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Absent in the Spring
#65 Burpinder

Yaar, I am shocked. Are you hinting that I TALK too much?!!
:)

Absent in the Spring
#56 GT

Dear GT, I appreciate your kind sentiments, yet I must elaborate a bit.

I do not write by choice.

Let me explain it this way. Others may make a fine distinction between the water one drinks for survival versus what one drinks for merely quenching the thirst! I do no such thing. From my janitorial frame of reference – there is just one act, drinking. In the same way – all writing is one act to me. In my simplistic view, I even believe that all art is one – the mediums can be different and are perhaps not even important – being superficial.

I believe that we are ALL artists and we are all writers inside, some of us simply are not aware of that simple fact. When the circuit is not shorted, no current can flow – but if by chance something connects at the right spots, the current can become impossible to stop, and perhaps even difficult to regulate. Does that make a person gifted – a lucky bloke? I doubt it; in fact, it perhaps makes one highly unlucky! Truth be said, why any one with even a bit of sanity would knowingly wish to put oneself through the resulting agony – perhaps the worst possible feeling that any human being – decent or otherwise – can ever experience – that beats me – perhaps it becomes a case of simple addiction.

The rest of it is simply technique that one can acquire through effort if one wishes to – much like one can pretty much acquire any of the physical assets or skills in life one truly desires and is willing to put in the necessary effort for.

So therefore, I am not a writer, just a simple man. I have perhaps destroyed a lot more than I have ever created. But at least I am man enough to use my own name and stand behind my own “babies” whether others do or not! And this mother will fight tooth and nail and will fight as long as necessary before any of the cowards in the neighborhood dare to call those babies illegitimate – somewhat uncared for perhaps they may be, but they certainly are not illegitimate and they certainly are not motherless!

Absent in the Spring
#55 by delhiwala

Dear Delhiwala,

Yaar, you are well aware that I am no writer, and certainly have taken no courses of the type you allude to. :)

However, I had very specific intents in writing this piece. And I am also reasonably sure that you understand my intents more than you let on. Both #38 and #44 had a specific purpose. I believe you know what it was. (I am sorry about their harsh tone, but it was necessary for what I wished those to accomplish.) You have considered what I said therein. I respect your decision-making and I must respect your space. I hope you will continue to rethink. This forum will still be there – even after it leaves the front page. And my e-mail address will remain what it is, too.

I love you, man!

[PS: India is a loosely defined country made up of various nationalities, kind of like USSR. Now this does not make me anti-Indian in your eyes, does it?]

Why should it? Isn’t there a reason it is called a “sub-continent”?!! :)

Absent in the Spring
My dear HP,

I need to step away for a bit.

When I do return, I look forward to your brilliant interact - with that eagerly-awaited literary critique of this work.

I can not wait to be dazzled by your brilliance!

Go ahead and light it up!

Light it ALL up - this simple board can use the light!

Hope nobody has a vision malady - sometimes those lights can hurt those beauties!

Absent in the Spring
#48 (more add-on)

Be a real pal now, HP.

Be a friend.

Perhaps a POWERFUL friend.

Unless you are one of the``unpowerful`` friends!!

I suppose you understand what I mean!

Absent in the Spring
#48 (add-on)

Or WHOEVER writes it for whoever!

Absent in the Spring
#46 HP

Dear HP, since a short story must be critiqued on its merits according to you, why don`t you go ahead and provide such critique?! So far, all we have seen from you is what can be legitimately termed ``jealous buck-waas``!

I look forward to such critique.

Go ahead, turn the tide!

Hit one for the literature! Show us what you are made of.

I look forward to such critique.

No matter WHO provides it.

Absent in the Spring
Dear Chowk Staff,

I respectfully request you to check if “yellowbelly” who has posted a couple of interacts on this board, who set up that ID only today, and who has just one assertion to make - is an existing interactor posting under a different name – which would be in violation of chowk guidelines.

If that be the case, I request that you mete out the same punishment to that user ID that you have imposed on other interactors for the same “crime”!

Secondly, in order to discourage such abuse in future, I request you to publicly identify that interactor.

Thank you for your (hopefully) prompt action on this issue!

Respectfully submitted,
BJ Kumar

Absent in the Spring
From an article entitled ``Oh, That Other Hindu Riot of Passage`` by Khushwant Singh, published 07 November, 2004, in the Outlook Magazine

``....Did the Sikhs deserve to be taught a lesson? I pondered over the matter for many days and many hours and reluctantly admitted that Hindus had some justification for their anger against Sikhs. The starting point was the emergence of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale as a leader. He used vituperative language against the Hindus. He exhorted every Sikh to kill 32 Hindus to solve the Hindu-Sikh problem. Anyone who opposed him was put on his hit list and some eliminated. His hoodlums murdered Lala Jagat Narain, founder of the Hind Samachar group of papers. They killed hawkers who sold their papers.

The list of Bhindranwale`s victims, which included both Hindus and Sikhs, was a long one. More depressing to me was that no one spoke out openly against him. He had a wily patron in Giani Zail Singh who had him released when he was charged as an accomplice in the murderof Jagat Narain. Akali leaders supported him. Some like Badal and Barnala, who used to tie their beards to their chins, let them down in deference to his wishes. So did many Sikh civil servants. They lauded him as the saviour of the Khalsa Panth and called him Sant. I am proud to say I was the only one who wrote against him and attacked him as a hate-monger. I was on his hit list and continued to be so on that of his followers-for 15 long years-and was given police protection which I never asked for.

Bhindranwale, with the tacit connivance of Akali leaders like Gurcharan Singh Tohra, turned the Golden Temple into an armed fortress of Sikh defiance. He provided the Indian government the excuse to send the army into the temple complex. I warned the government in Parliament and through my articles against using the army to get hold of Bhindranwale and his followers as the consequences would be grave. And so they were. Operation Bluestar was a blunder of Himalayan proportions. Bhindranwale was killed but hailed as a martyr. Over 5,000 men and women lost their lives in the exchange of fire.

The Akal Takht was wrecked.Symbolic protests did not take long coming. I was part of it; I surrendered the Padma Bhushan awarded to me. Among the people who condemned my action was Vinod Mehta, then editor of The Observer. He wrote that when it came to choosing between being an Indian or a Sikh, I had chosen to be a Sikh. I stopped contributing to his paper. I had never believed that I had to be one or the other. I was both an Indian and a Sikh and proud of being so. I might well have asked Mehta in return, ``Are you a Hindu or an Indian?`` Hindus do not have to prove their nationality; only Muslims, Christians and Sikhs are required to give evidence of their patriotism.Anti-Sikh violence gave a boost to the demand for a separate Sikh state and Khalistan-inspired terrorism in Punjab and abroad. Amongst the worst was the blowing up of Air India`s Kanishka (June 23, 1985), which killed all its 329 passengers and crew, including over 30 Sikhs. Sant Harchand Singh Longowal, who signed the Rajiv-Longowal accord (July 29, 1985), was murdered while praying in a gurudwara just three weeks later. In August 1986, General A.S. Vaidya, who was chief of staff when Operation Bluestar took place, was gunned down in Pune in August 1985. The killings went on unabated for almost 10 years. Terrorists ran a parallel government in districts adjoining Pakistan which also provided them arms training and escape routes. It is estimated that in those 10 years over 25,000 were killed. Midway, the Golden Temple had again become a sanctuary for criminals. This time the Punjab police led by K.P.S. Gill was able to get the better of them with the loss of only two lives in what came to be known as Operation Black Thunder (May 13-18, 1988). The terrorist movement petered out as the terrorists turned gangsters and took to extortion and robbery.The peasantry turned its back on them.

About the last action of Khalistani terrorists was the murder of chief minister Beant Singh, who was blown up along with 12 others by a suicide bomber on July 31, 1995, at Chandigarh.It is not surprising that with this legacy of ill-will and bloodshed a sense of alienation grew among the Sikhs. It was reinforced by the reluctance of successive governments at the Centre to bring the perpetrators of the anti-Sikh pogrom of October 31 and November 1, 1984. A growing number of non-Sikhs have also come to the conclusion that grave injustice has been done to the Sikhs. Several non-official commissions of inquiry-including one headed by retired Supreme Court chief justice S.M. Sikri, comprising retired ambassadors and senior civil servants-have categorically named the guilty. However, all that the government has done is to appoint one commission of inquiry after another to look into charges of minor relevance to the issue without taking any action. The Nanavati Commission has been at it for quite some time: I rendered evidence before it over two years ago. It has asked for further extension of time, which has been granted till the end of this year. The only word I can think of using for such official procrastination is disgraceful.....``

Absent in the Spring
#43 Delhiwala

Where in #38 did I try to “defend” Bihar? I don’t give a flying fukkk if I am from Bihar or from another galaxy. There you go again – trying to sideline – becoming evasive!

Come out, come out – wherever you are – and whichever emotional hidden cave you are taking refuse in!

Don’t you DARE go wimpy on me!! I will take you apart more methodically than my car alternator which is giving me trouble in this 20 degree frigid Washington temperature!

And don’t try to pull that “humor” stuff on me – I can see through it more clearly than your mom ever saw your naked ass – and I can whip that ass much harder that that fine lady would ever have done to you!

Absent in the Spring
#40 Yellowbelly

Ama yaar, you KNOW darn well that #13 was a compliment - except HP being HP, lacked the guts to be open with strong admiration and fulsome praise!

Perhaps it is a very PAKISTANI characteristic?!

Unless it is a very MALE characteristic.

Or, it could be just the combination of the two.

Absent in the Spring
#37 by ranjit

My dear, I respectfully maintain that Bhindranwale was a misguided young man. He clearly had some bad ideas. But bad ideas do not harm by themselves – until they get transformed into bad deeds – including acts of killing.

A firebrand preacher can vent fire – but a firing gun is the one that kills people. Gen. Zia did his best to satisfy that need.

Zia’s goons trained militant Sikhs – perhaps even their own folks who were posing to be “Sikhs” and he sent them across the borders to conduct religion-based killings. Most Sikhs did not defend that sort of atrocity.

We will never know what this man Bhindranwale “orchestrated” from inside the temple. He is dead.

Absent in the Spring
#36 Yellowbelly

My dear, I am not the one with the yellow belly! YOU are.

Absent in the Spring
#33 by delhiwala

[Interesting because you being from Bihar and writing about Sikhs.....uhmmmm....]

Listen my dear fruitcake of a sirdarji! Bihar has very close ties to Sikhism, it is called the Harmandir Sahib. You can deny all you want – but it is not moving anywhere else! And as a human being, I have every right to try my best to write about another human being. I don’t need to be from Bihar, or from Punjab, or from Timbuktu – to do that!

You DO concede that Sikhs ARE human being, or is that something you would like to contest also, sweetheart?!!

If so, I make my claim and there is NOTHING – absolutely NOTHING, that morons like you can do to deny me my rights!

It is the height of that same pathetic segregated mentality to imply that one needs to be a Sikh to feel like one – and it is no different from saying that you need to be a Muslim to feel like one – or a white man to feel like a white man – or any one of the millions of varieties of that human animal that exists around the world!

I think you are just the partner the likes of mian Urstruly and others like him need – to partner in that macabre dance with – and how well that dance occurs – like clockwork – again and again! You fukkers got it perfected to a microsecond!

Frankly my dear, at this time, it is fair to call you an absolute turkey!

You are no-fukking-better than u-no-hu! Except that little thing dangling between your thighs is shaped a bit different and is a bit less penetrating.

It accomplishes at exactly the same level! Why do you think Godhra took place?! It was because that disease – YOUR disease – was left alone and covered up. Only the symptoms look different – the underlying malady is the same!

You and those “friends” of yours – they make me want to puke!

Yes, you heard me right, you turkey – I said PUKE!

You and your friends – those turkeys who have built-up those walls – that emotional ghetto!

You feel all virtuous and you feel all righteous proclaiming that it is YOUR space – outside which, you are not “comfortable”!

So you hide inside it – you pathetic coward!

You of that ghetto mentality! You the shameless blot on the name of the Gurus!

Yes, you will NEVER talk about it. You will cover it up, you dumbbell – you will save it like a souvenir, and you will take care of it, you will feed it, and you will nurse it so it always remains “healthy”! It will last you a lifetime – perhaps give you your “kicks” – enjoying how you are soooooo “different”!

You will keep it close to heart, you fukking moron – you will take it to bed every night, enjoying its touch more than any acts of sex – until you die!

At which point, you will pass it on to your progeny!

Damn you!

Absent in the Spring #28 by delhiwala

Like most of the other dumbass stuff I have put up here and there; this one is a composite based on accounts read here and there.

(By the way – I know that blood is red and not pink – the point that you miss my darling – is when blood is liberally smeared with brain guts, it looks VERY pink!)

And frankly, every one of the pictures I have seen from that time frame – including the ones I posted in #25, captures that moment in time a lot better than somebody like me – with little to access than mere words, and poor words at that, could EVER hope to.

Just look at those policemen standing around, sticks in hand – while the vehicles burn – perhaps with unconscious bodies inside. Just witness the rampaging masses with sticks – and no, they are not all dhotiwallas, most of them are dressed up like you and I (well, at least like I). See that body burning in all its majesty of a multi-hued flame – at a time and place not of its choosing!

How the heck do you expect somebody like me – or even ANYBODY – to capture the enormity of what is taking place there?!! What do you expect me to be – a wizard?!

There is no amount of emotional space in the whole wide world to accommodate all the that is struggling to come out in every teardrop of the newly-widowed that I see in that picture. And how does one put in words the life story of what now is that canine’s meal but was a living, feeling human being only a short time earlier – perhaps moments earlier?!!

W. H. Wheeler does not have stuff like this on their stalls. I sincerely wish they did – I wish they had a book on every life that was lost in that tragedy.

I also wish that YOU had written this piece!

But I love you nonetheless!

Absent in the Spring
#27

Ama Urstruly,

Be upfront about it. There NEVER was any grass-root support for that “Khalistan” movement – except from some expatriates (usually foreign citizens perhaps with their eyes on “double citizenship” status which was not available at the time).

Also, there is little doubt that the Pakistanis (under Gen. Zia) did their best to promote terrorism in Indian Punjab of the early eighties – way before they started focusing on Kashmir using the same technique. After all, it does not require a whole lot of effort to dress up like a sirdarjee and shoot through the head unarmed bus riders.

So, don’t go about being modest regarding your very “own” contributions to that terrible tragedy.

The mishandling of the Bhindranwale episode by Mrs. Gandhi, the attack on the Golden Temple, but most of all the wanton killings following the Indira assassination increased the level of separatist feelings (again, mostly among the outsiders) and in some ways, perhaps the Sikhs will not feel the same as they felt before – until the government of India takes a courageous stand and puts on trial all the guilty parties from that episode – instead of merely giving lip service.

Until that happens, resolution will not come. Closure will not come. The people shall limp along (as they always do) but that gait will be different.

That gait is different – it’s not the same carefree walk. The lips will sing but the heart will not fully do so.

Something has been missing post-1984! We all know what is absent and the accountability is a big part of it.