RESURRECTION: CONNECTING THE DOTS

The one who gives up is defeated; everyone else is victorious. 

   Live life to the fullest and make the most of each day.

 The story of a terrorist who wants to mend his ways and   make     the most of everything.

They say the one who gives up is defeated; everyone else is victorious. I could have left before, but I was always too afraid to change. Maybe because after too much of effort and sacrifice, we know our present world. And even though that world might not be the best of all worlds, and even though we may not be entirely satisfied with it, at least it won’t give us nasty surprises. I see the gigantic mountains around me. Mountains always stay at the same place. Fully grown trees, when transplanted, usually die. We say we want to be like the mountains and the trees. Solid and respectable. Even though, I wake up thinking: “I wish I was like the birds, who can visit my home in Kashmir and come back whenever they want to.” I wish I was like the wind, for no one knows from where it comes or from where it goes, and it can always change its direction without even having to explain why.

Change is difficult, I presume. And I can never go back to my own people.

I am afraid to go back and acknowledge my own people and place of belonging. Life is no bed of roses. I am afraid.

The birds are always fleeing from hunters and from larger birds; and that the wind sometimes gets caught up in a whirlwind and destroys everything around it. I look at the gun in my hand.

It is nice to dream that we will have plenty of time in future to do our travelling and that, one day, we will travel. It cheers us up because we know that we are capable of doing more than we do. Dreaming carries no risks. The dangerous thing is trying to transform our dreams into reality. But the day comes when Fate knocks on our door. It might be the gentle tapping of the Angel of Good Fortune or an unwanted visitor. They both say: “Change Now!” Not next week, not next month, not next year. They say: “Now!”

We listen to them thinking where they will lead us. The answer is to a new life. And we change. We change village, habits, shoes, food and behavior. We cannot convince fate to allow us to stay as we are. Thus, there is no discussion. I still remember the fateful night when terrorists invaded my village back in Kashmir. They plundered and looted the entire village. Villagers who roused against them were brutally murdered, children were burnt alive and women raped. I remember my sister being forcefully taken inside a shack by one of the terrorists. I tried to save her but in vain. I could hear her cries but could do nothing. In utter anguish and pain I decided to take revenge by myself. I saw my own father killed as he tried to save my mother. He was a brave man. To my disbelief and shock, I realized that my sister after being assaulted- was killed. I ran inside the shack. To my horror, she lay dead. And I was literally kicked by that man.

And here I am now, sitting outside an old hut-my present residence, miles away from my home in Kashmir. I am the leader of a powerful invader-gang with hundreds of able-bodied men at my service. We kill and loot and plunder. I remember the day as the kid, when I promised myself that I will revenge the death of my family. I joined a gang. People risk taking the first step-sometimes out of curiosity, sometimes out of ambition-but generally because they feel an urge for adventure. At each bend of in the road, they feel more afraid, and yet, at the same time they surprise themselves. They are stronger and happier. My first step as a gunman was out of pain. But after my first shoot I was contented. After all this was what I had desired. I was happy.

I have come a long way since then. It has been almost a decade. Good old days can never be revived. I was born in Kashmir. My father ran a snack-cart. Both my parents were god-fearing and taught us the value of time and money. I had never even thought in my wildest imaginations that I would be someone that I am today.

 As a child, I had always wanted to be a military-cop. An honest cop, who does not spare the terrorists. The violent acts of the terrorists instilled fear among all of us. Their acts were usually perpetrated for religious, political and ideological goals. For this, they disregarded the safety of the civilians. People who retaliated were shot dead. Their aim seemed unknown. All that we wanted was to stay safe and happy.

Memories swept past by me. And I could not help breaking down. It was not often that I cried, but today there was something strange. I can never go back and recover lost moments. The truth is that we never have much choice. Life and community have already taken charge of planning our fate. I have killed and shot, fought and bled. I have taken my own share of revenge.

I adjust the black linen that I am wearing. Everything looks black just like my attire. I cannot find solace. I see my own ugliness. In my extreme thirst of taking revenge, I have forgotten my own existence. I have stopped being the sunlight; instead have become the pool of water reflecting it. I want to go back to that time and place.  But I am not sure which direction to take. Bloodsheds and killings are not going to take me anywhere.

I see a rugged ascetic. His loud shouts caught my attention, for I could actually relate a lot to him. “No one can go back but everyone can go forward. And tomorrow, when the sun rises, all you have to say to yourself is-I am going to think this day as the first day of my life.”

I remember the members of my family. This was the very first time that I could feel their presence around me, silently sharing the much talked-about and little understood thing called love. I look at everything and it seems as if for the first time, especially the small things that I have grown used to, quite forgetting the magic surrounding them. The desert sands, for example, which are moved by an energy I cannot understand-because I cannot see the wind. 

Life is a million different things. Tonight, before leaving, I will spend time sorting through the pile of things I never had the patience to put in order. All the letters, the notes and weapons will take on their own life and tell me the story of my past and future. About all the different things in the world, all the roads traveled  all the entrances and exits of my life. I am going to put on a shirt and take off my black attire. For the first time, I noticed how it was made. I imagined the hands that wove the cotton and the river where the fibers of the plant were born. I understand that all those now invisible things are a part of the history of my shirt.

Since I am heading off into the future, I will be helped by the scuff marks left on my sandals from where I stumbled in the past. 

Everything my hand touches and my eyes see and my mouth tastes seem different. It’s like re-encountering emotions worn smooth by routine. I drank some tea that I have never tried before because others told me it tasted horrible. I will walk down a street I have never walked down before because others told me it was totally out of interest. And I will find out whether or not I would like to go back there. If it is sunny tomorrow, I want to look at the sun properly for the first time. If it is cloudy, I want to watch in which directions the clouds are going. I have always pestered and complained to god. But I now realize that I do not pay enough attention.

I want to fill my life with fantasy again. For the first time, I will smile without feeling guilty, because joy is not a sin. For the first time, I will avoid anything that makes me suffer, because suffering is not a virtue. I will not complain about life. I will listen to the music of the temple bells. The music says, love rules. I will submit to love.

I will live this day as if it were my first and, while it lasts; I will discover things that I did not even know were there.

I look at myself as if this were the first time I had ever been in contact with my own body and my own soul. I accept myself.

And even if this is to be my last day on Earth, I will make the most of it. I will live it with the innocence of a child, as if I were doing everything for the first time.

# A special reference to a friend, who had always wanted me to write on this subject. Owing to extreme laziness i was not able to keep up this commitment within stipulated period. But better late than Never. This one is for you friend! :)

               

The Meaning of Milkha...

From seeing his family being massacred during the Partition to begging for food at the Delhi railway station as an orphaned refugee to arguably India’s greatest-ever individual sportsperson, Milkha Singh remains a story that will be told over and over again. The relevance of this legend will only be more pronounced with time.

This essay is a personal tribute to a man who defined an era. It is inspired partly by the rumor of the film and partly through all the fascinating interviews one read about the man. This is a small attempt, a little fragment to the mosaic of the greatness being assembled around him. To write about Milkha Singh, is to write about a different era. It is to evoke a different set of emotions, a different philosophy of life. To see him as a runner is not enough. The sociology of sport is not enough to explain the man. In a new and independent India where our heroes were Nehru and Patel, Azad or Gandhi, Milkha Singh represented a new kind of hero-as the athlete, as the earthly son of the soul.

Milkha Singh, like many of the time was a child and creature of partition. Partition not only divided a nation but tore into the heart of a people. Many Indian biographies suggest surviving partition and exorcising-as their two main aspects. Milkha had to race against history to create history. Milkha saw his parents, brother and sister killed before him. As an orphan, he had only his siblings to rely on. Milkha tried to join the army but was rejected thrice. Finally, he joined the electrical wing of the army and then raced into folklore.

The army in India is a great institution and sociology of the army and its relation to village India has never been written. The army has created employment, a career, an honorable way of life for millions of Indians. For the honor and codes it provides, the army becomes a form of therapy. The Flying Sikh was a flying soldier. He realized he joined the army as an orphan, he graduated as a pilot. Singh, like many villagers could have been a dacoit or a thug if the army was not there. Milkha was never to forget that the Flying Sikh was first a flying soldier.

Archana Masih tells a wonderful story of Milkha’s home. There are no galleries of medals, no nostalgias of victory in the house. Only two pictures adorn the walls, one of the American doctor who saved his wife Nirmal Kaur’s life and other a picture of Havaldar Bikram Singh, a Kargil martyr.

To paint Milkha as a soldier, a patriot and a citizen is critical. He once complained that today we honor our cricketers not our martyrs. Our cricketers behave like mercenaries while our martyrs are forgotten. Milkha is a soldier as icon. Today we forget how the army created a sporting nation, became the nursery for the sporting greats in athletics and hockey. In an odd way our middle class obsession with cricket has blinded us to the role of army.

Milkha Singh lived with the pain of Partition through his running career. Pakistan was that empty painful space in his heart, a home which could no longer be home for a child born in Lyallapur. It was towards the end of his career that he found his cure. The Pakistanis had invited him to run against their best athletes and Milkha Singh was reluctant to go, unsure of his feelings. It was Jawaharlal Nehru who persuaded him to go and told him that he did not want more Milkhas to happen on either side. He told him that he was a soldier and his job was to fight the battle within. Milkha was afraid to smell what he called the blood in the air in Pakistan, ran and it was Ayub Khan, the President of Pakistan who gave him the sobriquet “The Flying 

Sikh".

There was something ethical about running at that time. It was the body, a pair of shoes running against the limits of one-self. The body stands as its own truth. Technology has little role to play. Almost anyone can run. Jogging and running is one of the democratic sports. Before jogging became a lifestyle thing, one just ran around the compound or the maidan barefoot or in plain canvas. Running is a philosophy in motion. You run to create a different world, a better world.

One has to understand Milkha Singh in that perspective. Milkha Singh was a runner. He just ran. He ran at a time there was little science to running in India. One trained by racing against the elements, by running on sand or running till one bled through exhaustion. There were coaches but they were not the time and motion managers, the biophysics experts we have today. One just wore shoes. There was no Nike, no prosthetics, one just ran. One trained the body but running was never the scientific experiment it is today.

Milkha Singh like our other Indian runners never won an Olympics medal. He just raced into the hearts of people who understood the poignancy of a sporting event. Milkha Singh was expected to win atleast the bronze. But he ran a badly strategized race. He opened too fast and then realized he had to slow down. He however slackened at the wrong moment to see three runners race past him. It was bad timing and he could never catch-up. There was a tragedy of defeat and regret here. For Milkha the real defeat was that he could not plant the Indian flag at the Olympics. He had tears of a patriot.

It was a race he was to run and re-run in his mind unable to forget or forgive himself for that burst of rashness. Yet even that event revealed the simplicity and greatness of the man, a legend reminding himself that he had feet of clay. Greatness is a power to look humbly at oneself and face it candidly.An absent minded government awarded him a Padma Shri and then presented him with a belated Arjuna Award. Milkha refused the latter quietly chiding the government by saying that they gave him his BA degree before awarding him his matric certificate. For pure economy and sheer simplicity, he was devastating.

The genius of Bollywood lies in the fact that it has always captured India better than social science, journalism and literature. The title says it all. The plea, “Bhag Milkha Bhag” or“Run, Milkha Run” was not the command of the coach but his father’s last plea begging him to flee so that he could save himself. The double poignancy of the title gives one a new understanding of the man and his era. FarhanAkhtar, who plays Milkha Singh in “Bhag Milkha Bhag”was profound when he said there is a Milkha in all of us. It was a reminder that all of us are runners, racing against ourselves and history.