June 2008 - Summer Internship @ Honda Motorcycles and Scooter India Private Limited
Once, in the gestation period of my questionnaire, I accompanied Pranjali in plant for survey. While getting the questionnaire filled up with one of the staffs, when he got to know, we have come from Ghaziabad, he asked,
“ aap Ghaziabad ke MLA ko janti hain?”
“No”
“D. P. Yadav hain”
“achchha”
“unke bête hain na, Vikas Yadav aur Vishal yadav, arre wahi jo us case mein the(here his voice was rather in whispering tone), who hamare cousin hain (voice raised with immense pride)”
“ aap Ghaziabad ke MLA ko janti hain?”
“No”
“D. P. Yadav hain”
“achchha”
“unke bête hain na, Vikas Yadav aur Vishal yadav, arre wahi jo us case mein the(here his voice was rather in whispering tone), who hamare cousin hain (voice raised with immense pride)”
I, somehow, found the name Vikas Yadav rather familiar. Later on, Pranjali told me, he was talking about the same person, who allegedly murdered ‘Nitish Katara’ for sullying Yadav’s family ‘reputation’ by having an affair with his sister Bharti Yadav. Oh! And he was talking so proudly that he is their cousin, just after when he was talking about ‘workers uplift’ ‘Justice to the staffs’ and ‘consideration for the underprivileged by affluent management, of which we are going to be part of. Pranjali told me, he is the member of ‘Labour Union’ here. Heat of power is the biggest catalyst for anything in the world, be it power of wealth, brain or, muscles. Everyone, at his or her level tries to get even with injustice done to him, by afflicting injustice to some one else and justifying it. Be it any class, lower, middle or upper. In lower class, the husband transfers the injustice done to him by his master to his wife, wife to her child, child to the dog at the roadside and dog by biting him or anyone else and so on... This is the cycle of negative energy. “Energy cannot be created or destroyed; it is just transformed from one form to another”. And there are very less people, who transform this negative energy into positive, and perhaps, it is easier said than done. The worker, we met, perhaps didn’t took notice of the thing that we are from IMT, or he didn’t know that Nitish Katara was a student of IMT, Ghaziabad, and this is the place, where he met Bharti Yadav. Otherwise, we would have heard more about ‘his eminent connections’ and their historic records of murders, attempt to murder, extortion, rapes etc.
After few days only, Vikas Yadav was finally found guilty in the case and was given life imprisonment. Pranjali said jokingly, ‘Let’s go to that worker and congratulate him’. I wonder how much satisfaction and sense of victory, Nitish Katara’s mother must be feeling after the decision after the fight for the justice for her dead son for six years against all the odds… political pressure, muscle power and witnesses turning hostile. But, definitely, the goons won’t let justice prevail. Later, on Bharti Yadav’s statement came, “My brothers are innocent”. Such is the complexity of love among the martyred scrupulous lover, deflating commitments with time, family obligations, muscle power and self love. Love is perhaps the name given to the link between need and its fulfillment. With time, need changes and so the source of fulfillment!
