A night fighting terrorists

Let me pen down all that I saw in a dream last night. Fortunately, it was a long continuous dream (to devote a whole story) rather than somewhat more typical of me, which is a sequence of small dreams like short stories by Premchand (Don't know how many people reading this know him..). Normally, I wake up like a zillion times during the night and in all those short spans of sleep, I see short dreams which get embedded in my mind and as day progresses, they fade away and die down. However this dream was pretty unusual. It continued despite a couple of breaks. (Like the recent 'DD One' trend of showing a single movie in three days with one-third dose each day.) The underlying theme was the same in all those short dreams which was of 'Fighting Terrorists'!!

The plot in the dream was - "I am having a friend's wedding." Well the friend's name is Amit Gandhi who was with me in MBT, Pune (now Tech Mahindra). I don't know why I made him marry again coz he already got married 3 years ago! (Isn't it similar to the scary-cum-ticklish feeling that you have when in a movie you find that someone you have been talking to all this time had already died 3 years ago!) Anyways, "Amit is getting married in this huge palace of some sort." Envision it more like a dingy haveli rather than something similar to Buckingham palace.

"Somehow, I along with my team of friends other than Amit, get to know that terrorists are going to strike on this 'haveli' where Amit is marrying someone. I assuage Amit not to worry at all and say a nice dialog to him "Jaan de denge lekin teri shadi me adchan nahi aane denge!!" (hehehe) While saying that I was shivering with a mix of fear and anger in my dream. "Well after this, we take positions in every nook and corner of the dilapidated haveli like Tom Hanks does in 'Saving Private Ryan' against the German army on the other side of the bridge." There were a couple of options from which to choose my gun. An AK-47 type automatic rifle, An air-gun, sort of which is used to blast balloons in fairs and the third one was a small pistol, like they have with Indian police inspectors. I was confused as to which one should I carry. AK-47 was pretty heavy for me and I thought it'd hinder my mobility against the terrorists. Pistol's range would be too small and I would get hit from long distance. So I decided to go with balloon-blasting air gun. What the heck? I thought at least I can deface a terrorist by aiming at his face. While he would be crying in pain, I would quickly snatch his AK-47 and shoot him properly !! Simple. Isn't it? ;-)

"Finally, the terrorists came in as we had expected inside the haveli. Suddenly I find myself in probably a 2-bedroom flat (It looked as if some PhotoShopper changed the whole context in which I was dreaming) and I see a green military-uniform clad terrorist from the bedroom in which I had taken a position. He was also walking carefully, I guess looking around for me. Anyways, the next I see myself face to face with the terrorist. I try loading my air-gun with a hand action you would see in 'Terminator' type movies and shoot. But not a single bullet comes out. I got anxious and nervous. Tries the same action again. Shoot. Not a single bullet again. Did I forget to load my gun? I should have tested it somehow before fighting terrorists. Darn it. All this while the terrorist is aiming at me with his pistol. Gunshot. I take a quick jump and miss it. Wow. After this, probably there was a break in my dream coz when the next scene began, I had an AK-47 in my hand and another terrorist in front of me. I pull the trigger again. But not a single bullet this time too. What the hell is happening man (These things happen in dreams only!).... Are we using Made in USA (Ullhasnagar Sindhi Association) AK-47 or what.... Anyways, by this time the terrorist has plugged out a pin from the hand grenade and thrown it somewhere in the room. I scurry for some safe place, but suddenly I realize if I don't jump out of the window, I'll die. So I do so and find myself on the train tracks along with two of my other friends. All of us have been taken as hostages now !!" (What else can you expect?)

"The scene changes and we find ourselves in a yellow walled room with three terrorists. They look more like white pajama-kurta clad congress-men rather than traditional scarved terrorists. They had shining white silver pens in their hands like Parker's or Mont Blanc's. One of the terrorist hand over one pen to me and the other pen to my friend (who looked stranger by now somehow) and ask us to tic-toc the pen and kill each other through the pen 'lead' coming out with a spring action!! How gross? (I remember now, I got that by watching Vyomkesh Bakshi in my childhood days.) Well, we had to have some time to think before we took any action. We encircle the room facing each other in a duel like pose like Harry Potter and Voldemort in the Harry's last book - 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows'. Suddenly, I blink my eyes and signal my friend to hit the nearby terrorist, instead of hitting me. He understands and signals me back with a slight nod of head. I had the confirmation for the final assault. (I wish the spring action would work this time.) Good. Lets move on. He attacks the terrorist near him with the pen and does tic-toc on the face of the terrorist. Pen's lead/needle goes down through the left eye of the terrorist and he dies. Seeing this, a second terrorist comes to his help, but I do a tic-toc on his face too and he also dies with the same fate. After that, the lone remaining pajama-kurta clad terrorist was over-powered by both of us with bare hands." and I woke up.(Cool, brave, macho happy ending. Isn' it)

Guys, I don't know, but these Mumbai attacks have had profound impacts on our minds and such dreams are a result of that only mixed with a couple of bollywood & hollywood flicks. You bet, I showed a hell lot of courage to kill those terrorists (so what if only in my dreams ;-)). I was afraid inside when I had thrown the famous dialog at Amit, but I didn't back out of the situation.. It is a very important lesson in life "Courage is not having an absence of fear, but to know that something more important IS to be done at any cost."

"Battle of NOC" - VD vs Pune Traffic Police

Let me take you to the memory lanes of late 2006 and early 2007. I had been living peacefully in Pune for past 3 years with my 3 flat-mates - Yusuf, Anoop and Shailendra, all working in Mahindra British Telecom. In a city like Pune, where public transportation is so bad, I had my Hero Honda Splendor numbering MP-07 - _ _ _ _ (Of course I’ll not divulge my personal details on internet :P) with me which had just completed her 5th birthday in Aug. All Pune vehicles are numberd MH-12. Until around September, everything was OK except for occasional stoppages by traffic cops for some gross traffic violations. For those of you, who might think, I might have got over-speeding tickets, let me tell you I never over-sped. It’s not that I liked to follow rules, but my darling Splendor never allowed me to go beyond 50KmPH! It used to hmmmmm bzzzzzzz krrrrrr when I tried doing that with her. Well, that didn’t hurt either coz Pune's traffic put a virtual ceiling on bike speed too. On those occasional times, Traffic Thullas (slang for traffic cops) used to always ask for my NOC (No Objection Certificate) which I didn’t have and I had to pay 50 - 100 bucks every time. But please note that this was pretty occasional and ‘life was still very beautiful’. I could easily afford 50 bucks in a month or two rather than gritting my teeth while getting an NOC from Gwalior (which I later found would have costed me 4000 bucks!! Can you believe that?)

I had to go to my work place Persistent Systems at Senapati Bapat Road driving around 5 KM from my house in Kothrud. It had never hurt me so far. But in my path to office, there came this God forbidden traffic junction near the Paud Road flyover. You bet, you cannot pass this junction without saying "Hi" to the traffic signals and stopping there for a good amount of your life. It looked as if somebody squeezed the neck of a 20 meters broad road and made it permanently squeaky at that junction. One day I found myself standing ahead of the traffic waiting for the signal and suddenly a traffic cop asked me to bring my bike to the side. That day I got a divine realization, they were deliberately targeting ‘out of state’ people by looking for ‘out of state’ registration plates! I tried my Marathi language skills (which I had learnt fairly new) with him, but I was no match (“Kaka jau dya na. Mi NOC kadhlay, pan gharat visarloy.. parat yetana gheun yein.. nakkich ;-)”) . I ended up paying 50 bucks that day. Anyways, I THOUGHT at least I had made the cop my friend and the next time he wont stop me. A couple of days later I found myself again standing in front of the whole traffic waiting for the signal to turn green (That red signal felt like eternity). I was of course cursing myself for being so callous of being at the forefront again. How could I be so foolish? I could see the ‘Now friendly Traffic Kaka’ standing far right. I had barely raised my hand and moved my head in recognition when another tight looking cop signaled me to bring my bike aside. I obeyed him grudgingly and did all the pleading again of being a "poor student". He didn’t budge. I also tried calling my "now related traffic kaka" to help me but to no avail. Believe me they were all blood sucking parasites. That month I ended up getting caught 3 times. This atrocity went right through my ego and there I stood, helpless but determined to take REVENGE.

Now comes the defensive and revengeful strategies part. I knew where ever the white uniformed cops would see me they were bound to stop me. I devised a lot of tactics to save myself from the agony. Please follow...

1. I used to stop my bike well 50 mtrs before the fateful traffic junctions and as the light turned green used to race my bike like Indian batsmen race to pavilion while chasing a score, without even looking right or left.

2. I started keeping all my money in my back pocket with just 10 - 20 bucks in my wallet :-) (smart idea hmmm). I knew they were blood hounds but cheap ones. I got away using this idea a lot. I used to flag open my wallet in front of them and used this idea slyly with my "poor student" label. :D

3. I also tried putting a lot of dirt and soil on my number plate, so my MP - 07 would disguise as MH - something. It was working pretty neat until the apartment watchman cleaned my bike and MP-07 was shining again :-(

4. I started avoiding major junctions completely. I started snaking my way through by-lanes to my destinations. Positive side was, I got to know a whole lot about Pune by-lanes by the time I left for US :-)

5. The most daring ones were the complete disrespect for the cops' calls!! A couple of times I was about to land into the dens of cops, but I somehow sensed it and stopped way before. They used to call me by gesturing with hands as if saying, ‘come on beta, let us milk you coz you are riding a bike from MP’. Listening to no one, I used to take a complete U-turn with them shouting from behind (hahaha)

6. Finally, I became a bat-man. Bat-man roamed in nights, so did I! With high beam head-lights, nobody dared to see through my glare :-)

Believe me folks, it was a harrowing time. During that 9 months period, it seemed the whole police department of Pune was behind my little soul (read: my bike).

Summing it up, I believe Indian traffic rules about NOC are no good. They should cut the crap out of the system and make life easier rather than harassing good citizens like me or other ‘out of state’ people. Think of buying a car in Indiana, US and getting an NOC from all other 49 states to drive it from east coast to west coast. It’s absurd. Even though, I admit I shelled out a lot of money, I enjoyed fooling those white uniformed fat tummy people a lot. I hope they understand their responsibility now.