Dida's Demise and My Realizations

Today is Jan 16, 2018. ‘Dida’ (my maternal grandmother) breathed her last today. Old, weak, and bedridden for many years, she was the epitome of humility, love, selflessness, and sacrifice that I have seen in my life. In one word, she was an Angel.

She was so weak and fragile, and in such bad health, that everybody in the family had wanted her to pass away. But that Death would come so suddenly to her was not expected.

Afternoon, and I had called my mom on her mobile phone to just have a word with her about her whereabouts. It was then that she told me that Grandma was severely ill and she would have to run to Bankura where Grandma was admitted in a hospital because of a severe ailment.

I already knew she had not had motions for more than the last 2 weeks, but I thought that she would get better if we gave her fibrous foods. After all, these things are common of old people, and all we can do is try to be careful with them about their health. Mom and my aunts tried everything they possibly could for Dida to feel more comfortable, but then there was no result for many days. Last week she was shifted to my Mejo Masi’s house in Bankura. Her condition persisted for one week, and today morning suddenly saw her getting an intense loose motion following which her heart beat went haywire. She was admitted to the hospital where she expired within a matter of a few hours.

I am in my office, working for my employer. When I got the news, I was having a cup of tea with a colleague.

I became emotional, then I became very nostalgic. I started recalling how she selflessly gave away her everything to her children and grandchildren, and how blissful her face used to be when she saw someone else to be happy.

The three basic needs of a human being are food, clothes, and shelter. She had all – just enough to help her live. However, the most wonderful thing was, she never asked for more. She was content with just enough food, just enough clothes that were required, and a shelter. The interesting part was, she tried to give away to other people the most part of whatever little she had. Even more interesting and beautiful is the fact that giving away gave her a lot of happiness. I simply cannot fathom how a person could have been so selfless, and I consider myself very very lucky to have had such a person in my life with me, and to be carrying the genes of such a person inside myself.

That was a synopsis about Dida and what I felt initially after listening to the news of her demise.

However, the thought process of a human being is very complex and thoughts just derive one out of the other. Thoughts are like a chain of processes that seem to fall in place and do not need much forceful intervention and external stimulation of the grey cells.

And just like that, a grave thought arose in my mind!

I remember that I had lost my ‘Dadubhai’ (paternal grandfather) in 2016. I could not be there at the time of his demise. I had wanted to see him at least once before he passed away. I had not written any blog about him, but he was also another person whom I am proud to have had in my life. I had rushed to my native house from Bangalore with the hope of seeing him for one last time, but by the time I had reached home, it was all over – he was cremated and all I saw was his ashes. I had requested every single person in my family that the funeral be postponed to the next day because I wanted to see Dadubhai. My requests all went in vain because it was necessary to cremate him at the earliest.

This time however, I had learnt from my previous experience, and I decided not to rush home from Bangalore. I wouldn’t be able to see Dida’s face for one last time. It would just be a futile thing to do.

However, I just realized that my parents also stay away from me. God forbid, but will it very illogical to think that I might lose my parents just like this without being able to be beside them when they need me the most? Does a job hold so much importance that I should value it over my family? Today I regret for not having listened to Suvro Sir when he told me to start teaching in Durgapur. I might have made a little less money, but then I could have stayed with my parents and could have been beside them for their entire lives. I have myself grown up in Durgapur, and I am no less a human being and no less educated than those people who are staying in the big metropolitan cities.

I recall a poem that I had read about Aurangzeb when I was in school. I remember that when he saw the lifeless body of Shah Jahan after the emperor passed away, Aurangzeb had had a realization that with all the power and money in the world, all that a person gets in the end is a burial; no clothes, no money, absolutely nothing. All that is left is the soul and body!

I also feel the same way now. Who am I working for, and what am I working for? And what great work am I doing that will do any good to this world? Is this the life that I had longed for? I stay far away from my parents, and will not be able to do anything in case an emergency arises. It might be too late before I might see one day that everything that I was working for got lost in an instant. The realization that I might not be able to stay beside my parents who have given their everything to help me be happy gives me a shudder and sends a chill down my spine.

I also wonder what might happen to my parents and my family just in case I am suddenly not there some day. Bangalore is a big city; it is a happening place, and both good and bad things happen to people who are completely unrelated to things. I know quite a few incidents where people have lost their loved ones because someone was present in the wrong place at the wrong time. I do not know how other people have managed to make up for their losses, but my entire family is dependent upon me. That ideally means I need to remain safe, which is again something that I cannot guarantee! Wrong place, wrong time, and anything can happen to me!

I know that my parents had wanted to send me away so that I could lead a good life and grow in life. It was never because they had wanted to live a good life using me as a mere instrument, just like many people’s parents do. They deserve better than what they are getting now!

They truly deserve better!

6 and a half years of my professional life - experiences and realizations

I still remember the day when I had fought with my manager while working in TCS in Delhi, and forced him to give me a transfer to Kolkata. When force did not work, I just came back to Kolkata and informed him that I was not returning to Delhi again. That was way back in January 2012. The pictures all move through my mind like a movie. Then I realize, ‘Wow, it is more than 4 years that I had returned to Kolkata!’ My close ones got afraid at my recklessness and callousness, and they were sure that I would be fired from the job. To add to their woo, I went on a long holiday without informing my manager for 3 weeks to a place where there was no mobile phone connection, and my manager became too worried about whether I had absconded from the job. When I finally called him back after those 3 weeks, I sensed that he heaved a sigh of relief! I was a billable ‘resource’ (at least that is what these corporate people refer to us as well as themselves by) and the customer used to pay for me by the hour, and he was very happy to hear my voice again.

After that started my humdrum life. Initially however, it was fun. I was allocated to a different project, and, voila, there was no work to do in that project! I used to go to office in the morning, used to go to the swimming pool, swam for more than an hour, then had food, then killed time with colleagues like me who also had no work, then had lunch, then again talk nonsense, then had snacks, and finally back home in the evening. That seemed too good in an organization like TCS, especially because Indian IT companies are known for making people work like dogs and paying them like beggars. However, that state of bliss did not last long in my mind. It took just 2 months for me to realize that I had started to forget things that I had learnt in the process of working – a thing that no one will ever want to experience. My brain was becoming dull, and TCS was not giving me an opportunity to either learn something new or at least remember things that I had learnt while working in projects in Delhi. I became concerned, and requested my manager to give me some work. After 2 months of requesting him I finally got some work, but that was not the work that required a software engineer. After 1 year of this kind of life, I quit TCS.

From the above experience I learnt a few things:

1.  Do not hurt your manager’s ego ever – he can anytime see to it that you are in trouble.
2. Life without work can never be interesting. It has got rather a very frightening prospect.
3. When you do not have work, read and learn new things. That ensures that you do not become dull.

The story continues. While I was serving my notice period in TCS, my manager and other senior members of the group for which I used to work in TCS used to fix meetings with me almost 2 times a week – they were trying hard to retain me, the reason being, I was a fully billable ‘resource’ and the customer used to pay for me by the hour. Letting me go would mean letting money go. However, after what I had faced there, I decided that it was time to move on.

Then I joined PwC in the Kolkata office with high hopes. I felt very thankful to God that he had helped me get out of a situation where I was struggling and cursing myself every moment for many things together. I also thanked him because he had given me the opportunity to me to work in a reputed firm like PwC. For the next few months it seemed that everything was very good in my new organization. I got a new boss who sat just next to us and who was very easily approachable. I got a new team lead who was pretty friendly, and who used to take care of my personal concerns. I felt this was the place where I wanted to be, these were exactly the kind of people with whom I wanted to work. I started planning about how many years more I would like to stay here, and started dreaming about a good career in this organization. Everything was so ‘transparent’ – at least this is the word that these corporate people like to use about their policies and processes. But times changed very soon, and I found that I was working on a technology that was going to become outdated within another year or two. Also that was not the kind of work that they had promised to give me when they had hired me. I started complaining, and then I started pushing my team lead and my manager for some variation in the kind of work that I was doing, work that would be more interesting and that would have more value in the long run. I gradually started making a bad name for myself in my team because I was complaining; however, I do not think that was the main reason for my going into their bad books. The main reason was they had problem that I had some awareness about the world and about the reality, and I have brains that are efficient enough to think – their main problem was my brains! I did not belong to that group of people who would remain quite oblivious to what was happening in the world, people who would sleep with their eyes wide open, people who were unfazed about what was going to happen next, and who would follow instructions like a robot, never thinking whether those instructions were at all useful and beneficial for them in the long run of life. These people more often than not, used to forget that at that particular stage of our lives we still had a working life of 32 to 33 years left with us. They were quite happy with what they were getting, happy to be in the comfort of their homes with family and children, happy not to learn, and earn either without doing any work or by doing work that was basically useless. They had decided to remain ‘brain-dead’ (I have got good reason to call them that) to the extent that they were not aware that people around them who found out that they were so were using every possible opportunity to exploit them. But they prefer not to explore the world outside and remain in the comfort of their homes and accept the misery that was grinding them every day, and leading them to their doom, primarily because exploring and accepting the truth about the world and about themselves would increase their discomfiture. These people are very afraid to move out of their comfort zones – they love to be exploited for want of some comfort.

Enough of criticism! Now I should get back to my own story. I realized very soon that PwC was worse than TCS.

Beneath the beautiful pond where one can see only beautiful lotus flowers, there is a very deep and dangerous layer of mud. There are snakes hiding in the pond beneath the beautiful lotus flowers, and there is a deep quagmire in the mud, but it does not engulf you all of a sudden, so much so that you never feel that you are being gulped down into it. You realize this only when you are almost chest deep in the mud so that it becomes very difficult for you to pull yourself out.

It was good that I realized the pit that I was in when I was chest deep in the mud, because I made a very desperate effort to pull myself out and succeeded in doing so. I had to face a lot of despair when I was trying to move out of PwC. Companies came with offers and then found that I did not have the required skills to match the experience that they were looking for. Frustration took me over, but the only thing that I relied upon was something that I had learnt at a very early age – patience. I waited patiently for 4 months, and I got a good offer from a good company. In fact I had been trying to get here for the past 4 years, and it was like a dream come true. It was hard for me to believe that I was actually going to be part of the organization that I had wanted to be in. I quit PwC in August 2014.

PwC helped me learn a few more new things:

1. Do not go by the name of a company.
2. Never trust a person who has got a direct working relationship with you, and shows that he cares for your personal problems and gives you too much flexibility in work. Rather, beware of such people! They are the ones who are the camouflaged snakes and will bite you over and again from beneath the lotus leaves, and you will not even know who bit.
3. Use your brains – think! Think about what you are doing, do some market research about your job, and try to figure out where you stand now and where you will land in 5 to 8 years if you continue to do what you are doing now.
4. Let people know in professional manner what you think. If you see that people have a problem with your thinking too much, quit that organization. Such a place can never be congenial for work.
5. Do not stagnate. Move out of your comfort zone. ‘Maa er haat er machher jhol aar bhaat’ will not save your job. Be physically and mentally independent completely. Do not expect anybody to be by you when you are in despair. Fight your own fights – they make you strong!

After PwC, I joined EMC Corporation. At present I work here. It is a big brand, and that is what lured me. I had actually been trying to get into this organization for almost 4 years, and finally when I made it here, I was overwhelmed.

It was a different place for me, not just the organization but also the place. Bangalore is a place where I had been once earlier, but that was just for 2 days to visit my cousin in the year 2011. But this time I was going to become a resident of this place; a new culture, new people, new places, a new language – everything seemed so confusing and bad that I felt like running away from here within the first 3 days of coming here. Everybody was so busy that there was hardly anyone to talk to. I started feeling lonely here, and scolded myself for being blinded by my selfishness – “I left the comfort of my home and family, and I left my parents behind all alone there. How will they survive without me? What will my girl friend do there without me? She also must be suffering from the same loneliness. I was the only one in the world with whom she could discuss all her troubles.” I would miss the occasional ride on my small motorcycle to my village to meet my grandparents, the occasional swim with Suvro Sir in the swimming pool, the egg-rolls and momos with my girl friend in the evenings, Kumarmangalam Park, an occasional ride to the Maithon Dam or to Nachan with her. All of this seemed so painful. Moreover, I had read stories of tigers and panthers and elephants and bears in The Kenneth Anderson Omnibus, and I had hoped to see forests and lots of trees and jungles here. When I found that those were long gone, and Bangalore was nothing other than a jungle of concrete now, I felt like running away immediately.

It took me some time to adjust to Bangalore’s culture, but then I started realizing that this was actually a nice place. Gradually I realized that this is actually a much better place in general than Kolkata, at least when one compares the people of Kolkata with Bangalore.

Anyway, I am deviating too much from the main topic. In EMC, I got a taste of a different kind of organizational culture. I started feeling that an organization should be like this. I got the facility of working from home whenever I wanted, nobody bothered me for taking leaves, there are a lot of perquisites and allowances, the office interiors are beautiful, and it seemed like the organization really cares for the employees. This is the first organization where I found that I was actually earning a lot more than what was written on paper in my joining letter. This is the first organization that has religiously contributed money for my pension without deducting a penny from my salary. The managers are easily approachable, and they really take care of one’s problems. Even though I was not in my zone of comfort, I felt much better here.

But all this good did not last long. There was bad news in the way; I am at present not authorized to divulge the details, so I cannot write anything about any news related to my organization. Even though the perks and allowances are still there, certain policies and procedures have gradually crept into the organization which has become a really worrisome factor, and I fear that this organization is also going to become one more Wipro or TCS. I am actually seeing the downfall and decay of an organization that once used to be my dream organization. I somehow do not realize why employers do not understand that employees are the assets of an organization. People who have stayed for many years in an organization should not be fired, and there have been instances of firing that have left me shocked and bewildered. I do not realize how employers fail to understand that firing trusted employees leads to decrease in morale among the existing ones, and causes lack of trust within the organization.

But I am a person who tries to find positivity amidst all adversities. Experiencing such uncertainty at such a young age has already seasoned me to some extent, and has made me acquainted to some extent with the real world, the dog-eat-dog world where nobody cares for anyone else, a world where everybody is trying not to drown in the sea, because this is a very ruthless world and nobody comes to your rescue if you drown. I now realize that anything can happen anytime, and so I try hard to save as much as I can.

I have not been able to find much bad in EMC like I did in PwC and TCS, primarily because I personally did not have very bitter experiences, save the incidents that I have seen happening with other people. The only bad that I have experienced here is a sense of insecurity, that too in recent times; I do not know at the moment of writing this post that I shall not be fired from my job tomorrow morning when I reach office. There is one more bad thing that I have noticed here - work gets very boring. You work on the same product throughout your entire tenure in the organization, and continue to do the same type of work on that product. Learning is there, but as an organization that deals in Information Security, they should exploring other domains rather than just sticking to areas in which they have been working for all these years. That will add to their business portfolio as well as give people like me some relief who want to work in multiple domains rather than sticking to only one domain. Also, promotions are extremely time taking.

Both Bangalore and EMC have done me one good – they have put me in tough situations and helped me truly realize the value of money to the extent that I have started thinking that I should start investing my money to increase it from now onwards.

I do not know how much more I shall be able to sustain this sense of insecurity and stay with EMC. Even though I want to stay here for many more years, sooner or later, I feel there will be an update to this post, because there should be.

Not every beauty has to be natural, not every beauty has to be created by God...

Want to see some awesome places from above, but cannot afford all? See this.

Not everything beautiful has to be created by God! Man can also make beautiful things if he has the will.

Strangely enough, whereas I found the names of Dubai, Vietnam, and China in this list, not one place mentioned in this list is from India. Speaks volumes about our sense of beauty and orderliness, doesn’t it?

Gold does not need to prove itself

It was just yesterday that I was discussing with my girl friend about these smart IT people with their smarter phones and dresses, but not so smart salaries. I told her something that Sir had told me some days back – ‘Gadgets cannot give you happiness’. However, I also added something to that - gadgets also do not define the person that you are. I know it might be a bit insulting for that IT geek who has got a Blackberry for business emails, an iPhone just to show off, a Samsung Galaxy Tab to watch movies on the go, and a Nokia 1100 to actually speak and text. It is like telling, ‘I have so many phones. That proves that I am more important than you are’. Or somebody might be wearing some very costly watch, and because people might not know the value of the watch, (s)he would quite unabashedly discuss its cost in public! O my God!

It is very interesting to note that most of these gadgets are bought on EMIs. These people do not even have the financial ability to buy a phone in cash! And they call themselves rich and important? I heard from Sir about an incident where an IT guy in Kolkata went to commit suicide because he had a few hundred thousand rupees debt in the market, and that was because he worked in some IT company where he had to status his status, which meant buying the latest phone, the latest watch, the costliest clothes, drinking the costliest liquor, dining at the costliest restaurant etc. But then he had done all that using his credit card!

Status has become a word that is most used by the middle class with no sense of pride and honour and status. People forget that status is actually your present status. About to commit suicide because of huge liabilities and that too because of trying to show off STATUS is the actual status. Having to beg for money from your old retired parents to feed your wife and child because you do not have money left to feed them since you were too busy shopping and eating and drinking in the first week of the month after getting your salary is your actual status. Beating and abusing your wife in front of your child in the middle of the night after getting drunk in the finest hotel in the city with friends while trying to display your STATUS is your actual status. Status should not be falsified.

Then we discussed about some more people living around us. They may not be great men whom the world knows, but they are humble, a trait most of the great men of the world had and have. First I told her about Sriranjani’s father who is a commissioner in the Income Tax department. He is a very strange person. When he had joined his job, he had been allocated an apartment opposite to the Steel Carmel School in Durgapur. It was a good, convenient place for him since Sriranjani could go to school very easily – she had to just cross the road and school was there! Now that her father has been promoted, he has been allocated a bigger apartment in City Centre. But then, here is a very strange person who is so used to living in a small and cozy house that he does not want to move to a bigger one. Not all men live for money, not all men are gluttons!

There is also another very strange incident about him that I heard from Sriranjani herself. When her father became the commissioner, he was given a car from the Indian Government indicating that he is a VIP. But he was a shy man, and used to feel uncomfortable inside that car. So he used to take his own car, so that people would not notice him and would not leave the way whenever they saw that VIP car. However, he was later forced into making it a habit of riding that car by his boss! Strange, isn’t it?

Then we discussed about Sir. He has two houses (one in Durgapur and another in Kolkata), a 12 year old car, and earns a lot. He rides an almost 15 year old scooter, he still goes out in a pair of slippers, a pair of old trousers and a kurta, he does his shopping himself on foot, and he has a mobile phone which can hold 2 SIM cards, take photographs of decent quality and can be used to make calls and send texts. He does not need biryani in lunch, does not go to KFC and McDonalds, does not own a BMW, does not have an iPhone, he does not need to be online in Whatsapp on the go, and he reads a lot. People from Durgapur and some of the adjoining cities know him and crowd at his gates with their children during admission time! He has students spread all across the globe, and these students can proudly say today that be it the IITs or the IIMs or any other big institution, whatever we learnt from Sir cannot be replaced with any other learning. That learning has helped them to rise in their lives.

Now, does anyone need to understand gold better?

'Pets' nowadays...

I read somewhere – Falling in love may be instinctive, but maintaining it needs hard work and understanding, compassion, and compromise. Love, after all, is a decision. It is not something that appears out of the blue as something wonderful. To maintain love, you need to respect. Another great saying – excess of anything is bad. Having said these two things, I now proceed to telling the actual story.

I had gone to the barber yesterday for a hair-cut. As my hair was being trimmed, a customer, an elderly man entered the shop. He was probably the barber’s acquaintance, and from what they were speaking, I could make out that it was the marriage of the man’s son, and somebody from a girl’s family would be visiting their house in the evening.

Below, I have tried to reproduce the conversation as it was spoken between the two.

[The customer enters the shop]

Barber: Ki dada, ki khobor?

Customer: Ei chole jachche... Tomake je dekhte bolechhilam, to tar kichhu holo?

Barber: Hnya, ekjon achhe. Mamra te thake. Meye ekta kon college e lecturer na ki ekta. Lok bhalo ora. Ora bolechhe je sosur bari jodi bole, tahole meye chakri chhere deete raji achhe.

Customer:  Dakho, amra kusti fusti mani na. Aajkaal ei science er joog e jodi kusti mani tahole er theke lojjar aar kichhu hoy na. Aar o sob bis pochis hajar takar chakri amader lagbe na. Bis pochis hajar takar jonno chakri korte hobe na. Amar chhele je chakri kore tate 10 ta lok ‘POOSTE’ pare.

Barber: Hahahaha... apnar chhele ja chakri kore, tate 10 ta lok to durer byapar, 10 ta family ‘POOSTE’ pare. Ki bolen?

Customer: Hmmm... Ami je taka te shesh korechhi, tar double kamaay amar chhele ekhon; aar ekhon to or sobe suru. Osob bis pochis hajar takar chakri amader lagbe na...

Barber: Apni koto te shesh korechhen?

Customer: Ami jokhon shesh korechhi, tokhon ami 51 hajar petam... Aar amar chheler to ei sobe suru.

I could make out from the conversation that the son is just another money making machine, probably an MBA, whose father has bloated egos about his son’s salary and education in science, and has not an inkling about how hard it is to look after a family with the current salaries given the increasing cost of living everywhere in this country, and had at some point of time in his life kept a “PET” in the form of a wife, and expects the son to do the same. The fellow also probably does not know that astrology, even if some part of it may not be acceptable, is also a science. (I also do not believe too much in astrology, but I also cannot disregard it as totally bogus. There are many people who believe in it, and they are far far more educated than I am! It is all about respect.)

I also understood one more thing. These people have never seen so much money in their lives. They feel that they can buy the world with 1 lakh rupees per month, which is ridiculous. This money is excessive for them, and this has made them look down upon other humans. From the way the man was speaking it seemed as if his son was the CEO of some multimillion dollar company – trust me!

So readers, what do you say now? Is it not so abvious why the so called ‘high profile’ and white collared job holding people generally do not have peaceful and happy families? Is it not so obvious why there are so many divorces nowadays? If parents speak like this, then it is nothing so strange that their children are becoming all the more ill-behaved everyday and treating their fellow human beings just like animals – parents speak ‘tutor rekhechhi’ (I kept a tutor for my child), as if the teacher is some animal. The day is not far when they will say ‘bari te ekta bou rekhechhi’ ( I have kept a wife at home) just like they say ‘bari te ekta Alsatian/Doberman rekhechhi’ (I have kept an Alsatian/Doberman at home).

(Speaking of how ill-behaved children have become, I relate another incident here in short even though this may be a bit out of the topic. I was travelling in the metro rail one fine day, and I saw two boys of about 14 years of age come and stand in front of me. Suddenly an elderly lady came running, snatched the sunglasses the one of the boys was wearing inside the train, and started shouting at him. From what she said to the boy, I understood that there had been a fight between the two over a seat, and the boy had told the lady aged almost 50 ‘Shut up’. Unthinkable, right! Yes, of course – at least in our times. And in our parents’ times, it would send a chill down the spine of a child to do such a thing.)

Now coming back to the topic, one last question – will any girl want to be a pet, or a mere commodity to be used to do all the hard work in the day and give pleasure in the bed at night?

[P.S. - I will be thankful from the core of my heart if someone can please do an English translation of the conversation for me that will give the same feeling as the Bengali or the Hindi one. It will be published in the comments. I did not find the right words for a proper translation.]

Holiday in Mumbai (March 27th to March 31st)

It has been quite some time that I have returned from Mumbai, and I am very late in writing this travelogue. It was the 27^th of March that I went there. It was the first time in my life that I would go to Mumbai, and naturally there was a lot of excitement in my mind. I was very apprehensive of the trip, and I had reason to be so. I was going to see one of my very dear friends who stays in Mumbai.

It was only a consecutive 5 day holiday for me, and that too was possible because there were so many holidays that were present consecutively – I had to take only a single day’s leave! I went on the day of Holi. The flight was early in the morning at 6:10 AM, and I had managed to get very little sleep in the frenzy. I woke up at 3:00 AM, and one friend of mine dropped me at the airport on his motorcycle at 4:00 AM. I spent the 2 hours at the airport waiting, and waiting, and waiting... It was as if the wait would not end.

The aeroplane was a good one, in the sense that there was lot of leg space in between the seats and one could stretch his legs and be perfectly comfortable, and every seat had a small TFT screen in front so that the passenger could choose from a list of programmes that were being played. One could watch movies, listen to the news, or get weather updates about the altitude and the outside temperature. I did not feel like I was on board an aeroplane belonging to a domestic airlines company. There was free food also!

I reached the Mumbai airport at 8:45 AM, and my friends Debajyoti and Debasis were there to receive me. Tired that I was, I was in no mood to play with the colours of Holi. The rest of the boys played with the colours and I was the photographer that day. Afternoon, and we ate like monsters the chicken that we had cooked. A very long and deep sleep post lunch left me totally lethargic in the evening, and I felt that sleeping would be a better option that going to the Juhu beach, dirty as the beach was from constant abuse by locals and tourists. We went to the Juhu beach in the evening only to find that a crowded and dirty beach awaited us. People littered food packets, rags, plastic glasses all around. Where was that Juhu beach that I had seen in the film Anand? Nevertheless, we started strolling on the sands of the beach, and finally reached a dark end of the beach that was absolutely quiet and not frequented by tourists, thanks to the unavailability of food stalls and also to certain rotting smells of sea fish and sea shells that one finds there. It was a moonlit night. The airport was just beside the sea, and we were seeing the aeroplanes taking off above our heads. Sometimes roaring, sometimes hissing, the waves were crashing on the beach, and the white foam in the moonlit night was a majestic view.

Next day I went with my friend Debajyoti to the Elephanta Caves. Located somewhere in the distant sea, one required to travel on water for almost an hour and a half. We launched the ferry at almost 12:00 PM from the Gateway of India. We passed the warships of the Indian Navy, lots of cargo ships, and lots of hills in the sea, but the thing that amazed me most was that there was human habitation in those hills also. I wondered how people live in those places – some remote island in the sea where there was no food, no modern facilities, no schools, a place from where you would need to travel to Mumbai on water even if someone falls ill in the middle of the night. It was so amazing!

The caves were beautiful at Elephanta, but the green hills there were even more beautiful. When we went to the top of a hill we found two canons that the ruler of the place had placed there to protect the whole region from invaders in the past. We spent a fair amount of time there and again retraced our way to Mumbai after a 3 hour stay there. In the evening we went to the Marine Drive and spent a lot of time there sitting beside the sea, enjoying the cool breeze of the sea and gossiping. One can find lots of super cars and super bikes that the super rich of Mumbai take out in the evening on the Marine Drive.

The next day it was a visit to Laalbaug. We made the decision late in the day to go there, and a car was booked immediately as the decision was made at 11:00 AM. The car arrived at 12:15 PM and we set off at 12:30 PM. The driver was a jovial one, and by the way he was driving I could make out that he loved the drive. It was a brand new Maruti Suzuki Swift Dzire LDI, and it was so comfortable inside. The driver told us that he had a Tata Indica earlier and this was his second car. On the way to Laalbaug we passed through jungles and hills on winding roads. It was a very long drive and we finally reached Laalbaug at 3:30 PM. I was feeling sick because of heavy consumption of food on the way. I somehow could not enjoy the day at all. I was feeling sick. On top of that the sea breeze made me all the more ill. Both Debasis and Debajyoti had accompanied me, and both of them ran into the sea and enjoyed a lot. They went rafting, and they insisted a lot that I should also go with them. Alas, only if my body permitted me! The glare of the sun and its scintillating reflection in the water gave me a headache, and I felt like vomiting. But I did not want to spoil my friends’ day, so I kept quiet, and took only a few photographs. Nature displayed to us her beauty in a marvellous sunset – I saw the sun gradually hiding itself from us, bidding us goodbye for the day. Unfortunately, the camera started giving some trouble, and the autofocus did not work properly, so I missed the photographs of the sunset. However, the setting sun gave me some relief. My sickness faded away, and I went with my friends for a stroll on the beach. The twilight was very beautiful – the beach was dark, the roaring sea was dark, but the sky was a brilliant fluorescent red. I had never seen such beauty before! I stood staring at the beautiful sky until it became dark. This was the first time that I had seen so beautiful a twilight! It was time for us to return to Mumbai after that. Back in the car, I fell asleep. When we reached home my friends had to wake me up.

The last day in Mumbai was nothing so eventful. I went out with Debajyoti to Bandra. We had biriyani at Arsalan in the afternoon. Then we sent to see the sea link, took some photographs, had a ride in a taxi on the smooth road of the sea link, and finally went to a shopping mall where they sell Aston Martin cars, Ducati motorcycles, and BMW Motorrad motorcycles. I am a lover of motorcycles, and seeing the Ducatis and the BMW Motorrads, I was astounded. I just felt like experiencing a test ride on those powerful monsters, each with more than 1000 cc of engine displacement. In the evening we went to the Gateway of India once more, and then we went to a restaurant to eat some good food. Evening found us aboard a local train of the Mumbai suburban railway, and we were home at about 10:00 PM.

The next day was the 31^st of March, the day of my return. My flight was at 6:00 AM. I did not sleep at night, and I also did not allow my other 2 friends to sleep. We spoke the whole night – we spoke of what we used to do in college, we spoke of what we were like when we had joined our jobs, and we laughed. We mostly discussed all the happy and the funny moments. We laughed for more than three and half hours at a stretch, and that gave me an aching stomach and made me dead tired when I was to leave for the airport at 4:00 AM. Both of them (Debasis and Debajyoti) accompanied me to the airport to see me off. Even there we did not stop talking, recalling old memories and laughing. Finally, at almost 4:30 AM, I decided that they should return because they were also dead tired.

I checked in, and the next one hour found me yawning – drowsy, drooping and languorous. I was trying hard not to fall asleep and miss my flight. Once aboard the aeroplane at 6 o’clock, I fell dead asleep. I woke up only when the airhostess woke me up for the breakfast, only to fall asleep again after gobbling up the food somehow.

It was 8:30 AM, and I was in Kolkata...

Gratitude

Thank you!

Many of us use these two words very frequently for various reasons, but how many actually mean it when they say it? How many of us actually remember those persons in our lives who had done something that had/has been of immense help to us at least for that moment, or had done something to be thanked again, and again, and again throughout our, or rather their lives, and who actually either got a very formal ‘Thank you’ or ‘Thnks’ for something that they did to impact our lives in a small or a big way?

Can we remember how many times we have thanked our parents, not every time by saying it, but sometimes by expressing happiness, sometimes by letting the whole world know that we indeed have great parents who have taken care of us and have helped us live through odds, and by various other ways that will let them know that we are indeed grateful to them for all that they have done for us? Hardly ever...! It is as if it is our birth right to go on and on demanding from our parents without ever expressing our gratitude towards them. One great man in my life told me that gratitude not expressed is not gratitude at all! It is indeed so true. Have we ever seen the joy in our parents’ eyes when we do something, whatever little it may be, for them? They express their gratitude, and do not take their children for granted for whatever small they get from them. But children, more or less as a rule, as far as I have seen, are ill behaved (in many instances, I have also behaved very badly with my parents, so please do not think that I am writing this post for everyone except myself), care the least for all that their parents have done to protect them throughout their lives from all kinds of disease, bad weather in the streets when they used to return home from primary school, from all kinds of bad people out there in the streets who are always on the prowl to carry away little children and no one would ever come to know of what had become of them and other such bad things. Do we ever think of these things? Maybe not, that is why more or less every child gets a better life than the parents, but not all parents have the fortune to get back from their child(ren) something in the form of a good life, satisfaction, peace and other such beautiful things, and eventually end up in old age homes living forlorn lives in complete isolation, living in places where they are considered to be useless for the rest of the world, just because old age takes its toll on them. It is ironical how those same children, when they become parents, expect their children in turn to take care of them in their old age! Strange, isn’t it? Reminds me of a song called ‘Briddhashrom’ by Nachiketa...

Now let me touch upon something else. Let me get out of family issues and take a look at those people in the society who actually see to it that we live. One may feel that I am speaking of the ‘netas’ and the policy makers or soldiers. No friends, I am speaking of those people who are considered the least human, those people who get up in the morning before the sun gets up from its sleep and go farming with their bullocks, or take their carts to pick up the garbage from our houses to dump them, or take up the brooms in their hands and go around the city sweeping the streets so that when we, the ‘human beings’ of the society, can go around the city for walking and running in the mornings without having to tread on dirt and dust and dry leaves. How many of us have ever cared to take a look at those faces? We walk on the streets the whole day only to make them dirty again, so that they are cleaned the next morning. We are ‘human beings’. If we walk while they clean, they stop so that our walk may go on uninterrupted, but we never consider taking side. We consider ourselves to be ‘well behaved’! And regarding thanking them, forget it. They might be so lucky as not to hear abuse from us for failing to work one fine day just because they might also fall ill. Ironical, is it not, that we consider ourselves to be civilized?

Now let us have a look at what happens in offices between employers and employees. The boss always gets the ‘Thank you’ word from his subordinates, but does he ever care to express his gratitude to his team members? Be late one day for whatever genuine reason it may be, and you will inevitably have to hear something harsh. However, your boss may arrive late and (s)he has always got the right to be busy. I provide this link – please read it. I do not think I need to explain too much about this after what has been said in it. It may be my good luck that at present I am not having to deal with such a boss, but had the bitter experience of actually having to deal with one such fellow in the past.

Thank you is indeed a very valuable word. I have given just 3 examples of where we can say ‘Thank you’ to people - there are numerous more situations where gratitude can win hearts. This word, when properly used, can do wonders. It can build beautiful relationships, can strengthen existing relationships, can motivate people to work more, and can also save you a lot of trouble in times of need. It takes nothing to be grateful. One of my friends told me one day, ‘Swallow your pride. It is not poison – you won’t die!’ Getting rid of ego is one of the most difficult things to do, and again strangely, if you try, it is one of the easiest things to do, so why not get rid of it?

Let us try to make our lives beautiful, let us build beautiful relationships. I believe, out the many ways, this is one to rebuild a beautiful world.

Sir

It has been quite some part of my life that I have associated with a person called Suvro Chatterjee for Durgapur and the rest of the world, Suvro da for people who know him from his 10's or early 20’s, and Suvro Sir, or rather just Sir for me and some other people. When I tell ‘my Sir’ to people whom I know, everybody knows whose name I mean.

Let me start with school. I had seen this person for some days when I was small but until the end of class 5 or the beginning of class 6, I did not know his name. Then one fine day, some idiot told me that this person was a very angry man, and his name was Suvromonium something. From that day, until the end of class 7, I knew that this person was a ‘khadoos South Indian’. I remember having uttered the word ‘sala’ in front of him when I was in class 7, and on seeing him at some distance behind me and coming towards me, I suddenly realized what a big mistake I had done. As it is this person was so dangerous, and if he had heard me saying ‘sala’, he would for sure see to it that I was removed from the school. I had already been caught and warned once, and my parents called by the school authorities for using foul language while I was in class 6. I feared that my days in St. Xavier’s School, Durgapur were nearing their end.

Thankfully, however, nothing happened, and I thanked my stars for it. I was happy that he had not heard what I had said. Then one evening, my parents decided that I would get admitted in his tuitions, and I was taken to his house (I do not remember when, but probably after my class 7 results were out). I was very sure that I would not get an admission, because I was always a very average student, and as far as I had come to hear in the past few days, Sir was the best English teacher in Durgapur and used to teach only the very brilliant and the cream section of students – he never even took notice of people like us and warded average students and their parents alike off from his house. Surprise awaited me at his house - he spoke so nicely. Little Pupu was trying to play hide and seek from behind the curtain with my mother, and he said nothing. I had not expected, but was surprised and relieved when I was finally taken in his class. It may sound strange, but this is a person who told me not to join his class even before classes had started, the primary reason being that he was my class teacher in school. He said that it was totally unnecessary for me to go to his house for classes. I came home and told my parents about this, and I have to thank them that they did not let me do so, otherwise I do not know whether I would have ever known Sir the way I do. I would never have actually dared to speak freely with him, had it not been for his tuitions.

After all that I had heard about him, how would one think different about him? Who would know that this person was so nice and would become a part of my life, a person in front of whom I could pour out all my troubles and he would listen patiently just like my parents listen to me, a person in front of whom I would never feel ashamed to admit any wrong that I did and who would always be ready to tell me ways to get rid of those troubles. He is one person apart from my parents who knows my weaknesses and constantly tells me to focus on them, to get rid of them, and also tells me ways to get rid of them. Apart from my mother (I do not mention my father’s name much because he has never got enough time to focus on me and to interact with me, given the kind of financial troubles that my family has faced), this is the only other person in my life who has taught me to think free but to speak less (something which I have not been able to master – I speak too much!), to take care of myself and do good to myself without harming others (the normal trend is to do your own good at the cost of others’ harm), to read a lot (again something I do not do too much), to take care of my health, to respect people, to be patient, to be polite, to stay away from unwanted ‘human parasites’ by constantly making me aware of what forms ‘human parasites’ can take in this society, and the list can be endless! My Sir has all the qualities and teaches everything about which society tells otherwise, and mind you, by otherwise, I mean the negative.

And yes, about his being negative and having some qualities that everyone may not like, I think everyone has negative qualities – we are only human, and we have to be accepted as we are! A few negatives cannot rule out all the positives in a person.

I want to give just two from the numerous examples from my own life about the kind of person that Sir is:

1. I remember an incident when I had just completed class 10 and went to Sir one evening for getting a speech corrected by him. He was probably not a good mood and shouted at me. I had come back from his doors literally in tears, and had decided not to recognize him ever again in the future. But this is one teacher who just does not teach you to say sorry for something wrong done – he actually does it. He has the courage to do it. I remember, when I was in great mental agony over this whole thing, Sir called me up and spoke with me, told me sorry, and told me to go to his house the next day to see him. He admitted that he had indeed behaved with my very badly, and gave me something that I did not deserve. I question, how many teachers say sorry to their students after they feel that they have wronged to their students?

2. After college was over, I was suffering from jaundice and was in a very bad condition. Sir and boudi came to my house to see me and frequently called me up to inquire about my health. How many teachers nowadays care for their past students like this?

I thank my stars that I was lucky enough to get in touch with this person in my life. The role that this person has played in my life is too big. Impacting the way a person thinks is something that requires something special, and Suvro Sir is indeed a very special person. It is very easy to find an instructor, but very difficult to find a teacher! I have found one, and I consider myself lucky for it.

'Democracy' in India?

Shaheen Dhada was arrested for her comment on facebook concerning the shutdown in Mumbai following Bala Saheb's death. Stranger is the fact that her friend Renu was arrested for liking the comment. It is very strange that people do not understand the meaning of democracy. There is no tolerance towards criticism. It has to be accepted that sane criticism in a democracy, made in proper language, has to be accepted - it does not matter what/whom the criticism is against. The criticism may be against anybody - it may be against the government, it may be against a certain custom, it may be against a religion, it may be against anything and anybody. It may stir emotional sentiments, but as long as it makes sense, and does not hurt the interests of anybody/any Government/any religion/any custom or tradition, or anything else, there should be no reason why some Government should arrest two girls for a harmless post in facebook (one for posting, and the other for liking the post), or some professor of some university for emailing a cartoon to somebody. It is shameful that we are ruled by people who do not have an inkling of what democracy is, what criticism is, who cannot accept healthy criticism, and also who either do not have the requisite quantity of gray matter in their brains that enables them to deal with criticism, or they have the gray matter but do not use it or do not know how to and where to use it. Shame!

One more thing - why in the name of hell was the clinic of Shaheen's uncle ransacked? What had that person done? It is indeed very shameful that hooligans are occupying those places where supposedly educated and informed people should be.

Is India not heading towards becoming a country of dictators? I think that 50 years from now, the word democracy will have some other meaning in India!

My visits to Agra

I have deliberately used the word visits in the title because I have visited Agra 2 times in the 2 years that I have stayed in Delhi. I went there the first time with Debanjan in June 2010, and the second time, I went there with my parents in Nov 2011. Quite different were the experiences during the two visits.

June 2010:

Let me first tell about my first visit to Agra. It was thoroughly unplanned. I do not remember the date when I went. My friend Debanjan, an employee of an NGO called PRADAN (concerned about the development of rural India) had been sent for a village survey, and he was staying at a place called Dhaulpur in Rajasthan, an hour’s distance from Agra by bus. I had to go to office, and I bunked office that day – it was usual for me to bunk classes in college, so I thought, why not give a try at office? I told my boss that my stomach was upset, and I would not be coming – news which was absolutely unprecedented, and which he probably rightly suspected was a lie, because there were 3 other people from my team who had also given the same excuse! “Did you four have party together yesterday night?” was what he asked me. I said, “No Sir. Actually I ate too much at dinner yesterday”, which was not true either! I kept the phone telling him that I was feeling very ill and was going off to sleep, and that not only he, but my other team members also should not disturb me by waking me up.

The journey was to begin, but I did not know how I would go to Agra. Someone told me that there were buses that plied between Sarai Kale Khan (beside Nizamuddin Railway Station) and Idgah bus stand (the main bus stand in Agra) all day. I happily went to Sarai Kale Khan and boarded a bus, paid the fare of Rs. 120 and took a window seat. I had absolutely got no premonition before the journey that it would be one of the worst journeys in my life, and that I would never again think of going to Agra by bus. It was a five and a half hour’s journey through heat and dust, something which gave me a terrible headache on reaching Idgah. Then I travelled 1 hour more, again by a bus, to Dhaulpur, the place where Debanjan was staying. At Dhaulpur, things were better – Debanjan was staying in an AC room, it was a 3 star hotel, the food was good and the bed was fantastic. I had a bath, then dinner, then I played my mouth organ for some time, then I went to bed and had a little chat with Debanjan, then I went off into deep sleep.

The next day, I woke up late. We set for Agra from Dhaulpur at 11:00 am, again by bus. This time it was not so devastating, considering the fact that it took us only an hour to reach Idgah. I was excited. I had heard so much about the Taj Mahal, and now I would see it for the first time in my life. There was a big queue for entry. It was a Friday, and the Muslims had some occasion on that day, so everyone was allowed free entry inside the Taj premises, but only after a very strict check by the security. Debanjan was forced to crush and throw away 3 cigarettes that he had along with the match box – taking those inside was a Potential Risk. He was crestfallen, as every smoker is when he parts with his cigarettes. It was too crowded that day. On entering, I saw the Taj, but I still could not believe that I was standing in front of it. I am an Indian, the Taj Mahal is also in India, but I do not know why I feel that standing in front of the Taj Mahal is like a dream coming true. Well, let dreams be dreams, but the fact is I was there physically and mentally. We did not go inside the Taj because there was no proper arrangement for keeping our shoes, and we feared that we might have to return to Delhi bare foot if we kept our shoes outside and went inside the Mahal. We roamed around for some time, took some photographs on my mobile phone since none of us had a camera (I still do not possess one), saw the Yamuna from the Taj, touched the white marble walls of the Taj and, to our astonishment discovered that the marble was so cool in spite of the extreme heat, took some rest because the sweat had drained a lot of energy out of our bodies, and then set foot for the Agra Red Fort.

It was 3:00 pm, and the sun’s blaze was scorching us. The first thing we did was to buy and drink water and cold drinks after coming out of the Taj premises. You may call it the whim of a madman, but I decided that I would walk to the Agra Red Fort, and successfully imposed the decision on Debanjan also, arguing that walking is good for the health, and that I was bored of sitting for hours on end in an AC office in Delhi. I explained to him that I was enjoying the sun and its blaze, and that I missed all these things too much in Delhi. In spite of his unwillingness (he frequently had to go and still has to go for village surveys and work for long hours under the sun), there was nothing Debanjan could do about it because I simply would not get up on an auto-rickshaw or a Taangaa. So we walked. We had finished the water that we had bought, and after almost 20 minutes of walking we found a small stall selling tea in that hot afternoon. To quench our thirst, we had hot tea, and we bought four small packets of water which we would require on the way. To Debanjan’s dismay, which made me all the more happy, the owner of the tea stall told us that the Red Fort was still a little bit more than 1 kilometer away, and going there on foot (in that heat) was ‘no big deal’. Debanjan looked at me like he would kill me were I not one of his very good friends. I was straightaway blackmailing him and exploiting him with the excuse of our friendship.

The Red Fort is a marvelous piece of work, so accurately and strongly built. We kept on seeing. Every little bit of the architecture amazed us. The Taj Mahal could be seen from the Fort, we saw the Diwan-i-Khaas, Diwan-i-Aam, the Queen’s rest room an so many other things inside the Fort. The one that I remember best is a room where two people standing at two corners of a room can keep their mouths just touching the walls and can speak to each other in whispers. No other person can hear what they say, probably because the sound waves are not allowed to spread and the complete energy in the waves is conserved during the transmission – that is a marvel. I cannot figure out how science could be so developed, and why we cannot build such marvelous things today. Why have we forgotten that those were the pioneers of science? Are we really progressing forwards in this age where a child is given a computer and a calculator right from birth, and is taught to type instead of write? Today with so much technology at our disposal we are constructing buildings that will crush like a house of cards against a gust of wind. What about those buildings which have tolerated so many earthquakes, bombshells and so much more, and still stand like prolific monsters not to be shaken by any calamity on this earth? What have we learnt from those architects? We speak of strong men nowadays. What will we call those men who carried all those monstrous stones from distant Persia to India and then lifted them so high? No doubt they were very strong, but their science was more advanced than ours – they did not have all the machinery at their disposal that we have today and still those stones stick to each other like they have got some adhesive in between them. Today’s man has still not been able to find out most of the escape routes that they used, because everything was a maze and everywhere there was a death trap. In quest for the routes, many have lost their lives – no one knows why. It may be because they could not find their way back, or might have been caught in the death trap, or might have been choked by poisonous gases. In most of the cases, people have never returned from a search. What would you call those people who had to keep every route in memory because one wrong step in an attempt to escape, and the escape would convert into a death? Today a normal student of the 10th standard cannot remember the short stories, let alone mathematics, he read in the 9th standard. He has to revise things 3 months before the board examinations. And we are living in a world where we are growing every day, we are becoming more civilized.

Enough of that criticism; let me now write about my trip. With the Red Fort, the trip was finished, and we were now in a haste to return to Delhi. It was 7:00 pm and we were in Idgah having our dinner at a roadside Dhaba. Yet again, I had to return by a bus, a bus worse than the one by which I had gone. There was a small shower and water started leaking from the roof of the bus. Without any warning, there was a sudden shower on Debanjan’s pants from the roof of the bus that wetted his front – anyone would say that he had wetted them. But this time it was better for me because I had company, it was night and it had rained, so I would not get that headache from the dust and the heat.

We reached Delhi at 1:30 am…



November 2011:

This year it was the second time that I visited Agra. This time I had gone with my parents and had decided that I would go comfortably. The journey should not tire me. So, on the day before going to Agra I enquired whether Volvo buses plied between Agra and Delhi, and was lucky to find that they plied.

The next day at 7:10 am in the morning, we were in a bus and were going to Agra. The journey was a good one – there was no dust, no air, no crowd and no commotion. We reached Agra at about 12:00 pm and lodged at an average hotel beside Idgah bus stand, because we would need the room only to keep our belongings and to sleep at night. During the daytime, we would be staying outside. With my parents, I went around the city of Agra in an auto-rickshaw. It was almost the same like the last time – Mughal Gardens, Red Fort, Taj Mahal, then a temple, then a market and then back to the hotel. At the Taj Mahal, my parents went inside but this time also I stayed outside, again because of the crowd. During that time, I got acquainted with a German blonde, and spoke with her for some time. She had also not gone inside the Taj because of the crowd.

Early in the morning the next day, we went to Fatehpur Sikri by auto-rickshaw. It was very cold – the road went through paddy fields and the countryside. The gust of cold air made the three of us shiver because the cold air hit us constantly during the journey of about 45 minutes. The Buland Darwaza was fabulous, it was huge. Inside, there was the Salim Chisti, there was a graveyard, there was the Imam sitting inside, and there was a lot more. There is a huge courtyard in front of the Salim Chisti, and a beautiful cold breeze was blowing there. The sun was rising, it was red and I felt warm and comfortable. While I was seeing all this and taking photographs of the place, a little boy (who stays in a nearby slum) of about 5 years came with some picture books and CDs containing photographs and videos of the Fatehpur Sikri. He requested me to buy one book and one CD for Rs. 30. I promptly replied that I was not going to buy anything. He went away. I again became busy taking photographs on my mobile phone camera. Sometime after that the little boy again came and told me, ‘Le lo na bhaisaab, mera bauni ho jaayega aaj ka. Bis rupiye mein CD aur yeh book de dunga. Le lo na’. His voice was so faint! I looked at him. It was so cold there, and this little boy was selling picture books and CDs at a time when he should have gone to school and should have had a picture book on his desk in class. I felt something choking my throat. I brought out a 10 rupee note and gave it to him, but he simply would not take it for free! He wanted me to take a CD and a picture book at least by giving him another Rs. 10. I told him to buy some food for breakfast with the money and left him. I turned back and saw that he was somewhat not satisfied, and was undecidedly looking at me and the money in his hand, probably thinking whether he would keep it or return it to me. This almost brought tears to my eyes. I went to one corner of the huge courtyard where there was no one to ogle at me, and let the tears roll out. Then I calmed myself down, roamed around here and there for some more time so that the redness would vanish from my eyes, and then went to my parents again.

In the meantime, my parents had managed to grab some local and were gaining knowledge of history from him. My mother rebuked me lightly because of my absence for so long, and told me I had missed a lot of things that the guide had explained. However I feel I missed nothing, I had just done something good. Rather they had missed speaking with that sweet little child who had already been subject to the tests of life so early.

After that we went to the fort that is present in the Fatehpur Sikri. There were 25 mahals inside the fort. We had gone a bit too early and were the first visitors in the fort. A person who was sitting outside showed us his identity card and told us he was a guide. He said he would take Rs. 250 to take us around the entire fort, if we wanted. However, there were sort of red coloured cemented boards outside every mahal and we did not need a guide. We denied his assistance. Then something happened that again reflected the poverty of the people there. That very guide started pressing and then said that he would take just Rs. 50 to take us around the place because we were the first to visit the fort and he did not want to lose a customer. But somehow, I felt that this man was old enough and would manage to find other customers, and so I just told him to go. But I did not feel very good by driving him away.

After that it was all normal work. We went around the entire fort, and returned to Agra at about 12:30 pm by the auto-rickshaw. On the way we had lunch at a Dhaba. My parents were shocked to hear that one piece of Aloo Parathaa would cost us Rs. 30. Anyway, hungry that we were, we gobbled up the food and were also in a haste to return because we would return to Delhi that very day by a Volvo bus at 1:30 pm. We checked out from the hotel at 1:00 pm. The bus arrived late by 30 minutes because there was a road jam in Agra.

During the return journey, I noticed something funny. There were actually a lot of foreigners in the bus. Midway between Agra and Delhi, they had started sneezing and coughing. I understood that it was the dust that was doing this. As the bus crossed Faridabad the dust increased and the sneezing and coughing also increased. My mother and I had a hearty laugh about how little those people could tolerate.

The bus reached Delhi at about 7:00 pm and we reached home at about 8:00 pm.