Happy Saraswati Puja!

Photos: NRN Touching Feet of Ratan Tata

This is Indian civilization at its best! 73 yr old NRN touching feet of 82 yr old Ratan Tata. This is how millions of Indians greet elders each day.

Photography: Hide and Seek

Rahul Tiwary

Nature: Story of a Dog-mother

I go for an evening walk in my neighborhood park. I make two rounds of walk along the walking track. A few days back, I met with something unexpected.

That day, as soon as I reached a particular corner of the park, I saw a female dog barking at me. It was in the bushes; but moved a bit ahead and tried to make me go away. I moved briskly and walked away. When I reached the same spot in the second round, once again the same dog started barking at me. I wondered why it was doing it and kept walking.

The next day, I had forgotten about above incident. But once again as soon as I reached that corner of the park, the same dog started barking at me. I literally shouted at it, “Why are you after me?” I noticed that the female dog was a bit malnourished. I decided not to take any further chances and started avoiding that corner of the park.

The next day while walking, I once again reached the same spot of the park. Without waiting for the dog to bark at me, I stared to walk away fast. But then I noticed something. In the bushes, there was a small pup. It was completely black. Then I noticed that by that time the dog-mother had noticed me and had started barking at me. At least now I got her reason for barking at me – she was trying to prevent anyone getting near her baby!

After a while I noticed the same dog-mother outside the area. She was searching for some food here and there. I felt a bit sad for her. She must have hidden her pup somewhere in the park and then would have ventured outside to search for food. Until the kid grows up, she would have to find more food to feed herself as well as her kid.

By now, I had remembered that corner of the park and started avoided going there. Once a while I would see some other walkers go to that corner and I would hear the dog-mother barking at them. But the people looked comfortable, perhaps because they walked in groups. I imagined the hard time they were giving to the dog-mother.

This evening, I saw a more interesting scene.

A girl had taken her pet dog to the park. She was walking with her pet dog; the dog was big and completely black. And then I saw that from that corner of the park, the same dog-mother and her pup were going after them. Both were barking at the girl and her dog! And the pup had kept the same body-language as its mother! It was behaving as if it was some big dog itself. After a while, the pet-dog looked back at the mother-son and scared them by barking at them. The mother-dog and her pup immediately went back a few steps. But they started barking again. By this time the girl and her pet dog had gone away from that place.

After encountering this dog-mother and her pup, my walks in the park are no longer enjoyable like before; since I can’t go to full stretch and I have to turn back after reaching that spot. I am waiting for the pup to turn old enough. But I know that the dog-mother is more worried about the pup. While I write this, she would still be protecting that portion of the park – so that her pup would be safe. I can hear her barks in my mind.

- Rahul Tiwary

PS: 13-Feb: In between, occasionally I kept seeing dog-mother wandering far away in search of food. Sometimes she and her kid played around in the park; where she could be clearly seen training it. This evening, while she was playing with the pup, she was running after raising one of her legs; as one of her legs was seen hurt.

History of Shaheen Bagh, Delhi

Shaheen Bagh area in Delhi is now becoming synonymous with Muslims’ unhappiness in India and opposition political parties are putting up a show of strength there not seen in the recent past.  But what is the deal about Shaheen Bagh? Well, for starters, this area is nearly 100% occupied by Muslims. How did that happen? Let us go a bit about its history (based on Hindustan Times article).  

History of Shaheen Bagh

Shariq Ansarullah, now 61 years old, had come to Delhi from Uttar Pradesh’s Rampur to study at Jamia Millia Islamia in 1979. After completing his graduation, he joined MA in Arabic at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in 1982. After completing his studies in 1984, he started a real estate business. In the same year, with the help of his family, he bought a large plot of land (80 bigha) in Jasola village and developed this colony on the land.

Today, Ansarullah runs two schools known as Shaheen Public Schools — one for girls and another for boys - in the same neighbourhood.

Before Shariq Ansarullah there was another family that was developing residential neighbourhoods in this area. They named the colony developed on their plot as Nishat Bagh. And later Ansarullah named his colony as Shaheen Bagh. Shaheen Bagh and Nishat Bagh both have come up on agricultural land.

In May 1992, the RWA (Resident welfare association) decided to register the neighbourhood as a society with the DDA. They passed a resolution to name it after Abul Fazl Enclave that was already there. But keeping in mind the popularity of the name Shaheen Bagh, they mentioned it as ‘Abul Fazl Enclave Part -2 (Shaheen Bagh)’ in the papers. The name Shaheen Bagh had become so popular that even after registering as Abul Fazl Enclave Part-2, no one called the colony with that name.

Shaheen is a Common Muslim Name of Persian Origin

Shaheen is a very common name among Muslims. The word "Shaheen" or "Shahin" is of Persian origin, meaning "royal white falcon" or simply "worthy of a king", "majestic" or "kingly". This name is widespread in Iran and throughout the Indian subcontinent among Muslims.

Key takeaways:

·        Since the person buying large plot of land in this area was a Muslim, he would have sold small plots of land to fellow Muslims. As normally happens, people from other religions leave the Muslim dominated areas after selling out their houses. And hence this whole area grew up as a 100% Muslim occupied area.

·        Even though media is showing the ongoing Shaheen Bagh protests as some kind of “civil unrest”, this picture is totally wrong. 100% of protesters are Muslims and most are women (since men have to go to work, they can’t protest for weeks/months at stretch).

·        The Shaheen Bagh protesters are mostly uneducated and illiterate. When television news channels ask them what is wrong in CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act), they are seen speaking miscellaneous things in gibberish and it is clear that they do not understand a thing about CAA.

·        The protesters are not allowing even school buses and ambulances to pass through the area; thereby forcing them to take much longer routes. The Shaheen Bagh protests are the ugly side of what happens when uneducated people following outdated leaders gather forces against a government.

Why Support Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA)

CAA was passed by India’s Parliament to protect the minority population from neighboring Muslim countries (Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan), after many years of human rights violations, abductions, rapes, forced marriages and forced religious conversions against those minorities. Naturally, minorities in Muslim countries would mean Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains or Christians. Thereby Indian government specifically allowed only non-Islamic people to be protected and given Indian citizenship under this act (while Muslims can still apply for Indian citizenship through normal existing route). Opposition parties which are on the backfoot for long time have misguided Indian Muslims into believing as if this new law is some kind of unfair treatment to them. While the truth is that CAA is not even applicable to any Indian, be it Muslims or others. CAA applies only to those foreign nationals from listed countries who are putting application for citizenship of India because of religious persecution in their respective countries. 

CAA is a totally humanitarian act which shows India’s commitment to global peace and it is founded on compassion and goodwill. Let us hope that the Muslim protesters would wake up to this truth and allow road traffic to operate by giving up their protests in Shaheen Bagh. 

- Rahul Tiwary 

Photography: An Evening in Delhi - Shades of Sky

© Rahul Tiwary | New Delhi | January 2020 

Travelogue: World Mark in New Delhi

Photography: Some Nature Pictures (Part 6)

© Rahul Tiwary | New Delhi 

Happy Makar Sankranti!

Photography: 'A Bird's View'

‘A Bird’s View’

© Rahul Tiwary | New Delhi | 14 January 2010

I captured this image today in Delhi with my Nokia phone camera. Apart from the light and dark shade, I liked the way this bird was sitting on the top of a tree and was able to see long distances. A stationary bird’s eye view?

Photography: ‘Sky Curtain’

‘Sky Curtain’

© Rahul Tiwary | New Delhi | December 2019

I liked the way branches of some trees were covering the sky. If sky were a room, these trees were forming a ‘curtain’ on its door. I also liked the light and shade which this was forming. Hence clicked on my cellphone camera. 

Photography: 'Crayon Clouds'

‘Crayon Clouds’

© Rahul Tiwary | New Delhi | January 2020

Last evening, clouds in the sky were appearing in an extraordinary shape. Sky looked like some white crayons have been rubbed against it. I took this picture using my Nokia phone. I do not remember seeing clouds like these anytime in the past. 

Photography: 'Leafy Sky'

‘Leafy Sky’

© Rahul Tiwary | New Delhi | January 2020

I took this picture in Delhi recently. I liked the way greenery was covering the sky. Of late I have been watchful of the sky a bit more than before. Sky looks open, accommodating, and welcoming. It is free of clutter, free of worldly problems. Sky looks like proverbial paradise. 

Story: An Unromantic End to a Sindoor Dani

After his recent house-shifting, he was opening the cartoon-boxes one-by-one. When he opened that cartoon box, he was shocked to see inside it. There was a saffron color powder wrapping every object inside the box. He sat down on the bed and remained still for a while. Old memories came alive to him.

During their wedding, his wife had got a big colorful wooden ‘Sindoor Dani’ – a box to keep Sindoor. Sindoor is supposed to be a symbol of marriage for every Indian woman. Women display it on the parting of their hair as a sign of marriage as well as a gesture respecting their husbands. After their wedding, his wife had frequent quarrels with him. And when she went away for higher studies, she left her Sindoor-dani at home. It kept lying at the bottom most row of her almirah. And when she was back, she kept it inside the under-bed storage. There, it kept lying along with other miscellaneous useless items. For many years, the Sindoor-dani kept lying there – one among the other ‘useless items’. He had noticed it from the beginning; and had felt a bit of disappointment at its lack of care. But that was it. In front of bigger problems, smaller problems are never addressed.

Every time he got transferred and moved houses, the Sindoor-dani was shifted from one storage to another, but always with other useless items. This time however, it seemed that the Sindoor-dani had given up all hopes. It decided to implode.

On the way to the new house, the Sindoor-dani had got opened and whole of its Sindoor came out, rubbing each of the miscellaneous items it was clubbed with in the box.

He took some of the other items to the bathroom and washed those under the tap. The cover of Sindoor melted and started moving to the sink. He watched its traces disappear into the sink. Later when the objects dried up, they still had traces of orange Sindoor over those. The Sindoor did not get totally washed off. It clung to whatever object embraced it, even if unknowingly.

In the end, the Sindoor-dani was totally empty. And traces of Sindoor still clung to each of the other useless object which travelled with it in the cartoon-box.

He wondered how wise his ancestors were to have created such a miracle of ‘symbolism’. As Sindoor was a symbol of matrimony, the neglected and useless ever-wandering status of his wife’s Sindoor-dani was just an apt symbol of what was going on in his matrimonial life. He saluted the tradition and started unpacking other boxes.

- Rahul Tiwary

Pictures: Old Button Art :)

Took out buttons before retiring old shirt and created random art: 

- Rahul Tiwary 

Society: A Walk to Remember

Recently there was lot of ‘unrest’ created by opposition parties and Leftist students in Delhi. They were protesting against a series of scattered issues: some college hostel fee hike, against a recent act related to giving citizenship to migrants, against police action against protesters and also against police inaction in some cases. If you switched on your TV and checked any news channel, it would be presenting a scene of havoc. Same stuff, day in and day out. On one such days, on an evening walk, I came across a family of laborers.

The family seemed to be returning to their home after a day’s work. The man was walking on the footpath. His son, younger and having more energy was walking in front of him. His wife was walking on the main road on their left, maintaining slight distance from these two. Was she not related to them? I thought she was from the same family, because it is common for laborer families to go at work together. Kids play along side the construction site or road repairing work site and during lunch break, they all eat together. In winter, if someone lights a fire on the roadside, they would all warm themselves together. If son would fell playing on the bricks and hurt himself, mother would come and make him okay. This way, entire family sticks together and takes care of each other. Leaving behind kids is never a safe option in big cities. In villages, it is a different story.

The family was walking in a straight line. I knew that the footpath where the father and son were walking, was never used by the locals. The only times it is used when someone brings one’s pet dog for a walk and the pet dog wants to do something there. Otherwise local people walk on the service lane (seen on the right hand side lane in above picture). But this family did not bother. They just walked. No stopping by for the kid, to check on some trees or animals. No talk among themselves. They walked as if they were machines or some moving sculptures. It should be normal for people like them who lived a hard life.

Looking at their ‘detached’ behavior, I clicked their picture using my cellphone camera. And I wondered what these people would think about fee hike in some college, about some changed law, about some migrants being able to come to this country. Would they care? Most probably not. May be if talked with in private they would speak. But their ‘walk’ was simply trying to erase any other thought in my mind. Their walk was a force of nature. It was as if branches on the trees moved with a wind. As waves come and go in the sea. As birds leave their nests in the morning and come back in the evening. Nothing can explain it other than a “force of nature”.

Then why are we so attached with all the political debates and protests? Why have our TV News channels gone mad? Why can’t we find peace with this world, as it is, like this family had found peace with whatever came in their way? Society can learn tolerance and the spirit of ‘walking’ from people forming it. All good things need not come from a silver screen.

With these thoughts forming in my mind, the family which was walking much faster, looked distant and smaller as they kept going…

- Rahul Tiwary 

Travelogue: Public Park in Dwarka (New Delhi) (Part-2)

You can check previous related post here.

- Rahul Tiwary | New Delhi 

Philosophy: Finding Faults in Ourselves

First of all, I wish you a very happy and peaceful new year 2020!  

May the new year be a sunrise and bring happiness and positivity to you. 

In T. S. Eliot’s play, ‘The Cocktail Party’, there is an interesting episode. One of the characters in this play was not having a good time. She speaks to a psychiatrist about her unhappiness. And she mentions that she hopes that somehow all her suffering is her own fault! The psychiatrist asks her why she thinks so.  She explains that if her suffering is her own fault, she might be able to do something about it. But if it is God’s fault then she is doomed!

This interesting incident looks profound and can make us look at our own ways of dealing with unfavorable conditions. Sometimes if things go against our wish, we have the tendency to blame others and consider ourselves as a “pure victim”. While in many cases we may actually be a victim, but we could still find ways to find “faults” in ourselves using which we could correct our own behavior next time.

The easiest example that comes to my mind is the instances or news of crime. A few days back while a husband and wife were crossing the road around midnight, they were hit by an unidentified car and the husband died. Was traveling so late in the night really necessary? Could they have returned earlier; since darkness increases the chance of accidents? Earlier there was a case of crime against a woman where the lady’s scooter got flat tires and she trusted two unknown men and went with them for a long distance in an unknown locality. Could she not have chosen to make a safer decision and not to trust random men? In another incident, a young couple met with a brutal crime because at 11 in the night they took “lift” from a private bus. Why could not have they made a wiser decision? In matters of crime, of course the crime happens due to criminals, but still many times the people at the receiving end make unsafe decisions which lead them into becoming easy prey of the criminals.

In other matters too, if a situation is bad, we could still try to find faults i.e. improvement areas within us and do self-correction; rather than putting entire blame on the other person or party. If we think on these lines, there are endless opportunities in which we can improve ourselves.

Therefore, we can say that our tendency to put the entire blame on others bars us from using the unwanted incidents as growth and learning opportunities. Because of our tendency to consider ourselves 100% blameless and innocent, we lose a lot of opportunities where we could have done some positive improvements in ourselves.

- Rahul Tiwary