Dog Blogs Travel Trips

A coal blackened board welcomes us as we drive through "Desh ki Koyla Rajdhani - Dhanbad". Coal and Capital. Our country's current obsession. Just a few people shy of complete coverage of human rights issues in all of Jharkhand's 24 districts, a colleague (at the time snoozing on the back seat) and I were Travel-Tripping across the state, reconnecting with the many friends and associates we have acquired in our many years of IndiaUnheard in Jharkhand. The road from Ranchi took us through Hazaribag, onto the broken roads of Bengal, past the "prestigious" Maithon dam (which by the way, displaced thousands of the native people, most of whom are still homeless migrants), right on through the steady, stoic hills of the Santhal Pargana, into Dumka. Dumka is one of many Coal Cities across Jharkhand, complete with its unique kind of inadequate infrastructure suffering from wave after wave of migrants. Every chai tapri at the main bus stop has filthy,...

I've always been interested in stories. I guess it began with the bedtime stories snoozily crafted by Papa when we were kids. Stories of people who withstood scary Skeletors. Carefully personalized for children. So there was He-Man , running alongside the warrior goddess, Teela Radhika . Stories of Himalayan heroics by grandfathers. Growing up in Bengal meant the inevitable fascination for the Durga Ma, the Mother Goddess, gentle, nurturing & benevolent unless provoked. She has the potential to be a positive pain in the you-know-where for the bad guys. Batman came along much later. As we grew older we discovered our own stories. And scripted a few of our own. Over the last few years I've been out & about. Searching for something. Shakti. Soul. Shiva. Shanti. Whatever you wanna call it. I don't know yet. All I found were stories. Sad stories. Strange stories. Stories about strangers. Everyone has a story. You only gotta have the time to listen. I try to write th...

All those people blabbering about humanity and being civilized are lying to you. The truth is, there are some power hungry people capitalizing on human fear of death, starvation and poverty. The rest are just trying to wrest power from them.    People come together at posh fests where their primary aim is to impress. Imagine every person in a room with a coupla hundred people simply there to show how "socially responsible" they are. Dripping with diamonds, they ooh and shed a tear as if on cue, to a corporate sponsored line up of celebrities babbling about "issues" with no awareness of the fact that the simple, quiet tribal woman from the jungles of Jharkhand gracefully trying to explain to them that she was NOT anti-state when she asks to be allowed to live her peaceful life because those very same corporate houses are currently bullying and buying and bribing their way into her peoples' jungles. Those very same corporate houses are mining and ...

When you're a year older, you start waking up a little tired, just a little weird and just that little bit confused. Birthdays are supposed to be happy right? That's what they sing! I agree with Sid though - "Birthdays mean you realize you're actually not immortal!" People around me have grown up. They are doing stuff. Started working. Started painting. Casanova steadied up. One got married. Engaged. Had kids. Working. Contemplated studying. Started  exercising. Began running. Went back to dancing. Learnt swimming. Doing something. I'm just busy trying to quit going crazy. Ever since I left Goa almost two months ago for training camps, I've been going crazy. At times polite, at times well mannered, strict, loyal, quiet, well dressed, no slang, "rashtriya" bhasha, "decent", meticulous, mathematical, awake, alert, far thinking, conservative, demure, explaining, understanding, sympathetic, observant, eat fruits, be fit, quit smo...

What happens when you bring together some activists, school girls, unemployed youth and poor farmers? A revolution. A rebellion against the rules . There is hope in this world yet. As the outside world is carried away by greed, jealousy, rage and power, I have been camping in Bagaicha, Ranchi with this group of people who have lost homes, families, land and identities and are struggling to bring together their communities in a new age rebellion against the consumer world that you and I are a part of. Over days of chatting with them and finally hounding them for follow ups it began to dawn on me who I was trying to understand, to connect with. These were the people our government forgot when they were making the rules, the laws that govern our nation. There were people desperately fighting for a chance of survival, fighting for their land, their forests, their culture…for their communities. Reaching Bagaicha on the 17 th , the first thing I did was make friends with Spotty aka ‘C...