Albert Pinto ko Gussa kyon aata hai?

This is the story of a man.. a man who swam 43 kms to save his life.. and then give it all away..

***

He wasn’t a man made for India. But then, he was exactly the kind of man made for India. You know, how all these Indians in the US, who have studied there, worked there, earned there, lived there.. get all nostalgic one day after hearing Rehaman’s poignant voice urging them “Ye jo daess hai tera.. Tujhe hai pukara..” and decide to return to India?? Now they are Indians, rest assured, but they have girlfriends, have dates and have sex, just like Americans do.. they eat, they sleep and they clean their shit, just like Americans do.. they laugh, they talk and they swear, just like Americans do.. they think, they read and they jibe at India.. just like Americans do.

They are aware of India: a land overrun by poverty and the rampant political malice billowing each passing day, the labyrinthine alleys infested with these disease ridden degenerates and maniacal terrorists, the swarthy local population which works longer hours for lesser, almost measly wages in order to eke out a living, and the ‘upper class’ whose every waking moment and conceited effort is aimed at proving themselves to be ‘different’ from the ‘others’.

But, they also know the truth of the land: the mystic natural beauty, the reverence and spirituality, the innate family values, the docile and virgin women, the higher intellect and lesser vanities, the shoddier but more value-for-money movies, the ebullient religious festivities, the docile and virgin women, the innate family values, and the virgin women.. all of it, allures them, tugging the invisible umbilical cord stretched across the seven seas, by which they are still attached to their motherlands…

They are warmly welcomed back and receive a hero’s reception… their families are exultant… they are flooded with marriage proposals, and are inevitably married in plush banquet halls of some overpriced hotel. Slowly, they start realizing the actual truth about the land: Why the things that they treated with such contempt were the prized possessions of the people, and why the enigmatic idiosyncrasies that aroused such intimacy, were the bane of the land.. They realize that the people, consisting the swarthy middle class, secretly take pride in the surging population of beggars and hawkers, as by dishing out an insignificant sum of money as alms, they give them a chance to flaunt their mercy and altruism.. they secretly admire their unscrupulous politicians, marveling at their edacity and how they convolute the law and loot the masses.. they look at the lepers and scurrilous goons and thank God that at least their children are not like them, and throughout their lives, they strive to be one amongst the ‘upper class’ and if not them, at least the ‘upper middle class’. If they indeed manage to do so, all the envy they had for their superiors, manifests itself in the form of supercilious contempt for the hoi polloi, a flock, which they were once a part of..

The natural beauty they had so deeply admired turns out to be blatantly polluted, the spirituality turns out to be a great big sham, contrived for the sole purpose of instigating communal violence with utmost convenience, the innate family values and respect for the elderly lasts only till they are financially productive, and disappears completely the day they retire, and are then onwards treated like defunct furniture, the docile women are the real miscreants who create rifts and rows amongst the kins and pester their husbands who are unaware of the diabolical schemes cooking up in their heads, the low-on-vanity people actually turn out to be prize idiots, usually the average gullible voter, still harping the image of the ‘Golden Bird’ in their hearts, the movies happen to be just a mechanization that captures the inherent fantasies of the divested, which in turn runs the biggest and most profitable industry of the world, which in turn facilitates and finances the underworld which in turn produces more of the militants that rampage this land.. and the ebullient festivities, are a time when the tired and downtrodden can forget all the turd that blotches their lives and take the time off to cleanse it under a deluge of hooch...


He experienced the same resounding truth and inevitably felt like a stranger in his own land. He tried to stick it out, but in the end frustration got better of him.. and one fine morning, while brushing his teeth, he looked into the mirror and repeatedly spat on it, on his own reflection, and then, he did what every celebrated coward does.. he ran away.. he thought of taking an exile and settling down in the mighty Himalayas, just like the countless sages shown on the ‘Incredible India!’ Booklets.. he went upto the not-so-mighty Shivaliks and realized that he had underestimated the biting cold. Then, devoid of money and any aim in life, he travelled south.. no, not to the Andamans.. rather to Haridwar, Banaras, Gaya, onwards to calcutta.. he lived like a hermit.. came in contact with various ‘learned’ people and not-so-learned people along his meandering journey and carried on his meaningless life by doing odd jobs on the Ghats of Ganges. After a significant number of years, he came back as ‘Miracle Baba’: a Tall, fair, stone faced, English speaking, rosary draping man, who always had a limerick or a quip ready as an answer for any question of infinite complexity..

He would fast for people he didn’t know, eat burning coals, break glass with his genitalia, pour red ants into his eyes and cover them with mud.. you name it and he would do it.. he was a man seemingly without any fear, or any religious affiliations (not intended to mean that the latter gives rise to the former, just a mere remark, actually) and the most amazing thing about it, was that he did all of it, for public welfare.. no particular cause or effect as such.. he would just get up, let in his followers one-by-one, listen patiently to their grievances, collect his paraphernalia, and get on with his mind boggling gimmicks.. He even offered his services via SMS and if you cared to give him a ring, you would be greeted with Mukeshs’ plaintive voice inquiring “Duniya banane waale, kya tere mann me samayi.. Kahaeko duniya banayi??” (O creator of this world.. whatever came over your mind.. Why the heck did you create this world..)

The media loved him, and People worshipped him, because strangely, his apparent thaumaturgy allayed the sufferings of his woe-stricken followers..


He was all over the place.. not to say that he was omnipresent.. but some secretly believed that he was omnipotent..

*

One fine day, after a flood had struck an obscure village in the country, a follower came running up to him and said the people in his village were beckoning him during their last hours, as an overwhelming number of crocodiles had infested the water that had deluged their village. People were being sucked in by the rampant stream and not even their remains could be recovered due to the fear of these crocs.

He rose, told his guy to arrange an emergency helicopter, got on it, and after reaching the village got off on top of a water tank. Then he proclaimed “My words may sound queer.. but I do not see any crocodiles here.. all I can see.. is water.. pure and clear.. and to you it may so appear.. that the crocs consumed your near and dear.. but actually.. what ate them up, was their inherent fear..”

And then, just to prove his point, he nonchalantly jumped into the water and slowly circled the entire village.. in full knowledge of the fact, that his death was trailing him wherever he went..

But miracles of miracles.. he swam in there for about four hours and came out untouched. Then, standing on the top of that water tank, he spoke..

“Whatever we have is given by god.. nothing is absolutely ours.. it’s only in our minds that we make boundaries, partitions… impressions of big and small, rich and poor, great and lowly…. mine and yours.. And these boundaries, partitions and wonted impressions are what rule the lives of us Indians, day in and day out… India is a tumultuous land gingerly balanced upon the presence of two kinds of people: the greedy rich and the gullible poor. If any one of them fizzes out, the balance would be disturbed, and hence the policies and contrivances of our government are crafted with the sole intention of forever maintaining this delicate balance. But what if the rich realize their wrongdoings and the suffering their endless oppression causes? Or if the poor realize their fundamental rights and actually demand them for once, with persistent unity amongst themselves? What happens when the balance is disturbed? Well exactly what happens when a landslide or a great flood occurs.. EQUALITY! And I’m not talking about some communist idea or a leftist propaganda.. this is equality to the core of its actuality.. And that’s where the true genius of this system lies.. it keeps the rich oppressive and united in greed, and the poor gullible, and divided in servitude…

Tell me.. why is it that our history books are conveniently tinkered with, and the legacy that we all so proudly inherit and pompously pass on to our progeny, is manipulated?

To make it more palatable for the hundreds of intolerant religious sects??

To throw light only on the most relevant and glorifying aspects??

NO.. well that’s exactly what they would want you to think.. but the truth is.. it’s meant to condition your mind since your very inception, that the world we live in, is stereotypical.. that if you emulate the actions of some random ‘Great’ personalities then you can actually attain divinity and one day, become a great leader or an industrialist or a social activist or a movie star or any similar such reprobate, that slavery is the first step towards liberty.. that good always conquers evil and light conquers the darkness… But if you hark in your mind, any of the above impressions.. even a single one.. then you belong to the millions who have been very conveniently duped, just like their forefathers, by this great big fraudulent system… What does this system thrive on? Two basic premises: That the working class maintains strong morals and ideals of “High thinking and simple living” and secondly, that the ruling class constantly resorts to unscrupulous means to gain the maximum profit out of the labour of the working class. And what keeps the cogs and the jewels of this system meshed together and working in perfect harmony like clockwork? The force of synergy: The middle class… the people who are the real spiders.. who with their sycophancy wish to one day attain the status and riches of their provider and for it, they are ready to hound and backstab almost anyone. They keep waiting and waiting and lead discontented lives and die miserable deaths and are then quietly cremated, only to add fertility to this land.. if not in life, then atleast with their corpses..


I have travelled many a mile, working as a coroner along the Ghats of Ganges, and seen many corpses being returned to their true mother. Each and every one of these corpses.. with its aghast expression, has told me the painful story of its life.. either death came too early for it.. for it never got time to gather enough money to pay off a debt or the daughters dowry.. or it came too late.. only after its unrewarding life had broken down the person, now manifested into this corpse, to its very soul.. Being a coroner is no easy task but it’s really the most rewarding of all professions.. coz while most others teach you the nuances of life.. it teaches you the nuances of death..

Hence, on this momentous occasion, I pay full reverence to my adapted profession and proclaim, that my death would be the final gift for the people of my country, and my death would be my revenge, for the morbid system that plagues it.. and I can say this with absolute certainty, coz of my unflinching belief in the media, who I am sure, would keep the memory of this melodramatic suicide, fresh and alive in the mind of every person of this country, by repeated telecasts, expert analyses and celebrity debates.. ”

Then, he winked and jumped back into the same croc-infested waters from which he had risen a few moments ago, while every single camera present there, captured the consternating scene of his gory death, frame-by-frame..