My Bizarre soul connection with Atal Bihari Vajpayee
It was the late 90’s I had just started to gain my senses and was getting used to reading the front page of the newspaper. I was really getting curious about what a nuclear test was and why was the world so scared of it. For all the tests, I knew a math test was the scariest. My uncle who was an avid reader saw this and decided that it was the time in my life when I started to learn a little more about outside world.
Vajpyaee Ji was the PM for the third time. India had won the Kargil war and while India was going through a sweeping change in the face of politics. I was growing up in the Vajpayee era and things were changing too fast.
It was a typical Sunday afternoon in our too Kashmiri household. The ladies were busy in the housework and my uncle for the creative freak he was. He was trying to fix an old broken exhaust fan.
It was just the two of us in the living room. While he continued his struggle with his fan, I continued mine as a girl aged 7 ish to read a headline that spoke something about PM, Pokhran and Pakistan. All three P’s regularly discussed in our house at dinner.
I don’t know how long it was before he gave me the typical Kashmiri parental grin and told me “Come here, let me tell you a story about the greatest man there ever has been in Indian politics.”
And there it was 3 hours, and about one roganjosh serving later. I had known a man whose spirit resonated with mine. Who I felt was doing for India, what I was doing in my household. Raising his voice against what he did not like, trying to make the right changes and getting bogged down but never stopped. And there it was the bizarre similarities kept pouring in. We had moved to Gwalior, (his city), I had just started getting interested in reading and writing poetry(like him). It was my Eureka moment. And I just knew it.
A great leader who swam against public opinion, odds for things he believed in. He did things in his time that no one thought was possible, and reserved his place in history.
This man had made considerable changes to India and my life:
· India had won the Kargil War- There was a huge sense of satisfaction and patriotism in our Kashmiri migrant family.
· India had fooled the CIA to do the Pokhran test- India had proved nothing is impossible, Vajpaye Ji had laid down a path for many other to follow. I knew after the story that I can do anything that I want to.
· Fierce Woman Journalist- India had seen a fierce woman reporter, report the war live from Kargill. The girls had found their superwoman and I had found my career ambition.
· Insaniyat, Jamuriyat and Kasmiriyat- Vajpayee ji take on life and India somehow always had a direct deep linked root to my life. And it affected me so deeply that the ripples are still there in my heart and my life. In his Independence Day speech he mentioned the three pillars of a long standing kashir mudd (read Kashmir issue in English). In him my family like many other Kashmiri’s saw a leader willing to look beyond politics for the rife stricken valley.
· Indo-Pak relations- In a historic step he inaugurated India, Lahore Bus service and travelled in it to Pakistan in an effort to make things okay. For me and my family especially my uncle it was a ray of hope. A hope that he would make things okay. For my grandfather, it meant ghar vapsi to Kashmir. He was excited and told me see this man will make it right. Pack your bags we are going back home.
· Telecom Boom- As time went by we had entered the new millennium it was the time of changes. India was ready for a new start and I was growing up. Vajpayee’s telecom policy and creation of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited was the new millennium’s gifts to millennials. Suddenly we all went on from one landline in the house to my personal cell phone. I was the popular girl in school so with this shift change things in my life changed too. I was suddenly the queen bee since I was the first one with a phone. And I could secretly text my school crush. My life was all smiles. India was happy and so was I.
Today almost 20 years later. On an unfortunate day when I had to wake up in a world without him. The first thing that I wanted to do was rewrite the greatest story I was told.
In between all the media madness going on in my office due to his demise yesterday, while I was talking to my team on what stories we have planned for today. I subconsciously said “Obviously we will have ABV piece running tomorrow, his stories needs to be out there on our website.”
People die and become stories, work plans for journalists, reading delight for readers and life goes on. Ironic much this is my favourite ABV quote as well.
“Satta ka khel toh chalata rahega,
paartiyaan aaengee, jaengee,
sarakaar banegee, bigadegee,
magar yah desh rahana chaahie"
"The game of power will continue, the parties will come,
The government will grow; it will get worse But this country should live;"
