Politics: Indian History Up For Grabs!

If the unprecedented nastiness pervading the Indian political scenario even six months before the all important General Elections-2014 is any indication we could very well prepare ourselves for things to follow. Desperate to win and grab power to rule the country political parties are throwing away all decency and restraint and are indulging in a war of calling dirty and dirtiest names to counter each others' chances. From ‘shehzade’ (Prince—BJP Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi launching an attack on the Congress’s so-called dynastic rule to ‘fascist’, ‘Hitler’, ‘psychopath’ or ‘megalomaniac’. Leader M calls leader NM as the most communal person of the country while utterly bitterly failing to contain communal clashes breaking out again and again in his state. The same leader M has his sights focused on becoming the next Prime Minister and for that ‘noble’ purpose he marshals all minor or break-away parties into a conventions against communalism while communal clashes resurface in his state the same day.

Not only this, even Indian history is no longer safe from political exploitation. Pioneering leaders of an independent India are being claimed as the idols of respective political parties. Charges and counter-charges are being traded furiously in this regard totally disregarding what the ‘subjects’ have to say about this. This trend may get more sinister as the Elections near. The BJP may trace its glorious origins to the ancient Indian age and may blame the Congress for all the troubles suffered in the medieval age. The Congress may very well refer to the unified India or Bharata concept demonstrated in various stages of Indian history and claim as its heritage while blaming the BJP for trying to build up regional forces by allying with smaller kingdoms.

In various stages of Indian history it has been observed that some monarchs invited foreign invaders to settle scores with their internal rivals. This danger is not farfetched in the present scenario when you identify foreign invaders as the terrorists. We have said on many occasions that a politically divided and polarized India is in fact helping the terrorists to strike at will. What is more threatening is that terrorists are being looked not as terrorists but as people belonging to various religious or politically affiliated groups. Depending on the credentials a terrorist is not a terrorist for a particular leader or party. On October 27, 2013 serial bomb blasts rocked Patna, the capital city of Bihar when Narendra Modi was addressing a political rally in there. Now the ruling party in Bihar, JDU, broke away from coalition partner BJP recently, and therefore charges logically followed as the blasts being a security compromise to deliberately harass a political rival. Well, by the time General Elections-2014 actually gives a winner Indian history could be entirely manipulated or changed or distorted beyond recovery. Beware!

The VIP Brat: A Study in Contrast!

Here we’re talking about only two compartments inside a particular AC 2-Tier coach in a particular daily train under the Indian Railways that departs a particular originating station at around noontime and reaches the destination city early morning the next day. The train is popular because it is superfast and always on time. That fateful noon too, the train was ready for boarding about one hour before departure. We cut to the inside of that particular coach having those two compartments for our contrasting study. Two elderly couples were in a state of considerable distress. One of them, both technically senior citizens, had been allotted two upper berths and the husband was at his wits end how to proceed, because his wife was being taken for check-up after surgeries in both of her knees—she could hardly walk and her climbing up the berth was a sheer impossibility. The husband was also on the wrong side of the sixties, but he thought he could manage the climbing once he managed a ...

Mitali: The Trauma of Losing a Sibling

Maybe I lied to her when I used to reassure her that she was going to be alright and was going to resume her life in some measure of normalcy in the future years; maybe all my gestures/expressions were false when I used to run my fingers across her forehead or embrace her on occasions when she was able to move around a bit; and maybe all my exhibitions of love care and responsibility were exposed as superficial when I failed to turn up in Delhi where she along with my mother were treated during September-October, 2022 (my mother Urmila Chakravarty was also diagnosed with dental cancer the same month the same year as she was) and when all the members of my parental family and the in-laws converged. Since that fateful day in August, 2022 when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer to that disastrous day of March 6, 2025—the day my younger blood sister Mitali (Mainu) Chakravarty Sarma (November 2, 1963—March 6, 2025) passed away in the wee hours in a hospital in Guwahati after giving a bra...

Release of Book 'Randomized: A Dozen Short Stories'!

The fourth collection of stories titled 'Randomized: A Dozen Short Stories' by Chinmay Chakravarty has been released on Amazon KDP just now! This collection, short stories in a lighter vein plus with mild satire like the previous collections, has been published in both the E-book and Paperback formats. The links are given below: International: Click Here ! India: Click Here ! Other collections of short stories by the same author: The Cheerless Chauffeur and Other Tales(2021)--Notion Press. Funny and Fishy Tales(2022)--KDP. The Weirdos(2022)--Ukiyoto Publishing. All books of the author are available on Goodreads, apart from Amazon and other outlets! Have a look!