Act 1: The Fall

Scene 1

Three months into their wedding a certain couple had a reason to celebrate. The wife announced that she was pregnant and the husband brought the house down in merriment. He announced that they would throw a party for all the neighbours in the coming week. But that would be after he would take Radha to the doctor. Radha needed to undergo the gender determination test.
“Is that necessary Mohan?” Radha asked
“Of course it is, aren’t you curious to know if it is a boy?”
“I am but that we would know, in another 8 months, isn’t it worth the wait?”
“Not at all, what if it is a girl. Will you be able to let go your own baby after it’s born?”
“What are you saying Mohan, why do we have to let go our baby, a boy or a girl?”
“This is funny, don’t you know I want a boy. I don’t want a girl.”
“What if I am not able to get pregnant again?”
“Radha, I am ready to take my chances. I would rather be childless than father a girl. I am giving all my wealth away in dowry to someone I don’t even know, for my sin is that I am a girl’s father. If it is a girl, I would rather get rid of it quickly and try for a boy at the earliest”
“Isn’t your mother also a woman?”
“Yes, she is, but what good has she done for the family?”
Manthara, the mother was listening to the conversation amusedly and the insult too did not stop her from enjoying what was to follow.
The next day the couple went to Mrs Janani, a village based doctor. Mohan bribed her to perform a sex determination test. Manthara had also accompanied them just in case Radha convinced her husband otherwise or if compassion crept in her boy’s mind.
The results came and luckily it was a boy.
The due date arrived and the good doctor was not alone in the labour room. He was accompanied by Mohan who had decided, he would be with his wife to support her as she delivered happiness.
The cries of the baby followed soon after, Mohan seeing the hint of penis was overjoyed.

Scene 2:

Due to unavailability of good male souls, due to the extreme demand for the male child, the Gods had decided to free the impish Nazi officers from hell and give them another chance. One such was born to Radha and Mohan.

After a religious ceremony, Radha and Mohan named their son – Swastik. There were four chits he was asked to pick from, instead he picked up the silver plate which had the Swastika sign inscribed on it and hence the name.

Scene 3: After 20 years (Year 2035)

Manthara died shortly after Swastik was born. She had choked on the banana she was given at a keertan as prasadam. Radha on the other hand abandoned the family and had run away soon after she was up on her legs. She went away as far as she could to start a new life for Manthara had made her life miserable. She saw evil in Swastik’s eyes and her usefulness for Mohan had deterred ever since she had given him what he wanted, a male child.
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Mohan took care of his son and died only a year ago in an accident. Swastik, who was now 20, used to sleepwalk occasionally and in the most recent episode, he picked a knife and stabbed his father. When the neighbours heard Mohan’s shriek they ran to his house to find a dead Mohan, and Swastik chanting “Hail Hitler”.
Swastik right from his childhood had been constantly asking his father to have him checked by a doctor but Mohan had always maintained that he would get better. With time Swastik became more violent, and Mohan decided that his son indeed needed help. He however stuck to the age old Indian method of taking him to a babaji. The babaji made Swastik chant some prayers and then asked him to offer 14 bottles of Old Monk on the chaturdashi of every month, to any poor Brahmin couple of a specific gotra. He wouldn’t have to worry about finding such a Brahmin couple though, as luckily babaji himself was of the very Gotra and he could receive the offer and would share it with his wife. He was also supposed to offer a dakshina to babaji as the Old Monk was to please the Gods, while only the Dakshina was for babaji.
Of course Mohan did not straightaway give in to the demands, he would not just agree to what was being suggested having not even bargained.
“Babaji, I think instead of having the offering on the chaturdashi, let us have the offering on the panchmi of every month. Vasant panchmi is approaching and it would be a good time to start the ritual. That way we could just offer 5 bottles of Old Monk and still keep the Gods happy. You are already aware that we aren’t as wealthy as we used to be so please let us work with what we can offer. As far as your dakshina is concerned I don’t even want to discuss it as what is yours is yours and we respect you.”
“Mohan, I understand and as you are aware that I am not asking this for myself, chaturdashi is the best day to please the Gods. But I understand your difficulties; panchami is not auspicious for penance rituals. Let us have the offering on the navami of every month. You will have to offer 9 bottles and I will chant a bit more to make up for the difference.”
Both the parties agreed and 3 years under the guidance of Babaji, Swastik had killed his father. He was tried in a court only to be let off. The court decided he needed medical help and not punishment.
Swastik underwent treatment and by the time he was 22, he had fully recovered from his ailments and had grown into a handsome young man. Post his treatment he was let off to go back to his home. To his surprise, his home was no longer his. Ashok Uncle who happened to be his father’s friend was the occupant and he claimed that the house was theirs and that Mohan was only his tenant. In fact he had not paid the rent from some time and the little money that Swastik carried was also taken away from him.
Swastik reached out to the local police only to be kicked out like a cur from the police station. He looked for a job but no one was willing to hire him. Like his father he too was uneducated and did not know what he could do to survive. He went begging for jobs one after another, but to no avail. He was living on the streets in the filth and the characteristic pungent and choking odour, one associates with the Indian streets. He was wondering what he had done in his life to deserve this. His mother had abandoned him and he had accidentally killed his own father, his house had been taken away by the ones who he had considered next to family. The gods looked at him from the upstairs and smirked at each other. One of the beggars he shared the footpath with suggested he take a dip in the holy Ganges as the clean water of Ganges could wash away all his sins.
Swastik desperate for a revival went to the riverside but two dips into the water, his skin was itching and by the night he had blisters on his skin. He realized perhaps the water was not as clean as he had thought. Not knowing what he could do, he started weeping. “Why God, why me?”
The Gods were discussing amongst themselves- “Look at this Nazi bastard. After having killed hundreds of men women and children he is still wondering what his fault is.” The smirks turned into laughter.

Act 2: The Spring

Scene 1:
Swastik felt very low. Even a dip in the Ganges hadn’t worked. He decided no one could help him. He would rather end his life. He bought rat poison from a local shop on credit, and had the entire bottle of it. He prayed to the Gods for forgiveness and a better life in the next birth. Swastik would still get chances. The rat poison that the storekeeper had lent was a duplicate product with no medicinal properties whatsoever. After 8 hours of sound sleep, Swastik was up again to his surprise. He was very depressed as he would need to buy the poison again.
A flyer flew into his lap. It talked of a job opportunity. It read-:
“Think you are good for nothing? We have rewarding internship opportunities for you. Full time opportunities for the unmarried and freelancing requirements for the married men. Plenty of travel opportunities, oodles of acts of adventures and an opportunity to live a life out of a suitcase. Flexible timings and no computer number crunching. The more uneducated you are the better. Also we would assist you in alternative career paths post the internship if you decide to switch to other career lines. For more details, assemble behind the Boys high school on Monday, Sept 9th, at 9 AM. #Nexus.”

“God has finally shown me the way. I will go here and plead for a job”, Swastik told himself.

Scene 2:
When Swastik reached the camp, he was asked basic questions around his family background. When the interviewer realized he was a homeless orphan, he was straightaway hired. He was given clothes, good food and was given a letter which highlighted where he needed to report for the job and a brief description on what all he would get to learn during his year-long paid stint.
The next day when Swastik reported to work and when the other recruits joined him. Their mentor addressed them.
“Welcome brothers. I welcome you with open hearts. I see some of you have reported late, don’t do that ever again, I am a real Nazi when it comes to punctuality.”
Swastik, when he heard the word Nazi, he felt a certain sense of Déjà vu, and also liked his mentor instantly.
The mentor continued- “We are a prestigious organization, you should be proud to have made it to the internship. You see in India, you either need to be really brilliant to find opportunities abroad or good for nothing to find opportunities with us. If you are somewhere in between, you can’t do much. Luckily for you, you guys are worthless and therefore you deserve all things worthy.”
There are three job streams on offer and you can intern in on any of it. The three streams are all pillars to our organization and all the three streams offer a good demand even outside our line of operations. Just so that you understand, we are called Nexus (Ind) for we believe in togetherness unlike other Naxal organizations that often have rifts. The work environment here is very chilled out and we have a flat organizational structure where if you have the potential, you could quickly grow and take up more responsibility. Talking of the three streams, the first one is Savagery, you will be trained to plunder and kill. This is for the ones who love adventure. You will get to kill corrupt politicians, bomb police stations, blast railway tracks. It is not for the weak hearted and requires a lot of might. Outside opportunities include, setting up your own start-up where you could run a goon shop.
The other exciting opportunity is in Public Speaking. You will get to address large crowds. The idea would be to influence their minds by using powerful vitriolic speeches. You will mislead and talk crap about the government. This helps keep our organization in the news. You might also get to talk to the media and give interviews. You will have to talk liberally in these interviews and you would be the public face of the organization. As you might already be aware, the most lucrative outside opportunity is the field of politics. The work is very similar, there too you would give liberal interviews and vitriolic speeches. You will mislead the people. You will have the opportunity to start a party and Nexus (Ind) will support your operations or you could go to jail for a while we arrange your joining a major political party.
The third stream is a little trickier, here we would arrange for your accommodation between the general public. You would have to live with them, keep influencing their opinions in undertones and subtlety so that the people keep on funding our operations. Since finances are the most important, this is a key to our operations and you also get to keep a family and live a normal life. Again coming to the outside opportunities, you could either start a NGO or you could become a Religious Guru. You should be aware that while on an average a successful corrupt politician makes 30-50 crores in his lifetime, a success Religious Guru makes in the range of 200-300 crores through donations alone. In this stream you will get to work on influencing people to do charity. Please also note that, none of these outside opportunities require any kind of education, and they are extremely rewarding. All you need is to spend some time here, gain some experience and you are good to charter your own path. I will now be happy to take questions if any.”
“Why would anyone want to take up savagery, there is a threat of losing one’s life, and outside career options are not as rewarding compared to the other two work-streams?” Swastik asked.
“I can see you already have an affinity for savagery and perhaps that is why you seem concerned. My friend if you start as a savage, it will make you tough, you directly get to work for and learn from our CEO. Let me tell you, he is brilliant bomber, and then you can always move to other fields later. But you can’t shift to savagery from other fields given its far too technical. Besides when you start a start-up goon shop, we may only be the angel investors, but a lot of funding will come from political organizations and all of it stays tax free.
The interns chose the offered streams based on their aptitude. Satwik chose Savagery as was expected. His badge read SS, which stood for Savage Satwik and not for SchutzStaffel in any way. Post his internship, he chose to stick around for longer and worked in various capacities for the organization. As a Savage he killed more than 100 villagers and a few policemen and politicians were also on his resume. He somehow had this natural affinity for gunpowder and savagery.
He later became a public speaker and his vitriolic speeches enabled the villagers to kill each other without a single unit of Nexus ammunition being involved. He was also instrumental in making key abductions of who’s who of the Indian political system and became a household heel. They loved him or hated him; he polarized opinions like a divine figure would.
Such was his popularity that every political party wanted him. Yet he did not want to leave Nexus for he had pledged his allegiance to the CEO. He was more of an oath-keeper. It was only when that Nexus was banned and called a terror organization that the CEO himself asked him to look for better opportunities.
Satwik as was customary, served 3 months in jail before he joined a popular regional political party. Still 35, he also got married. He was told that he needed to marry as that would give him a more creditable and liberal face. The murder trials and the death trails could all be taken care of, but when the media would accuse him of still having links with the Naxalites, he was supposed to show his wife as proof that he had indeed become a family man like the ordinary citizens. He coming from the poorest of backgrounds which had led him to take up Naxalism made for a good story. He was thought of as someone who could understand the problems of the ordinary citizens. It was only he, who could solve their problems.
Of course he was not a magician and would not be able to change things in five years, he would need lot longer but things would become better eventually. This was the pitch on which he ran the elections and all subsequent elections which won him 5 successive election wins.

Scene 3: Year 2075 | A futuristic India

At the age of 60, after five consecutive election wins and a reign of 25 years as an MLA, Satwik or Sajjan Satwik’s (as he is now referred to), real political career had actually begun, for tomorrow is his swearing in as the Chief Minister of his State. He has already sought the blessings of the Padmacharan Maharaj, his guide, motivator and the spiritual guru during the last decade. Maharaji’s guidance and desire to see Sajjan Satwik as Chief Minister were pivotal getting the coveted post. All the operations of babaji’s organization were made tax free in return.
Though both of them aren’t aware, it is the same Satwik and it is the same babaji who had once asked Satwik and his father Mohan to offer him bottles of Old Monk. Such is the irony of fate.