Love, Honor And Killing.

Love; Honor And Killing


12th July, 2010


A famous newspaper quoted: “If you find something wrong with a newly married couple don’t go for the police go for the Khaps…!”

The TV screens flashed killings of some young couple in the northern parts of my wonderful country, India. I very well know the name of the place; the lobby of people and the date, time and reason when the killings happened. But I don’t wish to mention all here. This is because the sentiments I wish to talk upon I guess is paramount. The media did it the most idiotic way they could with the word honor in bold and red. I turned off the tube. Two of my female friends were confused over honor and mercy killing. I smiled out of a stifle. We need to react and generate awareness on such burning societal issues and the so called young feminine India boasting of ruling corporate and begging all the way for reservation in every nook and cranny of the system was confused. Mercy and Honor. My heart pumped lava instead of blood thinking of the visuals related to the incident. People were doing what human kind and its creator can’t deem of.


Two souls fall in love. They are not of the same caste. Some people in white turbans behave like courts and issue life sentence for the love birds. The so called youth of India executes it. The brutal the execution the more is the pride carried off. The news keeps coming in newspapers. They talk of the northern part of this country. I feel safer in Gujarat. Love is merrier here. And the day I think of this the page 5 of a leading newspaper tells me of a case of honor killing in Surat – where I earn money. Sometimes I think the proactive media has made us notice vices like honor killing these days. Love is ancient and so honor killing would be! Honor, I seem to be in such cases of killing is a mental block. The word mirage would rather suit such notion rather than a mind’s block. The situation goes pathetic when the couple marries against family’s will and remains alive. You read it correct. The situation gets worse as they tackle the tide their home all alone just because they decided to live life at their own terms. Their parents feel like they had been murdered. Casteism was an old man’s thought and now the same is killing his successors.


The Sunset Time


With all these emotions roving and raving in my mind, I thought of taking a break and watching some music videos. And some anchor was interviewing the local police commissioner over the couple’s murder who sought police protection a week ago in the same news room. I thought education has cleansed the minds of my country’s people. I am wrong. Religion and Honor are Everest sized mental blocks of people and people can’t see the sunshine beyond it. It reminded me of the ‘Sania-Shoaib’ marriage episode which followed nasty SMSes, Facebook status and tangy tweets. People just can’t accept the fact and carry life on.


Love is godly. They say it is beyond boundaries and borders. It is because of love we breathe and feel our existence. Killing love and its beholders in the name of honor is itself questioning love’s existence on this planet. This ultimately makes me think of our existence and extinction. We are against the emotion which binds us all. And the worst part is we count on it as our token to unravel our geographic and economic problems.

Sad is the story that all is happening in a country where romantic films run for 25 years at a stretch and the countrymen there kill those who are the real inspiration behind such immortal stories…!

Let me love without the honor part of it; I will be breathing in the end…!
Give me freedom!

Amit Purohit The Lone Soldier.
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Love Is Far...

Love Is Far


8th July, 2010 1:30 pm.

Jammnagar Inter City Express

                  I boarded the train to Ahmedabad from Surat. It was raining hard. I was irritated. The train passed over the rivers and plains. The effect of the rain comes to life when you see it from a river side. You can feel the rain falling from the dark clouds. The winds trying to show its might and ruining the clouds while the river enjoying each droplet kissing its soul. The dry plains went wet in a minute as the rain unpacked its arms over the orb. I felt the sky’s love for earth. I thought of my love which was far and life had travelled miles. Life was too far to let me excise my control over it. The war seemed to be endless. The destinations in life seemed like a carrot hanging in front of my face which moved with the pace I walked. The world seemed like a spinning top with I at one of its edges giving my fortunes away…!

Love was far…
Life was away…
His God too vague…
To enlighten his way…
The rain and its droplets…
Wetted his soul all the time…
And the pain from the heavens…
Questioned his existence every now and then…
The seas of happiness died the way they can…
And the salty sand ruined the merry plains…
The dark rainbow;
Darker the sunshine…
Those praying hands and rolling chants…
All lost in the winding ways…
Love is still far…
Life is still way…
What mattered in the end was his luck…
This too parted the thorny ways…!

Amit Purohit The Lone Soldier
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The Great Indian Bandh

The Great Indian Bandh


5th July, 7:30 am

I don’t belong to any national party. Be it the congress, BJP, RLM, RJD, BJD or ‘ETC’. I started off late today with fifteen minutes behind my schedule. I ran all the way to the bus stop to catch the staff bus. The bus sauntered 50 yards and then some ruffians with an orange tag around their necks stopped us. They asked everybody to vacate the bus. Nobody shook unless one of them pelted a stone and broke one of the headlights of our bus. I was happy. Monday blues suck and we received an automated holiday with a constant fear of our bosses’ phone calls with the cars allotted to our projects catching us sleeping in the second half. I and my three other roommates were happy but our stomachs weren’t. And the rain came to the party. We worked for Larsen & Toubro Hazira. Hazira is known to be one of the largest manufacturing hubs in India. The coastal belt has companies of the likes ONGC, NTPC and Kribhco. But all the buses stood stunned making a queue today morning on the wishes of certain bikers.

Our intestines began cribbing and the first thought that came to our mind was tea. We approached the nearest dairy parlor and found the owner locking the sheds. People requested him but he was helpless. The police stood nearby and so did the ‘bandh’ bikers. The men in brown stood like traffic police controlling the buses rather than bullying the bandh barters. We walked all the way to out flats somehow managing a packet of milk and bread, which charged hundred bucks. Welcome to black marketing! Somehow we managed our breakfast oblivious of the fact that our intestines would be dried all the day. We were happy and our happiness died as we switched on the TV. I was surprised with the scene that big shots of a national leading party voluntarily took the pride in getting arrested while protesting. They felt like the Mahatma or Sardar while getting arrested. We called our maid to get the utensils cleansed as we were planning to call our regular chef in the day time. To our surprise we heard her crying over the phone as some ‘bandh’ monger banged her husband’s head. The chef called us and asked for leave too.

12 pm.

I called the nearest 30 min home delivery pizza vendor. None picked up. I went out in search of Maggi or some stuff and faced locks. I came to know this brutal truth that the medical stores didn’t cater such items. We were hungry and angry. The electricity went off as it rained harder. The afternoons were horrible. The pain in our stomach reflected in our eyes. 4 hours later. We somehow passed the afternoon. The fan that hung off the ceiling started rolling. The electricity was in. We again switched the idiot box. The conveyor of some leading party declared that the ‘bandh’ was unique and successful. I wished to bang the screen. The traffic over the bridge started rolling in too. It seemed the grocery shops were trading. We thronged the shops and ate to life. But the thought that jolted me was the complete idea of the bandh and the atrocities it followed.

6:30 pm.

Bandh is anti people. Some people protesting against fuel hike are actually protesting against people’s comfort. There are unique ways of protesting against things like fuel hike. Why bandh? It is not only anti people it is anti human. The visuals of ambulance trapped in the mid of the roads and patients dying at the crossroads showcase this. We the people make the government and when it hikes prices some of us do this and favor those who promise to roll back the prices if given power. We the people do stupid things like bandh to give away pains to some of the people amongst us. Think logic. The only positive side effects of the bandh were we saved electricity, natural resources a day. This is it. Some of the women craving their husband’s company and some of the children cribbing for their working parents’ company were happy sharing lunch and pleasantries.

Thinking of alternative sources of energy and dependence from things like petrol will be a solution. A country with more than 50% of its population below the age of 45 is shameful thinking like this!

Jaago India Jaago…!

Give me freedom…!

Amit Purohit The Lone Soldier

An irate young Indian.
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My Old School

MY OLD SCHOOL


                                    We all love our alma mater. Isn’t it? And even some one who is left and lost in our alma mater. It may/can be our first love/infatuation. This ode is all about those mesmerizing thoughts of my old school. The blurred memories of the first day of my school are still in this engineering mind. Every one of my porpoises wept, but it was I who confronted the school gate with a smile on my face. I was fervent to learn the ABCs. The origin of the arduous feeling was to read those fancy advertising boards all round. I still remember the hand that kindled me with the knowledge of English and Mathematics. I was weak in performing subtraction, but my Mathematics teacher was no naïveté. She tried hard to imbibe her knowledge in me. The steps of my old school were not leveled properly. We always slipped to one or two of them and ended with a bruise on our knees. Still our peon personified that the faller is the real winner as he/she learnt a lesson every time he/she falls. There was a boy in our class who once rang the school bell exactly 5 minutes before the lunch break. It was the time of our academic era when we were neophytes in looking at watches. Lastly, I only miss the angel seated on the second bench of the girls’ row. Whenever I roll the cavalcade of time I always end it with this rosy chapter of my verve. We were good friends and I used to guide her in Algebra and Geometry. However I was a novice in the calculative crusade still I managed to challenge the tide. I am still in juxtaposition rendering the fact that was it my love or infatuation…?!?

There lies my old school where
I learnt my ABCs
There lies my class where
I learnt those tongue tizzies
My teacher taught me
To subtract and to add
To read and to write
To face problems with glad
Those cozy class rooms
That became the place to gloom
When the exams surround
With the chilled supervision around
There lie my school steps
That taught me never to regret
Even when you fall in a bet
As the faller is destined to get
There lies the ringing bell
That we use to bell
Always a minute before the recess
To get that extra minute in excess
Finally we come across the row
Where I met my first lady love
We used to rhyme this bow:
To be together in any flaw...!
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