“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

The mid-winter cold wave had not stilled the village so much as the call for strike by the Naxals ( A terrorist group active in some states of India) had hushed up normal life in that village. All shops remained closed. The roads looked deserted without any traffic. And in the evening when the villagers came out of their houses and gathered in the streets in small groups, most of them talked about the acts of violence that had broken out in last two days. A cloud of fear gripped everywhere.

Both print and electronic media corroborated that a young village chief was dragged out of his home and was killed by some sharp weapon. The family members cried and the police remained holed up as usual. The public preferred silence because in India, which is the biggest democracy of the world, people are good at living like sheep. The leaders slumber in Air Conditioned chambers with Z+ security while the common man lives his life in a state of lawlessness surrounded by many man-eating greedy wolves. Still life goes on….

When the disappointed and terribly perturbed citizens open the TV hoping for a little concern from the so called leaders, they see that the vehicles of their leaders speed past a group of helpless people who have been the victims of a recent explosion. The cries of the wounded people for help cannot pierce the closed glass windows of the leaders’ moving vehicles. Still life goes on and the ruling party prepares for the next election even if one of the wounded dies prematurely.

Why should not the hopeless public stand with ANNA or RAMDEV? After all, they are the few who stand with us in the gutter but still look at the stars in the sky.

Result Analysis.......

The first period of college! The principal enters the class with the result sheet of Pre-test Exam. He scolds, rebukes, warns and then mellows his voice and attempts to pursue and convince the students for a better result. But his mellowed voice no longer continues. Something queer happens. Silence pervades the class. He pauses for a moment. Then he calls the name of a Pankaj Mallick. He points out that he is short of attendance and that he is lurching at the bottom of the result sheet. In response to his announcement a boy sitting on the back bench rises up and swallows all the bitter words with his face downward. 

The boy stands up putting up a grim face but a clear red rose gets visible on his bosom. The rose was a prominent sticker pasted on the front pocket of the college uniform shirt. The result analysis now takes a new direction. The red red rose attracts both anger and contempt from the principal. He shouts at the top of his voice. He shouts because he thinks the college uniform is tarnished by the display of such love symbol by a teenager. One of the lecturer who had accompanied the Principal into the classroom now goes one step further and plucks the flower from the boy’s shirt. The boy instantly loses both his identity as a student and his identity as a lover of beauty. 

Like a whirlwind the squad of the teachers leaves the class. And the result of RESULT ANALYSIS is an intimidated class that learns to be blind to a Red Red Rose.