FAITH, A STORY

Kabeer went inside the lab, several times, and whenever he was inside, he found no reason not to believe his remarkable feat. But the moment he came out, he grew impatient, to see it, to feel it again and again. It was only after looking at it so many times that he could assure himself of his accomplishment, for when a cherished dream comes true our subconscious realizes a sudden vacuum in itself and reluctant to tread a new path.

It was the moment Kabeer was dreaming since childhood, but at the moment of his glory he didn’t even know how to express himself. At one moment he was crying, at another he was making a triumphant roar and unknowingly expressing his joy in true sense, for expression of joy has no definite form; a deer gamboling or a man in reverie, quite apart they appear, quite alike their substance. He was like a fledgling who has just taken her first flight, flitting from one branch to another, expecting someone to report to her mother: Hey! Go and watch, your little kid is ready to rule the sky.

When he hit the road, his car, unconsciously, steered towards Arpita, his girlfriend’s apartment, as some heavenly force was guiding his wheels to make him be with his peer who could really complement his achievement. He was feeling like a victorious emperor who was eager to be with his empress who was waiting on the rampart to take the first glance of the victorious king.

When he reached there it was 2 A.M already but he couldn’t resist himself from calling her.

‘Kabeer! Calling at this hour?’ Arpita asked surprisingly after picking the phone.

‘Just come down dear, I’m waiting at your condo’s gate.’

‘Whaat!’

‘Be here fast’, his exultant voice left no room for further conversation on phone.

‘Hello crazy man,’ she said with a smile while coming out of the gate and stood facing him.

They stood facing each other but uttered not a single word, for no word can give shape to a divine conversation. The exchange was only of radiance emanating from their faces. The tranquil moonlit night was providing rhythm to their silence; celestial music for the divine conversation.

‘Give me a hug my empress,’ he said asking for a terrestrial pleasance. When her breasts pressed against him, she could feel his heart pounding as if wanted to come out of the body and dance around, expressing its joy.

‘Come up,’ she said pressing his palm between hers as she felt it her duty to share the joy of the man she loved; she respected.

He was sitting on a sofa when she came with two cups of frothy coffee and putting them down on the table she asked, ‘Tell me Kabeer. I’m eager to listen to the accomplishment my man has achieved.’

He took the cup and was looking into it as if trying to find something in the froth and said, ‘As you know I am working on a project to use the solar power to its maximum possible efficiency to generate electricity.’ She nodded but said nothing and he continued, ‘Solar cell arrays that we use now a days are very costly and it requires a vast area of land to be covered with theses arrays to tap the solar power; you have to cover an area of four times that of Delhi to generate one hundred thousand megawatt of electricity.
‘Neither we can use that much of land nor we have that much of money to generate power based on today’s technology.
‘With the technology I’ve invented we can generate that much of electricity by covering only point zero one percent of the area with solar cell arrays and the cost would be reduced to only one percent of today’s cost.’

She looked at him, spellbound, as if what he said had nothing to do with science but a mystical melody was creating an aura of ecstasy. She moved towards him and kissed him, fervently and soon they were in bed. Lust took no part in their lovemaking; it was her votive offering to the creator. The man who could withstand the enervating process of adding new things to the world with his sheer passion, deserved her reverence.

‘How elegant his name sounds, “Satya Prakash Maurya”; with genius of a man and so elegant a name,’ Kabeer looked at his chief’s name for a while before entering into his cabin.

‘Come my boy! You have made me proud, made our nation proud,’ Mr. Maurya corrected himself and left his seat and patted Kabeer on the back.

Both of them took their respective chairs and Mr. Maurya said, ‘Kabeer we all talk about the generational leap taken by our society. But I must say, taking over by progeny can not be called a generational leap. It is people like you who have the ability and passion to transform the society for a better tomorrow should be called our next generation. Generation doesn’t change with newborn but with new thoughts.

‘You deserve my wholehearted respect my boy.’ Mr. Maurya looked at Kabeer for a while before continuing, ‘Kabeer, I think it would take at least seven to eight years for us to make our product available to cater to all the requirements. How you think it should be utilized to serve our nation in the best possible way, especially with the limited availability.’

‘I think we should focus on catalyzing economic activity, be it small scale industries, big industries or agriculture.

‘Once a job is in hand, a person can take care of all his needs; he is not depending upon the dole money from the government.’

‘Kabeer you are not only a scientist but a visionary. You can think about the pragmatic use of your inventions and that takes you far ahead of your official peers.
‘And good news is that the government has already given its nod to implement the project the way you’ve just mentioned,’ Mr. Maurya said taking out a sheaf of papers from an envelope.

Kabeer was still there when a peon came and informed that Mr. Dixit wanted to see Mr. Maurya.

‘Send him in.’

‘Sir, I’m going to check the settings of the arrays that we are going to use at the time of launch,’ Kabeer said getting up from the chair.

‘Creators love to check their creations so many times,’ Mr. Maurya said with a smile, ‘I’ll be there too when Mr. Dixit leaves.’

A grim faced man of medium height entered into the cabin.

‘Good morning Mr. Dixit,’ Mr. Maurya welcomed him.

‘Hello,’ the man replied frigidly and sat facing Mr. Maurya.

Mr. Dixit was looking down and suddenly made a point raising his head as if he is in a hurry, ‘Mr. Maurya, we have to make some amendment in the earlier approved project.’
‘What does that mean?’ Mr. Maurya asked with a frown.
‘The government has decided to install the project first in the backward villages as the community power supply centre for houses. We are providing uninterrupted power supply for free to these backward villages.

'We think that it’s time for social justice and the poor section of society has the first right to get hold of the new breakthroughs in our country.’

‘Sir, aren’t you aware that we could supply very limited power in the initial years? And we can serve our nation better by supplying it to agricultural and commercial establishments in those very areas for the benefit for those very people,’ Mr. Maurya addressed him in his stentorian voice.

'But power supply in their houses can uplift their moral. They can feel enlightenment in their soul.’

‘Enlightenment without food?’ Mr. Maurya asked sardonically.

Mr. Dixit knew that he himself was arguing on fallacy and said veering from the argument, ‘We have decided on some backward villages in a few states. Please assign a team to visit them.
‘Also send a report about the cost to my office. I’ve been directed to get the project launched on priority basis.’

Mr. Maurya just looked at him, furiously as if he was reciting some expletives. Suddenly a thought stuck him and he said in a piercing voice, ‘Certainly, it must be launched before the election commission issues the notification for election to those states.’

Mr. Maurya got up and let his chair swivel and started looking out of window, for he couldn’t bear the sight of the administrative office he was bound with.

Mr. Dixit said nothing and moved towards the door. At the door, he turned and said, ‘We are only a minuscule part of the whole system.’

Mr. Maurya looked at him and he did look like a minuscule creature, for the courage to stand on what he thinks right differentiate a man from other living creatures.

Mr. Maurya was sitting, head in hands, and thought, ‘Oh my god! Theses mindless vote hungry louts are going to control we creators? And how about the man who has a grand vision to serve humanity with his invention? Why should he suffer?
‘Just because he is a part of a system where he himself has no control over his invention. And these parasites have got the right to suck our flesh and blood and that also in the name of social justice.
‘What they know about social justice? Victimization of a man by providing him with the perennial agony of reminding him every time of his caste?
‘Social justice is equality in terms of mindset; in terms of nurturing of talent. Social justice is when people look at their fellow workers as their peers, not as a sucker of someone else’s benefits.
‘Theses petty minded politicians are drum-rolling the term ‘social justice’ for the chaos they are bringing in the country. And that only to get back to power.’

He was drenched in sweat and turning his head from side to side he closed his eyes. He was looking down when he heard a voice: Satya Prakash, wake up! It’s time to act; it’s time to prove your patriotism.

He looked up but couldn’t find anybody and suddenly realized, ‘Oh! It was me, it was my conscience.’

He got up and whizzed out of the room.

Local trains serve as a place where people usually hold their glasnost and the recent happenings in the country made it inevitable for everybody to discuss issues pertinent to the nation; i.e. pertinent to themselves.

A man holding a newspaper looked aghast. He said, ‘look at this’, thrusting the newspaper towards his fellow commuter, ‘They have created so much of hoopla about the solar power project and what is the outcome? The project is another failed venture.
‘And what a ridiculous explanation, “It was the brainchild of an overzealous scientist who later found to be not in the normal state of mind. Although doctors couldn’t ascertain the reason for his abnormal behaviour, they say that his overindulgence with the project might be the reason for his abnormal behaviour.”
'And now, nobody is accountable. It’s taxpayers’ money they have thrown in the drain. And we could just read in the newspaper about crazy things they do with our money.

‘We are not going to tolerate this; it’s time for an upheaval!’

Although Kabeer was playing the cymbals for the first time, villagers were amazed at his adroitness and matched it with their percussion instruments. The chanting ‘Hare Rama- Hare Krishna’ was reverberating in the atmosphere, creating an aura of spiritualism.

After so many days of hard work to install the solar-cell arrays in the village to supply power for the tube wells, now was the time of rejoicing and the villagers insisted on the participation of the people who had even brought disrepute to themselves to withstand to their belief.

Although Mr. Maurya didn’t play any musical instrument, he couldn’t resist himself from singing Bhajans and even Mr. Siddhartha Bajaj, the businessman who funded the project was singing with him.

After the celebration, they were to move towards a nearby area where Kabeer was to install the solar cell arrays for the factory of Mr. Bajaj.
Mr. Maurya was looking at Kabeer’s face and he could see the ethereal contentment on his face. The contentment that comes with accomplishment and he refused to miss even a nuance of that spiritual expression.

Review of The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller

The saga of love, passion and sacrifice takes the reader into a world where no logic of society can define the relationship between a man and a woman. A chance encounter that left the most indelible impression on the life of the two and they spent their whole life cherishing those four unforgettable days.

The story unfolds with a photographer asking for the way to a bridge to a woman and when both came face to face; at that very moment they knew inside their respective hearts that this was the person they were looking for all their life. Though she was forty-five, he fifty-two, their liking for each other was so intense that they went to bed on their second encounter itself. And they made love, with animal intensity and grace at the same time.
Her responsibilities played their part and they had to part ways, but it was only their physical separation, spiritually they had created another being with their conjugation. The being was nowhere to be seen; it was surrounded by a spiritual aura that bound them even after being miles apart. Even when death approaching they were just thinking of each other. In real sense they were never apart; their love uplifted itself to zenith where just the feeling of each other gives you the power to face all the obstacles that come along your way.

I can say wholeheartedly that anyone reading this book can certainly feel the love inside himself. And I would like to add here that this is the second book in my life that made be sob; the first one was Bracken.

Review of The Global Soul by Pico Iyer

The book tries to portray the changing global scenario and how boundaries are being blurred by people that are on their way to find the place where they really belong. To some extent the book is really able to describe the dilemma of a wandering soul but the way it is written certainly makes the book a pathetic reading; the writing itself is as confused as the wandering lead character. The ideas he wanted to express are certainly there but it would have been better if he would have taken care to give those thought a proper shape; he should have written them in more coherent manner.

The book is about a character who roams around the world from Japan to Atlanta, from Barcelona to Hong Kong and Singapore and found himself to be a foreigner where ever he goes. He makes a trip to Toronto in Canada also and while he was interacting with the Indian origin people over there, he was alien among them as well as he could not understand a word of Hindi and that was a big surprise for those people; they were even questioning his Indian-ness.

In some of the pages he gave good ideas about how Olympic Games are being fixed and how freebies play a big role in deciding the venues of the games. But other than these occasional good thoughts there is nothing new that you can find in the book and I would emphatically say that the book is not worth reading. I want to take liberty of the medium and would like to suggest the publisher that if you want the book to find a response that can be considered as even ‘worth discussing’ then you must edit the book as it seriously lack coherence.