Short story: "Seller"

Though I came to university campus before him it seems that the campus belongs more to him than me. He knows every face. You may call him a mobile encyclopedia of my university, an encyclopedia that you can't google from your room, that you can't download from torrent or any unauthorized downloading link and that you can buy through subscription. But in case you succeed entering a correct password, you will be amazed how rich and full of information this encyclopedia is. And just to remind you, the password is very ordinary but daunting task. By forgetting your ego and considering the other as human as yourself, you have to utter some friendly words and as soon as contact between server and user is established is established, you have to throw a name and immediately you will have all required information regarding someone like from where he or she comes, background, family situation and more and more. Unlike others, he has not joined the university as a student but as a seller: the seller of eggs. In a small plastic structure, he sells boiled eggs to calm the hunger of young generation. Some with piles of books in their hand, some while coming from stadium after a workout session surround and bombard him with their unrelenting demands: ‘bhaiya ek boiled egg de do’, ‘kitna hua bhaiya’, ‘kya sirji kitna aur time lagega’, ‘change nahi hai’, ‘bhaiya...’, ‘bhaiya...’... And he replies to each query, question and complain about a bad service about a smile. It’s not that smile which comes to our face when we hear ‘smile please’ or ‘photo’ word. It’s a true one which comes directly from the bottom of his heart. Some evenings, his son helps him too in daily work. Both son and father duo peeling and cutting eggs, chopping onions in small pieces, making orders ready. Eyes focused on work and ears trained towards new order from customers. Students discuss their success, failures or future plans. I wonder whether they pay heed to this discussions or not. Does the idea of sending his son to a good school and then a university not crosses to his mind? All these questions come up to me whenever I visit this so called ‘shop’. While our hunger is momentarily satisfied what about his hunger: the hunger to succeed, hunger to have a good life, to have a job and food security...

Escape

The word "escape" can has different meanings in different contexts During Missionary times, when different religious groups from Europe were trying to convert "others" into Christianity, escape had a connotation of freedom from backwardness, illiteracy and uncivilized life. Becoming christian and devoting one's life to Jesus Christ and his preaching were one medium to escape from obscurity to reach towards light. In the pretext of educating, civilizing tribal people, European countries colonized them and in fact escaped themselves from poverty, unemployment and dark ages. So by helping other to escape from a "bad" life, they helped themselves to attain a good and prosperous life. But a minute study of the impact of European rule in the colonized countries would reveal that the meaning of "escape" doesn't had the same degree in two contexts. For the Europeans, the escape was from a dark middle ages to a new colonization era which made this continent as centre of wealth and power while for colonized it became indeed a return from prosperous life and self dependency to poverty. India and many African countries are example where local industries were ruined by European rulers for the benefit of western merchants. So we can observe how the word "escape" had a just opposite meaning for a million of people whose destiny was rewritten by the hands of European countries who were blind and deaf.

In enlightenment era, during 18th century, Europe was in his way to become a industrialized continent with more emphasis on Science and Technology. Logic and reason became symbol of new Europe. Philosophers and scientists flourished. Descartes, Rousseau, Voltaire sowed the grains of logical reflexive in mass. This "escape" was even visible in literature where Voltaire other European writers shifted the focus of literature from classical stories to logical writing.

Majority-Minority: how and why

Each country has two different groups: one who is oppressed and other oppressor. Their religion can be different but the stories of their ill-fated life are same. For example, in India Muslims pay the role of victim whereas Hindus of oppressor but very quickly this role gets inverted after some thousand kilometers. The very same religion and its sympathizers, Muslims, kill, torture, victimize Hindus and other minorities living in Pakistan. According to an article published in The Sunday Guardian date 6^th August 2015, number of Hindu population has sharply declined to 1.5% and there is no stopping of it in nearby future. On the other hand, Muslims can rightly play the role of minorities but their situation is far better than the minorities in Muslim countries, although Indian ruling class regularly try to portray Muslims as terrorists or as anti-national elements.

We can blindly generalize this phenomenon to other Muslim countries like Gulf countries, Malaysia where minorities’ life is even worse than animals. But western countries cannot claim to be immune to this majority-minority crisis. In fact, the very first such conflict between dominant and dominated has resulted in Crusades fought between Arab Muslims and European Christians as early as 10^th century A.D. The recent trend of islamophobia across Europe and especially in North America proves this. The concept of majority-minority is not uniquely related to religion as it surpasses religious structure and encompasses other factors too. Caste (in case of India), gender, race also decide who will be a part of majority camp and who will a part of those, who fight every day, each single hour to get what’s their right.

KALAAM

Our body is mortal. With the passage of time, it disappears. It’s a natural phenomenon and no one, rich or poor, powerful or weak can deter it to happen. Whether one wants or not, death is the final destination of all the passengers living on this earth. But what remain are their memories, their work, and their contribution in the progress of society. APJ Abdul Kalaam truly is that personality who even after his death will continue to survive in millions’ heart. He was the eleventh and first non political individual to hold the highest position in the world’s largest democracy: India.

As his arrival to Rashtrapati Bhawan was a sheer example of coincidence, his way of working at President’s post was a even a sweet shock for the entire nation as no one thought that despite the lack of political background, Mr. Kalaam will give a new definition to this post. In India, President is seen merely as a rubber stamp having only one work: to sign the bills passed by the parliament, who lives in a confinement known as Rashtrapati Bhawan, earlier residence of Viceroy of India, and time to time uses Air India to visit some nations and to create a cordial relationship between India and these nations. On the contrary, Kalaam opened the gates of this elite place to common man of the country, used this post to reach out to maximum number of students possible, to force the government to rethink on various bills, quashed several death sentences and did that no other president, and no Prime Minister if I dare to say this,: presenting in a logical and coherent way the road map of India’s development by 2020.

He even came to JNU in 2014 to present his pet scheme: development of rural India. One could easily observe the keenness and the efforts that he had put, even in this age, in this entire project. He could have taken retirement from active life, as have been done by his predecessors and will be done in future by his heirs, he keep on working till the very last moment of his life. If one has to understand the real meaning of Karma, Kalaam is the best example. He always believed in work than words. Though he used books, seminars and conferences to pass his ideas to young generation, the base was still his relentless work.

At his death, the entire nation morns. He was the people’s President and will be forever. I consider myself to be lucky to be of the same era. We will always have that flame in our heart in our mind and Kalaam will be there through his ideas, his work and his books. Salaaam... Kalaam.