This year, December 6th fell on a Saturday. So what's the big deal? There is a December every year and the 6th day of the month also comes every month. So what's the big deal on it coming on a Saturday this year? Well it fell on a Saturday even in 2009. As in most of the Decembers in Delhi that day was also mildly cloudy and crispy cold with some sunlight sneaking through. Something happened that day that I will never forget in my life; something I will forever remember in my life. I had to take my son to his paediatrician for a regular check up and I was driving my mother-in-law's old greyish-blue Maruti 800 with the number plate ending in 4245. Just as we turned left on the Delhi-NOIDA link road from our Mayur Vihar Phase 1 colony, I noticed the weather and also the bleak, expressionless faces of the other drivers on the road. They all looked sad and spiritually constipated. Nobody seemed happy. Maybe they were all focussing on their drive and the road ahead even as the...
Back in 1999-2003 I used to work in the prison reform sector while I was working in the NGO - Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. In February 2001 I undertook a trip across some of the prisons in Madhya Pradesh, namely the Jabalpur, Mandla, Satna and Rewa prisons. Before that I had been to Tihad jail in Delhi, Haldwani sub jail in the then undivided Uttar Pradesh in February 2000, the Latchmere House open prison in England in September 2000, Gwalior central jail and the Ujjain central jail in Madhya Pradesh. The main insight I got while visiting the prisons in February 2001 as well as interacting with the home and health secretaries and other government agencies in Bhopal in the same leg of the tour was that I needed to spend at least a month each in at least one of the central, district and sub jails of the state as a trained prison staff, living in the same kind of squalid accommodation as the prison staff, following the same punishing schedule that they followed. That’s when one d...
Kahin kisi roz bas yunhi…, chala chal raahi, tu chala chal. Mujhe bas chalna hai; waqt aur kismat ke dhaar mey bas behna hai …Musafir hoon yaaron…mujhe bas chalte jaana hai… Bas waqt ka dariya hai; chhoti si umariya hai, pal bhar ki dagaria hai…doob key, tair ke jaana hai. Ye jad aur ye taney na kabhi gehrai chhodengi na parchhai, na koi parcham gaadegi na kisi oonchai par pahunchengi…par mujhe bas behtey jaana hai, chalte jaana hai jab tak ke saans ki dor dee gayi hai. Bas uss dehleez tak jahan tak dhadkan ki anumati dee gayi hai. Phir uske baad hum sab ye rang manch chhod chalenge, ae saathi. Koi farak nahi padta inn ped darakhton ko ki kisney kitne parcham gaadey aur kisney kisko pachhad diya aur kisne kis kiley aur pahad pe fateh kari, kaun kitney pani mey thaa ya kaun dariya-dil nek-dil thaa… Mujhey bas chalte jaana hai, behtey jaana hai, ye jaantey huey ki “kal aur ayenge nagmo ki behtar kaliyan chunn ne waaley, mujhsey behtar kehne waaley, tum se behtar sunn ne waaley. Masroof z...
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