An Indecisive Indian

  It has been years since those endless weeks of Covid lockdown, yet the memory has not dimmed. The silence of cities, the fear in the air, the arguments over timing, restrictions, and economic cost—all of it has blurred with time. But one image refuses to fade: the haunting spectacle of millions of migrant workers walking barefoot on highways, carrying bundles, children, and shattered hopes. Numbers and projections can be debated; this human tragedy could not. It was a wound to the nation’s conscience. Governments—both central and state—had the machinery, the information, the mandate. Yet, when it mattered, confusion reigned: should workers stay, should they leave, would they be cared for, or abandoned? In the end, the dignity and livelihood of millions were trampled, and even today one wonders whether the enormity of that damage has been fully understood. I had written about it then: https://anindecisiveindian.blogspot.com/2020/05/this-very-emotive-work-my-favourite.html   ...

I had joined Diesel Locomotive Works, Varanasi, in 2001, still the new face in the unit, learning the smell of its steel, diesel and bureaucracy as yet. Before I could settle into my role, the General Manager decided to hand me another hat, that of Honorary General Secretary of the Sports Association, perhaps because I had active interest in sports. It sounded straightforward enough. Then they told me I would be assisted by one Mohammad Shahid, the Assistant Sports Officer. Mohammad Shahid! Even the name was enough to make the air stand still. Shahid—the hockey wizard whose stick could bend a match to his will; the man whose artistry had delivered India its golden moment in the Moscow Olympics, and whose genius had lit up the international hockey arena many times over. His story was the stuff of quiet legend. Born into a modest family in the narrow lanes of Varanasi, he had risen to dazzle the world as India’s ace forward. The Indian Railways (IR), recognising his genius, brought...

  I am no painter with a brush nor sculptor with chisel in hand—just a humble novice in the cathedral of good art. Yet I do know how to cradle an idea, to carry it faithfully across the distance from thought to reality. It began, long ago, with the iron muse of my profession. In thirty-five years as an Indian Railways officer, the moment that etched itself deepest was not a groundbreaking project or a grand inauguration, but a quiet evening between Hindupur and Bangalore. There I sat, coffee in one hand, cigarette in the other, in the lookout glass of an inspection saloon—watching the world unfurl behind a racing train. The view was not a postcard, but a restless theatre: fields and dust, surging crowds and silent stretches, laughter, struggle, and stillness, all in one reel of light and shadow. I sat there bewitched, bewildered, almost chastened. What was I doing, gulping down this living poetry with my eyes… and doing nothing about it? Art, after all, must imitate life—and here l...