Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Spice Jet and a Cup of Coffee

As usual, I was sleeping as deep as I always do. I can't say if I was snoring. Suddenly the fragrance of food awoke me up and then I saw two air-hostesses carrying the food trolley and selling food items near my seat. Then I realized where I was....I was going to Mumbai from Bangalore in Spice Jet airlines and I was sitting in window seat.

I was not hungry. So, I asked for a cup of coffee as I was feeling cold. They obliged. One sip and I knew that I was having the worst coffee till date. Still I kept sipping the coffee as at least it was a hot liquid, and it was comforting my soar throat. I took out my purse and was waiting to pay for the  coffee. "How much would it be? 50 rupees?", I was wondering in a literally bitter mood.

But cabin crew members never came back to ask for money. As I was again drifting in my sleep land, I was wondering,"Is the coffee so bad since it's free OR is it free since it's so bad?"

Monday, August 6, 2012

Where will it stop?


It was 2006 in Delhi when over a casual discussion, an influential political journalist had told my journalist friend some details about the current political scenario of Assam. He had said that much has been said and discussed about the political situation of Kashmir and the entire world seems to be concerned about it. But what is entirely unknown to the entire world is the political situation of Assam, and the situation of Assam is far worse than that of Kashmir. The political scenario is so bad that suddenly one day the Hindus of the state will wake up to a morning when they will be thrown out of their own houses by Bangladeshis. For Hindus of the state, the situation would be ‘sudden’ but the for those who would be leading the killings, for them the entire situation would be pre-planned and well organized.

My friend was so shocked by learning this that she had immediately called me to tell me about what she came to know. It shook me and my family as well. This fact finding slowly prepared us mentally to shift somewhere in the mainland India before we face something similar to what our ancestors had faced during the independence of India. But surprisingly, over last these many years, whenever I have tried to warn people about this political forecast, people have not believed me; sometimes some people even behaved to be know-all and felt ‘hugely offended’ as I had tried to convince them that what they know is not ‘all’, there is more to it.

Anyway, now we all know that the prediction has come true in Assam. Look at the people of Bodo land and see how they have been driven away from them their houses and how they are taking refuge to the nearby state West Bengal. Bodos are the early settlers of Assam; mainly Kokrajhar and Dhubri districts are their own land. Then why are they being driven out of their homes and who is driving them away? There is answer and that is brutal. All those illegal Bangladeshi immigrants who had immigrated illegally to India one day and settled in Kokrajhar and Dhubri districts are now killing and driving away the native people of bodo land out of their own land.

Then the question is why are they doing this? And why did they even come to india in the first place? All those Bangladeshi illegally immigrate to India for work, since they have no work there in Bangladesh and they would simply starve and die in their own country. So they illegally immigrate to India so that they can eat and live. They keep pulling more immigrants illegally from their country continuously to India. After couple of years or may be after a decade these illegal immigrants, who have become valid voters in India, all thanks to Tarun Gogoi government, become the most powerful pawns of the political power game between India and Bangladesh. Now, Bangladesh has an army of their own inside India, all thanks again to Tarun Gogoi government. Then why wouldn’t they drive away natives and create terror? It’s their right. This is what they are best at, creating troubles and nuisance everywhere they go and finally create a religious riot.

Why blame only Tarun Gogoi government? After the independence, all governments in Assam and West Bengal have been build and sustained on the one and only formula – “Invite and worship Bangladeshis. Thwey will vote me”. This is quite easily understandable that the governments don’t give a damn whether their people are living or dying. They are busy summing up their calculations for vote bank and brimming their own accounts. And why blame only state governments? What is our central government going? Do they really consider North East a part of India? Or, are they also waiting for this chicken’s neck to break and be relieved from all this trouble? Otherwise, how can village after village of Assam go inside the political border of Bangladesh and the supreme authorities of our country are not bothered!

Now in this situation what should we do? Kokrajhar has lived its fate. Should we wait for this to happen to Barak valley and follow the trails of 1947 again? How many times will the same group of people drive us away from one part of land to another? How long and for how many generations will we see the same history repeating itself?