It was important to have a conversation with

Pandit Nehru in Allahabad

After the visitors left the fine house

We sat down for tea

Overlooking the confluence of the sacred rivers

I marveled at the variety of trees

– So Pandit how is the dream?

– Fine. Stronger than ever: even when we lose, we win

And when we win, we win. It was a dream now it has its emanations

– But the dream is declares a nightmare by many

– Look at the trees. Each tree has at least four post-modernists or

what do you call them?: post-colonials chirring. They face this way

and they are lambasting the dream. If the dream goes they are gone,

there is nothing, all is meaningless.

– How so?

– It is right that the Communists strive for revolution – CPIM – they

think it is right and we think it is right that they are wrong. Take the

Maoists, they think that the dream stalls the revolution, it is right that

my friend EMS thought they were wrong and it is right that we think

both are wrong. Take the dream away, they are nothing. It is also right

that the communalists strive for Hindutva and it is right that we think

they wrong. Take the dream away, they are nothing. Should I talk

about the Dalits? It is right that they think the caste order remains, it

is right that we think they wrong. This is dialectics: the dream is both

the space and time for the molecules to clash and shape.

– The Congress is not where you left it, Pandit!

– It either serves the dream or doesn’t, that's all.

– What about the woman who sits under a tree at night crying to the heavens?

– We cry with her.

– What about the squalor, the misery, the utter disregard for the spinner,

the plougher, the weaver, the child that dies at 14 from overwork.

– They were the reason for the dream.

– So all is well?

– Better than ever. India is real. Even if we lose, we win, the dream is

both the essence and the existence.

The two women wafted through the streets instead in the company of a

disheveled Nirala – to get provisions for the train-ride to Bengal. They came

back with no toiletries, hampers, dresses or shawls. They returned with poetic

metaphors instead: chrysanthemums, spinning wheels and shrouds.

Time to leave Triveni Sangam as the crickets in the ancient trees started chirring industrial policy ragas.