Yeut Matchar Kyah!! ( What Frenzy is this?)

In the long night when the darkness had enveloped the bloody day of June 29, I was unable to convince myself to sleep. Awfully strange thoughts visited me every second and I had bizarre fears calling on me from every corner of my being. Two sleep inducing pills had not been able to shut my consciousness away from the blood smeared and butchered faces that we had just returned to the dust.  Every part of my being was asking me why were the three innocent boys killed the way they were? In the courtyard of a residence in the deep corner of the S.K.Colony,   some one- and-a-half kilometer away from the K.P. Road, three young boys were killed, two died on the spot, and the other on the way to the hospital. I had seen their blood bathed bodies and bullet massacred faces as they were sleeping on their last bed. How could I wipe the sight from my eyes? Tears rolled down my eyes as the heat of torturing dead images simmered into my being.

            When the tears dried up, when my heart began to beat in its abnormally normal course, and when the unknown light had lit my being, then the “whatness” of all events (present and past), flashed before my eyes. It then occurred to me that whatever happened today was a real simulacrum of numberless events that had happened in the past in almost all the corners of the Kashmir. We have lost more than one lac lives to the bullets made in the name of national security. Thousands of young men who had left their homes have never returned back; were they killed or eaten up by the wild animals, we may never know.  Many families have lost all hopes of seeing their sons again; many brides were widowed before the mehandi on their hands did fade; we have given birth to many orphan babies, to unnumbered graves and to many psychiatric disorders. But, why are we treated like this? What stuff are we made of that all this inhumanity is perpetuated time and again on our shoulders? After 60 years of turmoil, the world community is still undecided about the real relevance and grievances of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. I must be excused to write world community. Why, in the first place, should the World Powers bother about Kashmiris being treated like wild animals or the way Jews were in the concentration camps of Nazis? “Such stuff happens” is a remark backed by the most Powerful Country about the recent war on Afghanistan. What should we expect about Kashmir?  Leave alone the world community, we are looked upon as second citizens in our (many would not agree to call it our) own country. In the capital city of the democratic India, to be a Kashmiri, no matter whether you are scientist, a professor or a common man, is to be an acknowledged terrorist, who is looked upon with the surveillance of a suspicious eye everywhere. When you book a hotel, or start looking for a rented residence, then the identity crises dawns upon, and one starts scratching ones skin and biting ones nails as to who actually we are? Indians? No, we are not treated like the citizens of the other Indian states. They are not killed in fake encounters; they are not killed for picking up a stone in the protest. They are not regarded as second class citizens in the big cities of the country. Who are we then, if we are not like Indians?  We are wild animals! And this is what dawned upon me that night.

            The moment this “flash of greater experience” lighted my ignorant mind; all mysteries were solved at once. I began to see a measured method in everything we have experienced so far and are experiencing in the present times. My heart felt light as if the bond connecting with the human existence had gone past all posts of relevance. I had no regrets that eleven innocent heads were butchered by the security forces since last thirty days; It doesn`t bother me that eleven parents were left without support for their old age, that their future bread earners were turned eternally silent.  Security forces are there for it. They have the mission to restore peace and order in the state where inhuman beings/ wild wild animals live. Thanks to the state administration that it has proved once again that they refuse to acknowledge that people here are Human beings. What is happening in the state from the last month, and more recently what have the people in S.K. Colony, Anantnag  witnessed goes on to prove that we are not humans and that is why we are being butchered like this, that is why our brothers and sons are being killed inside the premises of our homes, that is why our homes are stone pelted, window panes broken down by the security forces , water tanks fired upon,  and if one asks a question or raises a remark, the voice is made eternally silent. Wild animals are treated like this? Not all wild animals but those who go crazy. Even animals have the right to life, we don`t have that too. We are no longer safe in our own homes. The state administration, particularly the police, the security forces are our real guardians who we must thank for they have taken us out of the ignorant belief that the Kashmiri is the son of Adam.

            Therefore, it is not very novel and hard to understand that that we are the wild animals of a state where a teacher is sued by law if he punishes a vagrant student. But our security forces have the unbridled license to punish and kill every voice that raises against the atrocities perpetuated by the state agencies, he can do whatever he likes, he can stop any one on the road side, ask for his identity, slap anyone without reason, put anyone behind the bars with or without any reason and then set him free with the smell of some fresh notes, they can storm  houses with bullets and stones, encroach into our personal space, disgrace our sisters, and worst rape and kill them. And when this all happens, our objective electronic media remains dumb and deaf to the barking animals, and shows least concern. But, given all this, we do need such terrifying, frightening, barbaric and hostile forces because, after all even in this, our country does show a real concern to see us cultured or to be more precise tame animals so that the circus is smoothly run before the world community. However, as I came to understand all this, a question is still bothering me? Why don`t we have animal rights? At least the right to life?  What frenzy is this on part of our state or the national administration? Yeut Matchar Kyah?

Follow the links below:

Killings in SK Colony I

Killings in S.K.Colony II

Police on Rampage in Anantnag.

Police on Rampage II

Aasie tcha tchetch! ( Is it only our distress!)

I was an unwelcome entry, who would soon turn to be a questioning and thus irritating inmate for the whole time to come in a Higher Secondary that looked a prototype of our recently opened or, to be crude, upgraded secondary schools. “Unwelcome”, because my entry would mean an immediate end of duties of the Lecturer that had a waging tail attached to its title: Contractual. “It” is a crudely inappropriate pronoun for a Human being! Isn`t it? But does that really matter. That is actually how we treat them; as machines who have been sent for a fixed time to serve us and then finally to be thrown out. And we do the duty in a pretty honest manner, we make them work as much as we can, we don`t recognize their work even if that is better than most of the permanent staff, we don’t allow them any respite because we overburden them with not only work but remarkable disrespect and discomfort. But, what can we do? We can’t do anything. To be a permanent employ in any Govt office is to be an unfettered king who not only enjoy respect and money, but also an unacknowledged right to exploit and show disregard for all others who have the Unfortunate tail. This venomous attitude has passed on to the young students also. They too think that the only teachers “worthy” of their respect and attention are the permanent ones, and they look upon the contractuals with eyes full of honest disregard.

So, out one goes as I entered! Soon, I started my work. I was thrown into the mouth of an overfed room with some eighty unruly students. I wish I could have the magical wand so that I could have stretched the dimensions of the room to make it a bit comfortable for them. The jute mats that received their shining black and white uniforms were well designed with dust, mud and all kinds of dirt. This was in close proximity with the designs on the once upon white washed walls. I saw handmade charcoal paintings that resembled the contempory postmodern art; designs ranging from names of students (ancient and modern) to the some weird (in)human figures staring at me from all sides, in-between were the  sparkling phrases like  Zakhmi Aabid, Tanha Sameer, Bewafa Basheer .I took out the attendance register and started shouting their names. It was then that I learned that my class has more than one hundred and eighty students. I was puzzled and agitated that had all of them come, where would have we stuffed them. May be our head of the institute knows? But later when I asked him, he nodded his head in an unpredictable and uninterpretable manner that, I think, meant we could or we could not, or both. Perhaps it was sign of helplessness on his part as well. I wondered how an institution can admit students without having even basic infrastructure. Inspired by the archetypal image of Abrahim Linchon who studied under the street lamp posts, used borrowed books and became the pride of American history, our politicians perhaps had this proud example in mind while upgrading these schools without providing them the basic facilities. But how many of these proud men have our history produced! Perhaps we should ask a state historian to cite few proud names.

To return to the class room, I looked for the unborn duster and finally used a handkerchief to restore the black dignity of the raged and aged black/grey board. As I started a formal introduction, the cows that were tied outside my class room (on the side that is a private property) coupled and started mooing, perhaps she was more eager to introduce herself, this made the whole class room uncomfortable till one energetic student got out of the window and somehow put an end to the music, and the school bell joined to end my hour.  Before I left the class room, one of the eager students got up and asked, “Sir, tsche kyahaw choe naau”? I was not wonderstruck at the informality of language for I had already witnessed my colleagues calling students in much derogatory and ethically offensive language. If we can’t respect our students, how can we expect them to respect us!  

For the next hour I engrossed myself into a book in the lonely corner of the school laboratory. Should I call it a laboratory? Perhaps I should because it had some age old science equipments decorated in mess. Does it matter that it changes roles every hour? I was excited to know that it is used as staff resting room during vacant hours, dining hall during the break time, cooking place, and sometimes as class room when the number of students is low, particularly for the specially privileged science students who don’t really care about the attendance, and take admission just to make sure that they can appear in the final examination as regular students. They are regular at other places: the coaching centres ironically run by the same teachers who teach in the school. How do we justify that, I wonder! Perhaps these privileged students might be getting better laboratory facilities to carry out their experiments there, or do they get good marks in the term tests , or threats of being failed or being fined if they don`t join the academic prostitution centres run my our academic guardian in the name of coaching centres. Or maybe these teachers are divinely inspired in knowledge of their expertise and experience these divine fits during private hours only that makes them able to deliver gold in the private centres and brass in the school. Oh God, why don’t you inspire them while they are on duty?

Afterwards, I talked to my colleagues, and asked them all sorts of unsettling question on issues ranging from lack of basic infrastructure in the school to the lack of student attendance in the classes. I was startled at the swift answer, “you have come from the IIT Karagpur, and it will take you awhile to settle here and be absorbed into this system and this work culture, let’s not waste time, and quickly decide on what special dishes we are going to have for the tomorrow`s lunch here; one of the class IV employs cooks really good, why should we bother about all this? Aase tcha tchech!”  I was bewildered by the strange attitude of my new found colleagues to the horrible problems confronting our school.  I thought I would request the Education Director to relocate me to a new place, but did against it when three of my friends called in the evening, I learned that it is the same all over. May be soon I will learn the tricks of the trade. Aasei tcha tchech!

Urgent Notice.

Dear Student

The following students of Section 12, Group B are requested to call or meet me in person in my office latest by April 10, 2010, 17:OO Hours.

09MA2001
09MI2030

In case they are not part of this group or don`t visit the blog page. I would request their friends/students who know them to inform them.

Best

Friday Class

Dear Students ( All Section 11)

The class timings on Friday, 02 April 2010, are different than the usual ones because it is a holiday, and I suppose you are all relatively free on this date.

The Time and Venue for this class is 10:30 am, Friday 2 April 2010 at (V3 Vikramshila).

All the Best

Friday Class.

Dear Section 11 Students ( Both Groups)

We will have a class on Friday as posted yesterday, and MAY decide a new test date in the class as some students have certain issues with the date.

No individual queries in this regard shall be replied.

Thank You

VERY VERY URGENT.

Dear Section 11 Students ( Both Groups)

There WILL BE  A COMMON TUTORIAL for BOTH THE SECTIONS on Friday, 2 April 2010. You are requested to be in the class (V3 Vikramshila) at 10:30 am. On Saturday, 3 April 2010 you will have your last tutorial of the Semester...So a brief assessment test will be taken on the final day. I hope you will
prepare well. The assessment test is intended to test your knowledge of Grammar, and reading comprehension.

Please read the material under following links for your tutorial exams:

Verbs         Prepositions             Conjunctions                      Articles

Clauses           Technical Report writing        Homonym   Basic Essay      

 

Essential Word List
                            

All the Very Best.

FOR MONDAY 22 MARCH,2010.

THE FOLLOWING STORY WILL BE DISCUSSED IN THE NEXT CLASS ON MONDAY 22 March,2010

You can download the story in a printable document form at:

http://www.scribd.com/full/28299949?access_key=key-hcx43yya22fua577zt3

The discussion shall focus on: Content, language use, style, vocabulary and shall be followed by students response( in writing) to the story.

So READ WELL.

ONE fine morning the collegiate assessor, Kirill Ivanovitch Babilonov, who had died of the two afflictions so widely spread in our country, a bad wife and alcoholism, was being buried. As the funeral procession set off from the church to the cemetery, one of the deceased's colleagues, called Poplavsky, got into a cab and galloped off to find a friend, one Grigory Petrovitch Zapoikin, a man who though still young had acquired considerable popularity. Zapoikin, as many of my readers are aware, possesses a rare talent for impromptu speechifying at weddings, jubilees, and funerals. He can speak whenever he likes: in his sleep, on an empty stomach, dead drunk or in a high fever. His words flow smoothly and evenly, like water out of a pipe, and in abundance; there are far more moving words in his oratorical dictionary than there are beetles in any restaurant. He always speaks eloquently and at great length, so much so that on some occasions, particularly at merchants' weddings, they have to resort to assistance from the police to stop him.

"I have come for you, old man!" began Poplavsky, finding him at home. "Put on your hat and coat this minute and come along. One of our fellows is dead, we are just sending him off to the other world, so you must do a bit of palavering by way of farewell to him. . . . You are our only hope. If it had been one of the smaller fry it would not have been worth troubling you, but you see it's the secretary . . . a pillar of the office, in a sense. It's awkward for such a whopper to be buried without a speech."

"Oh, the secretary!" yawned Zapoikin. "You mean the drunken one?"

"Yes. There will be pancakes, a lunch . . . you'll get your cab-fare. Come along, dear chap. You spout out some rigmarole like a regular Cicero at the grave and what gratitude you will earn!"

Zapoikin readily agreed. He ruffled up his hair, cast a shade of melancholy over his face, and went out into the street with Poplavsky.

"I know your secretary," he said, as he got into the cab. "A cunning rogue and a beast -- the kingdom of heaven be his -- such as you don't often come across."

"Come, Grisha, it is not the thing to abuse the dead."

"Of course not, aut mortuis nihil bene, but still he was a rascal."

The friends overtook the funeral procession and joined it. The coffin was borne along slowly so that before they reached the cemetery they were able three times to drop into a tavern and imbibe a little to the health of the departed.

In the cemetery came the service by the graveside. The mother-in-law, the wife, and the sister-in-law in obedience to custom shed many tears. When the coffin was being lowered into the grave the wife even shrieked "Let me go with him!" but did not follow her husband into the grave probably recollecting her pension. Waiting till everything was quiet again Zapoikin stepped forward, turned his eyes on all present, and began:

"Can I believe my eyes and ears? Is it not a terrible dream this grave, these tear-stained faces, these moans and lamentations? Alas, it is not a dream and our eyes do not deceive us! He whom we have only so lately seen, so full of courage, so youthfully fresh and pure, who so lately before our eyes like an unwearying bee bore his honey to the common hive of the welfare of the state, he who . . . he is turned now to dust, to inanimate mirage. Inexorable death has laid his bony hand upon him at the time when, in spite of his bowed age, he was still full of the bloom of strength and radiant hopes. An irremediable loss! Who will fill his place for us? Good government servants we have many, but Prokofy Osipitch was unique. To the depths of his soul he was devoted to his honest duty; he did not spare his strength but worked late at night, and was disinterested, impervious to bribes. . . . How he despised those who to the detriment of the public interest sought to corrupt him, who by the seductive goods of this life strove to draw him to betray his duty! Yes, before our eyes Prokofy Osipitch would divide his small salary between his poorer colleagues, and you have just heard yourselves the lamentations of the widows and orphans who lived upon his alms. Devoted to good works and his official duty, he gave up the joys of this life and even renounced the happiness of domestic existence; as you are aware, to the end of his days he was a bachelor. And who will replace him as a comrade? I can see now the kindly, shaven face turned to us with a gentle smile, I can hear now his soft friendly voice. Peace to thine ashes, Prokofy Osipitch! Rest, honest, noble toiler!"

Zapoikin continued while his listeners began whispering together. His speech pleased everyone and drew some tears, but a good many things in it seemed strange. In the first place they could not make out why the orator called the deceased Prokofy Osipitch when his name was Kirill Ivanovitch. In the second, everyone knew that the deceased had spent his whole life quarelling with his lawful wife, and so consequently could not be called a bachelor; in the third, he had a thick red beard and had never been known to shave, and so no one could understand why the orator spoke of his shaven face. The listeners were perplexed; they glanced at each other and shrugged their shoulders.

"Prokofy Osipitch," continued the orator, looking with an air of inspiration into the grave, "your face was plain, even hideous, you were morose and austere, but we all know that under that outer husk there beat an honest, friendly heart!"

Soon the listeners began to observe something strange in the orator himself. He gazed at one point, shifted about uneasily and began to shrug his shoulders too. All at once he ceased speaking, and gaping with astonishment, turned to Poplavsky.

"I say! he's alive," he said, staring with horror.

"Who's alive?"

"Why, Prokofy Osipitch, there he stands, by that tombstone!"

"He never died! It's Kirill Ivanovitch who's dead."

"But you told me yourself your secretary was dead."

"Kirill Ivanovitch was our secretary. You've muddled it, you queer fish. Prokofy Osipitch was our secretary before, that's true, but two years ago he was transferred to the second division as head clerk."

"How the devil is one to tell?"

"Why are you stopping? Go on, it's awkward."

Zapoikin turned to the grave, and with the same eloquence continued his interrupted speech. Prokofy Osipitch, an old clerk with a clean-shaven face, was in fact standing by a tombstone. He looked at the orator and frowned angrily.

"Well, you have put your foot into it, haven't you!" laughed his fellow-clerks as they returned from the funeral with Zapoikin. "Burying a man alive!"

"It's unpleasant, young man," grumbled Prokofy Osipitch. "Your speech may be all right for a dead man, but in reference to a living one it is nothing but sarcasm! Upon my soul what have you been saying? Disinterested, incorruptible, won't take bribes! Such things can only be said of the living in sarcasm. And no one asked you, sir, to expatiate on my face. Plain, hideous, so be it, but why exhibit my countenance in that public way! It's insulting."

IN ADDITION, FOLLOW THE FOLLOWING LINKS AND DO THE READINGS ON ADJECTIVES, ADVERBS AND CONJUNCTIONS:

                                         http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/adjectives.htm

                                         http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/adverbs.htm 

                                         http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/conjunctions.htm