Chapter 2: In Charge!!!

Monsoon is almost on us in these parts and one can almost smell it. It has the power to give a strange sense of happiness and euphoria to even the most despondent of souls….but my case was different.

Standing on the ramparts of the old fort overlooking the upper lake I was thinking about the events which had unfolded in the last two and a half months. My accident, my loss of memory, my faster than normal healing and the strange sense of strength in my sinews every day while going for my early morning jogs. I had put on a lot of muscular weight in the last 15 days since I started my workouts which was not normal for me as I was always been the slim kinds.

It was just a fortnight and the number of pushups had already gone upto fifty and that too without much sweat and the 200 the abdominal crunches were ridiculously easy. IN a nutshell it was as if things were put on a fast track physically for me…….not that I was not enjoying it but I was surprised.

The memory has come back partially so I must add. I still cant remember the details of the accident which happened but I have stopped pondering over it now in my attempt to accept it. This time of the year when the first of the rains hit the city not many venture out to the fort because of the suddenness in the change of weather and the blustery winds of the first monsoons rains. Today was nothing different with not a soul around but I liked being here…strangely always me feel at home closer to nature. I could see the clouds building up and the rains approaching and it was common knowledge the rains are at their worst at this end of the fort overlooking the lake. Yet I stayed on almost wanting to taste the ferocity of nature all alone.

 The wind picked up…slowly started to blow lustily…… almost pushing me off balance as I tried to stand up and stretch out my arms to enjoy the whole scene with the lake below all sprawled out as magnificent mattress ready to embrace the droplets from heaven. It was then the first thundering struck……..and I shivered! This hadn’t happened before to me…..it was the normal lightning which I had seen so many times in the 25 years that I have lived and seen many rains and thunderstorms but yet it made me shiver…. in a very strange way.

No!……… I was not shivering out of fear it was as if the thundering reverberated inside of me alongwith the thundering of the heavens. At first I dint take notice…but by the third or the fourth peal of thunder I was pretty sure that this wasn’t normal.  I got up and the first reaction was to run and I ran…………ran as fast as I could for some shelter and away from the thundering. I found a lurch in an old cavern of the fort as the wind got even stronger and stood in its shelter ..still shivering with each thundering.

While peeping out of the shelter from the elements I could feel a strange itching sense in my finger tips. The itching went up everytime I shivered. It was as though the shivering ended in my fingertips. I didn’t think anything was wrong when during the last shiver I managed to catch a glipse of my finger tips. I didn’t believe what I saw……….I could see live sparking charge on all my five finger tips in both hands. “HELL! What now…..?” All that I could think and say was “O! shit! O! shit” …. Don’t even know how many times I must have repeated it.

IT was as though my fingers were sparking electricity…and the itching had gone down considerably……the sparking was just responding to the weather. “I have to get out of here before I go up in smoke!” was what came to my mind as I ran out of the fort to my Enfield, hid my still sparking fingers in my biking gloves. Thank goodness the machine responded to my first kick and away I went searching the safe confines of my house and my room where I could think this through or probably even ask………… to talk about it!

To be continued!

Krishnaa contd.!

Life among those who you know and those whom you DO NOT know! It is strange and at this time I can hardly eke out the difference between the two. I cannot recall what happened to me before that evening when I opened my eyes I the hospital. It is almost a month now…23 days to be exact and I am back home with just a clotting around my head gone and those mysterious burn marks across my chest and back all gone. The doctors did express their surprise at their disappearance so quickly but by now they said that they were quite used to miracles happening to me. They hadn’t expected me to wake up after I had been brought in by Jeet in a coma…but miraculously I had woken up and miraculously I had walked out of the hospital within 3 days of waking up.

I still cannot remember who I am but I am told that I am at home with my parents and my best buddy was always there. I find it strange that I have forgotten everything that happened in my life before that evening and yet I remember to read and write and also ride motorcycle and ride cars….funny…no it is eerie!

Even as the blustery wind picks up this evening I walk along forlorn in the streets of the city trying to pick up scents which might give me answers. Yes pick up scents..this is  me…trying to understand my environment by picking up scents. Ma says it is very strange that I pick up scents from a long distance and Baba says that this has started ever since i have woken up. I think…how does it matter  what “I think”….i don’t even remember what “I” am so I would rather let it be. This is also not the only strange physical signs which have been showing up; I had gained strength pretty rapidly. Every morning after my jogging I feel that I can at least do a few rounds more of the dirt track. But I have always checked myself fearing burnouts and exhaustion……”Let us not rush it now!” is what I would say to myself and draw myself away from the temptation.  Is  that  me normally? Baba says no and in fact says that it would take two elephants to wake me up from my morning slumber. But he is happy that I am keeping  myself physically fit. Well I do it to keep myself from losing my sanity from thinking and thinking about myself and trying to  find answers to “who am I?”….

To be continued….!

Dear Friend Shiva

I am not good at writing these pieces but I thought I should make an exception in Shiva’s case. I had known him for the last 3 years to be precise. Through his days in the Sironj team of Pradan he always made his presence felt in any gathering with his “different” thoughts ideas and ways of perceiving a situation. Always ready to share his thoughts, engaging with others with an infectious verve were his traits which I admired. Was not in touch with him for the last year or so but I still remember him telling me standing in the Bilaspur railway station platform, like it was yesterday, that one has to take some risks to get what one wants in life. 

It still is a little unbelievable to come to terms with the fact that he is no more with us.

He touched  many lives in his own inimitable way that no one else could……. And I will always remember him for that. He takes away a part of me with him! Dear Friend …Rest  in Peace!

My Work!

IT has almost been two months since i shifted to Digital Green from PRADAN. I am already finding it very exciting because i see myself addressing one of the major problems of the development world - upscaling by mobilising the very people who are the recipients of benefits of any development program - the community. Something which is missed out by many.....something which I thought I had missed out for so many years till i had an opportunity to work in a certain place called Kesla. More about Kesla sometime later....as now its time for my new place of work and the nature of work.


I was always convinced that information communication technology had a huge role to play in development provided the right place to introduce it was found.One was the area of market interface for disadvantaged populations and the other is as we are doing in Digital Green- taking the best practices in farm and off farm livelihood options and the experiences of good farmers to other farmers.  Basically we are trying to bring down the lag time between early adopters of innovations and late adopters. And being a development -wallah I believe that it is us who have make sure that agricultural adoptions are the business end of our services. Yes i know it is a not a two way process and that most of our partners and their overall methods of extension would also play a huge role; but i am under no illusion when I say that such short films made by youngsters from the villages and on farmers is the way to go forward to achieve greater numbers in any intervention and with quality. The reason - Quite simple! Farmers learn by observing...and who better to observe than someone who is their own?! so Play on..and lets make this happen.....Ohh!! and Krishnaa.......well i promise the next post will be about him and his new life that hes come around to.

Chapter 1: The Awakening!

Slowly……..my eyes open……the blur of the neon lights are painful and my eyes flinch trying to get accustomed to the glare. It’s as if a long time has passed since I saw this familiar glare of the tubelight. But why do I feel that a long time has passed since I saw this familiar glare. Strange indeed!

My gaze slowly adjusts itself to the brightness around and falls on this elderly woman who I see in front of me. She has a smile on her face and her eyes are tearful. I can make out by looking at her face that  she has been crying for a long time and waiting for this very moment… for me to open my eyes….why? My eyes move around trying to see the reaction of all others in the room and I see similar expressions on everyone’s faces. There are a couple of men one in his thirties, tall, quite handsome; he has a smile in his face a very genuine smile. There another who is in his sixtys and I could see that his eyes like the woman in the room were moist with recently welled tears and yet he was smiling amongst all of it. He looked quite stoic and beautiful like someone who had lost everything and by some miracle had got it all back.

 And then I became aware of a dull pain in the back of my head which was there ever since I had opened my eyes but it took me sometime to realize that it was painfull. This realization was disturbed by the first words from someone..it was the woman who had lowered her face and brought it nearer to me and asked me “Krishnaa! how do you feel?” “There is a slight pain here” I said pointing to the back of my head when I realised that my head was all taped up. I also saw that the room was a hospital and all the implements were there in place…the ECG machine, the Temperature and the Blood pressure display blipping away incessantly.  Suddenly a splurge of thoughts started to flood my mind……what am I doing in this hospital room? who are these men?  who is this woman? who is this woman talking to? who is Krishnaa? Where am I?....and then the next question struck me and struck me hard….WHO AM I?.......I did not remember who I was. I blinked my eyes hoping that all this was a dream but I did not get up from any sleep. I was wide awake and yet I could not answer this simple question….Who am I?

to be continued.....!