The Dead Squirrel

It was 12 August 2006, my birthday. The day was Saturday, the second Saturday of the month, the day of the parent-teacher meet. I always used to skip this meet because, I, quite frankly, considered it pointless. But on that day, I was in my school practising for the zonal badminton tournament which was less than four weeks away.

I had to come back home in the middle to fetch something — shuttlecock or money, I can't remember. A squirrel came under the front wheel of the rickshaw on my way to the home. It suddenly came out of nowhere and rickshaw puller couldn't apply the brakes in time. The squirrel died in a few seconds spewing a lot of blood. That's probably the first time I saw a living object dying.

Every single time I see a squirrel, I find myself reliving that harrowing moment. Every 12 August, I remember that squirrel.

I have a very muted response to death. Death makes you philosophical, momentarily. Death reminds me of something which I read in my seventh standard English literature textbook by Oxford University Press.

“Man's dearest possession is life. It is given to him but once, and he must live it so as to feel no torturing regrets for wasted years, never know the burning shame of a mean and petty past; so live that, dying, he might say: all my life, all my strength were given to the finest cause in all the world──the fight for the Liberation of Mankind”

— Nikolai Ostrovsky

क्या कभी सोचा है

हर पाँच सुबह सप्ताह में उठकर 

जब तुम काम पर जाते हो 

सड़क के ऊपर चलते हो 

क्या कभी सोचा है ?

जब तुम ऊपर चलते हो सड़क के 

मैं अंदर तैरता हूँ गटर में 

जब तुम बाहर सांस लेते हो 

मैं दम घोंटकर हाथ मैले करता हूँ 

तुम्हारे घरों के मैल से 

तुम्हारे मल से 

क्या कभी सोचा है ?

कौन हूँ मैं ?

तुम जब अपनी तरक्की पर फ़क्र करते हो 

वंदे मातरम् का उद्घोष करते हो 

भारत माता की जय बोलते हो 

तब उस माँ की इस संतान को याद करते हो ?

जो तुम्हारे सामने से गुज़रता है 

तो हवा की तरह देख नहीं पाते उसे

लेकिन उसी हवा में जब किसी बंद नाले की 

दुर्गन्ध तैरती हुई तुम्हारी नाक को परेशान करती है 

तब ढूंढ़ने लगते हो मुझे 

मुझे गंदगी में उतार कर 

स्वच्छ भारत बनाते हो 

फिर भी मुझे ख़ुद से दूर रखते हो 

अलग गिलास में पानी देते हो 

आईने में बिना शर्मिंदा हुए बाल संवारते हो 

और सुबह काम पर  निकल जाते हो | 

वतन की सर-ज़मीं से इश्क़ ओ उल्फ़त हम भी रखते हैं 

खटकती जो रहे दिल में वो हसरत हम भी रखते हैं

—  जोश मलसियानी

Juvenilia

On the night of 14 December 2018, between 00:005 and 00:15, I was rummaging through my teenage memorabilia —  mostly books and notes. I stumbled upon an old envelope with perfect creases. It probably had remained unopened for ten years.

When I opened the envelope, I found newspaper clippings and a few printouts on the history of physics. The printouts were from 2005 and I couldn't remember anything about the clippings. The United Nations had declared 2005, The International Year of Physics, and I was being forced, by my class teacher, to participate in some in inter-school competition on the same theme. As I was extremely shy during my school days, I managed to excuse myself from the event. I still dislike occasions where strangers behold me. This has slowly changed over time. With acting in a few plays and skits during my undergraduate days and hosting quizzes regularly during my master's, I feel much more confident on the stage now.

The clippings and printouts threw me back in a time about which I had almost no recollection. Nevertheless, these little pieces of paper did their job. A mirror which has accumulated dust over the years, still shows us our own reflection when it is cleaned.

I am in the dark about the date !

This must be from 2005 as that year was the 100th anniversary of the birth of 'Special Theory of Relativity'.

Certainly from 2005.

28 September 2005

2005 was a very important year in my life. It cemented my interest in physics.  That was the first time I read about Special Theory of Relativity in a magazine called Vigyan Pragati. It had that famous definition of STR form the man himself - " Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That's relativity". I bought the  biography of Einstein from the World Book Fair of 2006. Sadly, that remains the only book about him I have read till date. 

I don't want to annotate any further on 'my past'. My words won't do any justice. Ralph Waldo Emerson's poem — The Past, captures the extent of my desiderium.

The debt is paid,

The verdict said,

The Furies laid,

The plague is stayed,

All fortunes made;

Turn the key and bolt the door,

Sweet is death forevermore.

Nor haughty hope, nor swart chagrin,

Nor murdering hate, can enter in.

All is now secure and fast;

Not the gods can shake the Past;

Flies-to the adamantine door

Bolted down forevermore.

None can reenter there, -

No thief so politic,

No Satan with a royal trick

Steal in by window, chink or hole,

To bind or unbind, add what lacked

Insert a leaf, or forge a name,

New-face or finish what is packed,

Alter or mend eternal Fact.

ज़िंदगी रोक के अक्सर यही कहती है मुझे 

तुझ को जाना था किधर और किधर आ गया है 

— ज़िया ज़मीर

PS: Happy 140th Birthday Herr Einstein !

Correction: New map pins down 'dark matter' is from 9 January 2007. The Old Man And The E is from 24 June 2007. Google helped me !