in the name of religion

i jst got this mail and its so pathetic and tragic for the kid, that i wanted to share it with our class. an 8 year old child was caught in a market in Iran for stealing bread. in the name of Islam, his arm wil be crushed by a car.the pictures are nt in order.sorry for that.
Shikha.

answer

I run, my short and stout legs can hardly bear my weight but they are trying their best to move fast so I can catch the train. The train…you may ask why is it so important to catch this train? There’s always the next train cumin but I have got my children waiting at home. My daughter must be peeping out of the window to see if she can see her Momma cumin. She has just learnt to say Ma and shouts from the window, ‘Ma!’ I don’t want to miss that sight. Then there’s my elder son who I am sure is back from college with lots of things to crib about and money to ask for. His room will be a mess and he will be waiting for me so he can zoom off to sum ‘dude’s house. I smile as I view my kids face. Then there are my train friends in the train. The only city in the world to have a breed of friends called ‘train friends’-people who are in the same train with you everyday. I cn feel my cell phone vibrating in my handbag, I am sure its one of my train friends calling. Ignoring it, I rush and climb my first class compartment to see my friends sitting. They frantically wave to me, I walk over to them. The train glides out of the station and so our chatter starts. Theres so much to catch up on, talk about kids, spouses to crib about, dresses to see, shopping to be done, in-laws to be compared, gossip to be shared, more shopping notes, cooking recipes, restaurants to be discussed, movies to laugh about. Phew! The list is endless. Its so much fun to be with them, we look forward to the journey and it jst dsnt remain a journey bt a time to catch up with everyone and we love being together. Its like being a teenager. As I think of this, I see a young girl chatting away on her phone. She is pretty. I notice she has the same handbag as mine. I smile at her and she smiles back. I see her everyday in the same train. I could hear her voice even in the noise going around, ‘Okay, I will come in the compartment at the next station.’ She moves out of the train at the next station. Maybe her boyfriend or friend or relative I think. My friend interrupts my thoughts and I forget the girl. The train reaches Khar and we hear a loud sound like something being blown off. We panic a bit but no one ever imagines it’s a bomb in the train. Sumone pulls the chain and the train stops. Everyone is getting down; sum men help us get down. We walk to see a scene that I never want to visualize again. Bodies lying in heaps, parts strewn apart. The gruesome scene is imprinted in my mind. And my brain was reeling under shock. Why did this happen? Who did this? The compartment was crushed like a tin can and people inside were in a pathetic state. I looked away from the place. my friends were too stunned by this to say anything, it seemed the train we were going in and chatting happily was in sum othr world. There were injured people all around; the scene was filling me with a gamut of emotions. I was just about to walk away when sumthing caught my eye. It was a handbag similar to mine. I felt a strange kind of fear. I remembered the girl and I began to panic. My friend asked me, ‘what happened?’ I walked to the bag and picked it up. It was a bloody mess and I mean bloody in the real sense. I started looking around for the girl here and there. My friends were confused. I didn’t kno why I ws feelin so bad about the girl, she ws jst a nameless stranger to me. We encounter hundreds of strangers everyday so whats so special abt this girl? She ws sumones friend, sister, girlfriend, maybe fiancé and..daughter. An image of my daughter suddenly flashed in my mind. The feeling of dread rose in my heart. Sum guys were clearing up the bodies, I asked them if they had seen a young girl. The thought of asking if her body was removed brought a huge lump in my throat. They nodded. They were too busy and I understood. Thanking them I moved away from the site. I sat on a rock and began weeping. Why these tears were cumin out for a total stranger? I culdnt explain anything. Everyone says how insensitive we have becum and I agreed the fact bt today I have no explanation. My heart cried out for the girl. With shaking hands I opened her bag, there was her railway pass, she was just 19 yrs old. Her book, wallet and sum cash, sum photos. I dropped the bag. I culdnt take it anemore. She didn’t deserve this, no one in the compartment deserved it. I thought of her parents and I feared what wil becum of them. I walked up a constable nearby and handed him her photo. He told me nt to panic. My friends who were first skeptical abt it nw started praying for her and so did i. I hv never been a religious person bt I prayed, prayed for a girl I dnt kno, nt for my family, love or anything material bt for the well being of a complete stranger and also all others who were in there. The constable told me and said he could nt find her. I thanked him but was totally devastated. I handed him the bag. I went home to find my in-laws waiting anxiously for me. My son was sitting in front of the television looking paler than he looks on the day of his exams. He hugged me and I was touched cos hes nt so prone to acts of affection. My daughter was blissfully sleeping and I wondered what wil happen when she wil grow up. My husband out of town had already made numerous calls to ensure my safety. I didn’t want to watch the television. My family was lucky that I returned bt what abt those who did not? What abt the girl’s family? My son travels by the same route. What is the answer to this? Shuld we shut ourselves in our houses fearing death wich you never where it might strike? Will the next generation grow up in an era of diubt, fear and rising intolerance? I just pray that no one shuld experience fear and pain as the ppl in the compartment might have felt. And when I see my daughter, I kno what is the answer to all this. Love, faith and sum more of faith.I have both of them. Wat bt u?
hey everyone who's gng to donate blood, keep it up. real good work u al r dng.
Shikha.

you come a long way baby!

so lets just assume from a completely unbiased standpoint that there is this happy city right...you know they have lots of things and buildings and its a mighty big place...its bogged down constantly because of the huge burden of people it needs to support...its called a lot of things..a cesspool full of amoral androids who are greedy and commercial to the core...they sold their souls to the stock exchange...the huge gulf between the few rich and the seemingly endless poor, streaming in from all sides engulfing it like swarm does a field of wheat....the place is dirty...the place is apathetic...the place reeks! but those who live there cannot smell it...when youre used to it...it hardly matters....lets go over a few things....this city is amazingly varied its like a bunch of immigrants built the place and there must be so many backgrounds of varoius regions present here that its mind boggling that a single sentence can be understood on the same level by all...its got millions all over the place..and somehow everyone is stuck in a line or in a jam or in a compartment...moving abt and colliding...but getting there...always...always..getting there..

terrorists...nature...political stupidity...what do they all have in common?

really its a good riddle....

ATTACKS....yes they cripple this hypothetical place... somehow its never safe...its not the people that do this most of the time....most of the time everyone is trying to get somewhere its just that something comes in the way...so many incidents so many facts so little time...

once there was an explosion where more than 200 died...

the next day there was school...

once there were attacks in random important places..like a bazaar or a historical monument..

the day after there was school...

once a few bombs blew up on some buses....

the next day there was school...

once the heavens erupted and there was a city flooded...

college was underwater...

so next week there was college....

they told the people of the city...you dont know how to behave...you dont have basic manners...youre high class but the rest aint...what do you know? you arent poor or middle class you havent been in the trenches you cant possibly feel the pulse of this hole! you cant speak on their behalf...youre too rich and apathetic...but the rich have eyes...and when there was nothing but water...and there was nothing but fire...they gathered on the streets...it was all of them...all of them...nature did not see the rich or the poor...nature destroyed the cars and the bikes and ruined mansions and slums alike...of course it was not proportianal...but if i told you life was fair i would struggle to keep the laughter in...still they gathered..still they banded together...still they saved those shoulder to shoulder with them even though in this great city that cannot consider stopping growth, they would probably never see them again...so the rudest,crudest and most apathetic little place in the world stood united and stuck on the road helping each other....what say?

Somehow they rose....somehow they smiled...somehow something huge had been thrown at them but they dug in and got out...they were proud...they were mighty proud...they loved themselves as a city that made it through the worst...some said they are too proud...who cares how happy you are...your government let you down...

but the government lets this hypothetical city down all the time..if its not the government its the tired old hacks who think they should be the government...in the end they are selfish, goal-oriented, hateful twats and i wish a slow and painful death upon them and their children so that the next generation of twats dont survive (full of bile but someone had to say it)...if their panties are in a bunch, the toys get thrown out of the pram and a lot of tantrums happen...as a result no one gets to enjoy a normal fucking day...and so they shut down the city and cry at night cause someone stole the lollipop and the tiger cant sleep cause of it..

some idiots blow things up and we cant guess why..a city burns...a crowd gathers...a guy standing next to you was supposed to have died....you never knew him you dont remember him....but you could have sworn you saw him somewhere... he was there...now imagine 200 of those people standing next to you...i always thought you know auto accidents and most other accidents are tragic but were stupid and avoidable so i dont really care abt them...but when a bomb hits the innocent..you know its not what your supposed to feel...its too bad...just plain wrong...imagine that it happens every year...almost like a holiday...at varying times...its crude...its in bad taste and its quite sick...but look at it...the hypothetical little city has been attacked by a bomb every year for the past 4 years...you need to write it down in the holiday calender...christmas...diwali...gandhi jayanti...independence day...oh yeah 1-3 days for a bomb holiday....

magical little place isnt it....lets go for a holiday...come...lets...or better yet...lets be the media abt it...lets berate the place and its people at large for being such ignorant apathetic boobs who do nothing but commute and complain and still sit on their asses....its fair...lets do it...and then they survive such ordeals...so then lets go ahead and praise them as a whole united mass for camaraderie and bravery...such great souls reside in the city of hypocripsy...

it wouldnt matter how bad it sounds...it doesnt matter how bitter and angry you may think this seems..it wouldnt make a difference if you thought this was a hate campaign...but this is the reality of it all...theres too much gray...so much so is thats all we can see nothing but gray...a city can never be perfect...a city can never be nice....a city will always be tough to live in...

millions use the trains...millions are on the streets...but this last week...

the mother nature sent a light spanking in the form of...lets face it...not that much rain...and the city was paralyzed..there was anger...there was outrage...but everyone went to work the day after they shut the city down...then something lame happens and the toys are thrown and a city is held at ransom by a bunch of power hungry dumbfucks....great...the world cup finals were certainly harder to get to...but everybody went...and now this...7 bombs tear into the spine of a city...killing a lot people...everytime i type an exact number the death count changes...

you know what...we survived the eariler attacks...we survived the earlier flood...we survived the earlier politically motivated city-wide standstill...

this time it has happened in a week...all three things happened in a week...its not pretty...we claim to have great mental strength and great self-belief...today when bombs blew up the cops were not the first rescue workers...the working schmuck was...you know the guy who looks at you funny on the train when you ve got headphones on...we ve healed and passed all these incidents one at a time...but it has all happened in a week this time...we havent even had time to react!....but i wager we ll pick ourselves up and move on...cause thats what the hypothetical little city is all about...ok its not really hypothetical...and if you look at it objectively as we just have...you will see that no other place on the planet can fit the bill like this...no other can cope with shit constantly bringning you down...bombay is simply like no other...and i expect to go to college real soon...i never thought id ever quote a cigarette ad to end anything with...but for a place like this..... "you ve come a long way baby"

siddhant (spite is right)

ay before yesterday...

Yesterday...
Thus happened yesterday.... Mumbai was sinking... and well i was fairly dry... i some how managed to get on to a train from churchgate at around 5 pm... got off at andheri (e).... and no fucking rickshaw walla was reay to take me to sher-e-punjab...bastards... Anyways after a small rickshaw hunt... 1 guy finally agrees... but there was a clause attached "Saab metre pe nahi challenge.... bees (20) rupiya lagega"... I was more than happy... but as i enter the auto... there is another guy sitting inside... i thought 'Ok,,, maybe its the share-auto deal'...It didn't bother me and the auto rolled off... after a minute the guy besides me starts talking aloud in a typical UP-Bihar accent...



"Saila is mausam mein ek item honi chahiye,,, bas uska majja hi kuch aur hoenga"...sighs.... and then looks at me and says... "Kya kahena hai aapka?"

I am dazed... man what a way to begin a convo in such a shitty weather... i jus smile back...

"Arre,,,ekiidum...garam garam..pakaude or chai ki tarah honi chaiye item... bijli ki tarha... haina?"

"Hmmm..." i say.

"Aapki shaadi ho gayi hai na...?"

"nahi" i reply smiling back... the guy was drunk... i could smell it...

"arre kya baat kar rahe ho aap... apke to abhi tak duyi (do--2) bacche ho jane chaiye the... tssk...tssk..."

I smile back and say "nahi"

"Kya karte ho tum..."

"College"... i say...

"Kaunsa...?"

"Wilson college"

"Kidhar"

"Chowpatty"

"Aai salla..eeeeeetttnnnaaaa dooor....baap re...abhi wahi se aayi rahe ho ka.... itna baarish mein...?"

"Haan"

"Achi baat hai... par boss... aise mausam mein apni item honi chaiye... duyi minute ka majja uska ho jayega duyi minute ka majja mera bhi huyi jayega... arre 100 rupiya le-leve mujhse... arre paisa bhi kyun leve... uska bhi to ajja huyiga naa.... nahi... ye phair nahi ha bandhu haina??"

I nod back

"Ye ladki log bahut sharmati hain... pata nahi kyun...?" "Meri bhi item hai ek... flat mein rehti hai... ekdum upar walle malle par...haan... ekdum dhaasu chhez hai woh.... tumhare college mein do sau - teen sau ladkiyon mein awwal niklegi wo.... arre tum usko dekh kar flat ho jaoge... bas wo abhi yahha hai nahi...warna mein to....(does a couple of pelvic thrusts)

I am laughing...and so is the rickshaw driver... he tells the other guy to shut u... i suppose they were friends...

I was nearing my building so i direct the driver through the turns...

and the other guy starts off again...

"mera naam hai Rahul Malli... yaad rakhiyega...!"

I nod once again...

"Aap yahin kahin rehte ho kya... ?... arre kuch ho sakta hai kya hamara is ilake mein... matlab koi ladki mil sakti hai kya?"

"Nahi boss.." i say...

I tell the driver to stop... we had reached my building...

"ok bhaiya... kal miliyoge ka?...... kal milyogee kya,,,, arre kal apni item ko saath mein launga...bolo...kal miliyoge kya?"

I hop off...pay the driver 20 bucks...smiled..and said ..."dekhenge"...



Hah... funny things happen everywhere....


- Sahirr