Someone I Met

This about few years ago when, I had met my friend who works in the armed forces, he narrated me the story of Major Mitali Madhumita. Mitali, a 35-year-old Indian army officer from Orissa, had been in Kabul less than a year. Fluent in Dari, the most widely spoken language in Afghanistan, she was there to teach English to the first women officer cadets to be recruited to the Afghan National Army. She was awakened at six o’clock in the morning of February 26, 2010 by the ringing of her mobile phone.

It was a sensitive posting, not so much because of gender issues as political ones: India’s regional rival, Pakistan, was extremely touchy about India providing military assistance to the government in Afghanistan and had made it very clear that it regarded the presence of any Indian troops or military trainers there as an unacceptable provocation. For this reason everyone on the small Indian army English Language Training Team, including Mitali, and all the Indian army doctors and nurses staffing the new Indira Gandhi Kabul Children’s Hospital, had been sent to Afghanistan unarmed, and in civilian dress. They were being put up not in an army barracks, or at the Indian Embassy, but in a series of small, discreet guest houses dotted around the city’s diplomatic quarter.

The phone call was from a girlfriend of Mitali’s who worked for Air India at Kabul airport. Breathless, she said she had just heard that two of the Indian guest houses, the Park and the Hamid, were under attack by militants. As the only woman on her team, Mitali had been staying in separate lodgings about two miles away from the rest of her colleagues, who were all in the Hamid. Within seconds, Mitali was pulling on her clothes, along with the hijab she was required to wear, and running, alone and unarmed, through the empty morning streets of Kabul toward the Hamid.

“I just thought they might need my help,” she told me recently in New Delhi.

As she dashed past the Indian Embassy, Mitali was recognized by one of the guards from diplomatic security who shouted to her to stop. The area around the guest houses was mayhem, he told her. She should not go on alone. She must return immediately to her lodgings and stay there.

“I don’t require your permission to rescue my colleagues,” Mitali shouted back, and kept on running. When she passed the presidential compound, she was stopped again, this time at gunpoint, by an Afghan army security check post. Five minutes later she had charmed one of the guards into giving her a lift in his jeep. Soon they could hear bursts of automatic weapons, single shots from rifles and loud grenade blasts.

“As we neared the area under attack I jumped out of the jeep and ran straight into the ruins of what had been the Hamid guesthouse. It was first light, but because of all the dust and smoke, visibility was very low and it was difficult to see anything. The front portion of the guesthouse was completely destroyed—there was just a huge crater. Everything had been reduced to rubble. A car bomb had rammed the front gate and leveled the front of the compound. Three militants then appeared and began firing at anyone still alive. I just said, ‘Oh my God,’ and ran inside.

“I found my way in the smoke to the area at the back where my colleagues had been staying. Here the walls were standing but it was open to the sky—the blast had completely removed the roof, which was lying in chunks all over the floor. There was cross-firing going on all around me, and the militants were throwing Chinese incendiary grenades. Afghan troops had taken up positions at the top of the Park Residence across the road and were firing back. I couldn’t see the militants, but they were hiding somewhere around me.

“As quietly as I could, I called for my colleagues and went to where their rooms had been, but I couldn’t find them anywhere. I searched through the debris and before long started pulling out bodies. A man loomed out of the gloom and I shouted to him to identify himself. But he wasn’t a terrorist—he was the information officer from our embassy and he began helping me. Together we managed to get several injured people out of the rubble and into safety.

“Then we heard a terrible blast. We later learned that Major Jyotin Singh had tackled a suicide bomber, and by holding him from behind had prevented him entering the Park Residence. The bomber was forced to blow himself up outside. Jyotin had saved the lives of all the medical team inside.

“But the only one of my colleagues who hadn’t been killed on the spot, Major Nitesh Roy, died of his 40% burns in hospital three days later. I was the only one of my team who came back alive.”

In all 18 people were killed in the attack that morning, nine of them Indians, and 36 were wounded. Among the dead found beneath the debris was the assistant consul general from the new Indian consulate in Kandahar. This consulate was a particular bugbear of the Pakistanis, who accused it of being a base for RAW—the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s external intelligence agency. The Pakistanis believed RAW was funding, arming and encouraging the insurgency in Baluchistan, the province that has been waging a separatist struggle ever since it was incorporated into the new nation of Pakistan in 1947.

This tiff between India and Pakistan has continued ever since 1947 and there has been a constant blame game without any resolution. Many innocent people - civilians or our security/armed forces have lost their life during this period. The above mentioned interview of Mitali was also taken by the famous author William Dalrymple who used it as a part of his main article – “A deadly triangle – Afghanistan, Pakistan and India”.

 

Someone I met Part 1 continued

I met someone recently and we spoke about lots of things. Although, I am a writer by profession now but I studied to work in the textile industry. My father belongs to this industry and I aspired to grow in it too. Circumstances changed that and I spoke to this somewhat about the industry and his growth and he narrated few instances that I thought I must share. This is the same someone I shared with you before...Mr Kapur, he currently heads the South Asia sourcing operations of a major Department Store in the US. And this is how he narrated few of his tales, some might overlap with the ones I’ve put before, but they have additional information added to them now. I thoroughly enjoyed them.. Hope you do too. And he says

But things are much more different now from what they where say two decades ago in the quota regime, where we had to fight for every contract, each deal was a coveted one. Today if your product is good you get the deal. In those times we had to get the pricing right, packaging right everything right and still lost business. I remember having passed out from the elite IIFT school, I was ready for hard work but for the corporate concept/world hard work. So working with the Murugappa Group, my stint here had been 8-10 months, I remember it distinctly, I was in Aurai, Bhadohi sending a shipment of Gabbeh, shabby and loom knotted rugs to one of our buyers and we were getting pressed for time. We had to send the shipment and the labour to load the consignment was small in number, so me and my friend we just rolled up our sleeves and got along with the labour and started picking up rugs with our hands and loading it so that we could help to make the shipment in time. The labour kept telling us “Please leave it boss”, but we had to do it with them because there was no time and we wanted to all we could do to help and finish the work.

Also I remember in the early years I would go to niche areas in India for cotton sheeting products. I would have to venture into areas like Solapur, Jalgaon in Maharashtra; Bharuch, Vadodara, Rajkot, Bhavnagar, Kalol in Gujarat Madurai, Tirunel velli, Tuticorin, Salem in South and we had to keep costs low. So I travelled by second class railways wherever it would take me and by the lowest accommodation to my destination. We would have tea in the clay kullars or local snacks that were available on each station of different state as if it was a delicacy.

In those years I would have to travel abroad to meet suppliers and get orders for my company. Being a vegetarian who has a strict mushroom allergy can be a huge challenge for a frequent traveller. After returning from trips feeling pretty bovine most of the times, what with the variety of leaves I'd get to eat in my insipid salads, it would be time for some stuffed 'aloo paranthas' immediately on getting back home. This was a tradition that my beloved mother started years back, either she would make them and pack them in Tiffin so that when I return at wee hours in the morning I could have them or she would leave a message on the kitchen counter and I would go under the Moolchand flyover(Delhi) and half them there. I wonder if the guy still exists.

I just love travelling with my family. We've done several places in India - beaches, hill stations, wild life reserves et al. The highlight was a fortnight long road trip we did across Rajasthan when my son was all of two years. This we did in the last days of December and I remember it so clearly because I fought with my wife for it, it was New Year’s Eve, and we were in Bikaner without any booking for proper accommodation. There was a complete festive surrounding on the desert and we were on the sand dunes with just 3 charpai’s to sleep on. My wife took my son on one, I was on another and our loyal servant on the third. We somehow spent that night out in the open but the next day we checked in to proper accommodation.

These are few of my sweet memories from my early travel days. In those early days when we had to be frugal and literally save every buck but now things are different.

 

 

Someone I met 2

I have been holidaying in Bhimtal and here sitting at a lodge I happened to meet a social worker from England. She’s worked in different capacities all over the world. For quite a few years, she is settled in India. Telling us about few of her experiences she narrates how difficult it was to dissuade people in North Thailand against sending their daughters for human trafficking. People over there would cry and tell her, “We can’t help it, we had taken debt and now our girls are being taken away to repay it. The local authorities are mixed with the perpetrators and there is very slow criminal justice. They take away our daughters forcibly”.

She has worked with the impoverished class in Uganda and tried instilling in them the importance of local authority and their need to respect them and not fight them. Now she is settled in the hills of Uttrakhand and goes from village to village and tries to set up local schools that can educate the children, especially the girls. “The girls,” she says “are not readily sent to school in villages. So my basic aim has been to get in touch with small NGO’s and give power of education to children, though  I have tried to focus on going from house to house and tell them the need to educate girls.”

She continues to say, “I plan on staying few years more in India, work and take small breaks and travel. I want to get a better grasp of the culture; after all I too have originated from it. I recently was duped in Varanasi where I took my first religious holiday. I had heard of the reputation of the town as that being of a temple town and was very interested in going there. Yes, there were good lord too many temples there. The pandit ji there duped me of couple of thousands in doing some ‘puja’ that would make my ancestors rest in peace. In spite of that I loved the town with its Kashi Vishwanath temple that I’ve learnt is one of the important Shiva temple and saw the famous aarti on one of the ghats. Oh! the sight was gorgeous. Also nearby was the Sarnath just a mere 13 km away. Isipatana is mentioned by the Buddha as one of the four places of pilgrimage which his devout followers should visit, if they wanted to visit a place for that reason. It was also the sight of the Buddha's Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta , which was his first teaching after attaining enlightenment, in which he taught the four noble truths and the teachings associated with it”

And she is lost in thought for couple of minutes and then tells how interesting her years in India have been mixed with experiences related to culture, like the one of puja’s and it helping one’s ancestors rest in peace. “Well you see from where I come, these things are improbable and slightly hard to digest. But if this is my ancestor’s culture I do need to give it a chance and try and understand their believes. I plan on visiting Puri next month. It’s got beautiful architecture they say and has an important Vishnu temple.”

She pauses and then says, “How do you remember all the Gods and Goddesses. There are too many and I keep on getting confused. There are too many sects and variations in the Hindu culture itself. Till now I have only prayed to the all mighty Jesus of the Roman Catholic Church.” And she laughs at it.

Yes it’s a little obscure when you think of it and the so many Gods and Goddesses and their significant places to worship and then I wonder whether this Lady who has grown up with understanding of the Christian faith, has a Cambridge degree in International Sociology, is well versed in different languages will ever be able to understand the nuances of the Hindu religion and our Indian culture. Well her stay in India in so many years has made her quite proficient with the Hindi language at least. I wished her luck for her future endeavors and came back to my lodge.

Someone I met series

Ok so this idea of someone I met came from the caravan magazine and I decided myself to write about a few interesting people I met. I've already started with Someone I met- Mr Kapur. Hope you liked it now its time for someone I met 2. Hope u like this lady too

Someone I met

So here’s the story of Mr Manu Kapur whom I met recently at a social function. He has studied from IIFT in Delhi and has worked for various coveted companies.  He has been associated with International Trading / Retailing / Sourcing for over two  decades. He has had the chance of working with coveted organizations like the Murugappa Group, Metro AG, Li & Fung, Reliance Retail and IKEA. I currently head the South Asia sourcing operations of a major Department Store in the US.

He has been travelling since 1994. What seemed charming and exciting at first (a phase that was extremely short lived)' over the years has been an absolute nuisance something that he’d gladly give up if he had the opportunity to. The happiest part of his 3 year stint at Reliance Retail clearly was the fact that he wasn't travelling at all, except domestically, which strangely he don't mind as much. His travels have taken him far and wide - Pakistan & Bangladesh several times, since He’s handled the business operations of these countries on several occasions in the past and does so currently too. He’s also travelled extensively in Europe, North America, South East Asia, North Asia, Australia and the Middle East.

Several interesting incidents (some pretty scary at the time) come to mind in terms of travel over the years - being mugged at a sleepy railway station in a small town near Amsterdam, getting into an altercation with a fake policeman demanding money in Prague, speaking through the night with a colleague from Russia that he had never met or spoken with before till earlier that evening, to name a few.

One of the highlights though was this - He was in Bangkok several years back for a Buying Trip. The day went really well and they transacted business worth several million Duetsche Marks (pre Euro days) on the spot. To celebrate, the Chief Buyer of the group He was working with then decided to buy them a couple of rounds of drinks. After guzzling a couple of litres of beer, they decided to walk across to a famous Japanese restaurant for dinner. Each one of them ended up drinking more 'saki' than they could handle. They left the place, hand in hand (more out of support against stumbling than out of affection for each other) and then for some strange reason decided on hitting the hotel discotheque for some champagne. No prizes for guessing what followed - they passed out in our respective rooms. He woke up at noon for an 8 am meeting and doesn't recall getting ready in a shorter span of time. When he reached the conference room at the hotel, he found it deserted. The first thought in his mind was that everyone was probably out for lunch and that he would be skinned alive. A couple of minutes later, on enquiring from a hotel attendant, he found out (much to his relief) that he was the first person to show up for the meeting. Nobody came in for the half hour that he hung around in the room. He happily left after realizing that the others were probably still asleep. They reconvened at 8 am the following morning.

He’s a strict vegetarian so I asked how he has managed that? Being a vegetarian who has a strict mushroom allergy can be a huge challenge for a frequent traveller. After returning from trips feeling pretty bovine most of the times, what with the variety of leaves He’d get to eat in his insipid salads, it would be time for some stuffed 'aloo paranthas' immediately on getting back home. This was a tradition that his beloved mother started years back and even now, every single time He get back from a trip, irrespective of whether He’s hungry or not, purely sentimentally and out of extreme love for his mother, He religiously eats 'aloo paranthas' on his return - generally in the wee hours of the morning. 

Though he travels so much for work Ironically, He just loves travelling with his family. They've done several places in India - beaches, hill stations, wild life reserves et al. The highlight was a fortnight long road trip they did across Rajasthan.

Internationally, They've travelled as a family to Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, China, Vietnam and Cambodia. The finest trip that he feels he had was this summer, when they went to Vietnam and Cambodia. It was absolutely perfect - great weather, lots of interesting things to do and great food.

One funny incident was when they drove down from Phnom Pehn in Cambodia to Siem Reap, to visit the famous Angkor Wat temples. They anticipated the journey to be much shorter than the 6 hours it took. As a result, they ended up getting to Siem Reap almost around the time that entry to Angkor Wat closes. They decided to visit the temples the next morning and go to a vantage point to watch the sunset that evening. His 9 year old daughter, who hadn't particularly enjoyed the ride, was very upset that they'd travelled six hours 'just for a sunset' and threw a huge tantrum.

 

 

 

Mahabharat and Ramayan saved the Day

 My nephew all of eight years was visiting us during his winter vacation. Being a nice aunt I wanted to welcome him with a gift, something that would be enhancing and educational and yet something that he would enjoy. Knowing his love for books, I went to the Om Book Shop outlet at Great India Place, Noida. I absolutely love their range and mix of books; they have a book available for everybody.

I wanted to buy something different and not the usual Enid Blyton’s because I have no clue about which ones he has and which he doesn’t. I was looking around when I saw these series of books that Om Book Shop has developed in their own publishing house. It’s the mythological series of picture books. There are many titles available ranging from Krishna, Ganesha, 365 Mythological Tales, Ramayana etc.

 

I totally fell in love with their Mahabharata. The language in the book is easy to understand. It has beautiful glossy pictures explaining the scenes. The story is not very detailed and not too abridged. The book is divided into chapters marking the major events of the epic. The pictorial narrative moves smoothly and effortlessly keeping you engrossed. It not only seemed a befitting gift for my nephew to educate him about our mythological and cultural beliefs but it seemed a good read too. The book is not age specific, I ended up buying it for my niece whose 4 years so that my sister can read it out to her and explain it in between if the need be and I also bought a copy for myself. I think all Moms’ need to get a look at it. It’s beautifully amazing.

 

Happy Birthday Mom

 

There’s no bond quite like that between mother and child. You know me in ways no one else ever will. You also see in me all the things I can still become and continue having faith that I can do and be whatever I want, no matter what my age. You are my biggest fan, my mentor, my confidant, my hero, my turn-to person when my world comes crashing down and the first person I call to tell when things are going great. The comfort that comes from our friendship, the confidence that your faith in me instils, and your unquestioning support of whatever I do, is irreplaceable. The kind of there-for-me that you are is the very essence of what makes a great mother. The last few years have been quite tough on you thanks to my good health. You can’t imagine what your being there has meant to me. There have been times where you felt helpless and your patience ran out and you have screamed at me, but I guess the ups and downs we’ve had in these years, you too needed to vent out. I don’t know what to say because since the last 3 years your life mainly revolves around me due to which many a times Bhav and Adi lose their patience and fight with you, all I can say is Thanks Mum and I wear your unconditional love and support around me like a big hug every single day.

I am so blessed to have you in my life. I’ve probably said it before — you are my angel on earth and maybe the only person I can pour my heart too. You truly are the world’s bestest friend. Thank you for always, always being at my side and having my back. No one is in by my side quite the way you are. No one understands me the way you do which sometimes leads to a lot of criticism from you, which when I think with a cool head always is beneficial for me. There are times when I’m stubborn like hell but then Mumma, I am a Chhatwani and a Capricornian so can’t help that. I am sorry for that coz it really irritates you. I treasure you, mother, and love you more than life itself. You are an amazing person ever ready to learn something new, always open to different opinions and ideas, and so compassionate and kind. You have always taught by example whatever you have experienced in your life, you try that we don’t commit mistakes and get hurt and sometimes we listen, but what I admire the most about you is that inspite of warning us and advising us if we still want to do a certain thing you give us room to commit our errors and mistakes and learn from them; even though when we fall you know it will hurt us and in turn hurt you even more. I hope you break 100 with good health and a strong mind. There’ll never be a day in my life when I won’t need you.

Just a small quick reminder that I love you and I’m here for you too. Please remember that. And don’t worry you’re seeing that I am making every possible effort, I shall get better soon and we shall travel a lot and create new memories.

Happy, Happy, Happy Birthday, mom. You make the world a better place.

Love you hell a lot, Big Hug and a Big Kiss