Grooming for Realpolitik

My next encounter with politics came in much later, when I started my practice at Aurangabad. But the background preparation for my entry in politics was done in Solapur, where I spent the two most happening years of my life. It so happened that after my graduation in Bombay in 1975, I went to Solapur to stay with my parents, and started working with Ar. V. T. Kota & Associates.

It was in Solapur that I met Arwind Kulkarni, who stayed across the street, and had a lot of friends all over the place. Through Arwind I got in touch with the study circle of Yukrand (short for Youth Revolutionary Forum) and an amature theatre group called Natya-Pushpanjali (drama as an offering of flowers to God). And then there were other groups too, consisting of his friends from the school & so on. My friendship with Arwind thus facilitated my entry into Solapur beyond the small group of architectural & building construction industry.

The study circles were a boring affair to start with, but taught me a lot about the Marxist theories. There I had my first brush with 'Das Capital' and the theory of dialectical materialism. Eventually I found out that the theories were not important, what was important was that they dealt with a hope that someday the poverty, the inequitable distribution of wealth & resources and all the ills that plagued our world, all this would some day be conquered by the revolution. In fact the theories actually suggested a way to deal with the situation.

There is a saying that if you live in third world, you get attracted to communism when you are young & have a heart, but if you continue to believe those theories at thirty it proves that you do not have a head. I have now passed from both these stages, and as I no longer believe in communism, I can claim to have a head.

But as a young intellectual, the Marxist theories about the world captured my imagination. The Utopian dreams of Marxism were enough to spur us to change the world. I remember the animated discussion on how China & Russia got the common man liberated from the clutches of the wicked rulers (both the feudal lords & the capitalists) and how a similar revolution is not only possible but inevitable in India. It all seems so ridiculous now, but then, in those study circle groups it was indeed a matter of life & death. I have seen people fighting over meaning of a phrase or the right way to interpret Marx in the Indian context & so on. But it was all politics of the naive, without a brush with reality.

That background served us well when we jointly wrote a drama called 'El Komero' based on a revolutionary group in a Latin American country. The story was based on a real one I had read, which dealt with kidnapping of Patty Hearst . When the kidnappers were caught finally by the police, they were surprised to see Patty helping the gang to fight with the police. It turned out that she had fallen in love with one of the members of the gang. We found the story dramatic enough but had no sympathy for the kidnappers. Hence after much thought, we decided to convert them into freedom-fighters & the father as a capitalist who helps the tyrannical dictator of 'El Komero', a fictitious south American nation. This, we thought, would generate sympathy for the kidnappers and make them heroes in the eyes of both the heroine and the general public.

I used a lot of communist theory I had heard in the study circle to spice up the story, but as it happened, it was Arwind (who was a known communist) who got the credit for that part of the drama. But we enjoyed writing the drama, putting all that we had learned in the study circle, and our two years of working in Natya-pushpanjali. We had sought to create a dazzling drama (almost on the lines of 'Sholay'), and saw ourselves as the new team of 'Salim-Javed'.

When we read the script to our group for the first time, there were cheers all round, and we started day-dreaming about the possible state level award for script-writing. We even succeeded in getting together three amature theatre groups to stage the play-creating a history of sorts in the amature theatrical circles in Solapur. But that is another story.

Close encounters of the political kind

If politics makes strange bedfellows, mine were the wierdest. As a student of fourth year architecture in J. J., I was lured with the promise of a free trip to new Delhi (from Mumbai-which was called Bombay back then). The catch was that I was expected to become a member of the Youth Congress by paying the membership fee of some twenty rupees. Little did I know of the strange things that were in store for me and my friends in that fateful trip.

It all started with the dear old Chandrashekhar Prabhu, who was in second year in J. J. then, marketing this idea of a free trip to Delhi to everybody who would listen. The year was 1974, and Sanjay Gandhi was the new son on the political horizon of India. Chandrashekhar Prabhu came from a family of politicians (his mother was MLA), and he was already a youth congress leader. It was to proclaim Sanjay Gandhi as a national leader of the youth, that a rally was organised in Delhi, and congressmen all over the nation were called to collect as many youths as posible and send them to New Delhi for the rally. It was to be the biggest show of strength for Sanjay Gandhi who had ambitions to become the next Prime Minister of India.

So the Youth Congress leaders all over India organised special trains from all over India to take these youths to Delhi for a free ride-it included free transportation to the place of the rally on the first day, free lodgings and a conducted tour of Delhi on the next day.

From J. J. we collected a group of ten-I only remember Gokhale who was in second year then and think that Chandru (R. Chandrashekhar) & Sarang Belapure were also there but I am not so sure now. None (except Prabhu) was keen to join the rally, and we decided to leave the congress youths immediately on arrival to Delhi, go sightseeing for two days, and join the train on its journey back to Bombay. Bombay Delhi train journey used to cost about Rs. 50.00 in those days, so we counted on a net saving of Rs. 80.00, and were happy with the thought.

But the onward journey proved troublesome, as we did not carry any food, nor was it organised by the Youth Congress. The entire train consisting of young men & women-not carrying any food, created havoc at every station that the train stopped. There would be a large crowding at almost all the food stalls, and we could not get through, and could not get anything to eat for the entire journey.

When the train reached Delhi in the early hours, we were all very tired, without any sleep, and very very hungry but all the same decided to catch the first train to Agra. This was a good train, with catering inside, and though our outward appearance must have seemed bizzare to the other passengers, we nevertheless enjoyed to food and the ride.

Getting down at Agra, we hired a taxi and had a tour of Fatehpur Sikri. It was raining very hard, and I remember saying that we should be thankful to the God that water is transperent, a comment that endeared me to my collegues who were (as usual) complaining that I talked too much.

In the evening, we came back to Agra and had our fill of Taj Mahal. In 1974 there were no hastles at the entry or anywhere in the campus. Taj Mahal in those days used to be open to visitors till late night, and I distinctly remember the moonlit Tajmahal even today. Back in Delhi, we had friends in Delhi IIT, and we stayed there as guests. The next day we spent going about Delhi, and before joining the train in the evening bought enough food for the return journey.

The return journey was not remarkable till we came to Balsad (a small station in Gujrath), as we did not venture out of the train-the onward journey had proved it was not worth the effort. But at Balsad, the train stopped for quite some time, there was a lot of shouting, and a whole army of policemen got into the train, arresting everybody. We had no idea what was happening, and there was no question of resistance. We were carried to the police station. The only thing that I remember out of the entire episode is that I tried to argue with the policemen that we did not know what happened at the station and had nothing to do with it anyway, and received a kick in response. That shut me off completely.

The police station was a nice little building with a small lock-up, but it could accommodate only about 5 people. There was no way they could put the entire mob of 2000 students anywhere, except in open ground, and then of course somebody must have intervened, as we were again escorted back to the train in the evening. In total we were at Balsad for about 5 to 6 hours.

When I went back to Bombay, I found out that the incident was very much in news as the opposition parties had taken it up. Newspaper reports alleged that the youths from our train had enjoyed the food on the railway stations along the route without bothering to pay, taking advantage of the chaos. Hence on the return journey, the stall holders were in wait for a show-down. The resulting fights must have led to police intervention described above.

The only thing I salvaged out of the incident was the model of Taj Mahal I had bought at Agra, which was dutifully posted to Bombay by the vendor. It turned out that the model of Taj Mahal had none of the glamour that we had witnessed in Agra. In a way, it was to serve as a metaphor for our entire journey to Delhi.