Toiling away
was only six, but I remember the newspapers that we pasted on the windows to avoid detection by enemy aircraft during the India-Pakistan war of 1965.
I was older at the time of the 1971 war between India and Pakistan and was a hosteller in Delhi. We blackened the dormitory windows and took turns at night to sound the hostel alarm in case of an air raid siren.
Later, I visited an Army ocer, who was a friend of my uncle. He had lost a leg in the 1965 war. I saw the grim reality behind the sad expressions on the faces of the ocer and his wife – the price that many have to pay during wars cannot be counted in numbers.
Almost a decade and a half later, during my rst posting in the Railways, I reached my maintenance shed one morning to nd the sta agitatedly walking out of the premises. I was interrupted by my supervisor from trying to stop them. “Sir, please do not stop them, otherwise they will turn on you,” he said. The Prime Minister had been assassinated and riots followed. My immediate senior had to take shelter with his family in empty oil drums. They were the fortunate ones.
The past 100 years have been tumultuous globally. We have witnessed innumerable genocides and wars. Each act of violence has its repercussions for the people who live through the harrowing period. Yet, the next generations either develop or at least pretend to develop amnesia when perpetuating the same atrocities on others in later years, seemingly oblivious to the fact that their life too is transitory.
William Wordsworth imparted a life-changing lesson. He said: Life is divided into three terms — that which was, which is, and which will be. Let us learn from the past to pro t by the present, and from the present, to live better in the future.
Ihave a penfriend, sorry, email friend, who made it clear at the very outset that she was a sworn enemy of poetry. “I hate poetry” were her words.
As a poetry-lover, I was stung, morti ed. I knew people did not readily take to verse after their bitter struggle with it at school. I also knew hate, like love, could be blind.
It is common knowledge that intense hate can damage the mind. I had no missionary zeal to reform that poetry-hater. Yet I kept baiting her with a variety of simple poems from my numerous anthologies — now a Robert Frost, an Edward Thomas, a Rudyard Kipling, or a
Iabour is an integral part of production. Land and capital alone do not lead to production.
Young persons leaving their villages and home towns in search of jobs is a common sight these days. The pandemic highlighted the woes of migrant workers, who were caught between the devil and the deep sea.
LThe condition of the workers is miserable. They need money for their own survival and to send a part of it to their dependents. Let’s spare a thought for the workers who battle it out in the scorching summer heat. The rainy season presents a di erent challenge altogether.
Delivery persons, electricians, painters, plumbers, masons, fruit and vegetable vendors, truck drivers, car mechanics, and many such skilled and unskilled workers serve us everyday. Without them our lives would be dicult.
These are works that can drain anyone physically.
For people employed in the unorganised sector, meagre wages do not allow the luxury of savings. Survival of the day