Summer of 1991

Free time reading (was also written in free time spread
over a couple of days! to be included in my autobiography).
Have a nice long weekend!

Well...it is 11 years now. ever thought of what was heppening
...where were you..what was  going on around you..11 years back.
yes..I remember it very well...and I am sure when triggered you
are also going to walk down to those yester-year events, because
it was no doubt a "different" year.

Summer of 1991 ...was indeed quite hot. And it was not
only because of "surya devta" but the whole continent was hot for
the ongoing election campaign. Just few months back Chandashekar
govt was toppled and country was all ready for the general election.
It was to be held in 3 or 4 diff phases. First phase was
over last week (17/18th may around) second phase was slated to be
in end of may....but who knew it will be well over 1 month
before the second phase of election really happens.

I was in Bhopal that year after my 5th sem....doing the vocational
trng in BHEL along with zaab. Many times I really used to
think the way we did trng...was it vocational or "vacational".
ofcourse the latter sounds more appropriate. The other and majority
of our classmates (including jhau/kt) were doing that in Bhilai SAIL.

I liked BHEL. both my sister/bro-in-law (cousin) as well as
future father-in-law (kidding!)  being there we got special treatment
(I mean no work and all play and at the end "exception" trng.
certificate!). The only thing which I did not like was their
timing (starts from 7 am!). But be it inside BHEL or outise the
only talk that week was of elections. And the imminent change
of government was very much visible. I still remember the "sunday" issue
in which RG mentioned that "he has learned a lot from past mistakes"
and next 5 years will be a real good one for country! We agreed with
him and all were excited for the techology boom which he promised!
Not only magazines..indian tv scenario was also changing. Though
private tv networks was still unfamilar but pvt companies
(mainly NDTV) was very popular. The terms (personalities) like
psephologist, Pranoy Roy, Vinod Dua, Nalini Singh, exit polls, etc.
turned the elections into something like a one day match!

But all that excitement came to an end on 21st may around 10pm at
a place called Sri-Perumbudur. I was having my tea next day
morning when Neha's dad (neighbour of my sister, where I was staying
for trng) broke the news. The idea of RDX clad suicide bomber garlanding
Rajiv Gandhi was too horrific andway too ingenious for that time (not
like
present day tel-aviv super market). Anyway BHEL officialy declared
mourning "holiday" in the lunch time...so nothing much to do.
Zaab and myself went to his brother's place who was out, previous
day we had bought 2 bottles of beer which was chilled by that time. 

Also we had bought two cassetes of yet unreleased film called
"dil-hai-ki-manta-naheen" and "saudagar".

And it was  only after reading the cassete cover  I was confirmed that
"o-mere-sapno-ke-saudagar" was not from the movie "saudagar" but DHKMN.

So that was it ..summer of 1991. We returned home by mid-june,
Narsimha Rao was all set to become new PM (who knows 13 languages
including
1 computer language.,as "Nav-Bharat" published) and by cashing in on
photographs of the explosion "The Frontline" magazine (from Madras)
was suddenly competing with "India-Today "in a place called Raipur too!