he said in a manner of knowing the answer.

“I don’t want to lose him to her,” she said resolutely.

“Suppose you make it a perfect murder that’s rare any way, would it insulate him from another dame?” he said questioningly.

“I didn’t delve into all that,” she said confusedly.

“It’s the villainy vanity that failed you to figure it out,” he said thoughtfully.

“What do you mean by that?” she said in half-protest.

“If it were a case of love turned into hatred, you would’ve wanted to see his end but as he snubbed you for her sake, I suppose it’s your vanity that makes her the target of its hurt,” he said in a helpful tone. 

“It’s possible,” she said after some contemplation.

“You’re sensible,” he said in a complimentary manner.

“But still your counselling helps,” she said invitingly. 

“I’m not a psychologist,” he said evasively.

“But you seem so,” she said, and added, “if you care to tell me about yourself, I’m all eager to listen.”

“Evan as deeper thoughts tend to evade the radars of close relationships, how strange it is that our apprenticeship of acquaintance should begin with the exposure of our dark secrets,” he began stoically. “To begin with, though bright, being poor, I was down to earth but when a rich man’s attractive daughter married me for love, so to say, my ego got energized. But it’s her wifely devotion that gave birth to my manly vanity that is besides our smart son, who, in time, became a decorated cop. When we were in search of a suitable bride for him, the Naxals managed to get their nemesis to plunge us into gloom.”

“Oh, what a fateful coincidence!” she exclaimed, interrupting him.

“But as you would see, the effects of it varied widely,” he said as he resumed summarising his life. “Lo, living in my vanity world by then, in my son’s supreme sacrifice, I came to see my service to the nation as his father, furthering my illusion. Sadly, as my wife widowed me five years back, though I could overcome her loss in time, devoid of her adoration, I became a fish out of water. Not for long though as my hand of vanity led me to a poor lass of quality, whom, with my wealthy attentions, I enticed into marrying me. That was three years back, and ever since, people mistook her for my daughter, bolstering my vanity no end.”

At that, he paused even as she was listening wide-eyed.

“It’s thus, given my situation, I failed to fathom her feelings,” he began saying. “It’s only the other day that she made me privy to the villainy of my vanity that has been stymieing her, not so much in my bed but in her life, as she put it. Instead of wooing her with my wealth, had I won her with my affection, she might’ve fallen in love with me, never mind my grey hair. As the familiarity of the well-heeled living began waning the thrill of it, for long, she was yearning for a normal life with a man she loved. Asserting that she could bear it no more, she pleaded for separation from me without any encumbrance, and seeing her plight, as I had no heart to refuse, it didn’t take me long to accede to her request. Whatever, as a recompense, I even offered her enough money to last her life-time that she has flatly refused. So, after she moved out of my place this evening, as a prelude to divorce, I came here to take a serene look at the falsity of my vanity, and you know what followed.”

“Oh, how remarkable,” she said in awe and added, “you make me seem so small.”

“Why spoil me by stoking my vanity,” he said half in jest.

“Well, I will be failing myself if I don’t confess that I came back to you with the idea of seducing you into becoming my partner in crime,” she said shamefacedly.

“Blame it on the villainy of vanity,” he said patting her shoulder assuredly.

At that, pulling out the damning thing from her blouse and having shredded it into tiny pieces, she blew them away from her palm as if driving out vanity from her life itself.

“Will you let me be your life partner?” she said turning to him with an appealing look.

“See, it’s not wise to act on the rebound,” he said sounding caution.

“But isn’t it stupid to lose track of our providential encounter?” she said spiritedly.

“Do you think I’m a stupid?” he said suggestively.

“I would let the time decide,” she said mischievously.

“Who knows what life has in store for us,” he said philosophically.

“Isn’t it said that If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars,” she said in hope, extending her hand.

Then, as if not wanting to lose track of each other, hand in hand, they headed towards the exit.