Inked & Coined

its a story in the backdrop of recent Mumbai blast at 6:53 pm in dadar, where a person dies.this is the last page of his life.......

7:30 am
A lazy morning in Mumbai, sunlight is filtering through the curtains and on the bed, I am lazily thinking about priorities of my day. I have office at 9, meet with international clients at 11, prepare for tomorrows presentation till 4, then have meeting with boss at 6, hummff that’s it for the day!!! No, no I forgot one thing I have to go to car machanic for wheel alignment as well but before 7 pm at any cost.
Well, after getting all the days business set in my mind, I dug my face again in the pillow and fell asleep only when a screaming sound made entry over my ear drums “aaj to Bandar-Bandariya ki shaadi ho rahi hai”(today monkey couple are marrying eachother)…..it was my little kido “Saniya” whom we all call Sana.
She jumped over my belly and said,”papa, dekho na bahar kitna acha lag raha hai, barish aur dhoop sath sath”. I grazed out of window and found a drizzle amidst bright sunshine, coincidence, but a lovely one. I took Sana in my lap and told her, keep looking outside, you may find Rainbow very soon on the horizon.

Then I rushed to the bathroom for…do I need to tell you this? Anyways I am almost done with the pre-office preparation which includes my breakfast which is at the mercy of my wife, Shona as I call her.
8:45 am
Finally I am ready for office, Shona gave me a mundane hug and as usual again remineded me to keep myself away from my assistant who is naturally more pretty, fresh and energetic than my wife. But something I missed, Sana didn’t come to give me a bye kiss, I called her twice but no response. Anyways, I came down stairs, it was raining outside, I threw my bag inside the car and when I was to enter the car, I heard a lovely voice,”Papa, rainbow will come na? I have been waiting for long but its not there”.
Ohh pretty gal, she was still drolling on the window and as per my words, she was waiting for rainbow.
I said,” it will come beta, very soon it will”. “Ok, then I will wait here only,”she replied.
The last thing I saw her hands outside window trying to catch rain drops.
12:45 pm
I am done with client meeting, it all went well even boss looked happy today. I went to mess straight away to have lunch as I knew its gonna be a packed day after the lunch. I took cheese-Burger along with coke and covered a table. I don’t know why it happens with me all the time when I am about to eat my favourite cheese-burger my fone rings, so it is ringing, so be it. I kept ringing and finally I took the hard step of taking the call. Ohh, goodness, it was Shona on the other side,”where have you been Vinod? A sharp, hard voice zarred my ear drums. Look your daughter has created hell back home, talk to her. I said hello sana, how are you child? I was greeted with a weeping sound,”papa, you are a liar!! You said, rainbow will come, but it hasn’t yet. I am fed up looking at the sky. You are a liar!!
It will come beta, believe me, today is a special day, whatever papa says, it’ll happen for sure, believe me. And if it doesnot, I will bring you a choco, ok? I tried to persuade her. My little girl was happy with my bait, she said fine if Rainbow doesn’t appears then I need fruit ‘n’ nuts else bring milk cakes!!! Ok, papa now I am going again to the window, I don’t wana miss rainbow today.
05:30 pm
I am all set to present the report to the boss and went inside the cabin, the bald-head (boss) has immersed his head into the laptop screen, looked like sleeping but he was conscious I believe. Well, discussion started about the business and other future plans for expenses in the office. Suddenly he said, how is Sana? What about her quest with life. I was taken aback by sudden change in the topic, well she is fine, doing well but as far as quest is concerned, she is much more than her mom. I don’t know why am I telling boss all this but I wanted to tell about todays’ rainbow quest. I told him all about rainbow stuff happening since morning. He looked at my face and asked, do you believe rainbow will come?
I looked at the sky, it was dark with clouds, well it’s difficult indeed but hopefully we will get to see one today.
6:30 pm
I went to my cabin and called the peon, Ram lal can, ek chai Lana! But Ram lal said pantry wale ghar chale gaye sir, aap kaho to neeche se le aaun. I said, ok le aao! Acha suno, rehne do, mai khud hi jaake pee leta hoon.
I went to a tapri, as we call it in mumbai, and asked for a special cutting, Ismail a 7 year old kid handed over a glass, aur kuch laun kya sahab? I said, nahi. I looked at his face, he must be of the same age as Sana is. I was amazed, my daughter is busy in her quest with life and this little kid is busy with hardships of life.
6:50 pm
I am done with the tea, handed over money and turned back. Suddenly something came in my mind, Ismail tune kabi indradhanush dekha hai kya? Ha dekha na sahab, mast lagta hai. Acha batao kitne rang hote hai, I enquired. Ab kitna hoega sahab, char paanch to hoga hi but apan ko kya, apan to ek hi rang jaanta hai, golden brown, chai wala rang. And with this answer, he smiled innocently, and everybody there had a laugh.
I looked at the sky, it was a mixture of reddish tint of sunlight which was indication that sun is getting into the Arabian Sea now.
The red colour was there, only red….but no rainbow in the sky!!!!
06:53 pm
My ears went deaf, my eyes could hardly sea things, my body acted as if it was a log of wood……I felt the earth stopped rotating, world stood still….
I tried to gather all my energy to open my eyes, so as to see what happened, I saw Ismail on ground, bleeding from his head, half of the skull looked torn apart. Still unconscious, I wanted to yell, cry for help but my system was put on mute mode. Everything, looked so chaotic, people running around, smoke coming out of fried bodies, blood spilling out of limbs as we find with BMC pipelines.

Suddenly a huge cry came out of my mouth out of pain. My unconscious body came into wide awake. I could see a rod into my chest, blood spilling out of it. Another metal piece in my belly. What the heck is all this, I was there for tea only not for all this. Help, help, I am dying , plz help…………………
But nobody was there, a shear chaos, a no mans land. I knew, this is it………
07:30 pm
I don’t know what is happening but I could see some faces, some lights on my head. May be I am in hospital. May be, these faces are doctors, may be lights belong to operation theatre. May be I will come alive.
My eyes are dying, I could barely see anything now…………..may be I am dying!!! After everything went calm around me, it felt like freezing cold in the room.
“Papa, look, look at the horizon, it’s a rainbow there”, I tried my best to open my eyes, yes there was a rainbow, far on the horizon. “Papa you said na, it will come look it has, you are not liar, you are best papa in the world”.
I wanted to tell her,”I can see the rainbow, but its not 7 coloured but one” the RED……..
Suddenly, found a shacky activity over my chest, may be they are giving me electrical shocks to regain my breath. I could hear little murmer among the docs, many masked faces over my head. And when they left, it was a big Light above my head just like the one in operation theatre.
08:00 pm

Just like when you close your eyes in sunlight and you find different unstructured images in the sky and it ends into bright light fading in the eye.
Same way, it ended for me with only exception, I could see two little hands coming out window to catch rain drops…..and a voice………Rainbow will come na, Papa!!!

Posted in: mumbai,mumbai blast,Rainbow

“Long ago, there was a king called Kamunist, he was a great ruler and had a great control over his state. He was very clever and had immense administrative acumen. With his wisdom and acute knowledge of people management the King became almost invincible and ruled his state for decades”.
One fine morning a noble Brahmin came to the state and after looking at the status of people and the economy of state, he decided to go the king. When king heard about the Brahmin he gracefully invited him to his court and welcomed him to the court.
Then the king asked the brahmin,“Hey brahmin, I am grateful to you that you arrived at my door, what can I do for you? Brahmin replied, “Rajan! I heard a lot about you & your administrative acumen and therefore I came all along to see you and to see the people.
King Kammunist became happy after hearing Brahmin’s words, he further asked,”so what did you find, did you liked my administration, my courtmen, the prosperity in the estate?
Brahmin took a pause, thought and then said, “O King Kammunist, I appreciate your administrative skills and have full faith in your courtmen but when it comes to prosperity among the people, I am afraid your state takes the back seat. This is the only reason I came all the way to understand your definition of prosperity.”
King was surprised, annoyed as well. He said,”Look at my court, my castle, my capital city which is comaprable to none”. Go around and have a look at the cultural heritage I have kept intact in all these years, I have done all good things to restore and save the pride of my people.
Brahmin smiled and said,”this is what I want to tell you my King, I agree your court, castle, capital city is incomaparable, your culture and its heritage is an epic in itself but have you looked beyond the walls of your castle? Did you tried to look at the other cities apart from your capital? In the name of cultural heritage, you blocked the doors of fresh ideas, innovation, and you succeeded to inculcate a false pride among your people which is baseless atleast in modern times. Your people are happy with their past but have uncertain future. But it is time for change!!
Its not that your people love you or respect you, but they don’t have any option. They expect a lot from you but afraid of your cadres who torture them, suppress them, deprive them from justice. This is all because of your complacency. You assumed that nobody can dethrone you ever but remember one thing my dear King “Change is inevitatble, either you change or the time will change you”.
The King Kammunist realised his fault and fell on the Brahmins’ feet. He promised that he will not be myopic anymore and will try to provide justice to all the people of state. The king ordered his courtmen to go the people and work for the people. Thus, the king Kammunist regained the lost respect from the people and ruled happily for long.
Wow, a nice story for kids, a nice lecture on justice and expectations from a leader. Lets come back to the ground now, immoral, concrete ground in the scroching heat.
Lets relive the above story in the perspective. West Bengal is the state and the King Kammunist (Communists) and the Brahmin (may be Ms.Bannerjee). The story coincides ditto on the ground realities of WB but only with a slight change in the last paragraph of the story.
In the story the King Kammunist realised his fault and pledged to tighten all screws in his administration for bringing justice, egalitarian societal norms and true prosperity among its people. But in reality, the CPI(M) govt never acknowledged his faults, its mistakes, atrocities over the people and its deeds which destroyed the industries, business houses, economy of west bengal in the name of change or social reforms.
They took the mandate of people for granted and I believe this is time to make them understand that “Change is inevitable”.
Let’s pray, the fresh mandate will “Remove Red and Paint it green”.
That it will remove the outdated, anti-development red with the Green which stands for prosperity, growth and development.
I wish the King Kammunist of modern times should have heard the Brahmin but I reckon its too late and one thing is inevitable now ……………………………”Green prevailing over Red”