How Green is Green Revolution? Part I

Word green in old English means ‘to grow’. Color green has always been associated with prosperity, sustainability, hope, and nature. Color of many national flags has an inseparable green. At least a million web addresses have term green in their domain names. So much so, thoughts, sometimes are called green.
In India, for a considerable time and even now, term green has been seldom used without a ‘red-word'- called revolution. Together these two terms account for a Nobel Prize, one World Food Prize, two Prime Ministers, one agricultural minister, one leading research institution and two agricultural universities, two and a half states, countless flourishing fertilizer and pesticide companies. Nation’s empty stomachs are sated by the silos of food-grains entirely filled by the waves of green-revolution. There’s a new fourth version of iPhone on the shelf. Time goes by and after 50 or so odd and even years, India has unofficially launched green-revolution II.
We took 50 years to realize that Green Revolution I (sometimes it is fancy to add numeric adjectives in the rear, Tendulkar 10, Ronaldo 9, Jordan 23, and so on) also means just two and half states out of 29, hunger alleviation for just half of the nation, more than 200,000 farmer suicides, no one looking at more than half of nation’s land which is non-irrigated, high levels of toxicity in the ground water and poor land condition in two and half states, and recent plan to plant reverse osmosis units in entire Punjab! Scores of poor farmers falling into a Urea-DAP-SSP-Endosulfan-Thaili Wala Beej-Diesel-Debt-Poor production-Suicide trap, millions of families fleeing to cities for non-agricultural jobs, 40% of total farmers not willing to go for crop-cultivation and recent government projection that says 6-15% of country’s population will depend on agriculture are the subsidiary products of enchanted slogan ‘green-revolution’.

Surprisingly, green-revolution statistics didn’t correspond to the average increase in income of more than half of nation’s farmers. There’s employment guarantee in rural India. Revenue from fertilisers and pesticides when combined with the subsidy given to the owner companies will no doubt overwhelm the total income from farm of all the farmers in India. And it would almost be ten times the income of poor small and marginal farmers. There’s an extension system for agricultural information to be disseminated in villages. Total employees of government departments, organizations, government schemes, and central or state committees on ‘sustainable agriculture’, in my opinion, would outnumber poor farmers who understand ‘sustainable agriculture’ let alone envisioning it.

Yet, a dialog has to be made between this large ‘producer’ force and our ‘political; government/s. Sometimes,

I wonder, do we even need a dialog with a blind and deaf government which has to appoint a committee for every single thing in the country- child-labor, female foeticide, honor-killing, rapes, communal and regional unrest in all four corners and center of the nation, and fraud in a not-so-sportsmanlike games event?

I am home-sick!

Intellectual anomaly ridden with a false promise, not the fabricated one, but the unintended one; when mom used to be off home for the social protests of various sorts and promise to bring whatever you would ask and all you would get is a packet of maggi noodles and a sister equally anxious to eat it raw rather than frying it over a newly bought non-sticky frying pan, which Chachi would call fry-baan and would use to fry fraas-beans! An elder brother who was also a big brother, would probably sneak out a chance to beat the heck out of you over the dimmest mistakes in the mechanics problem from Nootan’s Physics; however, occasionally allowing you to read from his prized possession of 197 Raj comics- ranging from Dhruva to Nagraj to Doga. Dad would come home, often smelling of what he said- ‘I just had good time with friends’, would put his right hand in the shirt-pocket and I would grab all those toffees and sometimes fruits, like the best thing in the world. STD calls of a brother who people said you have to become like one day, but you only are just a look-alike not the think-alike person. You try to imitate his style of writing, his sense of dressing and gawp at his INR 600 Bata shoes as if trying to find your own image, only end up being his farthest close friends.

Looking back at those wondrous years or months or days, uneasiness crawls all the way into your brain, like little moths fiddling around your ear-flying over the lamppost under which you are working.
Mom’s protest suddenly became so political that they get on you nerve and sometimes you almost hate them. Dad’s ‘friend’ smell now comes from you whenever three or more of your friends meet in a Delhi or an Ahmedabad or a Chandigarh or even a Kota! Sister’s anxiety of eating that maggi packet raw turned into a marriage after which you find time hardly to talk to her for more than five minutes. The big brother shares the best of his times with you whenever you go to his place, you eat everything that comes into your mind like you would read every of his comics that would come to your hands! STD calls of other brother has turned into ISD ones and the image of his Bata shoes finds no mention in your thoughts now. Chachi call the beans outside her garden, French beans and fries them on a non-sticky frying pan!

Anomaly in the mirror- times elapsed and images changed, intellectually!

Almora Days Part II (St. GIC Quiz)

Well, I present you a quiz. Whosoever wins, will get a reward. Let’s begin.
Statutory warning- All the contestant must have a degree from GIC-Almora.
1.Reaching for a girl’s dupatta over the shoulder of friends? He can go anywhere if you pay him Rs. 10 for petrol?
2.He is our guest from adjoining country? Sometimes “Patthar Ki Lakir”? He can be the best new channel of all times?
3.He can fill his mouth with two ‘samosas’ at any given moment and still chew those?
4.He is related to Chandrakanta?
5.His neck swings like a ‘simple pendulum’? Almost impostor?
6.He is an isotope of carbon?
7.We loved chemistry at? Here I met and lost my first crush, seriously? Does anyone know where is she ….….geeee? Just kidding.
8.Teacher/s who beat the hell out of Jittu, Shailu and Charlie?
9.Before high school, the most hated teacher?
10.Physics and horror of physics tuitions?
11.He is the tallest and grossest of all? He can eat and at the same time joke about thick brown cough…yuck…!!
12.Not one, not two, not three, but almost everyone claimed her friendship? She is not human, supposedly?
13.He looks like no one in his family, color-wise, and this is not good…? These days amid his ancestors?
14.Buddha?
15.Gillu’s real name?
16.He is name of a dynasty. Mughal vansh, Pal vansh……? The most cunning of us and is like the most of us? He is our true personification? Okay…..related to scare?
17.And, Mike Getting’s real name?
18.This one is amazing- his nose is his name?
19.He is the most desperate person to be with a girl, but I bet he would never get one? At least short than him? Foreigner?
20.He is a phenomenon related to tires that don’t run? To cut his hair or shave his beard off barbers would take hours?
21.This was the coolest place to hang out? Smoke, study and play? The best was- a nearby girl’s college……?

Did you realize that if you remember all this- you don’t need a reward? You were already living it. This was/is our life, actual blokes! Life took us through this amazing journey in the soothing hills of Almora. Do you ever realize, we started this all as early as 1995, which is like 15 years back and how old are we…25-27 except for Q. 14? How old is Rinku, anyway? Just kidding…

Did you realize Q.1 was one of the most ‘seen’ faces in Almora and now almost never-seen-faces, but still can go anywhere, though, for Rs. 20 petrol now? Q. 20 would be a doctor very soon? Did you notice, person in question in Q. 12 will be Q. 4’s partner, soon? No matter what we talk about, Q. 2 and Q. 19 is always comes into our conversations? In Q. 21, we must have put a lot of money on stake? But all that money looks so little if could buy those moments back.

Oh my God, as I was writing this all, I came to know that Q. 16 is committed? Seriously, life does move fast. I am trying to capture these moments through my irregular memory. Literally lived a life with you and still living through these words.

Almora Days part I (Jittu, Dhong, Pakodi, Alok and Me)

It was a big break- semester break during summer time. I was in the third year, Jittu was doing some MCA thing, Dhong and Pakodi were off to their bits, and Alok was already running his business. Things common and feared about….place and time for the drinks!
It was decided that I will bring my soccer-boots to Dhongs and ask my parents that I will stay at Dhongs and next day go to the stadium from there. Jittu would somehow manage to come and so will Pakodi. We started it with Dhong’s sacrilegious ceremony before the first peg. Eventually we ran out of water and the nearest open well sort of water source was across the stadium. Somebody must have gone there, I was already mesmerized with the thing s we were doing. Dhong’s parent’s left to settle at Pauri and this was Dhong’s last visit to the city, perhaps. And in the middle of night, far from our homes we were trying to maintain decorum of a decent party. The fear crept in, when Dhong in is peculiar ways said ‘darwaje pe koi hai’? Bottles and chicken slices were so swiftly displaced that jittu filled his mouth with one entire chicken leg….I bet he did, though I didn’t see it.
Hell and heaven at the same time, Alok came in- he left his door at home, ajar and planned for tomorrow- he will pretend that he had gone for a morning walk….I claim he never went for a single morning walk before or after this one. Well, one more fellow-thirsty!
Morning was an early affair and started with Dhong’s bickering over disposal of the ruins. We took a 3 km route to reach to college canteen to avoid my brother’s in-laws, just one house away from Dhongs. I never realized they live so close. I could almost hear my bro’s father-in-law mumbling a few words about Dhong’s friends (that were us…!). Anyway, we had breakfast at college canteen and we went to our homes.
Horror unleashed- Maa said somebody is calling from college canteen and talking about a lost wallet. I searched my pockets like a million times in a second. I don’t know what story did I narrate to Maa, but she knew I had fun at Rinku’s, which is like 10 Kms from Dhongs on a very opposite direction.
Such were the days (nights) we had spent together; in search of place and time for drinks. I would further write something about our quests for LIFE at Shailu’s or real midnight seminars at Rinkus or the Diwali bashes at Bijjus. I hope I will relive those moments again. I seldom talk to Dhongs, I don’t even know where he is and what he is doing and Pakodi for that matter. I talk to Jittu and Alok on monthly basis…but I surely miss those moments and quests!

One World

It’s a weird world at certain dimensional specification of time and space. Haiti has no world at a time when we were discussing National Film Awards. Obama was trying to rebuff special interest group and we were contesting a controversial field hockey election, on which lies nothing but an ego.

A good friend once said, there should be integration of the works of people in different stratum of society. Revolutions should be for integration. Like many bearded journalists in this world, he went unheard. The term ‘integration’ has remained but a jargon for most of us. I tried integrating my efforts with the efforts of others in the sector and found it making wonders. What someone thinks or does is what I do or think and the world suddenly gets one more identity; and it is more important. It is not that person’s identity, nor is it my identity- it is that integrated identity. I desist use of word ‘we’ there. A shallow thought would belie the would-be-possible state of mind behind that refrain, so a deeper thought generated.

Ordinary people often quote ‘this is personal and that is professional’. Smart people often say ‘this is personal, professional, and social’. But extraordinary people say it is but spiritual. It is about the moment irrespective of sense it generates; be it planning for next round of official dialogues or writing your innate fears on your diary. It is not about the form of prayer you make, but it is about the prayer you make. It is about the spirit of your prayer, your bathroom secrets, and your work ethics. And unless we seek an integration of our professional, personal, social and spiritual cycles of breaths and blinks, ‘we’ won’t come into being.

I don’t say should, I say must. Let us integrate our own actions throughout the day and night. Let us all refine our actions to fit as one whole. It must be a big world and one world, where everything affects the elections of hockey board and everyone lends a hand to Haitian people to that ‘integrated self’. Where Obama is the award and films are but mirrors for us. My actions towards this should speak louder than these few words and my fears should not subdue my zeal.

Let us all accept our fears and integrate!