Child labour, India, ILO and Ms. Renuka Chowdhury, Union Minister for Women & Child Development

The Indian Express (November 20, 2006) had a story about the Union Minister of State for Women & Child Development Renuka Chowdhury calling for a relaxation on international laws on Child labour. (The highlights of her statement given at the end of this piece).

The minister should be congratulated for boldly calling for a qualification of the international laws on child labour. The courageous lady has the guts to call a spade a spade. Her questioning of the ILO’s ‘one-size-fits-all’ policy should be taken seriously by the government. It is time India challenged the western standards as the last word on every issue. Time we asserted that certain human rights norms evolved in a particular region do not always have universal applicability. East is east and west is west and there are areas where the twain cannot meet. The ILO’s laws regarding child labour is one of them. A child learning a traditional craft in her home is no more deprived, as the Ms. Chowdhury rightly pointed out, of her childhood as a child subjected to rigorous training to make tennis or swimming star out of her. In the former case the child learns the trade at its own pace, either in the most comfortable environment – the home -, or with a master craftsman who factors in the tender age of the child while imparting the skill. A practice that was followed so successfully for centuries cannot be declared a violation of human rights by the self styled arbiters of human welfare. The Christian west which has appropriated the prerogative of laying down rules for children’s rights, should not forget that Jesus Christ learnt carpentry the most natural way - as an apprentice to his father. I doubt he waited till he became a major before he started his training in the workshop!

Needless to say, the concept of a child picking up the traditional craft from the parent or a master craftsman does not necessarily imply denial of education to him. Training in the craft can/should happen in tandem with school going. Perhaps an alternative school system can be evolved to bring education to such children, where the curriculum is more spaced out and the burden of homework is reduced or done away with till the child reaches the age when he can handle both.

A research into the traditional system of training the child in crafts would show that the child very often enjoys working alongside the parent/master craftsman, particularly since the training does not happen in a structured, regimented way, demanding rigorous time management. The craft is picked up along the way, at a very easy pace. The learning takes place in a relaxed, pleasurable manner, on the child’s own terms. Without any violation of rights or deprival of childhood, the craft is picked up in the most natural fashion, in a manner that creates in the child love for the craft and that expertise leading to its mastery. This expertise is superior to any training acquired in a modern classroom or workshop, as, in the traditional set up, the air the child breathes is permeated with the love and reverence for the craft, its culture and history, its idiom and the way of life it entails.

Ms Chowdhury’s ‘earning while learning’ policy is a call for the revival of a particular system, a particular way of life which is on the brink of extinction, being unable to withstand the pressure from the draconian laws of the Government of India and to survive in the absence of a support system in the competitive market. However, Ms. Chowduhry’s call for its reinstatement gains legitimacy only if the change in policy regarding child labour imperatively incorporates steps to put in place support systems that would ensure that practice of these crafts is life sustaining. The order in which the traditional crafts flourished is today replaced by ‘modern’ economic and vastly different political systems. And with large scale industrialization, liberalization, privatization, and a market driven economy where marketing is a billion dollar business, traditional crafts will require comprehensive government protection for survival, at least till they are rehabilitated; and if the government deals with the issue with a missionary spirit, traditional crafts can become burgeoning business, improving village economy and making rural youth generators of wealth. Government subsidy for the acquisition of raw materials, financial support for infrastructural requirements, aggressively ensuring market for the homespun products, protection from exploitation by big players and retailers, and whatever else that has to be done must accompany the amendment that the minister wishes to bring about.

Finally, monitoring systems should exist whereby any aberration leading to child exploitation is effectively detected and corrected.

If such an environment is created, this move might be a partial answer to the massive problem that has been beleaguering the country for a long time –namely, the huge exodus to the cities coupled with the death of villages. Besides, it will prevent the dying of the crafts while generating employment in an effortless and most natural manner.

Remember what Gandhiji said – take care of the villages and the country will take care of itself.


Highlights of the Union Minister of State for Women & Child Development Renuka Chowdhury’s ’s statement

The ban on child labour should be eased to allow children to pick up traditional crafts such as carpet-weaving within the family structure. “ Traditionally, our arts and crafts have been passed down from parent to child at work place, whether at home or outside. But today, a parent is fined Rs20,000/ if the child is found working at the loom or weaving a carpet. Why can’t the children learn a skill within the family structure that can equip him for the future to earn a livelihood? . . . .The immediate benefit would be that there will not be so many cases of runaway children who get exploited in cities and towns as cheap and quick labour.”

She says that “international laws on child labour have been highly insensitive to local and regional issues. ILO has made sweeping ban on buying products made by children. WE too are signatories to anti-child labour laws without putting our minds to it. It cannot be a one-size-fits-all policy”. She will be forwarding a proposal on this – a ‘learning while earning policy’ – to the Union Labour minister, and hopes that the ‘Labour Ministry will be able to make a case for India’s unique situation and highlight our policy in international fora without being afraid of saying what is right for us”.

· She feels that the blanket ban in India based on the ILO laws, actually denies children the right to a profession or livelihood, preventing them from picking up vital skills passed on by master craftsmen. “Why can’t we have laws where the rights of children are protected in an environment where a child is safe and secure?”

The primary goal of the government which is to ensure that all children have access to education, nutrition and healthcare, should be seen in the context of Indian reality of employment generation, especially in traditional industries”. In 2020, India will be the country with the largest, youngest productive force in the world. Today, there are no rural universities in rural areas; primary education is a mirage outside urban areas. Are we equipping our children to face the future with no proper education or training?”

And finally her clinching query. “We applaud China when it recruits six-year old and turns them into world class gymnasts or the west turns young children into tennis stars through rigorous, grueling training. Why is there a hue and cry only when we want to impart our traditional skills to our children?”

HIND SWARAJ - GANDHI'S THOUGHTS ON EDUCATION

Written way back in 1916, Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj, which is a is a critique of the then much hailed “ modernism”, has a chapter on Education. Very unambiguously, he explains his strong views on the system of education introduced into India by the British. He himself was a beneficiary of this system but he claims that he had to unlearn what he learned from this western education in order to fulfill his dharma.

In order to appreciate his views – which will appear outlandish to us, as it did to his readers then – we too, will have to, like Gandhi, liberate our mind from the conditioning that it has been subjected to by the legacy of four centuries of colonization.

This is what he had this to say about the western concept of education (Gandhi’s quotes in bold italics followed by my limited efforts to understand/interpret his views.)

Gandhiji: What is the meaning of education? It simply means a knowledge of letters. It is merely an instrument, and an instrument may be well used and abused. The same instrument that may be used to cure a patient may be used to take away his life, and so may a knowledge of letters.-----------
me: The concept of education that we inherited from the British aimed at increasing knowledge but not wisdom, and intelligence but not the intellect. The failure of modern civilization is the de-linking of the former from the latter, in both the cases, for which the modern education is largely responsible. To this divorce of knowledge and intelligence(literacy?) from wisdom and intellect( education in the true sense?) can be attributed the headlong plunge of modern civilization into disaster on a global scale. It is in this unfortunate severance of literacy from education that we should seek explanation for, say for instance, nuclear research prioritizing the destructive potential over the constructive. Just imagine, what a different place this world would have been if the resources spent on developing nuclear bombs were directed towards energy and medical research! This is an example of how education becomes an abused instrument.

Gandhiji: The ordinary meaning of education is a knowledge of letters. To teach boys reading, writing and arithmetic is called primary education. ………………………..Our ancient school system is enough. Character-building has the first place in it and that is primary education. A building ( by this he means modern education based on western model) erected on that foundation will last.
me. Gandhi strongly believed that education should imperatively impart morality and values that would create in the individual self- respect and respect for others, make him conscious of the spiritual being in him, train him to tap the strengths and potential that lie therein and sensitise him to his role and duty as the member of a superior species. In short, basic or primary education should focus on enabling the student to internalize the concept of dharma. Once this is achieved, modern education can be imparted – ‘a building erected on that foundation will last”, for then, there will be no misuse of that instrument called education. Science without conscience, development without humane considerations, a worldview without factoring in the variety in human circumstances – all these are the products of the narrow definition of education on which the western model is constructed. He goes on to say . . . .

A peasant earns his bread honestly. He has ordinary knowledge of the world. He knows fairly well how he should behave towards his parents, wife, his children and his fellow villagers. He understands and observes the rules of morality. But he cannot write his own name. What do you propose to do by giving him a knowledge of letters? Will you add an inch to his happiness? Do you wish to make him discontented with his cottage or his lot?------- - - -
me: the last sentence. that is exactly what colonization did - alienated communities from their traditional culture, from traditional way of life. The new order, mistakenly believed by the colonizer, to have universal applicability, was imposed. The biggest loser was the African continent. India was affected, but not irretrievably, for she had a highly evolved value based culture to fall back on – a fact that is recorded to have confused the colonizer. They often mention that even the most anglicized Indian, even with his western education continues to remain an Indian at heart.

Gandhiji: Now, let us take higher education. I have learned Geography, Astronomy, geometry etc. What of that? In what ways have I benefited myself or those around me? Why have I learned these things? Professor Huxley has thus defined education: “ That man I think has had a liberal education who has been so trained in youth that his body is the ready servant of his will…..whose mind is stored with a knowledge of the fundamental truths of nature…whose passions are trained to come to heel by a vigorous will, the servant of tender conscience ….who has learnt to hate all vileness and to respect others as himself..”
If this is true education, I must emphatically say that the sciences I have enumerated above I have never been able to use for controlling my senses. Therefore, whether you take elementary education or higher education, it is not required for the main thing. It does not make men of us. it does not enable us to do our duty.
me: It is important to note that Gandhi believed that the primary duty of education is to make “make men of us”. Gandhi repeatedly reminds man that he is a higher being than the beast. What distinguishes man from the beast is his dharma consciousness. Any system of education that fails to instill this dharma consciousness, or ‘fails to make men of us” is worthless.

Gandhiji: In its (education’s) place it can be of use and it has its place when we have brought our senses under subjection and put our ethics on a firm foundation…..
me: Modern education is constructive or rather becomes not destructive only when its recipient has evolved spiritually enough to be in total command of his bestial self; ie when the material man is managed by the spiritual man.

AMITABH BACHCHAN - AN OVER-RATED ICON?

Today’s View & Counter View columns in TOI dicuss the issue of Delhi University conferring honorary doctorate degree on Amitabh Bachan. I have never been a Bachan fan, and so read through the piece hoping to be enlightened on the qualities of the actor that I have failed to recognize and therefore appreciate. Times View says that the university’s decision was a strategy to bolster its sagging popularity ratings among the students & the general public. Well, well! not a flattering statement about a premier university! But we have seen the Bachan magic working. Remember, when the cadbury’s sales plummeted following an adulteration scandal, Bachan was signed up by the company to be its new brand ambassador ?– and Cadbury’s bounced back!! So cant blame the university for hitting upon this bright idea – Only, a university is meant to produce scholars, not chocolate heroes!

The Counter View justified the practice of universities awarding honorary doctorates on luminaries, and in this context, had only this to say about Bachan. "A filmfare award for AmitabhBbachan is an entirely different form of tribute than a doctorate. The former honours his talent as a performer and his contribution to the film industry; the latter recognizes him as one who has added to learning, culture, society and civilization as awhole” !!!!!!(the exclamations, mine).

Will someone explain how Bachan has contributed to learning, culture, society and civilization? The article didn’t help much. It stopped talking about Bachan after this tall claim and went on to talk about the contributions of maestros of traditional music, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan etc. But not another word by way of explanation about how Bachan altered the course of civilization.

Talking about his talent as a performer, I must admit I am in no way competent to talk about Bachan as an actor. I don’t think I have sat through more than five films in which he has acted. Have seen a lot more in snatches. I liked him in “Anand “. I remember thinking, here is a very promising new face. Over decades, the new face became familiar, then too familiar, then oppresivley omnipresent – but the promise remained unfulfilled. With the onset of age, the stereotyped angry young man became an angry old man.

The trouble with him as an actor, I think, is Amitabh Bachan is Amitabh Bachan whatever role he plays. He is trapped in his own personality and his image. His negative capability is zero. The public, the film makers and agents of power that decide on awards have been hoodwinked by his popularity; but popularity, we know, is no proof of talent. MGR was more popular than Bachan - he could sway the electorate, something which Bachan could not do. But MGR was no great actor.

Guess Bachan owes his success to media. Given his limited histrionic talent, he would have faded gracefully into oblivion, had not the media prevented it.

This is my take on the Big B as a thespian. I could be wrong. It is possible that my inability to relate to Hindi films on account of the language barrier could be the reason for my inability to become a hard core Bachan fan.

But I am curious about Amitabh Bachan as a cultural factor. This is something worth making a study on. What is his appeal to the masses? The angry young man image going down with the audience is easy to understand. But after that? An inquiry into this might, perhaps, throw up some interesting truths about a post colonial, developing nation and a pluralistic society.

Kerala - a media constructed image?

Come the electronic revolution and some of our age old charmers begin to disappear. Distance is one of them. It no longer lends charm. No more nostalgia when I think of my state down south skirting the Arabian Sea. For a Keralite like me, living away from home, distance is one of the most tragic casualties of technological advancement. All that 1000 odd km distance between Mumbai and Kerala is neutralised by the relentless intrusion of the print and visual media into my Mumbai home. Advantage distance is removed from the rules of the game.

The keralite in Mumbai gets the Malayalam newspaper along with the TOI. Old habits die hard and mornings see me settling down in the most comfortable chair with black coffee and the Mayalayala Manorama. Sadly, the news that greets me is far from nostalgia inducing. Reading the Malayalam daily is like staring at the sickly underside of Kerala. It's replete with stories of lightning strikes, hartals, assaults on public figures, destruction of public property, sexual harassment, corruption, sexapades of men in high positions, political leaders spewing vitriol and sabotaging development activities, srikers transforming the secretariat premises into public latrine, opposition trying every trick in the book to stall the government functioning and to subvert progressive measures- - - - . And then the two news pages packed with obituaries and gory details of accident, freak deaths !!! I don’t think there is any other people in the world so obsessed with death – and there is any other state whose newspapers look forward to death more eagerly than the undertaker and the coffin maker, or compete with each other to bag death news! I don’t know if the egg or the chicken came first – whether it is the Malayalam newspapers pandering to keralites’ morbid cravings or this craving is created and fed by the papers. Whatever it is, we really are a strange and unique people!

At the end of the day, I stretch myself before the TV , surf through Malayalam channels - and see what the eye should not behold. Gnashing teeth, youngsters who should be in classrooms pelting stones and smashing buildings , wrecked buses, glass splinters, helpless policemen, netas gleefully taking political mileage out of violence which , perhaps, they themselves set afoot, that endangered species called honest politicians throwing up their helpless hands - - - - -,reminding me of that poet's ominous prophesies about the end of days:
The ceremony of innocence is drowned
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Sometimes, I tend to think, things are not as bad as they are made to appear by the media. Doesn’t anything good happen in kerala? Are there no healthy practices in this state? I begin to suspect that irresponsible media practices have a hand in bringing the state to this condition. Surely there is a good, healthy and inspiring side to the state that deserves to be brought out - and sensationalised. This is not to say that media should not cover social evils. It should- but it can surely strike a balance. Let the media, for a change, look for what is right with the state – and sensationalise that. Let it give wide coverage to the honest, the hard working, the principled, the ethical, the humane, the constructive, the positive elements in kerala life, and, sideline the cantankerous elements who hog the limelight and thrive and survive on the state wide attention handed out on a platter by media. This is an experiment worth trying. It might have a very positive impact on and transform the mindset of the people.

But this demands a high level of commitment on the part of media, especially print media. It implies a possible reduction of circulation of papers, for the voracious appetite for gore and filth created in the reader by media would not take well to being deprived of it usual meal. Media must make amends for conditioning its readers thus. It must make a serious effort to de-condition the reader.

High circulation newspapers with a long history should begin this trend. It should break this vicious circle of pandering to a conditioned taste. There is nothing more revolting than a grandmother pandering to the salacious cravings of her little children. She is morally bound to inspire them to mend their ways – even at the cost of losing favour with them. Or she would be remembered as the dirty old lady who stooped to conquer her dissolute children by pimping for them.

Post Kerala Piravi Delirium

Kerala piravi is over.

now we can shed the mask and ask ourselves – what’s is wrong with us?
why didn’t we have the graciousness to set aside the strike at least on that special day which is or should be an emotional one?

the answer is simple. our hearts are so hardened that we FEEL no more.

we have become a barbaric people. no. worse.

we are sub human.

strong words, I know. but well deserved. well earned.

a private bus owner association official goes public with such profundities as, “getting killed by a speeding vehicle is just another disaster - like the tsunami. it is nature’s way of checking population growth.” !!!!! that’s the Malthusian theory for you. customized, kerala style!!

and why not? we are, after all, a highly literate populace.

literate, yes. and we have that rare honour of reversing that taken-for-granted theory that literacy is the key to development.

kerala has proved that literacy brings out the worst in human beings.

Let’s take a quick look at what literacy does to the keralite:

it deprives him of all civic sense. look at the waste skirting the prestigious MG Road in Kochi or streets in posh residential areas. each man keeps his house in order and dumps waste on public roads. affluent denizens of cities creep out of their luxury bunglows with food waste in their imported cars and stealthily dump them on roads!!!!!!!

literacy teaches him not clean up his mess but leave it behind for the world to see. wash rooms in bus and railway stations and airports will testify to this.

it makes him self centred . nay. self obsessed. obsessed with his rights. indifferent to his duties. angry at being called to account. it’s each man for himself. my rights at the cost of my neighbour’s.

it creates a cockeyed understanding of the dignity of labour. a maniacal, touchy obsession with the dignity of the LABOURER – but a supreme contempt for the labour he is paid for. thus we have attimari, umpteen breaks( extended chai and lunch breaks, beedi breaks, back –stretch breaks, nature’s call breaks, warming up breaks, winding up breaks – you name it) in between the 9am to 5pm working hours, additional grease for the palm which receives payment from the taxpayers money - - -

it causes aggression to be imported into his language and body language. and cynicism too.

and the casualty is refinement, self respect and respect for others – and productivity.

our education is all skewed. our educational system has given us literacy divorced from education.

sheer coincidence. I was brooding over this issue when I stumbled upon the chapter on education in Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj. he challenges our educational system which was created for a different culture and imported into India during the colonial days. he does have a way of hitting the nail on the head!

but then, that’s a subject for another blog. should be treated with the respect it deserves.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, KERALA

On the fiftieth anniversary of Kerala, the Malayalee will wake up to find the state held to ransom for the second day by heavy vehicle owners. This state will probably starve if the strike is not called off within a week. So productive is God’s own country!!!!!

But no. I want to think positive - at least on this 50th year of the day Kerala acquired an identity.

For a change, I want to talk about what is right with Kerala.

To keep the blog sufficiently long, I shall include some pleasant experiences of being in Kerala.

The day after the 9/11 twin tower disaster, I took an auto early in the morning to the railway station. The middle - aged auto driver talked all the way to the station about US foreign policy, WTC, Osama, and his take on this issue. He spoke so much sense that I felt he should be doing something other than driving an auto. Perhaps he too realized this, which explained his behaviour at other times! Is this a matter to celebrate? Why not? That is the level of awareness of the average Malayalee.

One can sit in a restaurant, travel in a train, and wait in the bus station without being a victim of passive smoking. In the other Sates , often times, eating out or waiting in public places become a torture with the smell of cigarette smoke intruding into your breathing space. On these occasions, I wish I were back home.

When I fall sick, I always wish to be back in Kerala. There is no place like Kerala for medical care. The easy availability of competent doctors, efficiently run and affordable hospitals and clinics in every nook and corner of the state – it is something we can truly be proud of and be grateful for.

Move out of the towns and cities in Kerala, and the landscape is breathtaking. Truly designed by the Almighty, and executed under His personal supervision!!!!!

And to top it all , we have a Chief Minister who is occasionally a super duper entertainer, three ministers at the Centre, Sreesant in the cricket team, and Smart City and speed governors threatening to be born.

My muse fails me. Can you add to this, dear reader?

Looking back at Indira Gandhi days - briefly

A little before noon on 31st October, 1984, I entered the staff room after a lecture to find my colleagues silent and looking dazed. The news of Indira Gandhi’s assassination had just reached the college. Idefinite closure of college was immediately announced. Being an assassination, no one was sure of the turn events might take.

I returned home, noticing that the shops in the busy shopping area had their shutters down, except a vegetable shop which kept one panel open to clear the shop of vegetables at five star rates, to the milling crowd of women who were anxiously buying whatever they could. What if caesar is dead? life has to go on - - .

It is twenty two years now. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then. Recalling that stunned feeling at the news of the assassination,(the stunned effect stretched out for a couple of days!!), I now wonder why I reacted thus to a person of whom I was highly critical for various ideological reasons.

I think like many others, I too felt a sense of security with the country in the hands of a Nehru progeny. Things have changed now ( or have they? ). Bear with me while I take a backward glance to sort out my position on Indira Gandhi’s role in the making of India.

As the daughter of Nehru, Indira Gandhi was always on the periphery national consciousness. But when Kamaraj put her in the PM’s seat, she moved from the margins to the centre of discussions. A lot of anger and resentment always accompanied the mention of her name. Though I was too young at that time to understand the ramifications of the Syndicate and the Bangalore meeting etc, I was, however, old enough to sense that a lot of this anger had to do with her being a woman as also with the dynastic nature of her rise to the highest post in the country.

Older and wiser(?!) now, I think Indira Gandhi was what the country needed at that juncture of India’s development. While the Nehruvian era with its mixed economy and license raj helped stabilize a recuperating nation, Indira Gandhi tried to break the country free from the shackles of a constitution not fully suited for a country whose economic imbalance was dangerously precarious. Riding high on her popularity , she boldly struck down the privy purse & privileges which, we must admit, was an obscene burden on a nation whose BPl number was enormous. I think I am quite right in believing that if this bill had not been passed then overriding the supreme court decision, India would still be saddled with this huge liability.

The Indo-Pak war and the liberation of Bangla Desh, and the Pokharan blast sent the message to the world that India was not to be messed around with. Indira Gandhi’s bold leadership caused India to become a superpower in the subcontinent.

The emergency was definitely something the country could have done without. Ms Gandhi had shown strong indications of the autocratic streak in her earlier when she appointed Ray as the CJI superseding three senior judges. But the opposition was no match for her at that time to bring in built-in defences against misuse of power.

Needless to say a lot of gray areas remain with regards to her - like 60 lakh State Bank of India scandal and the mysterious death of the culprit Rustom Sorab Nagarwala, her role in the emergency atrocities, her giving her son a free hand to deal with the country as though it were his grandfather’s property.

But I would like to give her the benefit of the doubt. It is possible that like many Indians, she too believed the myth that India is Indira and vice versa . She too believed that she was indispensable. She too believed that only she could provide a secular, national, democratic leadrship that could take the country forward in its ordeal of recovering from centuries of colonial exploitation and deep rooted social injustice. Emergency may not have been an effort to merely hang on to power for its own sake. She might have foolishly believed, or been made to believe by sycophants, that the country would dissolve into anarchy if she steps down.

I am surprised to find myself taking such a lenient view of Ms Gandhi. But time , I guess, changes perspectives.

AK DISHYUUM ANTONY - IN THE DEFENCE SEAT

you could have knocked me down with a feather when I heard that A. K. Antony made it to the centre as, of all the things, the defense minister!!! wonder what made the PM or the super PM pick him for this high profile, high tension, high pressure portfolio. maybe it has somthing to do with his initials AK?

jokes aside, it could be a well meaning decision. with the defense ministry coming under a cloud. Mr.Clean can have a detergent effect, on the other hand, it could be a very smart decision. it’s common knowledge that Antony has this habit of dropping ministerial positions like hot potato the moment he begins to suspect the stink of a rotten deal. perhaps he’s seen as a stop gap arrangement who will make his own exit when the seat gets hot.

I used to be a huge fan of Antony. but during his last stint as the chief minister of kerala, he made too many mistakes in the name of party unity. and see where he landed his party in the state! he did not put his foot down on a few occasions when he should have.

but am sure that the erstwhile Antony fans are happy that he is given another chance to prove himself. an honest man in Indian politics is so rare a phenomenon that he should be given every possible chance and space to leave behind an impact. one never knows –Antony may surprise everyone with the sterner side he briefly exhibited immediatley after he took over as the CM of kerala in 2001.

honestly, I can’t help wishing him success. it reflects poorly on a polity that has no use for integrity.

PROVING SHAKESPEARE WRONG

what’s in a name. asked shakespeare. if u call a rose a lily, it still remains a rose (misquote – but that’s the sum and substance of what this elizabethan ambani said – did u know shakespeare was a hugely successful entrepreneur?)

what’s in a name? why, everything. how else do u explain the fact that shobha de continues to write for TOI? a time was when she was highly readable – that’s a thing of the past. creative senility has definitely set in. if not for her name , would a high circulation daily publish the type of inane stuff she churns out now, which is not even fit for the page 3 where she has an occasional column which she fills with random droppings!

if there is nothing in a name, why do people in kerala pay to have their names included in family histories which, incidentally, is a fad that has sustained itself for more than twenty years now. initially historians were very particular about confirming lineage before including the names of families which claim some remote connection. today, georgekutty can do the trick. georgekutty, by the way, is a Malayalam slang for money, a term derived from the bust of king george which once appeared on currency coins.

why do a certain community in the konkan coast go on an expedition into their past to excavate their ancestors identities in order to add their caste name to the existing ones? in these parts, combinations like hazel huddlestone kamath, clement d’souza prabhu etc are very common.

if a name is of no consequence, why do jayalaithaas and a host pf other celebrities add or subtract letters to/from their names, in consultation with numerologists?

why did it take me more than a year to name my daughter, braving the dire consequences of each person in the house calling her his/her favourite name during the interim period? – the good news is that she is a tough one now, having been used to being called names early in life!!

aren’t we righteously ignited when someone tries to tarnish our name? isn’t there a good chance of us having a few of our teeth knocked off if we indulge in name-calling? dont we shed blood, sweat and tears to live up to our name? or our family’s? or our organisation’s? don’t we switch on to a deferential mode at the mention of a big name in the locality ? don’t police interrogators treat human suspects like punching bags to make them name names? if you are involved in some activity, good or bad, isn’t it exceedingly important that you know the name of the game? when we indulge in deliberately casual name dropping, don’t heads turn to take another look at us?

and don’t the nameless dead sink unceremoniously into oblivion? and isn’t the nameless benefactor deprived of the gratitude due to him?

hey, shakespeareji, want to eat your words? you’ll most certainly want to do that if you come to know of the kind of freudian interpretations your name is being subjected to?

WOH LAMHE !

just came back from a walk – the last two laps were to the tune of woh lamhe – fast and slow versions. (had my ipod with me)

what an astounding number – cannot describe it well enough – so shall borrow my son’s words when he first told me about this song

a haunting song, he said, with no beginning or end. the voice which renders it belongs to someone who is hollow inside – and listening to it that hollowness is transferred to you!

I was totally perplexed – hollowness – last thing u expect from music – isn’t it a scary idea? to feel hollow (the term evokes eliot’s scary hollow men!)

and then I heard woh lamhe- yes. math was right. it has no beginning or end – it goes in circles – leads to no destination – and sure it’s hollow – like melody liberated from matter – emanating from a mind or soul purged of gross matter – that is the hollow I think math meant – not the eliotian hollow.

initially, I felt very sad I couldn’t follow hindi – coudnt understand the lyrics.

that doesn’t matter anymore – I think it is better this way – what is left to the imagination, they say, is infinitely superior – the unheard melody – no demystification., not for this number.

started taking interest in sufi after wo lamhe - - -

Discovering the Mahatma

For the life of me, I cant understand what took me so long to undertake this mission of discovering Gandhi. It is a shame, for I belong to the post independence generation where Gandhi was still very much part of t living memory, and often a topic of discussion at the dining tables. yet Gandhi, to me,remained just a little more than the bits and pieces of information that sank into my mind from the text books as also from the air I breathed. As I grew older,i heard less and less of Gandhi - there was a progressive depletion of the mahatma's presence in the atmosphere.

I read the Experiments With Truth in my early teens. Parts of it made me blush – such a prude I was! Parts of it sounded like extracts from a catechism text book. A lot of it I didn’t understand..

My next rendez-vouz with Gandhi was when I taught nehru’s prose in the college classrooms. I could comfortably sail thru Nehru, but come a quote from Gandhi and I’d get stuck. Strangely enough, somewhere deep down in me, I understood the Mahatma’s words fully well – but to put his views across to my students, I struggled. Found my language inadequate. Hey, I thought, this dude is a tough nut.

And then there was attenborough’s Gandhi – haven’t kept count of how many times I have seen it. Whatever anyone may say of the movie, Gandhi comes across as I have always understood him, tho my contact with his thought and personality was minimal

Of late the great man has become an obsession with me ( no thanks to munnabhai – have not yet seen the movie – shall do so soon). I visited Mani Bhavan a couple of times and moved thru the room with an honoured feeling that I am literally following the hallowed footsteps of a - well, what was he?

prophet?

a down to earth commonsensical philosopher?

a doctor of humankind with the sharpest of diagnostic acumen?

A man with a concentration of soul power that rendered futile the most sophisticated arsenal?

Or just another human being who fully comprehended his potential as a member of the human species and set out to tap it to the full?


What on earth was this man? the ninth incarnation?

And why did we Indians abandon him?

He showed us the way. Why didn’t we take that route?


but


Do I see signs of his resurrection?

Superstition or lost wisdom?

Was responding to a blog on a pet cat. One thing led to another and finally I ended up talking of superstitions.

There is a belief in kerala (elsewhere also? I don’t know) that a domestic cat disappearing from a house portends death. The cat, it seems, can smell death. Of course, the present generation educated rational keralites just shrug off such beliefs as superstitions, and therefore nonsense.

Sometimes I wonder. All those beliefs handed down for generations – are they all nonsense? After all they represent the accumulated wisdom of a people who handed down the zero and yoga and natyasastra and ayurveda. Surely, to repeat the cliché, our ancestors were no fools.

Take this cat business. Can cats smell death? I don’t know. But I also don’t know that cats cannot smell death. How much do we know about the dumb creatures? Not much. guess they are not rational but their instincts are very sharp, not toned down like man’s by the intellect . maybe an oncoming death creates a certain ambience or sends out signals which man cannot sense but an animal like a cat can. How do we know? How can we say that whatever we don’t know for sure – what cant be tested in the lab – does not exist? Surely there are things which lie beyond human comprehension, beyond the rational and intellectual faculties of man. It’s arrogant and foolish to deny this. And that’s what we do when we label everything that is not ‘scientific’ or ‘rational’ as superstition.

It was with great amusement that I watched zachs (of headlines today) interviewing an astrologer after the disqualification of Pluto. He kept on asking “now that the universe has changed, what happens to astrology?” . zach doesn’t seem to understand that universe has not changed with the disqualification of Pluto. What has changed is man’s perception or rather the perception of modern astronomy, of the universe. Secondly, and more importantly, astrology is based on a particular mode of knowing the universe which is different from the mode of knowing it in modern astronomy. The mode of knowing of these two disciplines is determined by the disciplinary agenda of each. The major concern of Indian astrology is the position of heavenly bodies coupled with them coming in conjunction with each other. The size of Pluto is immaterial to astrological calculations.(unfortunately, the astrologer that zach was bulldozing was not articulate enough to get this point across). the fact that the Indian astrologer’s approach to the cosmos does not figure significantly in the modern astronomical science does not mean astrology is mere superstition. I would call this attitude downright stupidity, proceeding from the arrogance of modern scientific confidence (false?) based on the faith (superstitious. Ha! ) that it has in its possession the world ordering knowledge.

I have an earlier blog titled extra sensory perception. How would a scientist explain my experience? He would either say that I am bluffing( I am not), or that I am schizophrenic (I am not). my experience was real. Since no science can explain it, it would be dismissed as, to quote russel, ‘intellectual rubbish’!

How dull life would be if it is made up of only those things that can stand the test of the dissection table!

Nobel Prize for Gandhi? Spare him, please!!

Wonder how Gandhiji would have reacted had he been chosen for the Nobel Prize. Am sure it would have meant nothing to him but he would have come out with one of his typical humorous one liners.

Asked once about his views on the western civilization, he replied with a twinkle in his eyes,"it's a good idea!". would have been interesting to see what he would have had to say about the "idea's" idea of peace!

the nobel committe has come out with confessions about its embarrssment about not having conferred the Peace prize on Gandhi. But it is very much in order that Gandhi was not given the prize. he is not of the stature that can be contained by a prize.

P'haps, the Nobel peace committee realised that. or could it be they couldnt figure him out? his lack of consistency, it appears, is one reason he lost it to someone else on one occasion? or maybe, they had not evolved enough to guage his greatness.

whatever the reason, thank God he was spared. let them not confer on him posthumously, ever. just imagine gGndhiji being bracketed with some of the recent recipients!

If they don't have water, give them coke!

(my comment to a blog on a the issue of kerala shutting down coke plant)

the pesticide issue was only a pretext to give the marching orders to coke unit. the present kerala CM had been fighting to have this unit shut .
dont get me wrong- am not an ardent leftist in my views- but i do have me reservations about the development model adopted by india. i know for sure that a lot of small players have gone under with the ruthless liberalisation which does not factor in their predicament. go ahead and liberalise, privatise, open up - our economy needs that no doubt. but the government must take care of the fall out of its policies. there should be systems and alternative measures in place which will protect the small players, ensure them the same dignified life that they enjoyed with the occupation that sustained them. it's as simple as that. the country cannot fill its coffers driving the small players up the wall in search of the noose to end their misery! what sort of development is that? let us not talk so dismissively of the depletion of ground water at plachimada. it is a huge human issue which cannot be wished or willed away , just as we canot brush aside the fall out of our present mode of development which is rationalised as collateral damage!!
plachimada ground water problem is not something that can wait forever while arm chair critics debate over the veracity of the media reports about it. for goodness sake it is drinking water against coke. the government should not behave like the coporate idealogues with a if-they-do-not-have-water-give-them-coke type of attitude.
we should not forget history. remember, how ceaucescu of rumania filled the coffers with foreign exchange by exporting even the staple food - bread. he was executed by a hungry nation on xmas day.
how can we forget that hunger and thirst and taking away the livelihood of people can destabilise a country?

KERALA WITH ITS PANTS DOWN

(Sent this to the NIE, kerala edition yesterday. Didnt turn up in today's paper. so i thought i'll put it up on my blog, particularly since it fits in with the silent majority theme of the previous one.)

The bubble has burst at last. The myth is debunked!

Chikungunya has exposed the underbelly of God’s own country.

A highly literate people! A state whose health care ranks with the best in the world! A standard of living on par with that of the developed world! The proverbial Kerala model exposed by a mosquito!

The time has come for all the political parties that have ruled the state to do some soul searching. What have the unions they foster done to the state? Protected the municipality officials and workers from doing the work for which the tax payers pay them through their nose and left the state to the mercy of mosquitoes!! What a Shame!?

Why don’t the political parties now join hands and declare a hartal in protest against the chikungunya mosquitoes?

The time has come for the people to act – to break the criminal silence and ask the Achuthanandans and Karunakarans and Chandys and Antonys what the hell they and their parties were doing with the tax payers money paid to keep us from these mosquitoes? Time we challenged them to pin responsibility on the cantankerous forces and unions they nurture that have made day to day life miserable for the average peace loving Keralites with no political muscles to flex . Time we took these politicians to task for messing around with our youth in the campuses to perpetuate their disgusting political agendas instead if inculcating in them civic sense and a sense of social responsibility.

Cocooned in myth of Kerala model of development( a parasitical model – scrounging off NRIs!! ugh!!), the people of Kerala suffered these power crazed politicians in silence. To this silent majority, I say, it is time for our Inquilab Zindabad. All myths talk of the gods sending down plagues to chastise an errant people. We the people also have erred by remaining silent and allowing these politicians with no sense of statesmanship whatsoever, to take us for a ride.

The time has come for us, the people of Kerala, to be warned by and draw inspiration from that Miltonic clarion call:_awake, arise or be forever fallen.

Kerala's Curse - The Silent Majority

I belong to a section of people in Kerala who matter, but who are not heard. So I shall call this group the Silent Majority - for that is what they are. Silent, because something in their breeding prevents them from going public with what they feel - also, even if they do wish to voice their views, outlets are simply not available. And they form the majority too.

This breed of people form the backbone of sanity in this state. More often than not, they make their presence felt only at the ballot box, often upsetting the calculations of those vociferous, belligerent elements in state politics, but sure as ever sending a strong message when they have the opportunity to do so silently and peacefully. Perhaps the most telling reaction of the silent majority was seen in the election following the Emergency . The outcome of the poll showed that the people of Kerala, harassed by political parties disrupting life in the name of ideology, placed much value on the rule of law and a reasonable degree of predictability in day to day existence, both of which the Emergency ensured.

What is this Silent majority?
· It comprises citizens whom politics fail to interest for its own sake. They look upon politics as a mechanism to ensure proper governance leading to public weal.
· They are parents who resent all those forces responsible for depriving their children of job opportunities within the state. They are discerning enough to know that blame lies with ideologies, party politics and irresponsible trade unionism, all of which together created a work culture in Kerala that frightens away potential investors and entrepreneurs.
· They are people who know that Kerala is heading for a disaster which will blow to smithereens all the hype about internationally competitive standards in various aspects of development in Kerala. Development without income generation cannot go on for ever, and whatever freakish conjunction of factors that contributed to this mode of development cannot provide sustainable progress.
· They know that redemption for the state lies only in political leadership which is not self seeking. Governments after governments formed with various permutations and combinations failed to provide governance that addressed the fundamental problems plaguing the state. The reason for this failure, they know, is the near total absence of leaders of integrity and commitment to public welfare
· They are people with an extra sensitive antennae to detect a genuine public servant from among the breed the self-seeking, power and pelf crazed men who don the garb of politicians.

The silent majority kept a vigil for that proverbial leader of men.

And, for a brief moment, the wait appeared not to have been a futile one. In 2001, the Godot appeared in the new avatar of Mr. A.K. Antony. They had given him a chance or two earlier but he did not have the political chicanery then to survive in the megalomaniacal, anti people, undignified, shameless scramble for power that the state politics had been reduced to.

But the Antony of 2001 appeared a changed man. Soon after he took over as the CM of the previous government, he began assert himself and the silent majority began to stir itself out of the stupor of disillusionment, helplessness and cynicism. He announced reforms to pull the state out of the economic doldrums. This was greeted by a massive general strike which buckled under his determination. The silent majority rejoiced. But alas, it was too good to be true. Everything went wrong for Antony after that. There were too many Brutuses in his party, and an opposition with bared fangs to tear apart anyone/anything that would bring sanity , stability and integrity into the state polity.

Now we are back to square one. The left government is in the driver’s seat. What can we expect from a party which puts the party above the state and the people?

Once again, it is disillusionment, cynicism and helplessness for the silent majority. With hartals at the drop of the hat, with the derailing of every developmental plan, with our obsession with rights and total disregard for the responsibilities and duties, with the politicisation by the vociferous, raucus minority of even the very act of breathing, Kerala . I think, will bomb itself back to stone age.

While the silent majority looks on.

Isn’t the sin of omission as serious a crime as the sin of commission?

CRICKETALK

(This piece was written almost 10 years back when my son was fourteen. it was rejected by every newspaper I sent it to.)

My son had a dream. He dreamt that I had sent him to buy onions (it was a time when the spiralling price of onions almost brought down the Maharashtra government). On his way to the grocer’s, he saw a man pushing a cartload of onions. There were leg spin onions and off spin onions. The off spin onion, my son was told, cost Rs 8 per kilo. My son got into an argument with him. At the grocer’s, my son told him, leg spin onions cost only Rs 6 and so there is no reason why off spin onions should cost more (I don’t pretend to understand why it should cost less). A heated exchange followed – of words first, blows later. Soon passers–by joined in, and, in the free for all that followed, onions started spinning all over the place – off spin onions, leg spin onions, large onions, small onions. But the attack was medium pace with mostly full tosses, and the target - just anyone who happened to be around.

My son had been dreaming cricket ever since he was a toddler. But this was the first time his dream took a violent turn. Hopefully, the last time. So I refused to worry about it. But this dream set me thinking about the way this game had invaded our waking and sleeping hours. It appears that not a day in the life of an average Indian passes without his talking cricket or talking in terms of cricket. Recently, my nephew, who goes to the fourth standard, looked up from the picture of a ninety year old lady in the obituary column and said, “Aunty, look! This granny made ninety runs before she got out”. I refused to be scandalised at this irreverent attitude to the only certainty in life. This fledgling’s crickety sense of humour left me holding my sides.

Not just the younger ones, the older lot too seem to resort to this Anglo - Saxon game to express themselves. I once heard an elderly uncle protest against the regularity with which jackfruit dishes kept appearing in different forms on the daily menu. His wife, however, was not amused when he demanded to know whether she had taken a vow to hit a century in the jackfruit season. The situation did not improve any when his son playfully but tactlessly butted in to ask whether he should give his mother out so that his wife (the bahu) could go in to bat.

Cricket journalese has spawned yet another category of terms which has invaded the active vocabulary of Indians. These are a little hard to digest on account of the unnatural violence involved in dragging them into non-cricket contexts. Thus you hear of a compere being in a ‘devastating form”. My friend recently baked a cake which “collapsed” like the “Indian middle order”. A parent was once heard mourning that his son lacked the ‘killer instinct”! The other day I was at a Farewell meeting. My stomach heaved when I heard the retiring person being felicitated for ‘wrapping up his long and glorious innings” in a fitting manner. The “explosive start” of his career was found to deserve mention. He was lauded for proving to be the ‘danger man” who “demolished” the management’s something or the other.

O Lord! Deliver us from these loose deliveries!

WHO SHOT GANDHI?

Gandhi Jayathi is almost on us . AS ususal, there will be appropriate noises made by politicians, Congress party, media etc on the 2nd Oct., and then this great man will be shelved for another year. maybe this year things may be a little different- thanks to Munnabhai!!!

Not surprising that the great man should be treated like a necessary evil by the land which gave birth to him.

This cutting him down to size began before India became a free country. With the Partition, the pluralism (genuine pluralism, he believed, was native to India) which he tried to reinstate with his spiritual weapon received a deathblow. Poor man, what he did not realize was that he was incarnations ahead of those who fought with him for india’s freedom. Each of them had his agenda and the scramble began once the British were out.

After Independence,Nehru took care of edging Gandhiism out of the political and economic arrangement for free india. Mesmerised by modernity derived form the ideals of Enlighenment rationality (which was already taking the world to the brink of disaster), Nehru, who represented the sentiments of a nation rearing to go the western way, found Gandhi an embarrassment. And Gandhi withdrew from public life.

Gandhi had realised that India had the advantage of chosing the mode of development best suited for her. Time and again, throughout his engagement with the destiny of India, he wrote, spoke, advised, warned. He pleaded for grassroots movement, for organic village communities and agriculture centred economy. he had nothing against technology, but he knew that uncontrolled technology would lay waste India's greatest asset - human resource. He warned against the horrors of modern industialisation, commercialisation; of the dangers of the scientific outlook divorced from dharma. But no one paid heed to him. So India missed that chance and put the wrong foot forward. Since the die was cast, Gandhiji realised that India now can only learn the hard way. He came to terms with the fact that the post independence leadership had neither his hindsight nor foresight, that clarity of vision to see that its choice of the political arrangement and the economic policies will only serve the geopolitical and corporate interests of the developed west. For, the Indian 'elite' leadership in the period immediately following independence continued to be colonised in their minds. India had been decolonised only politically.

India is surging ahead , we claim today. But all those farmers who commit suicide - are they not India? All those small players in the industry who have to wind up their businesses that sustained them - are they not India? All those small time planters who had to sell out and have their means of livelihood taken from them - are they not India? All those tribals who are displaced by huge projects - are they not india? All those ultras, maoists and naxalites - are they not India? pray, which india is going to be the global leader? Does this potential 'global leader' include the majority?

Dismal thoughts on the occasion of a Gandhi jayanthi.

I must share a strange and disturbing scene i witnessed a few years back. I was at the Mani Bhavan ( where Gandhi stayed whenever he was in Bombay – it is a very badly maintained Gandhi museum now – compare it with the Indra Gandhi memorial , No. 1 Safdarjung Road - and we come to understand what is wrong with India today). Sorry for the digression. I continue -- - - It was in Mani Bhavan that I heard this question “WHO SHOT GANDHI?”

I turned around to find an East Europeon (i think) posing this query to an Indian tourist. ‘Godse”, the latter replied. “Why did he shoot him?”. To my utter surprise, the man threw a furtive glance around and made a hasty exit from the room which had miniatures of events from Gandhi’s life and last moments. I hung around hoping the Europeon visitor would put the question to me but he didn’t. He must have sensed something was wrong ( was something wrong? What was it?. I couldn’t figure it out) . He went around the room careful not to make eye contact with anybody.

Who shot Gandhi? Godse, yes. But his shot was the kindest of them all. The fusilade began long before Godse actually pulled the trigger. It began towards the last lap of freedom struggle when it became pretty clear that independence was only a matter of time. Gandhiji continued to be shot when the country was partitioned, when his lofty concept of India as a nation fell flat on its face with the communal riots. The unkindest shot was the political and economic dispensation chosen by the leadership of Independent India which totally ignored Gandhiism. AS early as 1906, Gandhi had, in his HINDSWARAJ warned against the mistakes of the post industrial, post Enlightenment modernity of the west (which ultimately would culminate in two World Wars and all its horrors).: " we want English rule without the Englishman. You want the tiger's nature, but not the tiger; that is to say, you would make India English. And when it becomes English, it will be called not Hindustan but Englistan. This is not the Swaraj that I want."

Gandhi continues to be shot today. We live in times which fear to even give a name and face to the forces which destroyed the man who ranks among the greatest of creations.

Gandhi and Mahatma

been browsing for the past half hour and made a strange discovery. a lot of people have a lot of grouse against Gandhi

there is this netizen who cannot forgive him for not taking up the cause of tne natives in S. Africa - he concernrned himself with the plight of migrant Indians only!
and then there is somene who wishes Gandhi wasn't a sex maniac!!!
yet another person who ccannot understand why he kept the company of Birlas and his likes.

I think the root of the problem lies in the title Mahatma. The fact is that it was Tagore who once referred to him as the mahatma and then the name stuck. Gandhiji never took this title seriously and never felt the need to live up to it.

Gandhi was an ordinary human like any other. he was intensleyy conscious of the fact that he had all the weaknesses of an ordinary mortal. But he also knew that like any other mortal, he too had latent spiritual and psychic strengths which needed to be released. His experiment with truth was an effort in this direction.

The greatness of Gandhiji lay in the fact that he was an ordinary human being and not a saint, or superman or a Godman or a genius. he showed us that one doesnt have to be born all these to become a Mahatma

media menace

was watching tv yesterday-the 11/9 anniv day- and realised that someone should drill some sense, and sense of propriety into the head of these media people. all this hype about the sept 11, the endless repetition of the images of the tower s collapsing, people weeping- arent we playing into the hands of the terror manufacturers? isnt the media doing just what they want? the terrorists must find it extremely gratiying to have free publicity through the constant reminders of what they can & will do if ----
which reminds me of the disgusting behaviour of media when arjun singh announced the decision of the govt(?) regarding reservation. CNNIBM was the worst- its behaviour was most irresponsible and mischivous- i think it is this channel that brought into currecny ther term Mandal II, suggesting that history should repeat itself- and the channel kept on showing , over and over and over again, that terrible shot of Goswami's self immolation effort- as though inviting protestors to follow suit! media should restrain itself from sowing dangerous ideas into the mind of youth- freedom without responsibility is lethal- particularly in the hands of a machinery with such wide reach.
one more thing- media should show a little more sensitivity while dealing with issue which are personal and delicate in nature. it is with utmost embarassment that i watched rajdeep sardesai literally hopping around with excitement when promod mahajan was shot. however public figure a person might be, there are certain spheres in his life that are private. national channels should not behave like gossip columns.
time someone conducted a workshop or seminar for media professionals on responsible and construcive telecast..
the media is very touchy about its rights. but we, the people intensely resent being victims of situations artificially created by the media for cheap sensationalism or its survival or whatever.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi - The Mahatma's fall from grace

A hundred years since Gandhiji launched Satyagraha! and almost sixty years since he brought the British empire to its knees.
And what does the great man mean to India today?
Times of India reports that there are no takers for the courses in Gandhian Studies offered by Universities in India.
Khader wearing/flaunting politicians do not know what the initials M.K. stand for !!!!!!!
A few adcademics i spoke to think he is some/any/all of the following: hypocrite, street smart politician, hoax, irrelevant, intellectually challenged.
Sad. very very sad. How did this happen? This fall from grace?

I still feel he is the greatest man who ever walked the earth.

Dr. Ayyappa Panikker

I was upset to hear of the death of Dr. Pannikker(Panikker sir, to us). I saw him only twice after I left the Institute of English (where i did my research) some sixteen years ago. Dr. Pannikker was the Director of the Institute. Even while i was there i had very little to do with him as he was not my guide. Yet, it is difficullt to come to terms with his death. For some reason, i seem to think think people like him dont die!
As a research scholar i had to interact with him occasionally - for administrative reasons mostly, and academic, once in a way. I must say, he was a presence. Nay, not just a presence. But an impact!
I remeber the first time i met him. it was a classic case of fools rushing in where angels fear to tread. Ihad no inkling that he was a temperamental genius with a fiery temper. After my fellowship was confirmed, i thought i'll speak to the celebrated poet-critic-scholar to help me find a topic. He suggested i take up a woman novlelist and explore some feminist angle. Very earnestly i told him that "feminism is not my cup of tea".
BOOM!!!!
All hell broke loose.
What! he exploded with heavy sarcasm. what then is your cup of tea? Who cares for your cup of tea? Two lack worth books on feminsm gathering dust in the university library and you are worried about your cup of tea.
With biting sarcasm he went on about my cup of tea. I was caught totally unawares and literally froze!! was horrified and it must have shown on my face. After he had finished,I quietly got up and politely asked him if i could take my leave. he asked me to wait and called the peon and ordered two cups of tea. Then over a cup of tea he made small conversation with me. Must say i was too shaken to respond coherently . Nevertheless, i appreciated the fact that this cup of tea was his olive branch.

Deliver us from Bacchans, KANK and the media

What is God's name is happening to the electronic media? when the world is burning, chanel after chanel goes on and on and on about KANK. is that movie of some national importance? dont the channels realise that less than o% of the viewers care a ----- about it? granted , there might be some academic interest in how a movie targetting the global indian fares- but day after day, channel after channel--- it's really really too much, too much!!!! true, these are days of channel wars - but does that mean they should throw all sense of propriety to the winds?

And this obsessions with the Bacchans! Really, it's time someone told them to stay at home for sometime. it's a real assault on the eyes! movies, file shots, commercials, hoardings-please. we need a change.

But what surprises me is how a pedestrian stereotyed actor like the papa Bacchan can earn such superlative praises- guess that's the power of the media - it even managed to pull wool over the eyes of Sanjay Bhansali into casting him in that major role in BLack. If not for Bacchan's pathetic performance, am sure the movie would have gone places. Just imagine what it would be if Nasrudin Shah or some one of his ilk played that role!

Wish to God channels(IBM, NDTV, HEADLINES TODAY) would behave in a more level headed manner

My daughter's gift

My daughter gave me a wonderful gift. Wonderful ‘cos it changed my life style completely .I have become a fitness freak now. From an indolent creature ever on the lookout for an excuse to avoid the prescribed one hour walk daily, I have become a walkaholic. I now wait for the evenings to come to go to the walkers park which I avoided like plague till I got this wonderful gift. I jump out of the bed at six in the morning ignoring all those aches and pains which I earlier used to seize upon to peg my excuses on., and dash off to the park to walk for an hour and half!
Guessed what the gift is?
Ipod.
To tell you the truth, hi-tech gadgets never fascinated me. In fact they scare me, make me feel inadequate, and sadden me too. I think they symbolize the death of a beautifully romantic manually operated life. Past has always fascinated me - and future? It frightens me. I hate those futuristic movies though I watch them through the corner of my eyes. I know I sound stupid but there are times I wish aeroplanes still remained impossible dreams. That’s me. Guess I had become an anachronism long before I was born !
But ipod! I love it. I can go to the end of the world with that tiny machine. With the earphone in my ears, I can walk long after I can walk no more .
Just imagine, you can carry music with you in the least cumbersome way. Clip it on to your dress, put the earphones in place and you carve out a private space for yourself in a very very public space like a park .And what a space that is!!! It spans time and space while you are go round and round and round on the beaten path with other health freaks who also go round and round and round. But there is a gulf of difference between them and me. While they keep looking at their watches or counting their rounds, I want to go on for ever! How can I not when Stevie Wonders follows his I just called with Part time Lover, or when Lenon provides the most melodious solutions to man’s misery with his Imagine? Nash’s I can see clearly now the rain takes me hurtling across time to my undergraduate days when I struggled to stay myself from swaying to that terrific reggae beat for fear of scandalizing my gentle mom with her extreme orthodox Syrian Catholic views about women. Oh! Then there are ever so many numbers which make me wish I could stretch those moments to eternity!
My worst fear(and my husband’s too)is that I would break out into some wild dance when those unnamed Latino numbers which my daughter has fed into the Ipod start filling my space with that irresistible beat.
I can go on and on and on -- - but am sure I have bored you sufficiently- So shall wind up with ‘Thank God (and my daughter) for the Ipod.’

Remembering from the margins 11 - Music lessons

I come from a musically talented family. My paternal uncle had had a brief stint with playback singing in the nascent stage of Malayalam cinema. Another uncle who died young was said to be a wizard with musical instruments. The story goes that he used to try all sorts of stunts with them - playing tunes on the harmonuium with his nose being the least difficult of them all!!!!!!!!!!!
All my siblings were comfortable in the world of music. So was/am I- to say we were comfortable, I guess, is an understatement. We love it – given the choice and encouragement, some at least would have taken up professions in it – but in our conservative Syrian catholic culture music , though encouraged, was always secondary to more important, serious pursuits.
Fortunately for us, our parents believed that proficiency in music was a desirable accomplishment. So some sort of music teacher would be in and out of our house all the time. Carnatic music was not our favourite ‘cos of the absence of glamour in our young doubly colonized world filled with western pop and hindi film music. So, when the Bhagavathar came to give lessons in Carnatic music to my two brothers immediately older and younger to me, the tendency was always to find reasons to get rid of him for the day. But getting rid of him, they never succeeded in - father would get into a fit of rage at the very suggestion. So they would sit thru it. I used to take the coffee up to the room where the classes were held. On one occasion, I saw my bothers making comical faces when the Bhagavathar, on their request, was rendering a piece, with his eyes rapturously closed. When he opened his eyes at the end of it, my brothers had appropriate expressions on their faces – soulful, ecstatic which seemed to me more comical than the faces they were making! But the Bhagavathar was immensely pleased by their response and went away a happy man that day. However, on another occasion, he opened his eyes midway and caught them red-handed. Needless to say, he reported the case to my mother. Guess that’s when mom decided the she would no longer be the cause for casting pearls - - - - - - -
But I was not as lucky as my brothers. It was at the beginning of my fifth standard that my mother got the bright idea that I should take piano lessons. I was not against the idea. I was given to a lot of day dreaming and I soon began to imagine myself at the piano before a large and distinguished audience and then the thunderous applause at the end of the performance. The idea really appealed to me. So it was that I was taken by my class teacher to Sister Redempta, one of the two music teachers we had in the convent school.
I saw Sister Redempta and my heart sank. I had just that morning finished reading an illustrated Sleeping Beauty, and sister reminded me of the picture of witch Malice kicking the cat out of her way!!!! Sister Redempta must have been six and a half feet long, or so she seemed to the diminutive person that I was. At least, she was the tallest person I had ever seen in my life. She was thin as thin can be. Her aged and lined face tapered down to a sharply pointed chin with a few long gray and black hair on it. She wore the dark brown habit of the nuns and wore stiletto heeled shoes. I had never seen a nun wearing stiletto heels and they fascinated me. So I stared at her shoes and she jumped up and down in a flurry thinking some reptile was heading towards her feet. Then she looked unpleasantly at me for making her do a violent tap dance.
Sr. Redempta was all that I was terrified of. She spoke no Malayalam. She was strict. She never, never, smiled!!!! And she had a temper. A terrible temper. She used to rap me on my knuckles when I repeatedly made the same mistakes. I was too scared to tell her I made them because I was terrified of her and so was extremely nervous. In fact, I had never conversed with her – couldn’t think of doing such a thing. In fact I couldn’t think of anyone having a normal conversation with her.
Things were ok in the initial days. Then as the lessons became tougher, and she got impatient and I got nervous and made mistakes and she got angry and angrier, life became a nightmare for me. I tried telling my mother that but she paid no heed to it – she thought I was acting up. The worst part was, the music lessons were from nine to ten. The students who came early to school would shout and yell and play orange salami, be quick, the king in the palace lost his ring etc etc, and there I would be sitting beside the scary Sister Redempta, being shouted at, rapped on the knuckles.
In my sixth standard it was worse. My music lessons were in the ante room of my class room and there was only a parapet high jhalf wall partition between these two rooms. My class mates would lean on the half-wall and watch my ordeal. This would make me even more nervous. And to make things worse, I was a being trained for the second grade Trinity College exam, and the pressure to perform was very high. So I would keep on making mistakes, Sister would keep gettig angry - and one day she grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me like they describe in the Enid Blyton books –shook me and shook me as if I were a rag doll and my friends laughed and laughed and Sister Redempta got more and more disgusted. Finally she let go and I collapsed on the key board with a loud jarring sound. She got up and went away in disgust. And I picked myself up and continued practice with whatever dignity I could muster. Left to myself, I didn’t make a single mistake! I pleaded with my mother to permit me to discontinue my piano lessons. She agreed but said I should appear for the exam and then only give it up. Unfortunately, I cleared the exam with Honours and my mother changed her mind. After all promises to children are meant to be broken ‘cos parents know best.

Bush at kolahalamedu or Teachers' day out

I wrote this piece for the college magazine. The editors thew it out. Gross, they said. And that too writing such things about teachers!!

Dr. Sister Marty was in her elements. From the word go, she had the mike in her hand, entertaining the excursion group with her mock performance as a tourist guide. It was the teachers' day out and we decided to really let our hair down. No wards and so no need for any masks. No image to live up to - all worries of household management left behind for the day with the husbands. An unreal situation - too good to be true - so there we were, singing our way to our destination Kolahalamedu.

Dr. Sr. Marty saw to it that there was a never dull moment, or a silent moment. Her running commentary, the deliberately stilted language sent us into peals of laughter. We were looking for the slightest excuse to burst into laughter - suddenly all seemed to realise that laughter is the best medicine for all teacher specific ailments - - - --

Now, what are they? these teacher specific ailments? Well, they manifest in different forms . So it's easier to talk about the cause. I guess, it has to do with the teacher being condemned to the same wrong side of the desk throughout her career. And that side of the desk throws up certain expectations. We are perfect - the role models for the wards. And so we are for ever tucking our clay feet away from the sight of the students - does anyone realise what an awkward predicament it is to be obsessed with keeping one's feet out of sight?

And then again, the teacher is the friend, philosopher and guide, all rolled into one. To have such a mighty role thrust upon her on the day the mantle of a teacher falls on her in her early twenties is a terrible thing to happen - the wonder of it is we didn’t crack up under this burden of expectations. Her survival instincts, however, always come to her rescue - she changes her stripes to merge with the environment. The young girl who believed in freaking out suddenly learns to ostentatiously look askance at the very mention of the very term. She learns to mask her speech with euphemisms. She learns to hide her real self behind the mask, which seemed to appear from nowhere. She discovers a dimension to herself, which she didn't know existed. She sometimes marvels at herself - at the way she grew into an image. At other times she feels revolted by the hypocrisy of it all. The fluctuating moods, however, never surface - all glee & grimace are well hidden behind the mask. The MASK - it's like the pair of glasses, which is not a part of you but is very much part of you. That's not you but you are not you without it. You can't function without it.

So, back to Kolahalamedu. Guess it's the freedom from the mask that made us giggly headed. Some had come in the outfit forbidden for teachers - the salwar suit, and all the way to the hills we screamed and yelled the way students do when we shepherd them on their excursions. We played anthakshari. You should have seen the way teachers were grabbing at the mike to belt out the songs!!!! We discovered that one of the youngsters was an excellent singer and were exaggeratedly excited about it. The mike went around while the teachers shared jokes, experiences, and we laughed at each of them, whether they were funny or not.

We were approaching Kolahalamedu. Sr.Marty resumed her commentary and then - - - - dropped that statement.

'There are bushes at Kolahalamedu"

She is a Botany prof. Must be of botanical interest, I thought.

Her commentary continued without any more references to the bushes. She waxed eloquent on the beauty of the landscape and spoke of the glory of living close to nature. Then, as the bus reached the destination, she said “Bush, Bush".

I was confused.

I racked my brains. Could it be something like the burning biblical bush? After all Kolahalamedu was just a stone throw from Kurusumala Ashram. Or could it be some far fetched reference to the American president, who, despite himself, dominated our imagination for all the wrong reasons? No way!

The bus stopped. Sr. Marty announced one last time “Bush, Bush".

The teachers alighted. Wisdom dawned on me as I saw them go up the hills and each disappear behind a bush.

Soon, I too followed suit.

WHITEFIELD: A SHANGRILA DESTROYED

Thirty years ago, when the name Whitefield was mentioned at home as a possible place to relocate to, it was to me just an English sounding name in the neighbouring state. Little did I think then that this sleepy little suburban village of Bangalore would create in me feelings of such intense nostalgia even today, a quarter of a century after leaving that place.
Strangely enough, not everyone residing in Whitefield responded to the place the way I did. Many who did not belong there but lived there for reasons of employment had plenty to complain. ( If all you need from life is bread, butter and beef, then Whitefield is just the place for you, Mr. Godrej used to grumble). But to me, time seemed to stand still – I seemed to have gone back some seventy-five years to a corner of colonial India where a number of Englishmen (who did not return to their motherland) settled down for a retired life.
Not that there was a single white man or woman in Whitefield – at least there were none to my knowledge. But there were a few hundred old Anglo Indian couples living there, and many of them had a Briton for an immediate parent. Far away from the rush of the city, they lived clinging to their British ancestry. They read with avid interest British newspapers and magazines (usually back issues) and maintained a non-native life style. Their homes were the most breathtakingly beautiful cottages that I have ever seen. They maintained them with fierce loyalty and whitewashed them during Christmas.
As you passed those cottages, aromas, which triggered off memories of food that you have never eaten but only read of, greeted your nostrils. In the beautiful little church that stood on a small hill, there was English service everyday in the morning and evening. The couples in their seventies, eighties and nineties attended the evening service. I remember the formidable Mrs. Tipsol, a widow who walked smartly despite her eighty odd years, leaning ever so slightly on her stylish walking stick. She would nod her cropped snowy head briskly at every passerby who dared to greet her. She would purse her scarlet lips in deep thought as she played bridge in the Whitefield Recreation Club. She would threaten with the walking stick the measly dog, which followed her wherever she went but would never beat him.
I remember the Chartons who were on the brink of ninety. They teased each other and were still very much in love! I can never forget the twinkle in Mr. Charton’s eyes when, in reply to my polite query, he said, “Dying inch by inch, my dear, inch by inch”
After the church service, some of the couples walked to the maidan of the Inner Circle to sit on the stone benches, while some disappeared into the Recreation Club. By seven, most went home to supper and then to bed. Most of them had resisted the TV – perhaps for fear it would shatter their make-believe world.
The Inner circle comprised cottages built in a circle around the maidan. There were a few huge, shady trees that flowered in blue and violet and yellow and flame and white. The sight took one’s breath away. The neat broad mud road that ran round the maidan was bordered by amazingly out- of- this- world cottages. The sheer fairy tale beauty of the sight brought a lump to my throat. For a mind reared on illustrated nursery rhymes and Grimm’s fairy tales and Enid Blyton, Wordsworth and George Eliot, the Inner Cirle was an impossible dream come true.
The locals too somehow fitted smoothly into the picture. The Kannadiga maid who came sweatered to my house at 6am on misty mornings greeted me with a ‘Morning Ma’am’ and used most naturally English words like garlic, mutton, onion, and parsley, and could prepare to perfection soups and jelly, country captain and apple pie!
I lived for five years in a cottage with low roof and a fireplace, in the heart of a five-acre orchard. My heart skips a beat when I remember the sound of the breeze gently rustling the leaves with its mild hum at night. My immediate neighbours were a couple, both above eighty-five, both half English. They rarely invited us in but were very cordial over the wall. Mr. Rodney could be seen even at noon in his pyjamas, sitting on the stone bench under the huge shady tamarind tree. Mrs. Rodney was often seen at the door of the cottage with a ladle in her hand, yelling at her husband.
I remember with amusement the day he called me excitedly with the ‘great news’. “Big wedding coming, Molly”
“Yes, Mr. Rodney? Whose?”
“ You didn’t know?”
He opened a magazine at a full-page picture of Princess Anne and her fiancé. I smiled politely.
“ You are not excited?”
“ Oh, yes, I am, Mr. Rodney”.

Today, not all my newly acquired desi sentiments can stay me from paying this tribute to Whitefield of yesteryears. I hear that Whitefield is horribly crowded today, and many of those couples I knew have been laid to rest. Those dream cottages have given way to high rises. I shall never go to Whitefield again. I want to preserve it in my memory as a relic of what I today describe as the hated imperialism. No amount of theory or patriotism can mute the singing of my heart when I look back at those five years in that sleepy village. For, nostalgia for an imaginary world created by Jack and Jill, and Polly of the kettle fame, found fruition in my life during those years.

Remebering from the margins 1- Monsoon in kerala

Monsoon in Kerala
It’s mid May. It’s hot and humid. But I don’t mind it. The rains are not far behind. How I love the rainy season in Kerala. Have always loved it. As children, we hoped and prayed for rains so we could splash our way to school and get there drenched. The teachers would fuss over us. If we were completely drenched, they would take us to the boarding school and get spare dresses which we would change in the parlour.
And then they were the umbrellas. The excitement of buying new umbrellas – those colourful ones in yellow, red and green alternating. Oh yes, I was one for losing them and got spanked regularly but did not mind it ‘cos of the excitement of the new one I’d get the next day.
I remember a funny incident which took place when I was in the middle school. I have a brother who is a master of exaggeration. He once came home with the story of how and man carrying a milk pail was struck by lightning as he was crossing the Maharaja’s college ground. Hid body when found was blue in colour. Brother explained how metal attracts lightening and how one should not have any metal on the body if outdoors during a thundershower.
As it turned out, as I was returning home from school during the Tula Varsham, down came the rain with horrible flashes of lightening and deafening thunder. And I had an umbrella with me. As I was in the middle school, my mom thought that I was old enough for the more expensive steel umbrella, and so I was carrying metal with me that day.The image of the dead blue man kept flashing before me. I panicked. didnt know what to do with that lethal stuff- I even considered throwing it away when suddenly I realized I was right in front of a store (I still remember it. it was called Sovereign stores). The owner knew who I was as I lived just down the road. I ran into the store, folded the umbrella and asked him if he could hold it just for moment. He obliged. The minute the umbrella changed hands, I ran out of the store. I had a terrible feeling that he would follow me with the umbrella as he didn’t want to be the person to be electrocuted. I threw a quick backward glance. I still remember the utter consternation on his face as he stood there staring after me – for it was raining really really hard and there I was discarding an umbrella and running into the rain!!!
As I approached the house, I saw my mom waiting in the porch. She thought I had lost the brand new umbrella and gave me a good hiding. For some reason, I didn’t tell her what I did with it. I was ordered to change, and dry myself well before touching food. As I came down for tea, I saw my mother waiting in the dining room with the umbrella in her hand and a strange expression on her face. I refused to explain my action and I kept mulishly mum. She was thoroughly confused and told my aunt about it. My aunt interrogated me but didn’t get anything out of me. So finally they decided I did it in order to fall sick so that I could keep away from school.

Kaavya Vishwanathan - the poor little ambitious girl

I wrote this letter to the editor of Times of India before the whole story of the Kaavya Vviswanathan fiasco came out – this letter was not published. So I thought I 'll publish it in my e space without changing it ‘cos this was my spontaneous reaction on reading the story. I stand by the central idea that the girl is too young and should not have attempted publishing at all: and the media should leave her alone now.
Dear Sir
However unfortunate the Kaavya Vishwanathan episode is, one should not forget the fact that the person involved is a mere seventeen year old girl. At seventeen an aspiring writer is still very much in the workshop. At that stage of a writer's literary career, the most predominant tendency is imitative. The early works of the greatest of writers will bear testimony to this truth. None less than Shakespeare himself has used huge passages verbatim from his sources (check out the famous description of Cleopatra -,' The barge she sat etc etc'- with the original Plutarch's Lives), but of course copyright laws were not in place then. So he went on to become the Greatest!
I am inclined to believe Kaavya Vishwanathan when she says that she had internalized Megan McCafferty's novels to such a degree that sentences from them appeared in her novel without her quite realizing it. I believe her, particularly since the so-called plagiarized sentences are not ones of extraordinary literary brilliance. Working under pressure of deadline and inspiration (both have a history of going together - remember Dr.Johnson's Rasselas was written in a matter of days to meet the funeral expenses of his mother), ideas and words present themselves in an uninterrupted flow. It is in the saner moments of editing that the writer realizes that there are intertextual presences in her work. Apparently, Kaavya Viswanathan had either no time or the inclination for editing! Probably, the former. The mistake she made was in trying to get her book published before she and the book were ready for it.
Talking about plagiarism, how many books published are totally free from plagiarism? And how many have been withdrawn on the grounds of plagiarism? The withdrawal of Kaavya Viswanathan's novel could have waited till competent authorities studied Opal Mehta alongside McCafferty's novels, and ascertained that the similiraties were more than superficial. And McCafferty, being an established author ought to have been a little more generous about the episode and a liitle less hasty in crying foul- After all, imitation is the best form of praise and appreciation!
But what was most distressing about the whole episode was the unholy glee with which the media pounced on the teenager! Surely they could have been a little more charitable in dealing with the issue- or could have reserved their expert comments till real experts passed their judgement on her work.
And I do earnestly hope that this ugly, heartless episode has not caused the premature death of a literary career.

Zahira Sheik

Zahira Sheik. I feel very sad for her. She was hardly fifteen when she witnessed the carnage.Poor thingl! the terrible mistake she made was in thinking that justice was an easily available commodity in this world. Just think of what this traumatised girl had to go through in the past few years. Hounded by wolves, pressurised by well meaning activists, disowned by her community , and now perjury charge slapped on her - - - - so young and so completely robbed of a normal life.
And the behaviour of the press in her case is despicable. The unholy glee with which they pounce on this helpless victim of circumstances, the uncharitable way they treat her - the callous repeated references to her 'flip flops' - the total insensitivity to what she must be going thru ---- it's sad. very very sad!
The girl must be cursing the day she decided to do her bit to bring murderers to book.

Extra sensory preception

I am not superstitious-but i believe that a lot of what is dismissed as superstition can have a rational explanation - by and by, time and science will uncover that.
I've had some real experiences for which i cannot offer any rational explanations - like that strange one i had when i was in my early twenties and which continues to baffle me after all these years - - - -
I used to sweep and clean the veranda of our cottage every morning. On the window sill was a wooden letter box which was suposed to hang from a nail on the wall - but no nail went up on the wall - and so it was accepted that the window sill was the place for the letter box. Everyday i would take the letter box and dust it with a soft broom -and then i would start sweping.
One day, as usual, i took the broom and approached the letter box. As i neared it, I stopped suddenly. Don't ask me why - I don't know, but I kept a safe distance from it and stood looking at it. Suddenly i felt chilly and felt goose pimples all over - I could hear my heart pounding in my ears - and then i found myself raising the broom and bringing it down on the letter box. The letter box crashed face down and to my horror i saw a gigantic scorpion clinging to the back of the box.
Now I had never seen a scorpion in that house where we had lived for more than five years- i had no reaasson to suspect that there was any danger lurking behind that box i handled casually everyday.
why did i behave that way? how did i sense that i should beware of that letter box?
I dont know- but this is a true experience -
my mother's excited explaination was that it was my guardian angel - the fruit of all her prayers - - -
I dont know what to think- - Sixth sense? Extra sensory perceptions?