Collateral damage

December 31 to January 01.

One more change of year...with protest being the talk of the town.

Among all the hullaballoo about the safety of the fellow gender and our patriarchal mindset, we may be missing what lies beneath: the lust for more... be it wealth, the comforts, or mere gratification... with never ending appetite...

The cities with increasing slum areas, the villages with almost the have-nots, and everyone vying to become a VIP in a cocoon... where are we actually heading? ...towards shopping Malls, Multiplexes, air-conditioned offices in high-rises, craving for ultra-luxury all the time... creating the dirt on the side-walks as an offshoot!

So, when somebody equates the individual hurt with collateral damage in policing, we cry foul forgetting that it’s always happening around us.

The innocence of children and sensitivity of adults both are becoming extinct with rapid progress of information explosion. The news of a crime doesn’t affect us anymore as it used to be...

Despite such great surge of passion on the streets, the incidences of crime against women or for that matter any crime, are increasing with each passing moment. 

In fact, the gatherings and marches themselves are lucrative opportunities for the eve-teasers and pickpockets. And testimonies of their victims speak of a truth we easily ignore.   

A bleak picture, maybe an exaggeration, but that’s what I feel today as new calendar is replacing the wall…

Wish it would be a better place some day...

Still, the party is on, welcoming the new dawn, with the zeal of ‘braveheart’ intact in the hearts and ready to face the collateral damage…

the childhood dream

I was a child once.
Then, I always looked towards grown-ups with awe, never realizing the preciousness of the childhood.
Often I had big dreams to be a great man. And that greatness was scattered around me...
...My first role model in the initial dreams was "the bus-driver". Perhaps he was a rare entity for me because of our habitat. We lived in Gopeshwar, a remote hill station in Garhwal Himalayas. A road formed a side of our playground and hardly any vehicular traffic passed through it. So, when a few government buses from the faraway places like Nainitial, Haridwar, etc., came in sight during our evening games, all my friends became mesmerised. Some even used to run after the smoke of the bus. Almost all of us liked the smell of that smoke. We had yet to hear the term called 'pollution'. The game could re-start only after a proper discussion about the correct count of the passengers, the route of that bus (mostly inaccurate but then we didn't bother about accuracies.), and the driver, the most important being.
And the fascination grew with each passing day. On many days, there were no buses due to the road-block somewhere at the hilly route. Those days we waited patiently.
I don't know how that waiting turned into an 'emotion-less' state gradually and how that role-model slipped out of my dreams. but the memory lasted till date.

Now, I see my son talking about the driver of his school-van (in Delhi). He is not much bothered about the congested traffic or the driver's skills. It is a routine for him, not a novelty. Rather, he is more influenced from the Cartoon characters of his favourite TV channels like Hungama, Pogo, etc. And he is much more aware of this world as compared to my childhood.
Still, I feel privileged that I had the ignorance in a pristine surrounding, that I had been inhaling the pure fresh air in the evenings. Though I could never drive a bus (neither I have such plan in the future), still I consider it a real great job. And truly befitting to my childhood dream.
   

first post

so, this is me - a wannabe blogger, maybe in the nursery standard or perhaps preparing to begin the schooling... in this "blogiverse"

'bataula' is the nickname I earned during the farewell of my post-graduation at Nainital - thanks to my junior batch. and here i am - trying to live-up to that expectation.

being the first post, there is nothing to say more except that i'll try to write daily - to improve my writing skills and to amuse myself.

i hope that someone may read or follow...