Browsing a popular website for my daily dose of news, I came across the headline "CRPF jawan kills 2 colleagues in Srinagar". Purportedly, the reason for this shootout was "tremendous stress on the Jawan in the course of his work".
This incident came close on hills of another incident in which a Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) constable Raj Namdeo shot dead his deputy commandant A. R. Karanjkar and took six hostages (including five women) at Mumbai Airport. Presumably, Namdeo was stressed out by his 14-hour work schedule and was seriously annoyed by Karanjkar who had denied him leave.
These two incidents reminded me of a play, "Court Martial", which I had directed when I was in college. An excellent play written by Swadesh DeepakJi, "Court Martial" is a story of a Jawan Ram Chander who is tried in a murder case. His crime: he had shot two senior army officers, killing one of them and seriously injuring the other. And all this to protect his badly bruised self-esteem. A Court Martial is set to investigate and decide upon the crime. The Court Room is presided by a war-veteran Colonel Surat Singh who has been witness to many 'life-and-death' situations. But this trial puts him in a queer position so far unknown to him and during the course of interrogation he realizes that the issues at stake are much larger than meet the eye. At the end of it all, he sentences the Jawan to death sentence. However, the almighty also plays its part and forces the actual culprit to.....
The play has special memories to me as not only had I directed the play, I had also enacted the key role of Bikash Roy in the play. During the practice sessions, memorizing the long dialogues of Bikash Roy had proved to be an arduous task. And while I kept reproaching everyone for failing to memorize the dialogues, I proved to be the biggest stumbling block. My sore and allergy-prone throat did not help the cause a bit. During the second last day of practice, one of the actors walked out, leaving us in a rather precarious position. Somehow a substitute was managed (who later turned out to be much better than the original one). On the last day of practice, my fellow cast could not digest the music piece (a Robert Miles composition from the album Dreamland) that I had selected for the climax. However, I took a risk and stood by my selection.
On the eventful day, from the very start of play I felt as though the character had entered my body - I ceased to be Chachu anymore. What followed was an excellent performance by our team. And when we bagged all the top honours, included Best Play, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, no one was surprised. That was my first big success in the world of theatre. There after I staged many good and
bad plays. With the end of my graduation, the theatre also took back seat.
Many years after I had staged the play, I put a small write up about the play on my website (http://skasera.tripod.com/courtmartial.htm). That page, along with many others, captured my chequered past. Slowly, the play had ceased to exist in my life barring occasional memories of glory and ecstasy.
One fine day, I received an email from a gentleman who commended my effort of putting a write up of the play on my website. He, in fact, had taken a printout of the web page and had gifted it to the "Swadesh DeepakJi" - the writer of the play . The gentleman turned out to be the brother of the writer. He even took the effort of sending me free copies of the play "Court Martial" (which incidentally I had lost) and few other works of "Swadesh DeepakJi".
Occasionally, I get the urge of staging a play in my company - especially because it has been four years since I have stepped my foot on the world of drama.
Dramatics apart, the essence of the play "Court Martial" and the problems highlighted by it are still pertinent. And still we are witness to acts where a subordinate shoots his supervisor. The episode forces me to make three points. The first point is about the deep-rooted stratification of the society - be it on the caste lines, or on the basis of economic might or even on the basis of religion. I made this might, albeit a bit differently in an earlier column:
"Thy do not have a voice,
so thy will suffer,
the weak will meekly yield to the powerful,
those who can kill, will,
this is nothing new,
but thy protest, 'Aren't we not civilized -
At least we proclaim so?'
Laws are made,
presumably,
but are they followed,
thy do not have an answer."
The aforementioned lines tell us all. The lines also lead us to the second point. In a nation where the weak hardly have a voice, it is imperative that the society functions according to "Rule of law". But the utter disregard to laws, the complete breakdown of the judiciary, and inept and corrupt police department provides no hope to the ordinary citizen. In fact, the inefficacy of the Judiciary was admitted by none other than the Solicitor General of India Soli Sorabjee. As I drive across the Delhi roads and see people, almost in a majority, brazenly break all laws under the earth - be it red light jumping, wrong-side driving and overloading to cite a few examples. My heart laments at my helplessness and I have plenty of company. But alas! no solution is in sight, not even remotely.
The third point leads us to a different path: that of providing a humane working environment to all those, be it those defending the country's border in Siachen, or those constructing building in the sweltering heat of Delhi. Here again, since I have no solution, I will let the readers to ponder from here...
Chachu (14/6/2003)
Web Resources
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http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/jun/09jk.htm
http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/may/24mum1.htm
http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/may/30mum.htm
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=8437
http://skasera.tripod.com/courtmartial.htm
Through Chachu's Eyes
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** 1 ** It was heard that the "Freedom" bike had provided a major boost to the sales of two-wheel manufacter LML. The bike offers a host of features, which I am not aware of. What I do know is that the bike also offers the rider the freedom from displaying his registeration number on the rear number plate - the word "FREEDOM" is used instead. This may not be a regular feature, but those above law do display their freedom from such trivialities like registration numbers.
** 2 ** While some display their "FREEDOM", few others (in fact many others) are not so obliging. For them, a blank plate is suffice. Long live democracy and long live the inspector regime.
** 3 ** Times of India is running a series in its newspaper as to how sports is not making much progress in the country. While the introspection is on, the Punjab goverment has announced a pension of Rs 600/- for not-so-successful sportsmen to Rs 1000/- for the successful one. What if my today's outing with my wife on a movie, cola and lunch was more than 600/-. The subsequent shopping binge notwithstanding.
** 4 ** On my way to office, there is road adjoining which there is a factory which provides raw material for contstruction of roads. Just that some of the material could be made in improving the road to the factory. A perfect case of "Diya Tale Andhera" you may say.
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