The Eternal Stalker Named Death

Late Ramen Sarma

Death strikes its victims in varying forms. Sometimes it takes one unawares. Sometimes it makes one embrace death second by second. It's not known why a particular kind of person deserves a certain kind of death. It stalks, always; be it in terms of diseases, accidents or any natural or unnatural causes.

When I lost the youngest of my beloved maternal uncles that was a kind of an experience I was desperate to share with all.

He had only minor ailments like pain in the legs, of course, apart from well-controlled diabetes and moderate blood pressure. Ramen Sarma worked as public prosecutor in the district court. He was always a cheerful person and cracked jokes or mimicked funny lines at every encounter we had. He had been my all time favorite since childhood days. He was a happy-go-lucky one. He never bothered about what to eat or what not to eat and spent more than his salary-always. He was a renowned stage actor and also acted in a few Assamese feature films. It was only much later I found out that he never had even a bank account. But Ramen mama (maternal uncle) was lovable and had a lovable family of wife, daughter and a son.

Over the years pain in his legs started causing worry—not to him, but to his family. When it became continuous and ringing and pinching he was advised to go for treatment. Under family pressure he got admitted in a reputed hospital away from his home. It was immediately found that all the arteries and blood vessels of his body from waste downwards were completely blocked. Only way was surgery. But then, they found blockage in the heart too and could not operate. Luckily, the heart blockages eased up after angioplasty and he was taken to the operating table for the second time. They cut open the less affected right leg, but even in that the doctors finally failed to operate due to the advanced state. After two months of mental torture my uncle returned home with his family, suddenly feeling lost and resigned to fate. The doctors gave some hope, maybe the treatment and the new medicines could work and he might get better.

It was only the third day after his return home. Since the previous day he was feeling a little more energetic. He was moving around, doing his errands and making tea himself. On the fateful day too he got up early, shaved and had a hearty breakfast. Then he felt stiffness in his right leg.

As the stiffness was creeping upwards he decided to inform the doctors of the hospital and called his doctor brother-in-law home. Slowly whole of his right leg became stiff and lifeless. The stalker crept on up relentlessly and his right hand too became lifeless. Whole of his right side was now paralyzed. To relieve his anxiety the relatives made him some tea and he sipped it managing with his left hand. But he knew what was happening to him and so called his elder brother who was also a doctor, "I'm paralyzed on my right side. I just wanted to inform you." Then he broke down and cried helplessly. The march of death went on. He could no longer sit properly. He had a blood vomiting and then crashed. The stalker made sure that he was still conscious and responding by opening of eyes and feeble movement of his left hand. The doctors advised a CT scan and finally he was taken to a hospital in the nearest city. Nothing could stop the stalker. He died later of a massive brain haemorrhage.

Let him be Ramen Sarma of a remote town called Nazira in Assam, a state of North Eastern India or let him be someone in the most advanced medical home of the most progressive United States; man is finally rendered helpless before this stalker. The only question is why the stalker discriminates and dishes out either painless or instant or fully conscious or cruel or horrible or protracted treatment to its never ending victims. What are the yardsticks of this discrimination, if any?

The Eternal Stalker Named Death - Bizarre Strikes

Late Anjali Barua (Biju Baideo)

She was preparing for the marriage of her youngest son to be held within a few days. That day was really hectic. She visited nearly fifty households around the city and extended personal invitations to them. She reached home just before eight in the night.

She was not at all aware that the stalker had entirely different designs ready for her. A unique plan at that.

She was a bubbly girl from childhood days and was immensely popular. She was also a talented singer. Though she did not pursue it to professional levels she never left it either-continuing to perform in private sessions and family functions. She got married to a business stalwart and immediately set about putting her new home in perfect order. Her home was always abuzz with guests and relatives from all sides and of all connections. The one storied bungalow was lovingly named 'canteen' by many due its staggering hospitality at any time of the day or night. Slowly she got into the business of her husband and showed her magic there too.

Somewhere within or outside the city a truck was being loaded with packets of incense sticks. It was to reach a destination within the city that night.

She decided to end the eventful day by visiting her ailing elder sister just one kilometre away. At that moment an old family friend turned up. Normally she would have invited him for a chat over a cup of tea. But at that moment she really wanted to see her sister and so she asked her guest to give company to her husband. She occupied the passenger seat of her car and set off just about eight-thirty in the evening.

The stalker gave the finishing touches to the proposed timing, the expected impact and other details. He sat back contented and smiling.

The two-lane city street was not known for heavy traffic and it was quiet that evening too. There was no dew or fog either in that peak-of-the-winter-season January evening.

Farther down the road the truck ignored a no-entry sign and accelerated beyond set limits.

There was a sharp bend ahead and a break in the divider for side crossing and u-turns. The car was nearing it with its driver and passenger thinking nothing much about anything in particular.

The truck driver crushed the accelerator pedal to the limit never anticipating the sharp bend in the road and if he went ahead he was bound to have plunged straight into the drainage canal. So now he crushed his brake pedal to the limit and steered to his right. The sudden impact made the wheels on his left (In India we have right hand drives) lift off ground and the truck tilted to his right. Continuing with the momentum the truck with its all four wheels in air literally flew on to his right and into the gap in the divider.

The car had just arrived there. The flying truck landed on top of the car and crushed it instantly. Thousands of awestruck pedestrians and onlookers descended on the site offering a helping hand and wanting to lynch the truck driver. As the police station was nearby a law and order situation was prevented.

Miraculously, she did not seem to have any apparent injury as she sat inside with both the doors broken and jammed; she was more concerned for the driver who was trapped hopelessly. She even started calling her husband and relatives giving details of the accident with the advisory ‘not to worry’. She was conscious when being taken out and to the hospital. The eternal stalker never erred in His plans. The head injuries and concussion proved to be fatal for her as the lovely lady lost her consciousness on way to hospital and died an hour later. The car driver remained trapped under the truck for over two hours and finally survived.

Thus ended the lovely saga of a lady named Anjali Barua. Losing a beloved cousin sister I just wondered why. There was nothing to understand or guess about it. Why was it necessary for her to die so unnecessarily, so unexpectedly, so meaninglessly? The stalker always had His ways. Anjali Barua's husband, Pabitra Jivan Barua—a pioneer of the printing industry of Assam—just sat there staring out helplessly at the devastating loss of his life partner, support and solace. Beset with his own health problems he hardly knew how to differentiate one medicine from the other and when to take what in what doses. His life partner would no longer help him sort it out.

Even if we managed to meet the stalker that would hardly help as by that time He would be on numerous other projects and one particular victim would not be remembered. Like that same night farther west in Mumbai a drunken young lady taking sips of beer while driving mowed down and killed a police sub-inspector and a biker. Ironically at that moment the sub-inspector, on a campaign against drunk driving, was testing the biker for traces of alcohol.

Ours not to reason why, ours but to wait and die. Or, maybe you are not yet in the radar of the stalker, but you do not know who are.

The Eternal Stalker Named Death: More Tragic Scripts!

The way death claims its victims is as normal as it is unique. One wonders who writes the scripts for some of the victims who perish without knowing why. These scripts are always most inhumanly creative, cruel beyond imagination and most horrendously instantaneous. True, one would never know the when-how-where of one’s last earthly activity, but one has the right to know at least why there is discrimination in the scripts, and this question we had raised earlier also. Of course, the answers would never come.

The youngest member of the family had all the right to be excited at the coming event. It was too early for him to get unduly concerned about the ways of the eternal stalker named death. His earthly existence began just about six years ago, and every small or big pleasure entertained him thoroughly. And this time it was big. His father was planning to buy a car. He was doing the countdown one month in advance making or revising future plans every single day. Why him, no one in the 7-member family had any clue to the designs of the stalker.

Finally the car arrived. His father knew driving and so things were moving easily. It was decided that the maiden trip in the brand new car would be to their ancestral home in the nearby town, and all of them would travel the next day morning. His father really wanted to show his prize possession to his relatives there.

Early morning they started the journey; his parents, his grandparents and his two siblings. The air inside the car was joyful, alive, eager and talkative. For the first two hours the journey was smooth with his father driving expertly and at a moderate speed. The highway was wide, good and well-maintained that would tempt anyone to drive at breakneck speed.

A lorry was moving ahead in their lane and his father felt no hurry to overtake that. In fact the lorry was occupying almost two lanes and there was not much space on the right side for overtaking.

Suddenly a tanker with a huge capsule laden with hot molten tar honked continuously trying to overtake both the car and the lorry. Although the space on the right side was not enough the speeding tanker went on with it. In the process it hit the road divider. The severe jolt made the capsule detach from the engine and lurch forward dangerously.

Their car had no room for manoeuvring an escape, because the lorry was close in front and on the left side it was rough terrain off the highway. Within a few fearful moments the lurching capsule overturned and fell on top of their car crushing it beyond recognition. The hot bitumen started flowing out immediately and engulfed the vehicle.

Miraculously he did not get any serious injury, and managed somehow to extricate himself out of the mangled mess. He hit the windscreen feebly and cried out to the passers-by for help. However, the script was so tightly written that no rescue was possible. The spreading hot lava of bitumen muffled out his cries and engulfed his tiny body in a few seconds. Assembled pedestrians helplessly witnessed the little boy with all his dreams and innocence die an agonizingly cruel death in front of their eyes.

Another boy, hardly into his teens, too had no concerns about the stalker, and only wanted to enjoy a few more moments of life. His caring parents dropped him and picked him up from school every day without a break. That day he had his last exam paper and wanted to celebrate the end with his friends. He asked for his father’s permission to come home on his own only for that day which was granted. And he was dropped at his school as usual by his father.

The most sought-after celebration took just an hour. The happy boy then went to the local railway station to take a train home. He had his best pal with him. As they entered the station a crowded local was about to leave. His friend immediately boarded the train as it started to move. To be with his friend the boy walked briskly along to get a proper hold to board. In his effort he slipped and fell into the gap between the train and the platform. His slim little body was sucked in, cut and mangled in a few moments as if to follow the script in toto.

The eternal stalker never relents. How many more scripts are in readiness for special humans—who can tell? 

(The two articles written earlier on this theme will be published here in coming days. Both these two and the above one are based on real incidents.)

Assam: Load Shedding Of The Third Kind!

Power supply in the state of Assam presently cannot just be said as erratic, it is atrocious. It cannot just be said as load shedding, because in load shedding there is a method. This is madness that has no method. It is raging across the state, although more tellingly in lower and central Assam where rains have been scanty over the last two months and people are faced with oppressively humid heat conditions. The sky remains cloudy and no rain falls eventually, not even welcome winds blow across. If you are inside you sweat on with a severe kind of consistency. If you are out you are almost roasted alive. Those who can afford an inverter still sweat at the thought of how to charge that relief-giving unit, because for that you need power. Evenings are even worse because gleeful swarms of mosquitos add to your dark sticky woes. Small time operators who depend on their desktops for the daily bread are finding it hard to survive.

Power supply comes for five minutes and goes nuts for 2-3 hours or more and then again for ten minutes and out for similar periods. Any time day or night, unfailingly when humid heat is at its unbearably oppressive best. If electricity stays on for quite some time people are incredulous and so they cannot even relish those heavenly moments. There are absolutely no prior announcements or intimation about possible hours of load shedding. At at any point of time you have no inkling of the coming blanking outs. As if sweating has become your latest fundamental right.

Scanty rains is just one reason due to which maybe power generation has reached a low. However, the other more important reason is a purely political one. BJP winning 7 out of 14 Lok Sabha seats here in General Elections-2014 has left the ruling Congress government utterly bitterly decimated and demoralised. They are at a total loss to understand what is best for them or for the people. Blame games after the debacle have divided the Congress into two distinct groups. While Assam sweats and suffers their rulers are busy making political moves in cozy air-conditioned chambers to fight dissidence or to accelerate the fight within. Hapless and desperate people are protesting, burning effigies of their power minister and cutting all kinds of dirty jokes on the rulers. But to no avail. Some wise souls are contemplating calling on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to come and save them. Amen!

Post Script: This post was scheduled for publication 4 days back, but due to net problems in my mobile (maybe due to erratic power) could not be published. Meantime in a shocking and unbelievable car accident near Delhi airport Maharashtra's tallest BJP leader Gopinath Munde passed away on 3rd June. He was just sworn in as one of the super Union Ministers for Rural Development and other portfolios on 26th May in the Narendra Modi cabinet. Being from the OBC (Other Backward Classes) and a farmer's son Munde held immense promise for rural development of the country. We express our heartfelt condolences and pray for the eternal bliss of his soul. Gopinath Munde had been a constant part of our news stories and coverages over the years. We will miss him dearly particularly after his potentially new role.

This also puts renewed focus on the madness on our roads and highways. Rash driving, road rages and increasing number of fatal accidents continue to rule this God foresaken country where crimes against women have also picked up with horrific incidents in Uttar Pradesh and Meghalaya in the last few days. That women are not at all safe here is an accepted bitter truth. But, if even central ministers are not safe on our roads who are?

PS: Meanwhile in Assam the Congress dissidence drama seems to be over as the party's High Command has asked the main dissident leader to fall in line. The leader, Himanta Biswa Sarma, who has been campaigning for changing the present Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has offered to resign and said that nobody in his camp wants Ministerial berth and that all present ministers in his camp including himself are ready to be dropped from the cabinet in the possible reshuffle soon. The power scenario meantime has shown little improvement as the spell of humid heat and no rains continues unabated. The sweating is hardly over!

Accidents Horror: Tragic End To Comedy King Jaspal Bhatti!

He was probably the most famous Sikh comedian ever in Indian Television and movies. He gave us a taste of a comedy show in the early years of National Network telecasts in Doordarshan. That time Doordarshan was the only television media and we were used to watching foreign comedy shows. But this brilliant comedian-writer-director enthralled us with indigenous doses of humor, wit, satire and fun in his comedy shows for the first time in Indian television. Jaspal Bhatti, the innocuous looking Sardar with a disarming smile whose one dialogue is enough to make you laugh out.  And his insightful storytelling was capable of making you cry too. 

Jaspal Bhatti made his appearance in Doordarshan in the eighties with his TV Series Ulta Pulta and Flop Show. The shows were instant hits and he became a household name in India. His actor-wife Savita Bhatti appeared with him all the way and they were inseparable and one of the most loved couples. Later in the nineties when other channels started storming the Indian viewers Jaspal Bhatti produced various programs for them too. He also acted in Bollywood movies and produced-directed feature films in his mother-tongue Punjabi. But his Ulta Pulta and Flop Show are still remembered and loved even by the modern generation.

This witty satirist died tragically in a road accident in Punjab in the wee hours of today. He completed the promotion for his Punjabi movie Power Cut to be released on 27^th October, 2012 and was rushing back for the last minute preparations. His actor-son was driving and the heroine of the movie was also in the car. In a horrific accident the speeding car hit a roadside tree around 3 am. Jaspal Bhatti was rushed to the hospital, but was declared brought dead. The other two were injured and are presently recuperating. A worthy Indian died unnecessarily.We pray for the eternal bliss of his jolly good soul.

Few newspapers reported today about another horrifying accident in a Mumbai suburb which showed depravity of the worst kind. For the 10^th night last night a few youngsters around 19-20 years of age danced and reveled in the ongoing Navaratrifestival. But that was not considered enough. Unfortunately in India every festival including those of religious nature too, every party or picnic and every outing ultimately means extreme boozing, because without that no celebration is considered complete. So the youngsters drank and drank to their hearts’ content. Even then they did not consider it enough enjoyment. They wanted a mad drive too. Around 2 o’clock in the morning six of them took a car and started driving up and down the highway in extreme speed. All of them died when their car crashed against a trawler. 

The common factor between the two accidents was the traveling time—deadly wee hours when everyone including drivers tends to doze off. Yes, people have no time nowadays, but what would be wrong if you get at least three hours’ sleep and start your travel around 5 am when there is daylight in most parts. You will lose 3 hours, but will surely arrive safe and sound. And if you have to travel during the night why don’t you take the precautions like allowing the driver to refresh with tea once in every hour, drive at steady speed and not sleeping around him.

Indian road conditions and car makes are definitely not under your control, but speed, time of travel and drinking definitely are. Drunk driving was the uncommon factor between the two accidents mentioned here, but it is the most common cause of accidents nowadays. If enjoyment is not complete without drinking then do drink, but go to sleep afterwards as the most natural way of ending celebrations.

Or is it possible that dying too has become fashionable and enjoyable? For road safety peoples’ mindset must change first, road or car conditions later.

Mumbai: The BEST Signal Breaker!

You have to drive around in this city of Mumbai, particularly after nine in the evening, to witness rampant breaking of traffic signals. And the unabashed leader in this would be the Brihan Mumbai (Greater Mumbai) Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) Undertaking or Corporation—the state-run city bus monopoly service since 1947.

If you are a strictly law-abiding citizen driving your car you will wait patiently till the red signal turns into green, But you are likely to be stunned by BEST buses zooming past you in gay disregard of rules. Once that happens there will be instant followers and if you still insist on observing rules you will be rudely honked out the way making you break signals howsoever loath it is to you! Not only that, the bus drivers often tend to forget the actual size of their vehicle in trying to squeeze through giving you the shivers. To make matter worse for you, they also give you the left indicator light if they want to turn right! As is their habit, if they come out in herds and put your car in hopelessly desperate corners you can only call out to God for help! The real problem this leader in traffic rule breaking is creating is that they are beginning to command  a huge and growing following!

A sense of tremendous impatience is growing over the years making the vehicle drivers obsessed just to surge ahead of others and not caring a dime at the possible consequences. Given   the level of intolerable stress and frayed nerves due to increasing congestion and huge traffic snarls it is still logical to say that adherence to traffic rules would only ease it up. But no takers for that and that is why cases of accidents, heated arguments and road rages have been on the increase in Mumbai and elsewhere too.

The sense of impatience and unwarranted competition led to an accident yesterday in this city in which a double-decker BEST bus toppled almost turning turtle crushing a biker to death and injuring many others. This is the first accident ever involving a double-decker in the city. The reason was the obvious one—the bus trying to race through a signal. Now, what was the fault of the biker who was just moving along the road and the passengers for whom the driver did not show even a minimum consideration?

This mindset of ‘not caring a dime’ must be changed if we want a safe future on the roads. How much time actually we save by trying to surge past others putting our lives as well as that of others in grave danger? Well, for an half hour drive in the city our acts of desperation save us just two minutes.

Where are we going, damn it! What is our destination? Where are we going to spend the extra time saved in the process?

Didn't Know What Hit Me!

Yesterday evening I just alighted from the bus and was heading for the egg shop using the pavement.

All of a sudden I heard a peculiar sound and my right arm went numb up to the finger tips. I couldn't even move it. I looked around uncertainly to know what happened--was it a bullet or someone hit me or was it a bomb and all. One shopkeeper then told me that nobody did anything. A stone bigger than the cricket ball just shot off from under the wheels a running truck and hit my right arm. I then saw the stone lying by the side of the road.

I wondered aloud. My God, it hit me with such force I failed to imagine could happen. I proceeded towards my destination and bought my eggs. Then the pain came on and I felt dizzy. I decided to sit down inside the shop and shopkeeper was very helpful. He took my mobile and called my wife there.

As I took the tetanus injection and prescribed medicines at the nearest clinic I thought about what could have happened. If the hit was just one foot above the arm this freak accident might have been near fatal.

Since morning today the pain has been reducing and I had to attend office as today is the polling day of Maharashtra Assembly Elections 2009. I thanked God for getting me over a possible crisis.