by Ravi Dabral
12th March 2015
I was exhausted today as I was pursuing a story about the kidnapping of a three-year-old boy of a wealthy businessman and had been running from pillar to post to get some clues with no luck. I just wanted to focus on the story when Priya came to me and told me about our neighbour Shyam, who had bought a new Hyundai car. I was genuinely happy for Shyam that he was doing well. I told her that if each person progresses then surely the whole country will progress. But she had another motive behind telling me about it. She dismissed what I was saying and asked when I would be buying a car for her. I told her that I really could not afford to take another loan.
She told me that Vandana was incredibly lucky to have such a loving husband. I taunted her good-naturedly by saying, “You mean you are not lucky like Vandana. If so, then you should be blaming your luck, not me, for not affording a car.” One look at her face and I knew I had made a mistake. So, to cover up, I told her not to compare Shyam with me, as he did not have the responsibilities that I had. He lives in his father’s house, so whatever savings he had, have been used by him to buy a car. Apart from home loan, I have also taken a loan for my sister’s marriage.
Priya shouted, “I am fed up with your loan stories.” She said in an irritated voice that she was in the prime of her life, which she should be enjoying, and the only thing I could think about was this loan and that payment. She got annoyed and closed the room, banging the door behind her.
19th March 2015
It has been one week since Priya has spoken to me and when she did talk, the first words she said to me were that her friend Anita’s husband had bought a diamond necklace for her. Even before she said it, I knew she would demand the same from me despite knowing what my answer would be. I was tired of giving her the same answer again and again, that ‘I cannot afford it.’ I asked Priya about the gold necklace I had bought for her the previous year. She said that it was old-fashioned now and to look trendy, she had to have a diamond one. I had to hold my tongue because I was about to tell her to stop behaving like an obstinate child. So, instead I told her to wait for some time, and I would buy her one when I got my bonus. That silenced her for the time being. She hugged me and said, “Thank you, I love you.” If I had said no to her demand, then her obvious words would have been “I hate you.” I thought I had invited trouble for myself by giving her hope.
I am tired of Priya’s demands; almost every week there is a new demand. Whenever I enter the house after office, I am scared of facing her not knowing when she will come up with a new demand. But how do I make her behave responsibly? Even if I did find a way, would she listen to my advice? Her constant, endless demands have become a headache for me.
Why have people become so materialistic in today’s world? Why have they got to fulfil the cravings of their minds and bodies all the time? Why can’t they believe in the concept of ‘deserve then reserve’ which means to develop skills and capabilities to fulfil your desires rather than demanding from your parents or husbands?
The exploits of my relatives and neighbours are a constant source of disturbance in my stormy married life. This time the culprit was Priya’s elder sister Preeti and her husband Deepak who had gone to Singapore on vacation. Priya inquired, “When will we go on a foreign trip?”
Sometimes, I wonder what the real cause of corruption is. Could it be a demanding wife or family? I should plan a sting operation on the corrupt wives of bureaucrats and politicians.
How can I forget to write about conflicts with my parents? Most of the time, I see my parents fighting with each other to watch TV programs of their choice. My mother is fond of TV serials while my father likes news channels. We have only one TV set kept in the drawing room. To resolve this issue, my mother many times has requested me to buy a new TV set for her bedroom. I also received similar demands from Vijay and Priya. To me, it looks very odd and an extravagant, luxurious lifestyle to have four TV sets in one house. Can they imagine the high electricity cost and cable charges, over and above other issues like limiting interaction among family members, health issues, and the like?
Sometimes funny things happen in our lives. When I am in my bedroom focussing on my laptop, preparing and finalising investigative stories, I hear Priya’s voice crying, laughing, and speaking loudly while watching videos on WhatsApp, YouTube and Facebook on her smartphone. It is funny to see her expressing all emotions one after the other controlled by her smartphone screen like a remote control. Suddenly, she starts singing, dancing or abusing if anyone hurts an animal, particularly a puppy or a cat. Although her funny reactions disturb me while finalising news stories, I feel at least the smartphone can control her. These are virtual pleasure moments for her and relaxing moments for me until she sees photographs and videos of her relatives and friends with a new necklace, a new car, foreign vacations, and so on, and turns towards me to demand such things. In such dangerous situations, it becomes very challenging for me to face her and I prefer to go up to the roof to meet the stars, my friends in the sky.
Nowadays, the only advantage of a smartphone is the jokes about wives or husbands which are sent on social media. This provides a sense of complacency that I am not the only victim on this earth who is in trouble in married life, and that there are many like me.
Another worrying thing is that kids are busy with a smartphone most of the time, playing games or watching cartoons. Earlier when I used to come home from the office, Ujjawal used to come running to hug me and insisted on sitting on my shoulders. But for the last few days, I am observing that he is not keen to even look at me when I enter the house. He is busy with Priya’s mobile, watching cartoons and playing games. Now this smartphone has come as a devil between a father and son.
Sometimes, I feel television and smartphone manufacturers, satellite news channel companies, WhatsApp and Facebook are remotely controlling ordinary innocent people by making them addicted just for their greed – hence disturbing family lives, and particularly affecting studies of students.
21st March 2015
My younger brother Vijay is no different from Priya in many ways. Though he is doing his Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree from DAV College in Dehradun, he is entirely free of all the cares in the world. A couple of times, I have seen him indulging in the vice of smoking, and reliable sources have informed me that he even takes hard drinks with his friends. He is an utterly careless and unorganised person. He sleeps very late at night after watching useless TV programs and debates where spokespersons of ruling political parties defend their parties by giving illogical arguments and always blame earlier ruling parties when short of justification, and wakes up late the next day. Though his classes begin at 9 o’clock in the morning, he never leaves home before 10:30 a.m. He tries to avoid me as much as possible, lest I should lecture him about his poor lifestyle. Whenever I ask him about his studies or future career plans, he does not have any answers. I really worry about him; despite being a handsome and intelligent person, he chooses to get pulled into all sorts of wrong activities.
Reading Suraj’s words about me, I realised that he was the one person who was constantly trying to help me to improve my lifestyle when I was hell-bent on destroying it. Though at that time I was a little hurt by the way he talked to me, I knew he was right in thinking what he did. Even in his death, he had paved the way for me to take responsibility in his absence and make something of myself. I could not help crying in his memory. With a heavy heart, I continued reading, and I came across a scene that I remembered vividly.
Suraj wrote, “Vijay walked into my room this afternoon like he had something significant to discuss with me. After greetings and salutation, very politely he asked me how I was doing. Let me admit, he is a very diplomatic person when compared to me, as I am straightforward. I knew that. But I decided to humour him. I told him I was well and pleasantly surprised to see him in my room. I hoped that he was not here to make any new demands. Vijay smiled sweetly and said that it was nothing like that; instead, he had com
e to share something with me. He can be a devil in disguise when he wants to be. He went on to tell me that since he goes for his competitive exams coaching classes for getting a government job right after his college gets over, he wastes a lot of time in commuting by local transport. This results in his having lesser time for studies. Every day, he spends a minimum of two to three hours travelling. He said it would save him a lot of time if he had a bike for commuting and that he could utilise that time in studying. He played the sympathy card by telling me that all his friends made fun of him for not having a bike. Then he informed me that his birthday was coming up next week, which meant he was hoping for a bike as a gift.
While we were having this conversation, as a planned strategy our mother came into the room to back up Vijay, like she always does. Vijay had already convinced her beforehand. As luck would have it, Priya entered the room and overheard the entire conversation. She said, “From where will your brother arrange this money? He always cries about not having money and the massive burden of loans.” I knew that this would break into a huge argument, so I sent everyone to their respective rooms.
Priya came and sat beside me. She said in a hushed voice, “You have money to buy a bike for Vijay, but don’t have money to buy a diamond necklace for me.” She started to scream at me for caring more for my brother than for my wife. I got up without a word and went to the roof to get some peace.
When I came down for dinner, Priya smiled, and pretending to be in a romantic mood, took me to the bedroom. Putting both her hands around my neck, she put her lips over mine. This sudden goodwill gesture and impulsive act of her, lead both of us towards a high-quality momentary pleasure. I realised that for men, it’s testosterone hormone which acts as a spark and can inspire them towards momentary pleasure. But for women, it is a slow and complex process. It is an art of seduction which includes romantic moments, respect for her feelings and emotions, fulfilling her desires, developing a sense of security in her, most importantly praising her; and then, the arousal of oestrogen hormones. Do laymen like me know this fact or ever practice this art of seduction in life? Can spiritual approach in life, help in knowing and developing this required art in today’s stressed married life?
Once this high-quality momentary pleasure was over, she said, “I have a brilliant plan to resolve the problem.” She told me that I could give my old bike to Vijay and buy a car for ourselves. Now I understood how much I will pay for this momentary pleasure!
She said that if I did that, she would not demand anything for the next two years including the diamond necklace. This plan was a very tempting one, particularly no demands for the next two years. That meant no mental torture for two years. I started dreaming of a happy and peaceful married life. Even though it would be very challenging for me to arrange the car loan, to maintain peace in the house, I agreed. Needless to mention, Priya’s promise of making no demands proved to be false and unrealistic, similar to the ones made by politicians to the innocent public, as after two months she demanded a puppy.
I put the diaries aside and settled for the night with Suraj’s world weighing heavy on my mind. He shouldered the burden of the entire family on his own, without turning bitter towards us. I don’t think I would have been able to do the same had I been in his place. Only after reading his diaries could I get an insight into the real Suraj whom I always considered as a killer of all my enjoyments, demands and desires.
11
‘Network is Net Worth’
5th October 2016
As both Sanjay and I were working for the same news channel and had an excellent professional rapport, we decided to carry out some sting operations to expose high-profile people behind illegal activities.
Nightclubs are a favourite haunt of students, especially during the weekends. Most of them belong to wealthy families and frequently need to boost their ego and false self-image. So initially, they bring their friends belonging to middle-class families to these clubs. These friends, under peer pressure and also to gain acceptance in the fashionable high society start consuming drugs.
For our sting operation, both of us did extensive research and concluded that most of these drugs such as heroin, cocaine, smack, and marijuana were coming from Afghanistan and Pakistan via Nepal. Apart from nightclubs, these drugs were also being consumed in a few ashrams in Rishikesh and Haridwar where foreigners and monks are the primary customers.
Our investigation further revealed that this drug nexus involved not only the international drug cartel and the local drug mafia, but also politicians, senior police officers and influential businessmen who were hand in glove for the smooth functioning of the racket without raids being conducted on these drug consumption centres and ashrams.
Our other targets were the manufacturers and sellers of spurious liquor which was filled in branded bottles and sold to unsuspecting people, ultimately causing damage to their kidneys and livers.
The kidnapping of kids and innumerable poor people who are reported missing in FIRs are never found because the purpose behind these abductions is organ trafficking business. This was another target for us.
Another lucrative proposition is ‘land grabbing.’ The politicians use their political power before the announcement of an infrastructure development project to get agricultural land registered in the names of their acquaintances and business associates at cheap rates, which is later on sold to real estate developers at astronomical prices. Apart from this, they also indulge in deforestation and illegal selling of timber, minerals, and metals at huge profits.
A mutual benefit club of politicians and businessmen runs through cartelization in the form of allotment of tenders for road construction, flyovers, bridges and underpass at a very high cost. They construct these with materials of inferior quality. The irony is that these infrastructure projects are built with the taxpayers’ money and end up taking their lives due to the inferior quality construction material being used.
Though the police are aware of all these illegal activities and know the people involved, they close their eyes. They get a regular cut in the profits and are not bothered by the destruction and loss caused to the economy and environment. This black money collected through illegal activities is parked by the politicians in shopping malls, medical and engineering college businesses.
6th January 2017
After our thorough research and hard work of around three months, we made sting operation CDs. Sanjay and I approached our editor Mr. Mishra to seek his opinion and permission to air these CDs. He just kept our work aside stating that he would review the stories.
6th February 2017
Today after a month, the high esteem in which I held our editor dropped down a bit as I felt that he was nullifying all our hard work and sincere efforts with his indifference.
5th March 2017
On the 15th anniversary celebration of our media company, a grand party was held at a five-star hotel, and we as employees got a chance to attend it. The hall was full of distinguished personalities, celebrities, politicians, businessmen, models and media barons. Hard drinks were openly being served and were much more in demand than soft drinks.
My boss, Mr. Mishra, seeing me sip lemonade asked me, “Suraj, why are you not having hard drinks?”
I said, “I don’t drink alcohol.”
He persuaded me saying that as it was celebration time at least a glass of wine should be taken by me. I simply refused, saying, “Sorry Sir, I have never taken alcoholic drinks, and I have no intention of beginning now.”
He just laughed and said, “Drinks are an integral part of modern parties. These parties are more like networking sessions. Always remember ‘network is networth.’ If we want to mingle and extract secret and confidential information, then a glass of drink in our hand and a smile on our face is essential. This helps in developing mutual trust between people and is a sign of kinship.”
I said, “Sir, with due respect, I beg to differ. The merit of one’s hard work is way ahead of al
l the socialising done in these parties.”
My boss tried to explain to me by saying, “Suraj you do not understand. In today’s business environment and the cut-throat competitive corporate world, merit plays a minor role. You need to be a ‘Triple P,’ I mean ‘People Pleaser Person’ to climb up in this materialistic world managed and controlled by politicians and mafia.”
He continued, “Your only worry is your monthly salary. Do you realise how difficult it is for the businessmen to run the business profitably and sustainably? As a media company, we face many challenges. We have to beg support as well as pay bribes to the politicians for the renewal of our media license; without having advertisements from the government and corporate houses, it would be impossible to sustain the news channel. Can you see some top-class male and female models at this party? After the party, they will serve the libido pleasures of some of the top dignitaries as per their natural and unnatural choices, tastes and preferences well within the purview of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. We have to keep these politicians, bureaucrats, managing directors and CEOs of MNCs and corporate houses happy and in a good mood. These networking parties give us a chance to do so.”
By now the boss had become charged up. Maybe the drinks that he had consumed were behind it, but he turned angrily towards me and said, “The stories that you brought to me the other day are all useless, as they are against the very politicians and businessmen who are the backbone of our existence. They are all invited to this party as they arrange our bread and butter. Indirectly they are the masters, and we are mere servants. Have you ever seen a loyal dog bite its master?”